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A process model discovered from an event log of a multi-agent system often does not fully cover certain viewpoints of its architecture. We consider those concerned with the structure of a model explicitly reflecting agent behavior and interactions. The direct discovery from an event log of a multi-agent system may result in an unclear model structure and over-generalizations of agent behavior. We suggest applying a compositional approach that yields architecture-aware process models of multi-agent systems. An event log of a multi-agent system is filtered by the behavior of individual agents. Then, a multi-agent system model is a composition of agent models discovered from filtered logs. We use an intermediate model, called an interface pattern, specifying agent interactions and representing the architecture of a multi-agent system. We design a collection of specific interface patterns modeling typical agent interactions. An interface pattern provides an abstract specification of interactions and has a part corresponding to the behavior of each agent. We use structural transformations to map agent models discovered from filtered logs on the respective parts in an interface pattern. If such a mapping exists, we guarantee that a composition of agent models preserves their soundness. We conduct a series of experiments to evaluate the compositional approach. Experimental results confirm the improvement in the structure of process models discovered using the compositional approach compared to those discovered directly from event logs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information systems, which are responsible for driving many processes in our lives (health care, the web, municipalities, commerce and business, among others), store information in the form of logs which is often left unused. Process mining, a discipline in between data mining and software engineering, proposes tailored algorithms to exploit the information stored in a log, in order to reason about the processes underlying an information system. A key challenge in process mining is discovery: Given a log, derive a formal process model that can be used afterward for a formal analysis. In this paper, we provide a general approach based on satisfiability modulo theories (SMT) as a solution for this challenging problem. By encoding the problem into the logical/arithmetic domains and using modern SMT engines, it is shown how two separate families of process models can be discovered. The theory of this paper is accompanied with a tool, and experimental results witness the significance of this novel view of the process discovery problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Process-aware information systems (PAIS) are systems relying on processes, which involve human and software resources to achieve concrete goals. There is a need to develop approaches for modeling, analysis, improvement and monitoring processes within PAIS. These approaches include process mining techniques used to discover process models from event logs, find log and model deviations, and analyze performance characteristics of processes. The representational bias (a way to model processes) plays an important role in process mining. The BPMN 2.0 (Business Process Model and Notation) standard is widely used and allows to build conventional and understandable process models. In addition to the flat control flow perspective, subprocesses, data flows, resources can be integrated within one BPMN diagram. This makes BPMN very attractive for both process miners and business users, since the control flow perspective can be integrated with data and resource perspectives discovered from event logs. In this paper, we describe and justify robust control flow conversion algorithms, which provide the basis for more advanced BPMN-based discovery and conformance checking algorithms. Thus, on the basis of these conversion algorithms low-level models (such as Petri nets, causal nets and process trees) discovered from event logs using existing approaches can be represented in terms of BPMN. Moreover, we establish behavioral relations between Petri nets and BPMN models and use them to adopt existing conformance checking and performance analysis techniques in order to visualize conformance and performance information within a BPMN diagram. We believe that the results presented in this paper can be used for a wide variety of BPMN mining and conformance checking algorithms. We also provide metrics for the processes discovered before and after the conversion to BPMN structures. Cases for which conversion algorithms produce more compact or more complicated BPMN models in comparison with the initial models are identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]