Translating semantic web service based business process models

We describe a model-driven translation approach between Semantic Web Service based business process models in the context of the SUPER project. In SUPER we provide a set of business process ontologies for enabling access to the business process space inside the organisation at the semantic level. One major task in this context is to handle the translations between the provided ontologies in order to navigate from different views at the business level to the IT view at the execution level. In this paper we present the results of our translation approach, which transforms instances of BPMO to instances of sBPEL

The business process modelling ontology

In this paper we describe the Business Process Modelling Ontology (BPMO), which is part of an approach to modelling business processes at the semantic level, integrating knowledge about the organisational context, workflow activities and Semantic Web Services. We harness knowledge representation and reasoning techniques so that business process workflows can: be exposed and shared through semantic descriptions; refer to semantically annotated data and services; incorporate heterogeneous data though semantic mappings; and be queried using a reasoner or inference engine. In this paper we describe our approach and evaluate BPMO through a use case

Self-healing Web service composition with HTN planners

Web services have become a prominent paradigm for building of both inter and intra-enterprise business processes. These processes are composed from existing Web services based on defined requirements. Standards and techniques have been developed to aid in the dynamic composition of services. However, these approaches are limited when it comes to the handling of unexpected events. This dissertation presents the results of experiments that investigated numerous problems related to Web service composition processes. Based on the investigation, a fault taxonomy was formulated. Faults were grouped into three broad categories, each representing a distinct problem stage. The investigation into faults gave rise to the issue of fault recovery and continued process execution. A list of requirements for self-healing Web service composition was identified, while a new self-healing cycle was exploited based on the MAPE cycle (Monitor, Analyzer, Planner, Executive). The proposed self-healing composition cycle consists of three modules: Plan Generation Module, Plan Execution Module and Failure Analysis Module. The plan execution module, consisting of the execution and run-time monitoring phases, and the failure analysis module, consisting of the analysis and sensemaking phases, were found to be vital to self-healing Web service composition. Self healing Web service composition and the goal of self-healing were achieved through the use of Hierarchical Task Network (HTN) planning systems.Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2009.Computer Scienceunrestricte

An ontology-driven architecture for data integration and management in home-based telemonitoring scenarios

