Cross organisational compatible workflows generation and execution

With the development of internet and electronics, the demand for electronic and online commerce has increased. This has, in turn, increased the demand for business process automation. Workflow has established itself as the technology used for business process automation. Since business organisations have to work in coordination with many other business organisations in order to succeed in business, the workflows of business organisations are expected to collaborate with those of other business organisations. Collaborating organisations can only proceed in business if they have compatible workflows. Therefore, there is a need for cross organisational workflow collaboration. The dynamism and complexity of online and electronic business and high demand from the market leave the workflows prone to frequent changes. If a workflow changes, it has to be re-engineered as well as reconciled with the workflows of the collaborating organisations. To avoid the continuous re-engineering and reconciliation of workflows, and to reuse the existing units of work done, the focus has recently shifted from modeling workflows to automatic workflow generation. Workflows must proceed to runtime execution, otherwise, the effort invested in the build time workflow modeling is wasted. Therefore, workflow management and collaboration systems must support workflow enactment and runtime workflow collaboration. Although substantial research has been done in build-time workflow collaboration, automatic workflow generation, workflow enactment and runtime workflow collaboration, the integration of these highly inter-dependent aspects of workflow has not been considered in the literature. The research work presented in this thesis investigates the integration of these different aspects. The main focus of the research presented in this thesis is the creation of a framework that is able to generate multiple sets of compatible workflows for multiple collaborating organisations, from their OWLS process definitions and high level goals. The proposed framework also supports runtime enactment and runtime collaboration of the generated workflows

Utilizing volatile external information during planning

There are many practical planning situations in which planners may need information from external sources during the planning process. We describe the following: . Wrappers that may be placed around conventional (isolated) planners. The wrapper replaces some of the planner's memory accesses with queries to external information sources. When appropriate, the wrapper will automatically backtrack the planner to a previous point in its operation. . Query-management strategies for wrappers. These dictate when to issue queries, and when/how to backtrack the planner. . Mathematical analysis and experimental tests. Our results show conditions under which different query management strategies are preferable, and demonstrate that certain kinds of planning paradigms are more suited than others for planning with volatile information

Utilizing Volatile External Information During Planning

Abstract. There are many practical planning situations in which planners may need information from external sources during the planning process. We describe the following: Tsz-Chiu Au and Dana Nau and V.S. Subrahmanian 1 • Wrappers that may be placed around conventional (isolated) planners. The wrapper replaces some of the planner’s memory accesses with queries to external information sources. When appropriate, the wrapper will automatically backtrack the planner to a previous point in its operation. • Query-management strategies for wrappers. These dictate when to issue queries, and when/how to backtrack the planner. • Mathematical analysis and experimental tests. Our results show conditions under which different query management strategies are preferable, and demonstrate that certain kinds of planning paradigms are more suited than others for planning with volatile information.

Utilizing Volatile External Information During Planning

Abstract. There are many practical planning situations in which planners may need information from external sources during the planning process. We describe the following: Tsz-Chiu Au and Dana Nau and V.S. Subrahmanian 1 • Wrappers that may be placed around conventional (isolated) planners. The wrapper replaces some of the planner’s memory accesses with queries to external information sources. When appropriate, the wrapper will automatically backtrack the planner to a previous point in its operation. • Query-management strategies for wrappers. These dictate when to issue queries, and when/how to backtrack the planner. • Mathematical analysis and experimental tests. Our results show conditions under which different query management strategies are preferable, and demonstrate that certain kinds of planning paradigms are more suited than others for planning with volatile information.

V.: Utilizing volatile external information during planning. In: ECAI

Abstract. There are many practical planning situations in which planners may need information from external sources during the planning process. We describe the following: • Wrappers that may be placed around conventional (isolated) planners. The wrapper replaces some of the planner's memory accesses with queries to external information sources. When appropriate, the wrapper will automatically backtrack the planner to a previous point in its operation. • Query-management strategies for wrappers. These dictate when to issue queries, and when/how to backtrack the planner. • Mathematical analysis and experimental tests. Our results show conditions under which different query management strategies are preferable, and demonstrate that certain kinds of planning paradigms are more suited than others for planning with volatile information