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Ahmed Awad - University of Tartu

https://ut-ee.academia.edu/AhmedAwad Archived on 2026-04-25 13:08 UTC

Ahmed Awad - University of Tartu

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Ahmed Awad

University of Tartu, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Faculty Member

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Papers by Ahmed Awad

Extracting accurate performance indicators from execution logs using process models

2015 IEEE/ACS 12th International Conference of Computer Systems and Applications (AICCSA), 2015

Performance indicators (PIs) are defined to measure the progress towards the achievement of goals... more Performance indicators (PIs) are defined to measure the progress towards the achievement of goals. The input to calculate these measures are the daily operations of an organization. Business processes are the means by which an organization operationalizes the achievement of its goals. So, it is logical to measure PIs based on business processes performance. Processes manifest their performance in execution logs where process and context data are recorded. In this paper, we introduce a new approach that uses information stored in process execution logs in order to extract more detailed and accurate performance measures. We show how the inclusion of information about activity lifecycles and process models can help achieve that. In addition, we evaluate our approach against similar approaches by using both real and synthetic logs.

Deducing Case IDs for Unlabeled Event Logs

Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, 2016

Event logs are invaluable sources of knowledge about the actual execution of processes. A large n... more Event logs are invaluable sources of knowledge about the actual execution of processes. A large number of techniques to mine, check conformance and analyze performance have been developed based on logs. All these techniques require at least case ID, activity ID and the timestamp to be in the log. If one of those is missing, these techniques cannot be applied. Real life logs are rarely originating from a centrally orchestrated process execution. Thus, case ID might be missing, known as unlabeled log. This requires a manual preprocessing of the log to assign case ID to events in the log. In this paper, we propose a new approach to deduce case ID for the unlabeled event log depending on the knowledge about the process model. We provide set of labeled logs instead of a single labeled log with different rankings. We evaluate our prototypical implementation against similar approaches.

Runtime Detection of Business Process Compliance Violations: An Approach based on Anti Patterns

Today s enterprises demand a high degree of compliance in their business processes to meet divers... more Today s enterprises demand a high degree of compliance in their business processes to meet diverse regulations and legislations. Several industrial studies have shown that compliance management is a daunting task, and organizations are still struggling and spending billions of dollars annually to ensure and prove their compliance. Theoretically, design-time compliance checking could provide a preliminary assurance that corresponding running instances would be compliant to relevant laws and regulations; however, due to the existence of human and machine related errors and the absence of necessary contextual information during design-time, runtime compliance monitoring becomes a must. In this paper, we present a generic proactive runtime Business Process (BP) compliance monitoring framework:BP-MaaS, which incorporates a wide range of expressive high-level compliance patterns for the abstract specification of runtime constraints. Compliance monitoring is achieved by means of anti-patterns, a novel evaluation approach that is independent of any underlying technology and could be applied to the checking of compliance in the different phases of the BP lifecycle. As a proof-of-concept, complex event processing (CEP) technology is adopted as one of the possible realizations of the framework.

BPModelMasher: Manage Your Process Variants Effectively

Nowadays, modern organizations build large repositories of process models to describe and documen... more Nowadays, modern organizations build large repositories of process models to describe and document their daily business operations. One reason for the large number of process models is the need to adapt with differnt business contexts, i.e. process variants. Automated maintenance of the consistency between process variants is an important goal that saves the time and efforts of process modelers. We present a query-based approach to maintain consistency among process variants called BPModelMasher. In particular, we maintain the link between the variant process models by process model views. These views are defined using, BPMN-Q, a visual query language for process models. Dynamic evaluation for the defined queries of the process views guarantee that the process modeler is able to get up-to-date and consistent status of the process model. In addition, our view-based approach allows building multiple configurations for a holistic view of related variants of the same process model. The conceptual results are illustrated with a real-world sample process on customer service from eBay.

format_quoteBPModelMasher simplifies model variant management, leveraging partial models to enhance reuse and design efficiency.format_quote

Runtime self-monitoring approach of business process compliance in cloud environments

Cluster Computing, 2015

Visualization of Business Process Modeling Anti Patterns

The most common way to model business processes is to use a graphical modeling language. The most... more The most common way to model business processes is to use a graphical modeling language. The most widespread notation are business process diagrams modeled in the language BPMN. In this paper, we formalize structural patterns that can lead to control flow errors in such graphical models. For expressing such error patterns, we use the visual query language BPMN-Q. By using a query processor, a business process modeler is able to identify possible errors in business process diagrams. Moreover, the erroneous parts of the business process diagram can be highlighted when an instance of an error pattern is found. This way, the modeler gets an easy- to-understand feedback in the visual modeling language he or she is familiar with.

