Optimized Time Management for Declarative Workflows

Declarative process models are increasingly used since they fit better with the nature of flexible process-aware information systems and the requirements of the stakeholders involved. When managing business processes, in addition, support for representing time and reasoning about it becomes crucial. Given a declarative process model, users may choose among different ways to execute it, i.e., there exist numerous possible enactment plans, each one presenting specific values for the given objective functions (e.g., overall completion time). This paper suggests a method for generating optimized enactment plans (e.g., plans minimizing overall completion time) from declarative process models with explicit temporal constraints. The latter covers a number of well-known workflow time patterns. The generated plans can be used for different purposes like providing personal schedules to users, facilitating early detection of critical situations, or predicting execution times for process activities. The proposed approach is applied to a range of test models of varying complexity. Although the optimization of process execution is a highly constrained problem, results indicate that our approach produces a satisfactory number of suitable solutions, i.e., solutions optimal in many cases

Extremity ring dosimetry intercomparison in reference and workplace fields

An intercomparison of ring dosemeters has been organised with the aim of assessing the technical capabilities of available extremity dosemeters and focusing on their performance at clinical workplaces with potentially high extremity doses. Twenty-four services from 16 countries participated in the intercomparison. The dosemeters were exposed to reference photon (137Cs) and beta (147Pm, 85Kr and 90Sr/90Y) fields together with fields representing realistic exposure situations in interventional radiology (direct and scattered radiation) and nuclear medicine (99 mTc and 18F). It has been found that most dosemeters provided satisfactory measurements of Hp(0.07) for photon radiation, both in reference and realistic fields. However, only four dosemeters fulfilled the established requirements for all radiation qualities. The main difficulties were found for the measurement of low-energy beta radiation. Finally, the results also showed a general under-response of detectors to 18F, which was attributed to the difficulties of the dosimetric systems to measure the positron contribution to the dos

Avoiding Jeopardy, Without the Questions: Recovery Implementation Plans for Endangered Species in Western River Basins

This article addresses Recovery Implementation Programs (RIPs) for endangered species in the context of four western river basins where the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) is a key water supplier and manager. Rather than focus in detail on any particular program, this article addresses these RIPs as a group, representing an alternative approach to Endangered Species Act (ESA) compliance that has taken root in the western water context. Part I of this article provides context, outlining federal and state roles regarding water resources in the West. Part II explains the requirements of the ESA, focusing on federal agency obligations under section 7, and summarizing three situations where these requirements have applied to USBR project operations. Part III explains the structure, purposes, and elements of four RIPs; examines some key differences between these programs and the usual ESA approach in the water context; and notes the success of these programs in legal terms. Part IV attempts to answer three broad questions about the RIPs: why they have caught on in the western water context, whether they can actually recover species, and whether they are likely to become even more popular

Knowledge modelling for integrating semantic web services in e-government applications

Service integration and domain interoperability are the basic requirements in the development of current service-oriented e-Government applications. Semantic Web and, in particular, Semantic Web Service (SWS) technology aim to address these issues. However, the integration between e-Government applications and SWS is not an easy task. We argue that a more complex semantic layer needs to be modeled. The aim of our work is to provide an ontological framework that maps such a semantic layer. In this paper, we describe our approach for creating a project-independent and reusable model, and provide a case study that demonstrates its applicability

Composition and Self-Adaptation of Service-Based Systems with Feature Models

The adoption of mechanisms for reusing software in pervasive systems has not yet become standard practice. This is because the use of pre-existing software requires the selection, composition and adaptation of prefabricated software parts, as well as the management of some complex problems such as guaranteeing high levels of efficiency and safety in critical domains. In addition to the wide variety of services, pervasive systems are composed of many networked heterogeneous devices with embedded software. In this work, we promote the safe reuse of services in service-based systems using two complementary technologies, Service-Oriented Architecture and Software Product Lines. In order to do this, we extend both the service discovery and composition processes defined in the DAMASCo framework, which currently does not deal with the service variability that constitutes pervasive systems. We use feature models to represent the variability and to self-adapt the services during the composition in a safe way taking context changes into consideration. We illustrate our proposal with a case study related to the driving domain of an Intelligent Transportation System, handling the context information of the environment.Work partially supported by the projects TIN2008-05932, TIN2008-01942, TIN2012-35669, TIN2012-34840 and CSD2007-0004 funded by Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and FEDER; P09-TIC-05231 and P11-TIC-7659 funded by Andalusian Government; and FP7-317731 funded by EU. Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec