Interface Modeling for Quality and Resource Management

We develop an interface-modeling framework for quality and resource management that captures configurable working points of hardware and software components in terms of functionality, resource usage and provision, and quality indicators such as performance and energy consumption. We base these aspects on partially-ordered sets to capture quality levels, budget sizes, and functional compatibility. This makes the framework widely applicable and domain independent (although we aim for embedded and cyber-physical systems). The framework paves the way for dynamic (re-)configuration and multi-objective optimization of component-based systems for quality- and resource-management purposes

Proposal of a Reference Model in BPMN Notation for an MRP System

Companies are progressively investing in practices aimed at improving the quality of management, with the main purpose of enabling them to operate competitively in the present market. For this, it is necessary to document the activities and information of the existing business processes in the organization, aiming at reducing time and cost in the elaboration of the particular model. In this context, the objective of this work is to develop a reference model of the Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP) processes, an important module of production planning and control (PPC). The research methodology used in this work was divided into the following stages: study of MRP and business process modeling, definition of reference model processes, choice of methodology and process modeling tool, development of reference model and prototype of the software and, finally, analysis of results. The modeling notation used was the BPMN, since it is considered a standard language in the field of process modeling. The prototype was developed through the Delphi interface in order to apply the model to support the implementation of business management programs. As results, from a formal documentation, the model proved to be a useful mechanism in the understanding of the processes raised and appropriate in the support to the implantation of production management tools

Farming Differentiation in the Rural-urban Interface of the Middle Mountains, Nepal: Application of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)Modeling

This article investigates the dominant factors of farming differentiation in the rural-urban interface of the densely populated Kathmandu Valley, using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) modeling. The rural-urban interface in the Kathmandu Valley is an important vegetable production pocket which supplies a large amount of the vegetables in the city core. While subsistence farming in the rural area is characterized by a system which integrates livestock and forestry with agriculture, the intensification in the urban fringe is characterized by triple crop rotations and market-oriented intensive vegetable production. Seven factors which were supposed to cause farming variation in the interface were incorporated in the AHP framework and then subjected to the farmers’ judgment in distinctly delineated three farming zones. These factors played crucial yet differing roles in different farming zones. Inaccessibility and use of local resources; higher yield and accessibility and agro-ecological consideration and quality production are the key impacting factors of subsistence, commercial inorganic and smallholder organic farming respectively. The quantification of such factors of farming differentiation through AHP is an important piece of information that will contribute in modeling farming in the rural-urban interface of developing countries which are characterized by a high diversity of farming practices and are undergoing a rapid change in the land use pattern

On the Interface Between Operations and Human Resources Management

Operations management (OM) and human resources management (HRM) have historically been very separate fields. In practice, operations managers and human resource managers interact primarily on administrative issues regarding payroll and other matters. In academia, the two subjects are studied by separate communities of scholars publishing in disjoint sets of journals, drawing on mostly separate disciplinary foundations. Yet, operations and human resources are intimately related at a fundamental level. Operations are the context that often explains or moderates the effects of human resource activities such as pay, training, communications and staffing. Human responses to operations management systems often explain variations or anomalies that would otherwise be treated as randomness or error variance in traditional operations research models. In this paper, we probe the interface between operations and human resources by examining how human considerations affect classical OM results and how operational considerations affect classical HRM results. We then propose a unifying framework for identifying new research opportunities at the intersection of the two fields

A Taxonomy of Workflow Management Systems for Grid Computing

With the advent of Grid and application technologies, scientists and engineers are building more and more complex applications to manage and process large data sets, and execute scientific experiments on distributed resources. Such application scenarios require means for composing and executing complex workflows. Therefore, many efforts have been made towards the development of workflow management systems for Grid computing. In this paper, we propose a taxonomy that characterizes and classifies various approaches for building and executing workflows on Grids. We also survey several representative Grid workflow systems developed by various projects world-wide to demonstrate the comprehensiveness of the taxonomy. The taxonomy not only highlights the design and engineering similarities and differences of state-of-the-art in Grid workflow systems, but also identifies the areas that need further research.Comment: 29 pages, 15 figure

Addressing the Challenges in Federating Edge Resources

This book chapter considers how Edge deployments can be brought to bear in a global context by federating them across multiple geographic regions to create a global Edge-based fabric that decentralizes data center computation. This is currently impractical, not only because of technical challenges, but is also shrouded by social, legal and geopolitical issues. In this chapter, we discuss two key challenges - networking and management in federating Edge deployments. Additionally, we consider resource and modeling challenges that will need to be addressed for a federated Edge.Comment: Book Chapter accepted to the Fog and Edge Computing: Principles and Paradigms; Editors Buyya, Sriram

Universal Resource Lifecycle Management

This paper presents a model and a tool that allows Web users to define, execute, and manage lifecycles for any artifact available on the Web. In the paper we show the need for lifecycle management of Web artifacts, and we show in particular why it is important that non-programmers are also able to do this. We then discuss why current models do not allow this, and we present a model and a system implementation that achieves lifecycle management for any URI-identifiable and accessible object. The most challenging parts of the work lie in the definition of a simple but universal model and system (and in particular in allowing universality and simplicity to coexist) and in the ability to hide from the lifecycle modeler the complexity intrinsic in having to access and manage a variety of resources, which differ in nature, in the operations that are allowed on them, and in the protocols and data formats required to access them