A flexible approach for finding optimal paths with minimal conflicts

Abstract

Complex systems are usually modelled through a combination of structural and behavioural models, where separate behavioural models make it easier to design and understand partial behaviour. When partial models are combined, we need to guarantee that they are consistent, and several automated techniques have been developed to check this. We argue that in some cases it is impossible to guarantee total consistency, and instead we want to find execution paths across such models with minimal conflicts with respect to a certain metric of interest. We present an efficient and scalable solution to find optimal paths through a combination of the theorem prover Isabelle with the constraint solver Z3. Our approach has been inspired by a healthcare problem, namely how to detect conflicts between medications taken by patients with multiple chronic conditions, and how to find preferable alternatives automatically.