Higher-Order Process Modeling: Product-Lining, Variability Modeling and Beyond

We present a graphical and dynamic framework for binding and execution of business) process models. It is tailored to integrate 1) ad hoc processes modeled graphically, 2) third party services discovered in the (Inter)net, and 3) (dynamically) synthesized process chains that solve situation-specific tasks, with the synthesis taking place not only at design time, but also at runtime. Key to our approach is the introduction of type-safe stacked second-order execution contexts that allow for higher-order process modeling. Tamed by our underlying strict service-oriented notion of abstraction, this approach is tailored also to be used by application experts with little technical knowledge: users can select, modify, construct and then pass (component) processes during process execution as if they were data. We illustrate the impact and essence of our framework along a concrete, realistic (business) process modeling scenario: the development of Springer's browser-based Online Conference Service (OCS). The most advanced feature of our new framework allows one to combine online synthesis with the integration of the synthesized process into the running application. This ability leads to a particularly flexible way of implementing self-adaption, and to a particularly concise and powerful way of achieving variability not only at design time, but also at runtime.Comment: In Proceedings Festschrift for Dave Schmidt, arXiv:1309.455

DSL-based Interoperability and Integration in the Smart Manufacturing Digital Thread

In the industry 4.0 ecosystem, a Digital Thread connects the data and processes for smarter manufacturing. It provides an end to end integration of the various digital entities thus fostering interoperability, with the aim to design and deliver complex and heterogeneous interconnected systems. We develop a service oriented domain specific Digital Thread platform in a Smart Manufacturing research and prototyping context. We address the principles, architecture and individual aspects of a growing Digital Thread platform. It conforms to the best practices of coordination languages, integration and interoperability of external services from various platforms, and provides orchestration in a formal methods based, low-code and graphical model driven fashion. We chose the Cinco products DIME and Pyrus as the underlying IT platforms for our Digital Thread solution to serve the needs of the applications addressed: manufacturing analytics and predictive maintenance are in fact core capabilities for the success of smart manufacturing operations. In this regard, we extend the capabilities of these two platforms in the vertical domains of data persistence, IoT connectivity and analytics, to support the basic operations of smart manufacturing. External native DSLs provide the data and capability integrations through families of SIBs. The small examples constitute blueprints for the methodology, addressing the knowledge, terminology and concerns of domain stakeholders. Over time, we expect reuse to increase, reducing the new integration and development effort to a progressively smaller portion of the models and code needed for at least the most standard application

Workflows for Quantitative Data Analysis in The Social Sciences

The background is given to how statistical analysis is used by quantitative social scientists. Developing statistical analyses requires substantial effort, yet there are important limitations in current practice. This has motivated the authors to create a more systematic and effective methodology with supporting tools. The approach to modelling quantitative data analysis in the social sciences is presented. Analysis scripts are treated abstractly as mathematical functions and concretely as web services. This allows individual scripts to be combined into high-level workflows. A comprehensive set of tools allows workflows to be defined, automatically validated and verified, and automatically implemented. The workflows expose opportunities for parallel execution, can define support for proper fault handling, and can be realised by non-technical users. Services, workflows and datasets can also be readily shared. The approach is illustrated with a realistic case study that analyses occupational position in relation to health

Developing a distributed electronic health-record store for India

The DIGHT project is addressing the problem of building a scalable and highly available information store for the Electronic Health Records (EHRs) of the over one billion citizens of India