Wright State University College of Engineering and Computer Science Bits and PCs newsletter, Volume 15, Number 4, April 1999

An eight page newsletter created by the Wright State University College of Engineering and Computer Science that addresses the current affairs of the college.https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/bits_pcs/1093/thumbnail.jp

Sharing scientific experiments and workflows in environmental applications

Environmental applications have been stimulating the cooperation among scientists from different disciplines. There are many examples where this cooperation takes place through exchanging scientific resources, such as data, programs and mathematical models. The LeSelect architecture supports environmental applications, where scientists may share their data and programs. We believe that besides programs and data, models, as well as experiments and workflows are scientific resources that need to be shared in environmental applications. Therefore, in this paper we propose an extension to LeSelect architecture that allows sharing of models, experiments and workflows

Beyond Discrete E-Services: Composing Session-oriented Services in Telecommunications

We distinguish between two broad categories of e-services: discrete services (e.g., add item to shopping cart, charge a credit card), and session-oriented ones (teleconference, collaborative text chat, streaming video, c-commerce interactions). Discrete services typically have short duration, and cannot respond to external asynchronous events. Session-oriented services have longer duration (perhaps hours), and typically can respond to asynchronous events (e.g., the ability to add a new participant to a teleconference). When composing discrete e-services it usually suffices to use a process model and engine that composes the e-services as relatively independent tasks. But when composing session-oriented e-services, the engine must be able to receive asynchronous events and determine how and whether to impact the active sessions. For example, if a teleconference participant loses his wireless connection then it might be appropriate to trigger an announcement to some or all of the other participants. In this paper we propose a process model and architecture for flexible composition and execution of discrete and session-oriented services. Unlike previous approaches, our model permits the specification of scripted active flowcharts that can be triggered by asynchronous events, and can appropriately impact active sessions. We introduce here a model and language for specifying process schemas (essentially a collection of active flowcharts) that combine multiple e-services, and describe a prototype engine for executing these process schemas

Modeling Business Processes on a Blockchain Ecosystem using CMMN

Plokiahela kohta on spekuleeritud, et see on “kõige olulisem leiutis pärast Internetti” ning et sellel on potentsiaal pakkuda märkmisväärset ärilist väärtust nii finants- kui ka teistes sektorites. Sellest tulenevalt on ettevõtted hakanud uurima, kuidas oleks neil võimalik oma äriprotsessides plokiahelatehnoloogiast kasu saada. Siiski, lihtsalt olemasolevate protsesside asendamine uute tehnoloogiatega ei paku soovitud tulemusi. Sellest tulenevalt disainitakse olukordades, kus protsessimudelid on protsessianalüüsi ning selle innovatsiooni aluseks, protsesse täiesti ümber. Käesolevas töös uuritakse, kuidas plokiahelale orienteeritud protsesse saab modelleerida CMMN modelleerimiskeele abil, kuna see on artefakti-põhine modellerimiskeel. Selline lähenemine võib olla eriti kasulik plokiahelale orienteeritud protsesside modelleerimisel, kuna plokiahelate peamine fookus on andmetel, mis on lisatud ahelasse ning jagatud erinevate osapoolte vahel. Käesolev töö põhineb juhtumianalüüsil, mis on läbi viidud mittetulundusühingus, mis tegeleb puidutoodetega kauplevate ettevõtete sertifitseerimisteenuste pakkumisega. Nimetatud organisatsiooni auditeerimisprotsessid kujundati ümber kasutades plokiahelat ning nutikaid lepingutehnoloogiaid, mille järel modelleeriti need kasutades CMMN modelleerimiskeelt. Analüüsimaks, kas CMMN modelleerimiskeel on plokiahelale tuginevate protsesside modelleerimiseks sobilik, kasutati raamistikku, mis hõlmab üldlevinud mustreid, mis on omased plokiahelale tuginevatele rakendustele. Selle tulemusena ilmnes, et CMMN modelleerimiskeele abil on võimalik plokiahelale tuginevaid protsesse üldiselt adekvaatselt kirjeldada, küll aga on siiski puudus elementidest modelleerimaks täpsemaid plokiahelatele ning nutikatele lepingutehnoloogiatele omaseid detaile.Blockchain has been speculated to be “the most important invention since the Internet” and has the potential to deliver significant business value for both financial and non-financial industries. That is why companies have started to explore how their business processes can benefit from this technology. However, a simple substitution of a current process with new technology will not provide desired outcomes. For this purpose, process redesign is used where process models are made the basis of process analysis and its innovation. This paper examines how blockchain-oriented processes can be modelled with CMMN as it is an artefact-centric modelling language. Such an approach might be particularly useful while modeling blockchain-oriented processes as the fundamental focus of blockchain is on data that is added on a chain and shared between participants. This paper is based on a case study of a non-profit organization providing certification services for companies trading timber-relates products. The auditing process of this organization was redesign using blockchain and smart contract technologies and then was modelled with CMMN. For analysis of the suitability of CMMN for modelling blockchain-based processes a framework for commonly occurring patterns that are specific to blockchain-based applications was used. As a result, CMMN can adequately represent blockchain-oriented processes. However, there is a lack of elements in the notation to accurately model certain details specific to blockchain and smart contract technologies

