Supporting Business Process Compliance in Financial Institutions – A Model-Driven Approach

Recently, several approaches have been developed to check process models for compliance with laws and regulations. In this paper a contribution is made with respect to reducing the com-plexity of compliance checking by partially automating business process compliance (BPC) checking. We present a model check-ing approach that is able to check process models for BPC. In particular, we apply a generic pattern matching approach to the Semantic Business Process Modeling Language (SBPML) allow-ing for extended model checking not being restricted to predeces-sor-successor relationships. Finally, we apply the BPC checking approach to the example of a credit approval process from a real-world bank scenario using a demonstrator modeling software

A framework for digital model checking

Dissertação de mestrado em European Master in Building Information ModellingDigital model checking (DMC) is a solution that has the power to become a primary key player for the AEC industry concerns. Despite the research achievements on DMC, there are still gaps to make it practical to solve real-world problems. DMC, as an emerging research discipline, is still an area of development and not yet completely formalized. This means that there is still a need for enhanced system capabilities, updated processes, and adjustments to the current project delivery documents and proper standardization of DMC aspects. The work of this dissertation proposes a diagnostic approach based on using pre-defined principles to analyse digital model checking (DMC) and a formal framework and implementation plan. These principles are the Digital Information model (DIM), Rule-set, and checking platform. To set up a formal framework a modularization approach was used focused on “what things are”, “what is the logic behind extending the pre-existing concepts” and “how it assists the DMC process”. These modules play a fundamental role and they must be captured, tracked, and interconnected during the development of the framework. Throughout the expansion of principles, modules were built on a basis that 1) DIMs are the wholeness of information that should include existing physical systems not only buildings, 2) verification rules are not only sourced from regulatory codes and standards, and there are other sources of rules that should be taken into consideration, 3) the role of involved stakeholders, native system and project phases has not been ignored, 4) evaluate the effectiveness of DIMs to integrate, exchange, identify, and verify its content and 5) highlight on the existent classifications that could aid the DMC process. Moreover, DMC is a dependent activity that has cause and effect on former and subsequent activities. Thus, this dissertation also proposes a DMC implementation plan that could fit within the other project activities.A verificação de modelo digital (DMC) é uma solução que tem o poder de se tornar um ator principal para as preocupações da indústria de AEC. Apesar dos resultados da investigação sobre DMC, ainda existem lacunas para torná-lo prático para resolver problemas do mundo real. DMC, como uma área de investigação emergente, é ainda uma área em desenvolvimento e não completamente formalizada. Isso significa que existe ainda necessidade de aprimorato das capacidades dos sistemas, atualização de processos, ajustes aos atuais documentos de entrega do projeto e padronização adequada dos aspectos de DMC. O trabalho desta dissertação visa propor uma abordagem de diagnóstico baseada no uso de princípios pré-definidos para analisar o processo de verificação de modelo digital (DMC), um framework formal e um plano de implementação. Esses princípios são o modelo digital de informação (DIM), o conjunto de regras e a plataforma de verificação. Para configurar uma metodologia formal, uma abordagem de modularização foi usada com foco em “o que as coisas são”, “qual é a lógica por trás da extensão dos conceitos pré-existentes” e “como isso auxilia o processo DMC”. Esses módulos desempenham um papel fundamental e devem ser capturados, verificados e interconectados durante o desenvolvimento da metodologia. Ao longo da expansão dos princípios, os módulos foram construídos com base em: 1) os DIMs representam a totalidade da informação os quais devem incluir todos sistemas físicos existentes, não apenas os edifícios, 2) as regras de verificação não são apenas originárias de códigos e padrões regulatórios, existindo outras fontes de regras que devem ser levadas em consideração, 3) o papel das partes interessadas envolvidas, sistemas nativos e as fases do projeto não foram ignorados, 4) avaliar a eficácia dos DIMs para integrar, trocar, identificar e verificar seu conteúdo e 5) destacar a existencia de systemas de classificação que poderiam auxiliar no processo de DMC. Além disso, o DMC é uma atividade dependente que tem causa e efeito nas atividades anteriores e subsequentes. Assim, esta dissertação também propoe um plano de implementação do DMC para se enquadrar nas outras atividades do projeto