The shift from traditional medical care to the use of new technology and engineering innovations is nowadays an interesting and growing research area mainly motivated by a growing population with chronic conditions and disabilities. By means of information and communications technologies (ICTs), telemedicine systems offer a good solution for providing medical care at a distance to any person in any place at any time. Although significant contributions have been made in this field in recent decades, telemedicine and in e-health scenarios in general still pose numerous challenges that need to be addressed by researchers in order to take maximum advantage of the benefits that these systems provide and to support their long-term implementation. The goal of this research thesis is to make contributions in the field of home-based telemonitoring scenarios. By periodically collecting patients' clinical data and transferring them to physicians located in remote sites, patient health status supervision and feedback provision is possible. This type of telemedicine system guarantees patient supervision while reducing costs (enabling more autonomous patient care and avoiding hospital over flows). Furthermore, patients' quality of life and empowerment are improved. Specifically, this research investigates how a new architecture based on ontologies can be successfully used to address the main challenges presented in home-based telemonitoring scenarios. The challenges include data integration, personalized care, multi-chronic conditions, clinical and technical management. These are the principal issues presented and discussed in this thesis. The proposed new ontology-based architecture takes into account both practical and conceptual integration issues and the transference of data between the end points of the telemonitoring scenario (i.e, communication and message exchange). The architecture includes two layers: 1) a conceptual layer and 2) a data and communication layer. On the one hand, the conceptual layer based on ontologies is proposed to unify the management procedure and integrate incoming data from all the sources involved in the telemonitoring process. On the other hand, the data and communication layer based on web service technologies is proposed to provide practical back-up to the use of the ontology, to provide a real implementation of the tasks it describes and thus to provide a means of exchanging data. This architecture takes advantage of the combination of ontologies, rules, web services and the autonomic computing paradigm. All are well-known technologies and popular solutions applied in the semantic web domain and network management field. A review of these technologies and related works that have made use of them is presented in this thesis in order to understand how they can be combined successfully to provide a solution for telemonitoring scenarios. The design and development of the ontology used in the conceptual layer led to the study of the autonomic computing paradigm and its combination with ontologies. In addition, the OWL (Ontology Web Language) language was studied and selected to express the required knowledge in the ontology while the SPARQL language was examined for its effective use in defining rules. As an outcome of these research tasks, the HOTMES (Home Ontology for Integrated Management in Telemonitoring Scenarios) ontology, presented in this thesis, was developed. The combination of the HOTMES ontology with SPARQL rules to provide a flexible solution for personalising management tasks and adapting the methodology for different management purposes is also discussed. The use of Web Services (WSs) was investigated to support the exchange of information defined in the conceptual layer of the architecture. A generic ontology based solution was designed to integrate data and management procedures in the data and communication layer of the architecture. This is an innovative REST-inspired architecture that allows information contained in an ontology to be exchanged in a generic manner. This layer structure and its communication method provide the approach with scalability and re-usability features. The application of the HOTMES-based architecture has been studied for clinical purposes following three simple methodological stages described in this thesis. Data and management integration for context-aware and personalized monitoring services for patients with chronic conditions in the telemonitoring scenario are thus addressed. In particular, the extension of the HOTMES ontology defines a patient profile. These profiles in combination with individual rules provide clinical guidelines aiming to monitor and evaluate the evolution of the patient's health status evolution. This research implied a multi-disciplinary collaboration where clinicians had an essential role both in the ontology definition and in the validation of the proposed approach. Patient profiles were defined for 16 types of different diseases. Finally, two solutions were explored and compared in this thesis to address the remote technical management of all devices that comprise the telemonitoring scenario. The first solution was based on the HOTMES ontology-based architecture. The second solution was based on the most popular TCP/IP management architecture, SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol). As a general conclusion, it has been demonstrated that the combination of ontologies, rules, WSs and the autonomic computing paradigm takes advantage of the main benefits that these technologies can offer in terms of knowledge representation, work flow organization, data transference, personalization of services and self-management capabilities. It has been proven that ontologies can be successfully used to provide clear descriptions of managed data (both clinical and technical) and ways of managing such information. This represents a further step towards the possibility of establishing more effective home-based telemonitoring systems and thus improving the remote care of patients with chronic diseases

Método de integración inteligente de procesos de negocio sensible y adaptado al contexto