Declarative Workflows that Support Easy Modification and Dynamic Browsing

A new programming paradigm named “Vortex” is introduced for specifying a wide range of decision-making activities including, in particular, workflows. In Vortex workflows are specified declaratively. A particular emphasis is on “object-focused” workflows, i.e., workflows focused on how individual input objects should be processed within an organization. Such workflows arise commonly in practice, including insurance claims processing, and many electronic commerce applications, and in the area of Customer Care, e.g., web-based storefronts. Vortex workflows are “attribute-centric”, because they are centered around how the attribute values for an input object are gathered and computed. Initially, only a few attributes of an input object have assigned values. During processing of the object, additional attribute values may be assigned by external modules, or by internal modules, including “decision modules”. Decision modules include “attribute rules” that specify contributions to specific attribute values; these are combined with one of a broad family of available semantics. In Vortex, enabling conditions are used to determine what attributes should be evaluated. A novel choice-based execution model provides a general frame- work for optimization strategies. The use of enabling conditions, attribute rules and declarative semantics makes Vortex workflows easier to modify and refine than traditional, procedurally specified workflows. Vortex supports modularity and permits the natural intermixing of Vortex workflows with traditional, procedural workflows. The paper introduces a novel spreadsheet-like interface for dynamic browsing of Vortex executions

Imperative vs. Deklarative Prozessmodellierung - Eine kritische Betrachtung

Sowohl die Abbildung von Geschäftsprozessen in Form von Prozessmodellen, als auch die damit verbundene Verwaltung der Prozessmodelle mit Hilfe von Business Process Management, ist in den letzten Jahren zu einem wichtigen Forschungsgebiet geworden. Darüber hinaus etabliert sich dieses Thema zusehends in der Industrie. Für die Abbildung von Geschäftsprozessen existieren zwei gegensätzliche Paradigmen: die imperative und die, im Gegensatz dazu relativ junge, deklarative Prozessmodellabbildung. Hier stellt sich die Frage, in wie weit sich diese beiden Abbildungsparadigmen unterscheiden bzw. welches Abbildungsparadigma für welche Art von Geschäftsprozess besser geeignet ist. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist daher der kritische Vergleich dieser beiden Prozessmodellierungsparadigmen anhand realer Prozessbeispiele. Hierzu werden bei der Migration der Prozessmodelle von einem imperativen in ein deklaratives Schema verschiedene Aspekte aufgezeigt, die mit der deklarativen Prozessmodellierung nicht bzw. nur unzureichend erfasst werden können. Anhand der untersuchten Prozessmodelle werden anschließend die Grenzen der Abbildbarkeit durch die beiden Prozessmodellparadigmen aufgezeigt und Lösungsstrategien für die Realisierung problematischer Aspekte entwickelt. Nachfolgend werden die entstandenen Prozessmodelle hinsichtlich Vollständigkeit, Korrektheit Verständlichkeit, Granularität sowie hinsichtlich deren Flexibilität bewertet und verglichen

Robust execution of workflows in a distributed environment

In many business applications, workflows are used to describe business processes. Employees and machines get instructions from a plan (the workflow) to be guided or controlled. The workflows make it easier to create and manage business processes. Therefore, using workflows is the standard procedure in the business area today. The distributed execution of workflows plays an important role as almost all nodes are connected to a network today. The importance even increases with the emerging of pervasive environments. Because these systems are prone to failures, it is important to develop reliability methods that ensure that the system works properly even if failures occur. When the robustness of a system in a distributed environment shall be increased, the service that has to be executed is usually replicated and executed by two or more nodes. This means that the exact same behavior is executed by multiple nodes and thereby increases the reliability of the system by being able to cope with node failures. Changing the order of the activities or using alternative activities to increase the robustness is promising because when each node receives a different workflow that achieves the same goal, the possibility of failures should be further reduced by decoupling the replicas in respect of time and hardware dependencies. We developed a robustness metric that evaluates the robustness of a set of workflow replicas. We also developed methods and algorithms that generate workflows with different orders and alternative tasks within reasonable time. Our evaluations show that our proposed methods work significantly better than deploying a brute-force method to achieve the same behavior