Title: Pi calculus-based bitransformation of state-driven model and flow-driven model

Authors: Ke Xu, Ying Liu, Jun Zhu, Cheng Wu

Addresses: Department of Automation, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. ' IBM China Research Laboratory, Building 19, Zhongguancun Software Park, Beijing, China. ' IBM China Research Laboratory, Building 19, Zhongguancun Software Park, Beijing, China. ' Department of Automation, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

Abstract: State- and flow-driven process modelling paradigms are both widely practised in the business process modelling domain. From the perspective of both from their syntax structure and intentioned application scopes, they are quite different. But one of our findings is that any one of them usually can be replaced by the other in a variety of real cases. It is shown with theoretical approach in this work that these two paradigms are equal in expressiveness power in that they can be mutually transformed into each other without any semantic losses. The motivation of this work is to suggest that researchers argue less about which method is more powerful and pay more attention to the exploration of better ways to combine different style models in addressing real problems. In this paper, (bi) imulation of Pi calculus is applied to prove the correctness of the bitransformation of two paradigms. A hybrid business model composed of a state-driven ATM machine and flow-driven withdraw processes is also illustrated with a concrete banking scenario to show how the result of bitransformation can be applied to facilitate the integration, understanding and verification of hybrid business models into real business cases.

Keywords: business process modelling; bitransformation; Pi calculus; model driven architecture; UML2 activity diagrams; statecharts; banking; business process integration; state-driven ATM machine; flow-driven withdrawal processes; cash withdrawals.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBPIM.2006.012633

International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management, 2006 Vol.1 No.4, pp.292 - 306

Published online: 28 Feb 2007 *

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