Visualization of Compliance Violation Using Anti-patterns

Checking for compliance is of major importance in nowadays business. Several approaches have been... more Checking for compliance is of major importance in nowadays business. Several approaches have been proposed to address dierent as- pects of compliance checking. One of the important aspects of compliance checking is to ensure that business activities will be executed in a cer- tain order. In a previous work, we have presented a formal approach for ecient compliance checking based on model checking technology. A limitation of that approach and of similar approaches is the lack of ex- planation about how violations could occur. In this paper we resolve this limitation by exploiting the notion of patterns/anti patterns. Execution ordering compliance rules are expressed as BPMN-Q queries. For each query a set of anti pattern queries is automatically derived and checked against process models as well. When a violation (an anti pattern) nds a match, the violating part of the process is shown to the user so that corrective actions can be taken.

Towards Complete Mapping between UML/OCL and XML/XQuery

The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is extended to model web applications. Meanwhile, Web technol... more The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is extended to model web applications. Meanwhile, Web technology becomes heavily relies on XML documents. The structure of XML documents, namely the XML Schema or Document Type Definition (DTD) for these documents can be modeled using UML data structures. UML tools are usually concerned with the generation of the structure and behavior of the system that is captured by models in their equivalents in the selected platform. In this paper we introduce a novel approach for the integration between UML and XML families of technologies. We model the structure of XML using UML class diagrams and based on this, we study how queries for XML documents, namely XQuery expressions can be described using UML techniques. We show that modeling of XML documents and its queries represented by XQuery expressions is possible using the querying capabilities of UML Class diagram and the Object Constraint Language (OCL). As a result, we see how these two technologies com...

Towards Instant Monitoring of Business Process Compliance

Business process models are becoming the backbone of any enterprise system, the blue prints that ... more Business process models are becoming the backbone of any enterprise system, the blue prints that drive business. However, there are many situations in today's business when such processes have to be validated against compliance requirements. Albeit compliance and business experts are able to define and relate compliance requirements, constraints to tasks within business processes at design time (usually using an informal notation), compliance enforcement has to be done at enactment time. To do so, processes have to be monitored at execution time. We are introducing a compliance monitoring framework, that tackles the problem of business process compliance by addressing the common concepts from the two mentioned perspective. Moreover, we address the resource and data perspective as well as control flow perspective for monitoring. Enforcing compliance on business processes is strongly related to complex event processing as events are the way through which the state of a process enactment is perceived.

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Runtime detection of business process compliance violations

Proceedings of the 30th Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing - SAC '15, 2015

Today s enterprises demand a high degree of compliance in their business processes to meet divers... more Today s enterprises demand a high degree of compliance in their business processes to meet diverse regulations and legislations. Several industrial studies have shown that compliance management is a daunting task, and organizations are still struggling and spending billions of dollars annually to ensure and prove their compliance. Theoretically, design-time compliance checking could provide a preliminary assurance that corresponding running instances would be compliant to relevant laws and regulations; however, due to the existence of human and machine related errors and the absence of necessary contextual information during design-time, runtime compliance monitoring becomes a must. In this paper, we present a generic proactive runtime Business Process (BP) compliance monitoring framework:BP-MaaS, which incorporates a wide range of expressive high-level compliance patterns for the abstract specification of runtime constraints. Compliance monitoring is achieved by means of anti-patterns, a novel evaluation approach that is independent of any underlying technology and could be applied to the checking of compliance in the different phases of the BP lifecycle. As a proof-of-concept, complex event processing (CEP) technology is adopted as one of the possible realizations of the framework.

An Iterative Approach for Business Process Template Synthesis from Compliance Rules

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2011

Companies have to adhere to compliance requirements. Typically, both, business experts and compli... more Companies have to adhere to compliance requirements. Typically, both, business experts and compliance experts, are involved in compliance analysis of business operations. Hence, these experts need a common understanding of the business processes for effective compliance management. In this paper, we argue that process templates generated out of compliance requirements can be used as a basis for negotiation among business and compliance experts. We introduce a semi automated approach to synthesize process templates out of compliance requirements expressed in Linear Temporal Logic (LTL). As part of that, we show how general constraints related to business process execution are incorporated. Building upon existing work on process mining algorithms, our approach to synthesize process templates considers not only control-flow, but also data-flow dependencies. Finally, we elaborate on the application of the derived process templates and present an implementation of our approach.

