A Data-flow Language for Business Process Models.pdf.pdf

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Procedia Technology 16 ( 2014 ) 128 – 137
CENTERIS 2014 - Conference on ENTERprise Information Systems / ProjMAN 2014 -
International Conference on Project MANagement / HCIST 2014 - International Conference on
Health and Social Care Information Systems and Technologies
A data-flow language for business process models
io Bruno
ico di Torino, Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129 Torino, Italy

Abstract
On the basis of the artifact-centric approach to business process modeling, this paper proposes a notation named ACTA that
provides two equivalent forms of representation: in one, all the life cycles of the artifacts involved in the business under
consideration are shown in a single model, while in the other they are defined in separate models. The latter may be easier to
understand when the model is large but requires synchronization points between life cycles: two kinds of mechanisms, ., driven
transitions and driven tasks are analyzed in this paper. The major feature of ACTA is its nature of data flow language: the
activation of tasks depends on the presence of suitable input entities rather than on the precedence relationships between tasks as
it takes place in the conventional activity-centric approach. The advantage is the ease with which a number of situations that are
difficult to handle w