Inferring, Validating, and Coordinating the Commitments in aWorkflow

Author

Dang, Jiangbo ; Huhns, Michael N.

Author_Institution

South Carolina Univ.

fYear

2006

fDate

18-22 Sept. 2006

Firstpage

907

Lastpage

908

Abstract

A workflow can be represented as a set of Web services and a specification for the control and data flows among these services. It can also be represented as a colored Petri net (CPN), which is a graphical and mathematical modeling tool. In multiagent systems (MAS), a workflow is a dynamic set of tasks performed by a set of agents to reach a shared goal. We show herein that commitments among agents can be used to model a workflow and coordinate their execution of it. This paper presents methodologies to map an OWLS model for a workflow to a CPN, and then to infer commitments and causal relationships from the CPN graph. With our methodologies, agents can collaboratively enact a workflow through commitment-based formalisms

Keywords

Petri nets; groupware; inference mechanisms; OWLS model; Web service; agent commitment; colored Petri net; commitment-based formalism; multiagent system; workflow commitment coordination; workflow commitment inference; workflow commitment validation; workflow execution coordination; workflow modeling; workflow representation; Algebra; Automation; Collaborative work; Data structures; Mathematical model; Multiagent systems; OWL; Product design; Tellurium; Web services;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Web Services, 2006. ICWS '06. International Conference on

Conference_Location

Chicago, IL

Print_ISBN

0-7695-2669-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICWS.2006.75

Filename

4032113