Divide between Events and Endurants
Discuss about the Ontological Considerations about the Representation of Endurants and Events In Business Models.
This essay focuses on reviewing the article titled “Ontological considerations about the representation of events and endurants in business models”. It is an article published in a book titled “Business Process Management” by Rio de Janeiro. It covers the proceedings of the fourteenth international conference on Business Process Management held in Brazil from 18th to 22nd of September 2016. According to this article, events are entities covered in Business Process Modeling while endurants are focused on in the Structural Conceptual Modeling. These two entities are divided and this has an impact on conceptual modeling.
This paper summarizes the discussion on the divide between events and endurants and the ways in which the two can be included on the same model. The discussion focuses on the considered methods of incorporating a reference to events in structural conceptual models and endurants in business process models. Events and object-like entities are different in terms of their ontology. Including them on the same model is the problem under discussion. The article intends to find a solution to this problem by outlining a few considerations of representing both events and endurants on business models.
Basing on the ontological nature, events can only be covered in a Business Process model while endurants can be covered in the structural conceptual model (Ajnesh & Durepos, 2016). This topic highlights their differences in terms of characteristics and the disciplines under which they are covered.
These are the entities that possess two categories of properties; accidental and essential properties. Essential properties are those possessed at all times while accidental ones are only portrayed in some situations. In the article, endurants are compared to the characteristics of a human being in terms of modal and qualitative. A person’s qualities can change without altering the identity of that person. Mr. Anderson’s weight can change. However, his identity will remain the same. In modal properties, Mr. Anderson can be a computer hacker or a student of law. These two properties are non-physical in such a way that other people cannot see him directly as a computer hacker. In this case, his weight is an essential property while his occupation is an accidental property since it can change his identity. Apart from this property, endurants are also entities that are always present with all their parts. Some properties that are prone to change are there, while others remain the same all the time (Bergener, Delfmann, Burkhard & Winkelmann, 2016).
Ontology of Endurants
According to Yuna & Ana (2017), the OntoUML language is the language used in visual simulation support to simulate structural conceptual models. Simulating these models gives the modeler an opportunity to identify the qualities of the endurants that can change and those that remain the same. He/she can also identify which business worlds can be accessed from other worlds. Events are the name given to such changes according to the article.
Events are links to and from situations in the world and are relations between states of affairs. Events are endurants, which keep changing from one form to another. That is, the endurants can, in be created some cases destroyed, or they can also change properties. Events can also possess qualities that represent temporal and spatial characteristics. For this reason, they directly depend on endurants for their existence. In the article, this dependence is compared to the pumping of the heart. It is explained that the activity of the pumping of the heart is the evidence showing the ability and capability of the heart to pump. It is also compared to a metal getting attracted to a magnet such that it depicts the ability of the magnet to attract the metal (Bérard & Delerue, 2010).
After discussing the endurants in structural conceptual models, events in Business Process models, their characteristics, and relationship, considerations of incorporating them in the vice versa models are discussed.
Traditionally, endurants have been represented in structural conceptual models (Tran, 2010). Actually, events are hardly included in classical conceptual models. Structural conceptual models represent events as first-class citizens, despite the fact that there is no basis for guiding this kind of modeling. A problem arises in the situation where the reference conceptual models are supposed to clarify concepts and depict characteristics of notions with controversial and advanced worldviews. To investigate the consequences of representing events in the structural conceptual models, identity, reference for events, and change are discussed.
In this section, questions are raised in comparison to events with the characteristics of endurants. The questions of whether events can also possess essential and accidental properties are mentioned. Basing on Mr. Anderson, events are being investigated, whether they also have qualitative and modal properties and whether they can change their properties and maintain their identity like endurants. All these questions are answered negatively basing on all classical axiomatized ontologies of events. The theories depict an event as an extensional entity, which cannot be defined without the total sum of all its parts. It is also viewed as a succession of the dynamics that happen around the world. Traditionally, no quality or property of events can change without altering the identity of the entity. This is the major distinguishing factor between events and endurants (Elias & Johannesson, 2013).
Events in Business Process Models
Mentioned earlier in the article is Mr. Anderson, being used as an example of an endurants entity. His physical attributes identify him as an endurants. However, the article now focuses on his life and not just on his physique. His life is a complex event, which is viewed as the successive exemplification of some of his qualities. In this context, if Mr. Anderson makes a decision between taking a red pill and a blue pill, his life after taking the red pill is a different event from the life after taking the blue one. These are considered as two events, which are both incompatible and independent. From this illustration, it is clear that an endurants can take the form of an event in some situations (Tbaishat, 2017).
