Object-centric process mining is a new branch of process mining where events are associated with multiple objects, and where object-to-object interactions are essential to understand the process dynamics. Traditional event data models, also called case-centric, are unable to cope with the complexity introduced by these more refined relationships. Several models have been made to move from case-centric to Object-Centric Event Data (OCED), trying to retain simplicity as much as possible. Still, these suffer from inherent ambiguities, and lack a comprehensive support of essential dimensions related to time and (dynamic) relations. In this work, we propose to fill this gap by leveraging a well-founded ontology of events and bringing ontological foundations to OCED, with a three-step approach. First, we start from key open issues reported in the literature regarding current OCED metamodels, and witness their ambiguity and expressiveness limitations on illustrative and representative examples proposed therein. Second, we consider the OCED Core Model, currently proposed as the basis for defining a new standard for object-centric event data, and we enhance it by grounding it on a lightweight version of UFO-B called gUFO, a well-known foundational ontology tailored to the representation of objects, events, time, and their (dynamic) relations. This results in a new metamodel, which we call gOCED. The third contribution then shows how gOCED at once covers the features of existing metamodels preserving their simplicity, and extends them with the essential features needed to overcome the ambiguity and expressiveness issues reported in the literature.

翻译：面向对象的过程挖掘是过程挖掘的一个新分支，其中事件与多个对象相关联，且对象间的交互对于理解过程动态至关重要。传统的事件数据模型（也称为以案例为中心的模型）无法应对这些更精细化关系所带来的复杂性。目前已提出多种模型，旨在从以案例为中心转向面向对象的事件数据（OCED），并尽可能保持简洁性。然而，这些模型仍存在固有的歧义性，且缺乏对时间与（动态）关系等关键维度的全面支持。本研究提出通过利用一个基础扎实的事件本体论，以三步走的方法为OCED奠定本体论基础，从而填补这一空白。首先，我们从文献中报道的当前OCED元模型的关键未解决问题出发，并基于其中提出的说明性及代表性示例，见证其歧义性与表达力局限性。其次，我们考虑当前作为定义面向对象事件数据新标准基础的OCED核心模型，通过将其植根于gUFO（一种轻量级版本的UFO-B）——一个专门用于表示对象、事件、时间及其（动态）关系的知名基础本体论——来增强该模型。这产生了一个新的元模型，我们称之为gOCED。第三项贡献展示了gOCED如何既涵盖现有元模型的特性并保持其简洁性，又通过文献中报道的克服歧义与表达力问题所需的关键特性对其进行扩展。