Interpreting the Heuristic Miner Fitness Value

aronlindberg

I am running PRoM 6.6 using the package "HeuristicsMiner". When I run my model it displays a fitness value in the lower lefthand corner of the visualization. However, I don't know how to interpret these values, and the various academic publications I've found don't seem to shed any light on this.

Hence, my question is: How do I interpret the fitness value that comes out of the HeuristicsMiner?

aronlindberg

@JBuijs: I've been watching your MOOC at FutureLearn, which covers the heuristics miner. However, it doesn't seem to cover this particular issue. Do you know how to interpret the fitness statistic?

fmannhardt

Dear Aron, I looked through the Heuristic Miner code and found that apparently the following class is responsible for calculating the displayed fitness value:

org.processmining.plugins.heuristicsnet.miner.heuristics.miner.fitness.ImprovedContinuousSemantics

The JavaDoc says:

/**
 * Calculates the fitness of <code>HeuristicsNet</code> objects
 * in a population based on the ratio of activities
 * in a log that could be parsed (or replayed) without
 * problems. The ratio contains a punishment component based
 * on the amount of problems encountered during the log replay
 * <i>and</i> the amount of traces with parsing problems. In a
 * nutshell, this punishment factor benefits the 
 * <code>HeuristicsNet</code> objects that have fewer problems
 * scattered in fewer traces.
 * <p> Note that the parsing semantics of this fitness measure
 * is a continuous one (i.e.,  the log replay does not stop
 * when problems are encountered). 
 *   
 * @author Ana Karla Alves de Medeiros
 *
 */

I guess the academic publication corresponding to this is this one: http://is.ieis.tue.nl/staff/aweijters/WP166.pdf
The CPM measure seems to be matching with the description in the JavaDocs.

I hope this helps.

aronlindberg

@fmannhardt -- thanks--this is somewhat helpful. It seems that I am encountering some negative values here. I don't quite see how this can be possible--do you see that this could be possible?

fmannhardt

Sorry, I did not have the time to look into this. Maybe the PhD thesis of Seppe vanden Broucke may help you:
http://seppe.net/seppe/Seppe vanden Broucke PhD.pdf
He wrote a whole section about shortcomings of the heuristic miner.

Btw:
Soon, there might be a new heuristic miner with some new features. Stay tuned

aronlindberg

@fmannhardt: thanks!