La Integración de procesos de negocio permite consolidar un conjunto de modelos de proceso en una sola descripción, con el fin de realizar actividades de mantenimiento y/o actualización sobre los ellos. Por lo anterior, es importante seleccionar aquellos procesos que soporten dichas actividades sin afectar su resultado y rendimiento. En esta tesis de doctorado se propone un método de integración de procesos de negocio, con capacidad de razonamiento sobre el contexto. El método propuesto consta de cuatro fases secuenciales e iterativas a saber, Fase 1. Definición del objetivo de integración, Fase 2. Búsqueda y recuperación de variantes, Fase 3. Integración y Fase 4. Propagación y ejecución. Adicionalmente, se propone un modelo de contexto que soporta el método, el cual está compuesto por entidades, situaciones y restricciones, al cual se integra una ontología de contexto de variantes, que identifica los recursos involucrados a partir de una situación contextual presente. El razonamiento inteligente se soporta por un sistema multi-agente que captura información del contexto, identifica situaciones, realiza agrupamiento de variantes y propagación de cambios; obteniendo como resultado la lista de variantes a integrar. Finalmente, se construye un prototipo de validación, que facilita la simulación de escenarios y la ejecución de los procesos. La validación del método se realizó mediante la definición y aplicación del método a cuatro casos de estudio; así mismo, para el análisis de resultados, se utilizaron métricas de valoración cualitativa y cuantitativa. Los resultados obtenidos fueron satisfactorios, lo cual demuestra la utilidad, la validez y el alcance del métodoAbstract: Business process integration allows to consolidate a set of process models in a single description, in order to carry out maintenance and updating activities. Therefore, it is important to select those processes that support these activities without affecting their results and performance. In this PhD thesis, a BPI method with the ability to reason on the context is proposed, This method is composed by four sequential and iterative steps. Step 1. Definition of the integration objective, Step 2. Search and recovery of variants, Step 3. Integration and Step 4. Propagation and execution. Additionally, a context model composed by entities, situations and constraints is proposed to supports the method. Likewise an ontology of variant context is integrated; it focus is to identify the resources involved from actived contextual situation. Intelligent reasoning is supported by a multi-agent system that captures information from the context, identifies situations, performs clustering of variants and change propagation; obtaining as a overcome the variants to integrate. Finally, a validation prototype is constructed, which facilitates the simulation of scenarios and the execution of the processes. The validation of the method was carried out by defining and applying the method to four case studies; likewise, for the analysis of results, qualitative and quantitative valuation metrics were used. The results obtained were satisfactory, which shows the usefulness, validity and scope of the method.Doctorad

SYMEX: A Systems Theory based Framework for Workflow Modelling and Execution

Workflow management systems enable organisations to deal with all aspects of business process management, including analysis, modelling, execution, and administration. Modelling workflow processes involves transformation of the process logic into a formal representation and it always remains a critical success factor for these systems. Workflow modelling languages provide constructs for capturing high-level descriptions of business processes, which are then have to be transformed and encoded into low-level execution semantics with the use of workflow programming languages. However, maintaining these models separately results in a number of issues, particularly when the various interdependencies between them are managed manually. This primarily creates difficulties in adaptation, in terms of identifying changes in high-level descriptions due to modifications of business conditions, and tracing the impact of those changes on the low-level execution semantics. Moreover, certain information included in the high-level descriptions is either partly encoded or omitted from the low-level execution semantics and at the same time, complicated business rules encoded at the execution level are not included in the high-level descriptions, creating major inconsistencies. The above issues result in high maintenance costs, reducing the overall efficiency and performance of workflow management systems. This thesis addresses the aforementioned problems by proposing a framework named SYMEX. SYMEX addresses the issue of integrating high and low-level descriptions in one unified format, from a Systems Theory perspective. SYMEX models have a mathematically defined formalism capable of capturing both high-level descriptions of business processes and low-level workflow execution semantics. Furthermore, SYMEX offers a concise and easy to learn and communicate set of constructs, allowing business analysts, process designers, and programmers to work on the same model, at different levels of abstraction. Apart from the theoretical framework, an XMLbased approach for the application of SYMEX is proposed, along with a constraint- based inference engine. Additionally, SYMEX models are evaluated in terms of their complexity and prove easier to read, understand, and manage than other traditional workflow modelling approaches. However, further research is required to assess the capability of the framework, with respect to modelling workflow processes in a service-oriented environment, where activities of business processes are essentially web-services exposed on the Internet

Semantic derivation of enterprise information architecture from riva-based business process architecture

