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A Rule-Based Agent-Oriented Approach for Supporting Weakly-Structured Scientific Workflows

25 Pages Posted: 23 Jun 2018 Publication Status: Accepted

See all articles by Zhili Zhao

Zhili Zhao

Lanzhou University - School of Information Science & Engineering

Adrian Paschke

Free University of Berlin (FUB) - Department of Computer Science

Ruisheng Zhang

Lanzhou University - School of Information Science & Engineering

Abstract

Weakly-structured Scientific Workflows (WsSWFs) often contain goal-oriented tasks that are logical and complicated, but they are vital for workflow results. They may involve interactions between multiple participants or have complicated logic to express scientific policies and cater to dynamic execution environments. In general, such WsSWFs not only need a rich process and (domain-specific) decision logic specification, but also require a flexible execution and human interaction. In this paper, we propose a Rule-based Agent-oriented Framework (RbAF) to support the WsSWF execution by combining rule-based knowledge representation with agent technology. We describe workflows by messaging reaction rules, which go beyond global Event-Condition-Action (ECA) rules and support performing complex actions locally within certain contexts. We describe (domain-specific) decision logic in workflows by exploiting the benefits of both Logic Programming (LP) and Description Logic (DL). Our evaluation results show that, RbAF well supports the WsSWFs and has higher expressive power than other three considered scientific workflow systems.

Keywords: Scientific workflows, Weakly-structured processes, Multi-agent systems, Logic programming, Semantic Web

Suggested Citation

Zhao, Zhili and Paschke, Adrian and Zhang, Ruisheng, A Rule-Based Agent-Oriented Approach for Supporting Weakly-Structured Scientific Workflows (2016). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3199227 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3199227

Zhili Zhao (Contact Author)

Lanzhou University - School of Information Science & Engineering ( email )

222 Tianshui South Road
Chengguan
Lanzhou
China

Adrian Paschke

Free University of Berlin (FUB) - Department of Computer Science

Van't-Hoff-Str. 8
Berlin, 14195
Germany

Ruisheng Zhang

Lanzhou University - School of Information Science & Engineering

222 Tianshui South Road
Chengguan
Lanzhou
China

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