The uses of process modeling : a framework for understanding modeling formalisms

There is wide-spread recognition of the urgent need to improve software processes in order to improve the performance of software organizations. Process models are essential in achieving understanding and visibility of processes and are important for other uses including the analysis of processes for improvement. It has been increasingly difficult to compare and evaluate the variety of process modeling formalisms that have appeared in recent years without a clear understanding of precisely for what they will be used. The contribution of this paper is to provide an understanding and a fairly comprehensive catalog of the applications of process modeling for which formalisms may be used. The primary mechanism for doing this is a guided tour of the literature on process modeling supplemented by recent industrial experience. In the paper, basic definitions concerning processes, process descriptions and process modeling are reviewed and then uses of process modeling are surveyed under the following headings: communication among process participants, construction of new processes, control of processes, process· analysis, and process support by automation. Comments are offered on paradigms for process modeling formalisms and directions for future work to permit evolution of a discipline of process engineering are given

QoS-aware predictive workflow scheduling

This research places the basis of QoS-aware predictive workflow scheduling. This research novel contributions will open up prospects for future research in handling complex big workflow applications with high uncertainty and dynamism. The results from the proposed workflow scheduling algorithm shows significant improvement in terms of the performance and reliability of the workflow applications

A Genetic Programming Approach to Geometrical Digital Content Modeling in Web Oriented Applications

The paper presents the advantages of using genetic techniques in web oriented problems. The specific area of genetic programming applications that paper approaches is content modeling. The analyzed digital content is formed through the accumulation of targeted geometrical structured entities that have specific characteristics and behavior. The accumulated digital content is analyzed and specific features are extracted in order to develop an analysis system through the use of genetic programming. An experiment is presented which evolves a model based on specific features of each geometrical structured entity in the digital content base. The results show promising expectations with a low error rate which provides fair approximations related to analyzed geometrical structured entities.Genetic Algorithm, Genetic Programming, Fitness, Geometrical Structured Entities, Analysis

Working Notes from the 1992 AAAI Spring Symposium on Practical Approaches to Scheduling and Planning

The symposium presented issues involved in the development of scheduling systems that can deal with resource and time limitations. To qualify, a system must be implemented and tested to some degree on non-trivial problems (ideally, on real-world problems). However, a system need not be fully deployed to qualify. Systems that schedule actions in terms of metric time constraints typically represent and reason about an external numeric clock or calendar and can be contrasted with those systems that represent time purely symbolically. The following topics are discussed: integrating planning and scheduling; integrating symbolic goals and numerical utilities; managing uncertainty; incremental rescheduling; managing limited computation time; anytime scheduling and planning algorithms, systems; dependency analysis and schedule reuse; management of schedule and plan execution; and incorporation of discrete event techniques

Introducing Development Features for Virtualized Network Services

Network virtualization and softwarizing network functions are trends aiming at higher network efficiency, cost reduction and agility. They are driven by the evolution in Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV). This shows that software will play an increasingly important role within telecommunication services, which were previously dominated by hardware appliances. Service providers can benefit from this, as it enables faster introduction of new telecom services, combined with an agile set of possibilities to optimize and fine-tune their operations. However, the provided telecom services can only evolve if the adequate software tools are available. In this article, we explain how the development, deployment and maintenance of such an SDN/NFV-based telecom service puts specific requirements on the platform providing it. A Software Development Kit (SDK) is introduced, allowing service providers to adequately design, test and evaluate services before they are deployed in production and also update them during their lifetime. This continuous cycle between development and operations, a concept known as DevOps, is a well known strategy in software development. To extend its context further to SDN/NFV-based services, the functionalities provided by traditional cloud platforms are not yet sufficient. By giving an overview of the currently available tools and their limitations, the gaps in DevOps for SDN/NFV services are highlighted. The benefit of such an SDK is illustrated by a secure content delivery network service (enhanced with deep packet inspection and elastic routing capabilities). With this use-case, the dynamics between developing and deploying a service are further illustrated

A Conceptual Framework and Simulation Modeling Of Engineering Change Management in a Collaborative Environment

Engineering Change Management (ECM) in a collaborative environment is a complex process and is crucial to the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) to ensure low product development time and cost. In this thesis, the ECM in a collaborative environment has been studied and a conceptual framework to support the process is presented. New Product Development (NPD) and ECM processes have been modeled and simulated to study the associated process dynamics. An extensive review of the literature indicated that the research on ECM in a collaborative environment is very limited. The review also highlighted that, (i) the ECM frameworks from past research do not support a flexible ECM workflow and (ii) the ECM process in a collaborative environment has never been modeled and studied. A Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) based conceptual framework for ECM process in a collaborative environment, which supports an agile ECM process, is presented along with a case study to demonstrate its implementation. NPD and ECM process templates have been developed. These developed process templates can be used to model and the study the dynamics of the NPD and ECM processes within an organization and in a collaborative environment. The process templates are later used to model and simulate the ECM process, within an organization and a sample collaborating network. The effects of various process parameters and ECM management policies on the NPD lead time have been studied

SciTech News Volume 71, No. 1 (2017)

Columns and Reports From the Editor 3 Division News Science-Technology Division 5 Chemistry Division 8 Engineering Division Aerospace Section of the Engineering Division 9 Architecture, Building Engineering, Construction and Design Section of the Engineering Division 11 Reviews Sci-Tech Book News Reviews 12 Advertisements IEEE