An architecture for heuristic control of real-time processes

Abstract Process management combines complementary approaches of heuristic reasoning and analytical process control. Management of a continuous process requires monitoring the environment and the controlled system, assessing the ongoing situation, developing and revising planned actions, and controlling the execution of the actions. For knowledge-intensive domains, process management entails the potentially time-stressed cooperation among a variety of expert systems. By redesigning a blackboard control architecture in an object-oriented framework, researchers obtain an approach to process management that considerably extends blackboard control mechanisms and overcomes limitations of blackboard systems

Herd health surveillance and management in an integrated HACCP based system

Future herd health management systems need to focus on precaution and documentation of how product and process failures are prevented. HACCP-based herd health surveillance schemes have been developed for dairy cattle herds, organic pig and egg production systems and for mink production in Denmark. The generic part of such systems, including definition of hazards and risk factors, can be developed through expert opinion panels. The development of sets of control points, alarm values and corrective actions need typically to be farm specific. On-farm systems focusing on broad topics such as animal welfare and food safety tend to grow too big to be operational. It is suggested that a part of the system is controlled through ‘good management practice’ leaving only a few hazards to be controlled by control points, alarm values and corrective actions

Complex Actions for Event Processing

Automatic reactions triggered by complex events have been deployed with great success in particular domains, among others, in algorithmic trading, the automatic reaction to realtime analysis of marked data. However, to date, reactions in complex event processing systems are often still limited to mere modifications of internal databases or are realized by means similar to remote procedure calls. In this paper, we argue that expressive complex actions with support for composite work ows and integration of so called external actions are desirable for a wide range of real-world applications among other emergency management. This article investigates the particularities of external actions needed in emergency management, which are initiated inside the event processing system but which are actually executed by external actuators, and discuss the implications of these particularities on composite actions. Based on these observations, we propose versatile complex actions with temporal dependencies and a seamless integration of complex events and external actions. This article also investigates how the proposed integrated approach towards complex events and complex actions can be evaluated based on simple reactive rules. Finally, it is shown how complex actions can be deployed for a complex event processing system devoted to emergency management

Dynamic Model-based Management of Service-Oriented Infrastructure.

Models are an effective tool for systems and software design. They allow software architects to abstract from the non-relevant details. Those qualities are also useful for the technical management of networks, systems and software, such as those that compose service oriented architectures. Models can provide a set of well-defined abstractions over the distributed heterogeneous service infrastructure that enable its automated management. We propose to use the managed system as a source of dynamically generated runtime models, and decompose management processes into a composition of model transformations. We have created an autonomic service deployment and configuration architecture that obtains, analyzes, and transforms system models to apply the required actions, while being oblivious to the low-level details. An instrumentation layer automatically builds these models and interprets the planned management actions to the system. We illustrate these concepts with a distributed service update operation

From Mission to Action: Management Series for Microfinance Institutions

Quality Audit Tool for Managing Performance (QAT)This is a management tool for MFIs. It examines management processes and internal systems and assesses the status and effectiveness of each for achieving the MFI's stated social mission. Based on this assessment, it identifies areas, along with recommended actions, in which the MFI should focus its attention so as to better align internal processes and systems with social performance and make more effective and balanced decisions

A distributed architecture to implement a prognostic function for complex systems

The proactivity in maintenance management is improved by the implementation of CBM (Condition-Based Maintenance) principles and of PHM (Prognostic and Health Management). These implementations use data about the health status of the systems. Among them, prognostic data make it possible to evaluate the future health of the systems. The Remaining Useful Lifetimes (RULs) of the components is frequently required to prognose systems. However, the availability of complex systems for productive tasks is often expressed in terms of RULs of functions and/or subsystems; those RULs have to bring information about the components. Indeed, the maintenance operators must know what components need maintenance actions in order to increase the RULs of the functions or subsystems, and consequently the availability of the complex systems for longer tasks or more productive tasks. This paper aims at defining a generic prognostic function of complex systems aiming at prognosing its functions and at enabling the isolation of components that needs maintenance actions. The proposed function requires knowledge about the system to be prognosed. The corresponding models are detailed. The proposed prognostic function contains graph traversal so its distribution is proposed to speed it up. It is carried out by generic agents

An Emerging Decision Support Systems Technology for Disastrous Actions Management

The purpose of the chapter is to introduce a conceptual approach of emerging decision \ud \ud support systems (DSS) development in enhancing contextual support in decision making. \ud \ud We analyse the requirements of outlining a technological solution model for addressing \ud \ud disaster management problem situations in which decision makers at different levels can \ud \ud have the information support to respond effectively

Managing the national road network maintenance in Spain

The Spanish Ministry of Public Works manages the National Road Network, which consists in 27,000 km. In 1992, the average age of pavements was 7.2 years, whereas at present it has increased to 9 years. The great heterogeneity of pavements, the constant increase in the network length and its gradual aging demand important budgets but also agile technical, economic and administrative management models. The Subdirectorate of Maintenance and Operation is responsible of management systems for this network, now helped by the engineering consultancy GETINSA. This communication shows the actual state of the pavement management that consists in an Integrated Database System comprising many parameters both about technical values and administrative follow-up of actions. It is connected to various pavement evolution models that allow managers to predict the future state of the roads, then to establish a maintenance policy. Finally, the Management System calculates a maintenance plan, detailing actions to be done in each section in a multi-year scenario, so that the investment and the road quality are optimised. The Management System software combines analytical formula with geographical information, used for representing results as well as part of the forecast and optimisation models, using the modern technology of “dynamic segments”. Attention has been paid to conciliate the operational organisation of maintenance works with the fact that optimal needs are detailed for each road section in too short distances to be executed separately. The communication starts analysing other existing Pavement Management Systems, then describes the Spanish situation and justifies which Pavement Management System is needed. The body of the text covers the description of the functionalities and design assumptions of the new System. Finally, the conclusions present some future evolutions for the Spanish Management Systems and the possibility to generalise its use to other road networks, either for pavement or other assets.