Resolution of Compliance Violation in Business Process Models: A Planning-Based Approach

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2009

Keeping business processes compliant with regulations is of major importance for companies. Consi... more Keeping business processes compliant with regulations is of major importance for companies. Considering the huge number of models each company possesses, automation of compliance maintenance becomes essential. Therefore, many approaches focused on automation of various aspects of compliance problem, e.g., compliance verification. Such techniques allow localizing the problem within the process model. However, they are not able to resolve the violations. In this paper we address the problem of (semi) automatic violation resolution, addressing violations of execution ordering compliance rules. We build upon previous work in categorizing the violations into types and employ automated planning to ensure compliance. The problem of choosing the concrete resolution strategy is addressed by the concept of context.

Business Process Configuration Wizard and Consistency Checker for BPMN 2.0

Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, 2011

A rapidly changing environment, in terms of technology and market, forces companies to keep their... more A rapidly changing environment, in terms of technology and market, forces companies to keep their business processes aligned with current and upcoming requirements. This is still a major issue in modern process oriented information systems, where improvements on process models require considerable effort to implement them in a technical infrastructure. We address this problem by lifting technical details into BPMN 2.0 process models and present a configuration wizard for these process models in the open-source modeling tool Oryx. This wizard includes a consistency checking mechanism to automatically discover inconsistencies in the data dependencies of a process model. Immediate feedback after changes to the model eliminates a crucial source of errors when configuring or redesigning business process models, leading to more efficient process implementation.

First International Workshop on Visual Formalisms for Patterns (VFfP 2009)

Design by selection: A query-based approach for business process modeling

Abstract. During business process design, working procedures in organizations are represented by ... more

Enriched Service Descriptions Using Business Process Configurations

This volume contains the proceedings of the 4 th International Workshop on Enterprise Modelling a... more This volume contains the proceedings of the 4 th International Workshop on Enterprise Modelling and Information Systems Architectures (EMISA 2011) which is jointly organized by the GI Special Interest Group on Modelling Business Information Systems (GI-SIG MoBIS) and the GI Special Interest Group on Design Methods for Information Systems (GI-SIG EMISA). It features a selection of 12 full papers and 12 research-inprogress papers from academia and practice on Information Systems, Business Informatics and Computer Science. Leading authors from academia and industry present state-of-the-art developments, experiences, and best practices in this volume. Lecture Notes in Informatics (LNI)-Proceedings Series of the Gesellschaft für Informatik (GI) Volume P-190

format_quoteStrategic control relies heavily on continuous monitoring of premises, which are under-documented, affecting strategy adaptation.format_quote

A compliance management framework for business process models

Consistency Checking of Compliance Rules

Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, 2010

Compliance checking of business process models against regulation is inevitable. Due to various s... more Compliance checking of business process models against regulation is inevitable. Due to various sources of compliance requirements, a conflict of interest of such requirements is very likely. Thus, it is crucial to analyze the relation between compliance rules to discover any possible conflicts before even checking such rules against process models. Although this step is important in the compliance management life cycle, there is almost no work that studied this direction. In this paper, we start by checking for consistency between execution ordering compliance rules expressed in linear temporal logic (LTL), addressing control and data flow aspects. To achieve this, we rely on the generation of Büchi automaton from LTL formulas. However, we show that domain-specific knowledge is of crucial importance to draw correct conclusions.

format_quoteProposes an automated approach for consistency checking among compliance rules using temporal logic, extending its application beyond existing literature.format_quote

Specification, Verification and Explanation of Violation for Data Aware Compliance Rules

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2009

Compliance checking is becoming an inevitable step in the business processes management life cycl... more Compliance checking is becoming an inevitable step in the business processes management life cycle. Languages for expressing compliance requirements should address the fundamental aspects of process modeling, i.e. control flow, data handling, and resources. Most of compliance checking approaches focus on verifying aspects related to control flow. Moreover, giving useful feedback in case of violation is almost neglected. In this paper, we demonstrate how data can be incorporated into the specification of compliance rules. We call these rules data aware. Building upon our previous work, we extend BPMN-Q, a query language we developed, to express these rules as queries and formalize these rules by mapping them into PLTL. In addition, whenever a compliance rule is violated, execution paths causing violations are visualized to the user. To achieve this, temporal logic querying is used.

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