- From: Luc Moreau <L.Moreau@ecs.soton.ac.uk>
- Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2011 16:41:40 +0100
- To: public-prov-wg@w3.org
- Message-ID: <EMEW3|1e48f2f146fafb4413b187ff20a9b90bn6DGfi08L.Moreau|ecs.soton.ac.uk|4E1F0E34>
Hi Ryan, A couple of comments, possibly already articulated by others. For me, with process execution, we had the possibility of "abstracting" multiple process executions, into a single one (or vice-versa decomposing process executions in sub process executions). With your view, does it make sense to decompose an agent into sub-agents? It's not someting I am not familar with. A process execution is an "activity", something taking place in time. It can be physical (e.g. a chair being built and transported from A to B). Do you capture this notion? Also, a given agent (old definition) may be involved in multiple process executions. E.g. my browser can download and render multiple pages in parallel. Each activity download/render/etc uses/generates BOBs Now, are you proposing that all these activities would be conflated in a single process execution (agent as you say), meaning that we don't know which process execution used/generated what? Regards, Luc On 07/12/2011 05:55 AM, Ryan Golden wrote: > I'd like to bring a proposal up for discussion regarding Process > Execution and its related concepts. Although at the F2F1 there wasn't > much discussion over "Process Execution," "Generates," "Uses," and > "Agent," I believe more clarification and discussion is needed in > these areas. > > High Level Proposal > ---------------------------- > a) Rename the concept of "Process Execution" to "Agent," > adjusting/adding a few properties > b) Rename the concept of "Process/Recipe" to "Role," adjusting/adding > a few properties > c) Add the concept of "Person or Organization" > d) Add the concept of "Realizes" > e) Add the concept of "Acts on Behalf of" > > More Detailed Proposal > --------------------------------- > a) Concept: Agent > - is a computational entity (narrowed from "piece of work") > - may use zero or more Entity States (Bobs) > - may generate zero or more Entity States (Bobs) > - may realize zero or more Roles > - may have a duration > - may acts on behalf of a "Person or Organization" > Discussion: > Agent is a relatively well-defined industry term for an > program acting on a user's behalf. I propose it as a replacement for > "Process Execution," which has the overloaded (and thus undesireable) > term "process" in it, and does not necessarily imply that it is acting > on behalf of any one person or organization. In scenarios involving > trust, audit, or change tracking, the ability to identify the "who" is > crucial, and so the relation between Agent and Person or Organization > is introduced. "Person or Organization" is discussed further below. > Some other common variations are "software agent," or "user > agent." One notable difference between this concept and other agent > concepts is that our Agent may have a duration. I'm still undecided > on the utility of the duration. > There will be some discussion here about non-computational > agents. I would question the utility of being able to assert > relations involving Entity States (Bobs) and non-computational agents, > and would ask you to first consider whether the same semantics could > be better represented by a Role instead [see next]. > > b) Concept: Role > - is an abstract set of tasks which pertain to a job function > - may have semantics beyond the scope of the WG model (e.g., as > described in the RBAC reference model) > - may be realized by zero or more Agents > Discussion: > Replaces the somewhat confused notions of "Agent" (as it was > discussed at F2F1), "Process," and "Recipe". Note that multiple Roles > can be realized by a single Agent. > > c) Concept: Person or Organization > - is a real-world person or organization that an Agent acts on > behalf of > > d) Concept: Realizes > [see Agent and Role] > > e) Concept: Acts on Behalf of > [see Agent and Person or Organization] > > References: > I have adapted some of this proposal from concepts in the W3C Web > Services Architecture Note <http://www.w3.org/TR/ws-arch>, a document > that I don't entirely agree with, but which has some useful models in it. > I also referred to the NIST RBAC reference model. -- Professor Luc Moreau Electronics and Computer Science tel: +44 23 8059 4487 University of Southampton fax: +44 23 8059 2865 Southampton SO17 1BJ email: l.moreau@ecs.soton.ac.uk United Kingdom http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~lavm
Received on Thursday, 14 July 2011 15:42:14 UTC