A report by Fabiana et al (2012) is cited in this article, explaining that object identifiers should work as rigid designators with the ability to pick the same individual in all kinds of worlds. They refer to object identifiers as special names for referring to objects in the real world. Each object identifier can only refer to one object. This is referred to as a singular reference. An example in UML is given such that the extension of a certain class in a class diagram is a group of object identifiers, which are used in tracing the identity of the same person in different states. Taking the illustration of Mr. Anderson and the two pills, his life prior taking the pill and afterward are different. Therefore, this cannot be used as an object identifier.
From the past findings of Saul, Bill & Karen (2011) concerning object identifiers and events, it is concluded that object identifiers can only refer to events after a point beyond which there is no possible chance for further branching. This means the object identifiers can only refer to historical events. Similarly, the life of Mr. Anderson will not be identical to any other life that results from him taking the pill. The name ‘Mr. Anderson can still be used to refer to him even in his other life. According to the article, this problem has not yet been addressed in any literature material covering conceptual modeling. Whenever events are incorporated in the Structural Conceptual models, an assumption is made that they are both anatomic and instantaneous.
Two strategies can be considered to escape or prevent the consequences resulting from incorporating events and endurants on the same business model. The two premises are involved that is; object identifiers being rigid designators and events bearing no modal properties. Strategies result in denying at least one of the premises. Rejecting the first premise should be accompanied by replacing it with very non-classical semantics for structural conceptual patterns where the object identifiers do not refer to one thing and do not satisfy rigid designation. Rejecting the second premise should be followed by developing a very non-classical ontological theory of events (Faisal, Abu & Ayman, 2012).
Incorporating Events in Structural Conceptual Models
A suggested modeling consideration is there that incorporates the two premises and that allows the use of certain proper names to refer to changing entities, which can also possess modal properties. Such entities are referred to as existentially dependent endurants.
As mentioned earlier, events are manifestations of ability, capability or qualities of dispositions. For an event to occur, the possibility of the occurrence must exist to act as a strong quality of an endurants. Events generally depend on endurants. Consequently, events depend on dispositions and qualities, which in turn depend on endurants. Given that events existentially depend on endurants and manifest certain attributes of endurants, these attributes must be present whenever an event unfolds. It is for this reason that a similar term is used to refer to the events and the underlying attributes, a case called systematic polysemy, which occurs in language frequently (Ross, Jan & Stephen, 2011).
In the previous section, It is realized that an endurants underlying an event whenever an ongoing event is referred to. Such events can change their qualitative nature and remain with the same identity. In the article under review, a modeling pattern is proposed and it illustrates the relationship between endurants and events with their parts acting as manifestations. Endurants are formed by creation events in this model. Creation events start and terminate at specific points of time. At the termination time point of a creation event, a creation moment of an endurants is derived (Ross, Jan & Stephen, 2011).
Endurants have an active phase in which their qualities and dispositions are manifested through events that constitute different processes representing their current lives. On the other hand, they also have an inactive phase, which is compared to happenings like death, finishing an assignment and terminating a marriage legally. In this phase, the attributes of the endurants cannot be manifested their qualities become immutable. At this point, it is referred as the endurant’s final life. This is the complete set of events in the total lifespan of the endurants during the active phase (Fitzgerald & Rowley, 2016).
A practical illustration is discussed about Olive’s relationship reification issue. He explains further on the relationship between reified relationships and temporal properties they possess. An example is given to a man who works on a project for a number of hours per day. At each time, this employee is committed to a certain task with a specific deadline. From this example, Olive comes up with three categories of temporal relationship reifications, which include per instant, per interval and per lifespan (Mair, 2012).
Object Identifiers and Events
In the Business process, modeling and management, organizational behavior has much attention as one of the domains. The relationship between domains of architecture in approaches to enterprise modeling and enterprise architecture has also been developed from this article. The domain of endurants has also been interrelated with the process domain, which covers the manner in which business process tasks are structured and evaluated. On the other hand, the structural domain focuses on the performer and that undergoes change.
In conclusion, the article of the fourteenth conference proceedings clearly shows that strong ontological evidence is needed to explain the relationship between the process and structural domains. Such an account can help in understanding the manner in which events can be included in a structural conceptual model. A suggested pattern of modeling has been discussed, which deals with endurants and events in their different nature. In this model, endurants coexist with related events and complement each other through defined relations. Reified events should be treated in the same manner. The conceptual foundations and ideas discussed in the article can help in understanding approaches to artifact-centric business process modeling. The focus is on real-world objects that are pervasive in the world of business and not on data objects. The business reality can be captured accurately by representing objects and their connection to events
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