Automated energy compliance checking in construction

Automated energy compliance checking aims to automatically check the compliance of a building design – in a building information model (BIM) – with applicable energy requirements. A significant number of efforts in both industry and academia have been undertaken to automate the compliance checking process. Such efforts have achieved various levels of automation, expressivity, representativeness, accuracy, and efficiency. Despite the contributions of these efforts, there are two main gaps in existing automated compliance checking (ACC) efforts. First, existing methods are not fully-automated and/or not generalizable across different types of documents. They require different degrees of manual efforts to extract requirements from text into computer-processable representations, and matching the concept representations of the extracted requirements to those of the BIM. Second, existing methods only focused on code checking. There is still a lack of efforts that address contract specification checking. To address these gaps, this thesis aims to develop a fully-automated ACC method for checking BIM-represented building designs for compliance with energy codes and contract specifications. The research included six primary research tasks: (1) conducting a comprehensive literature review; (2) developing a semantic, domain-specific, machine learning-based text classification method and algorithm for classifying energy regulatory documents (including energy codes) and contract specifications for supporting energy ACC in construction; (3) developing a semantic, natural language processing (NLP)-enabled, rule-based information extraction method and algorithm for automated extraction of energy requirements from energy codes; (4) adapting the information extraction method and algorithm for automated extraction of energy requirements from contract specifications; (5) developing a fully-automated, semantic information alignment method and algorithm for aligning the representations used in the BIMs to the representations used in the energy codes and contract specifications; and (6) implementing the aforementioned methods and algorithms in a fully-automated energy compliance checking prototype, called EnergyACC, and using it in conducting a case study to identify the feasibility and challenges for developing an ACC method that is fully-automated and generalized across different types of regulatory documents. Promising noncompliance detection performance was achieved for both energy code checking (95.7% recall and 85.9% precision) and contract specification checking (100% recall and 86.5% precision)

Harmonization of IEEE 1012 and IEC 60880 standards regarding verification and validation of nuclear power plant safety systems software using model-based methodology

© 2017 Elsevier Ltd This paper compares two standards, namely IEC 60880 and IEEE 1012, and defines a harmonized core amongst them with regard to their verification and validation processes for the nuclear power plant instrumentation and control safety system software. The problem of harmonizing standards requires a transparent representation of standards in order to make comparison possible. A model-based methodology using SysML is used to establish this transparency. Transformation rules are a crucial part of the methodology. These enable the natural language used in a standard to be translated into structural and behavioural models in SysML. Due to the high level of ambiguity of natural language, certainty definition rules for objects and operations are established as well. The result is a rigorously developed harmonized core that is traceable to the parent standards. The core developed using our methodology supports the argument that there is no one-to-one mapping between major IEEE and IEC standards. Nevertheless, some intersections between them do exist, which support the opinion of other experts. The extent of the harmonization depends on the conformance or traceability. The methodology also offers promise to address the challenge of establishing a harmonized core and the formal transferability between future standards

How Well Do Ontario Library Web Sites Meet New Accessibility Requirements?

New changes to Ontario law will require library web sites to comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, version 2.0 (WCAG 2.0). This study evaluates 64 Ontario university, college, and public library web sites to see how well they comply with WCAG 2.0 guidelines at present. An average of 14.75 accessibility problems were found per web page. The most common problems included invalid html, poor color contrast, incorrect form controls and labels, missing alt text, bad link text, improper use of headings, using html to format pages, using absolute units of measure, and issues with tables and embedded objects

Compliance flow: an intelligent workflow management system to support engineering processes

This work is about extending the scope of current workflow management systems to support engineering processes. On the one hand engineering processes are relatively dynamic, and on the other their specification and performance are constrained by industry standards and guidelines for the sake of product acceptability, such as IEC 61508 for safety and ISO 9001 for quality. A number of technologies have been proposed to increase the adaptability of current workflow systems to deal with dynamic situations. A primary concern is how to support open-ended processes that cannot be completely specified in detail prior to their execution. A survey of adaptive workflow systems is given and the enabling technologies are discussed. Engineering processes are studied and their characteristics are identified and discussed. Current workflow systems have been successfully used in managing "administrative" processes for some time, but they lack the flexibility to support dynamic, unpredictable, collaborative, and highly interdependent engineering processes. [Continues.

D7.5 FIRST consolidated project results

The FIRST project commenced in January 2017 and concluded in December 2022, including a 24-month suspension period due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout the project, we successfully delivered seven technical reports, conducted three workshops on Key Enabling Technologies for Digital Factories in conjunction with CAiSE (in 2019, 2020, and 2022), produced a number of PhD theses, and published over 56 papers (and numbers of summitted journal papers). The purpose of this deliverable is to provide an updated account of the findings from our previous deliverables and publications. It involves compiling the original deliverables with necessary revisions to accurately reflect the final scientific outcomes of the project