Contemporary Enterprise Information Architecture (EIA) design practice in the industry still suffers from issues that hamper the investment in the EIA design. First and foremost of these issues is the shortcoming of EIA design research to bridge the gap between business and systems (or information) architectures. Secondly, contemporary developed business process architecture methods, and in particular object-based ones have not been fully exploited for EIA design and thus widening the gap between business processes and systems. In practice, knowledge-driven approaches have been thoroughly influencing EIA design. Thirdly, the lack of using knowledge representation methods adversely affected the automation (or semi-automation) of the EIA design process. Software Engineering (SE) technologies and Knowledge Representation using ontologies continue to prove instrumental in the design of domain knowledge. Finally, current EIA development methods have often resulted in complex designs that hampered both adopting and exploiting EIA in medium to large scale organisations.This research is aimed at investigating the derivation of the EIA from a given semantic representation of object-based Business Process Architecture (BPA), and in particular Riva-based BPA using the design science research-based methodology. The key design artefact of this research is the development of the BPAOntoEIA framework that semantically derives EIA from a semantic representation of Riva-based BPA of an enterprise. In this framework, EIA elements were derived from the semantic Riva BPA elements and associated business process models, with forward and backward traceability from/to the derived EIA to/from the original BPA. The BPAOntoEIA framework has been evaluated using the semantic Cancer Care and Registration BPA in Jordan. This framework has been validated using an authentic concern-based evaluation framework employing both static and dynamic validation approaches.The BPAOntoEIA framework contributes to bridging the gap between the business and systems world by providing a business/IT alignment through the EIA derivation process, and using the semantic knowledge of business processes within the resultant EIA. A major novel contribution is the introduction of new evaluation metrics for EIA design, which are quantitative, and are not only indicative of the quality of the semantic EIA derivation from the associated BPA but also the extent of utilisingbusiness process knowledge and traceability amongst EIA elements.Amongst other novel contributions is the semantic EIA derivation process that comprises a suite of the Semantic Web Rules Language (SWRL) rules applied on the semantic BPA elements. The derivation scheme utilises the generic EIA (gEIAOnt) ontology that was developed in this research and represents a semantic meta-model of EIA elements of a generic enterprise. The resultant EIA provides a highly coherent semantic information model that is in-line with the theory of EIA design, semantically enriched, and fully utilises the semantic knowledge of business processes.Benefits of this research to industry include the semantic EIA derivation process and a resultant information model that utilises the semantic information of business processes in the enterprise. Therefore, this enables the enterprise strategic management to plan for a single, secure and accessible information resource that is business process driven, and enabled in an agile environment. The semantic enrichment of the EIA is a starting point for a simplistic design of a domain-independent semantic enterprise architecture for the development of systems of systems in loosely coupled enterprises

Uma proposta de arquitetura de resiliência computacional para infraestruturas baseadas em SOA de empresas virtuais

Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia de Automação e Sistemas, Florianópolis, 2019Uma Empresa Virtual (EV) é um tipo de rede colaborativa de organizações na qual grupos de empresas se unem dinâmica, lógica e temporariamente para melhor atender a demandas de mercado. Atuando como se fossem uma única empresa, compartilham recursos, custos e riscos de um negócio, representando assim um proeminente modelo de sustentabilidade, especialmente para pequenas e médias empresas. Uma das pré-condições para atuar numa EV é que os sistemas computacionais dos seus membros interoperem para que os processos de negócio associados à EV possam ser executados sem problemas pelos mais diversos sistemas envolvidos. Esta tese explora um cenário onde todos os sistemas das empresas são implementados de uma forma que possam ser expostos como serviços de software numa perspectiva SOA (Service Oriented Architecture), serem invocados pelos processos de negócio da EV em questão e, ao mesmo tempo, possam ser compartilhados com os outros membros. Desta forma, quando uma EV é formada, um grande sistema distribuído baseado em serviços é dinamicamente criado. Dado que em uma EV novas empresas podem entrar e outras sair ao longo de sua existência, tal sistema não é estático, mas sim deve alterar sua composição, tanto em tempo de projeto, quanto em tempo de execução. Como cada empresa pode participar simultaneamente em mais do que uma EV, isso também significa que cada um dos seus serviços poderá estar envolvido ao mesmo tempo em inúmeras orquestrações, porém em diferentes contextos de negócio e requisitos de qualidade de serviço. Este sistema computacional (e seus inúmeros serviços) deve permanecer operacional ao longo de todo ciclo de vida da EV de forma a sustentar a execução dos processos e, assim, do negócio. Em um sistema como esse, largamente distribuído e com serviços implementados em diferentes tecnologias, várias falhas podem ocorrer. Esta tese propõe uma arquitetura computacional para um sistema de resiliência para esse cenário, fazendo com que o sistema como um todo se recupere diante das falhas e mantenha o nível de qualidade de serviço geral do negócio da EV. Após pesquisa na literatura, não foram encontrados trabalhos que cobrissem a área de intersecção entre resiliência, SOA e EV. Baseado no modelo de referência de computação autonômica MAPE-K, a arquitetura proposta é auto resiliente e foi concebida ela mesma como SOA; portanto distribuída, com baixo acoplamento e escalável. Além disso, seu projeto contempla as modernas visões de economia orientada a serviços, compreendendo ecossistemas de provedores de serviços de software. Para garantir a permanência da EV em operação, várias técnicas consolidadas de tolerância a falhas foram empregadas, combinadas e adaptadas ao cenário em questão, atuando tanto reativamente como proativamente, e respeitando os níveis de responsabilidade das camadas de negócio, TI e de infraestrutura computacional. Um robusto protótipo de software foi implementado como prova de conceito, onde se buscou utilizar o maior número possível de padrões abertos de TI. Ele foi avaliado experimentalmente em um cenário controlado de EV. Ao se aplicar indicadores de desempenho de referência, a arquitetura mostrou-se promissora, suportando a execução dos sistemas da EV na quase totalidade dos casos mesmo diante de inúmeras falhas. A implementação teve algumas simplificações e o desenho da arquitetura partiu de uma série de pressupostos. Ao final, conclusões finais do trabalho são apresentadas bem como um conjunto de trabalhos futuros é sugerido.Abstract: Virtual Enterprises (VE) is a type of collaborative networked organization in which groups of companies are dynamically, logically and temporally joined to better meet market demands. Acting as a single company, they share resources, costs and business risks, thus representing a prominent sustainability model, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises. One of the preconditions for operating as an EV is that the members? IT systems should interoperate in way the business processes associated with EV can be executed by the most diverse involved systems without problems. This thesis exploits a scenario where all company systems are implemented in way they can be exposed as software services in the SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) perspective, being invoked by the VE?s business processes and, at the same time, can be shared with the other members. In this way, when an EV is formed, a large distributed service-based system is dynamically created. Given that new companies can enter and other leave a VE during the general VE process, such system is not static, but rather can change its composition, both at design and run time. Yet, since given companies can participate in many EV simultaneously, this also means that their services can be involved in diverse orchestrations although in different business contexts and quality of services requirements. This computational system (and its many services) should remain operating throughout the VE?s life cycle in order to sustain the execution of the processes and thus of the business. In a system like this, widely distributed and with services implemented in different technologies, several failures can occur. This thesis proposes a resilience system computing architecture for this scenario, making the system able to recover from failures while maintaining the level of general service quality of the VE business. After a literature research, no works were found out that covered the intersection area of resilience, SOA and VE. Based on the MAPE-K autonomic computing reference model, the proposed architecture is self-resilient and was conceived as a SOA itself; therefore, it is distributed, loosely coupled and scalable. In addition, its design adopts the modern vision of service-oriented economy, comprising ecosystems of software service providers. In order to guarantee the VE operation, several fault tolerance techniques were used, combined and adapted to that scenario, acting both reactively and pro-actively, and respecting the responsibility levels of the business, IT and computing infrastructure layers. A robust software prototype was implemented as proof of concept, using as many open IT standards as possible. It was evaluated experimentally in a controlled VE scenario. After the application of reference performance indicators, the architecture showed to be promising, supporting the VE?s systems execution in almost all cases in the presence of numerous failures. The implementation has simplifications and the architecture design has adopted several assumptions. Conclusions are presented in the end, including suggestions for future work