An Architecture for the interoperability of Workflow Models

The goal of this work is to contribute to the field of interoperability of Workflow models. To achieve this interoperability, we have built a generic architecture that addresses three levels of abstraction: the common meta-model that the Workflow models must share, the common model that they enact collectively, and the common data model whose management is shared. So, the approach we have adopted is based on a strategy of uniformity to solve the problems related to the semantic, syntactic and execution platform heterogeneity. The common meta-model gathers the common concepts that are shared between all these Workflow models and it defines their semantics. These concepts (activity, event, etc.) are extracted from different formalisms used in the field of business process (or Workflow). This latter allows us to instantiate a canonical model that describes only common parts (activities, artifacts). As for the common data model, it is instantiated by the common model. For the control interoperability, we have adopted an approach that deals with a more flexible connection mechanism based on events through a connection server. This approach can be implemented above any interoperability platform (CORBA, EJB, etc.). Also, the shared canonical model that we have proposed is generic, simple and re-usable

Cleaning of Wastewater Using Crosslinked Poly(Acrylamide-co-Acrylic Acid) Hydrogels: Analysis of Rotatable Bonds, Binding Energy and Hydrogen Bonding

The discharge of untreated wastewater, often contaminated by harmful substances, such as industrially used dyes, can provoke environmental and health risks. Among various techniques, the adsorption of dyes, using three-dimensional (3D) networks consisting of hydrophilic polymers (hydrogels), represents a low-cost, clean, and efficient remediation method. Three industrially used dyes, Methylene Blue, Eosin, and Rose Bengal, were selected as models of pollutants. Poly(acrylamide) (poly(AM)) and poly(acrylamide-co-acrylic acid) (poly(AM-co-AA)) networks were chosen as adsorbent materials (hydrogels). These polymers were synthesized by crosslinking the photopolymerization of their respective monomer(s) in an aqueous medium under exposure to UV light. Experimental adsorption measurements revealed substantially higher dye uptakes for poly(AM-co-AA) compared to poly(AM) hydrogels. In this report, a theoretical model based on docking simulations was applied to analyze the conformation of polymers and pollutants in order to investigate some aspects of the adsorption process. In particular, hydrogen and halogen interactions were studied. The presence of strong hydrogen bonding plays a crucial role in the retention of dyes, whereas halogen bonding has a small or negligible effect on adsorption. An evaluation of binding energies allowed us to obtain information about the degree of affinity between polymers and dyes. The number of rotatable bonds in the copolymer exceeds those of poly(AM),meaning that poly(AM-co-AA) is revealed to be more suitable for obtaining a high retention rate for pollutants

Semantic Annotations for Workflow Interoperability

International audienceTo support the interoperability or the cooperation between different partners, various approaches and technological solutions were proposed, which converge directly to the adoption of standards. Consequently, the semantic aspect is not correctly addressed by today's interoperability solutions that focus mainly on the syntactical and technical level. Indeed, addressing the semantic aspect at conceptual level will provide more flexibility to the cooperation. Accordingly, in this paper, we propose an agnostic approach for the interoperability of Workflow models (or business process), which is used in a homogeneous or in a heterogeneous context. In a homogeneous context, lexical and structural annotations are attached to models. Contrary, in a heterogeneous context, we introduce a common semantic annotation structure for annotating the models at different levels: 1) meta-models, 2) models content, 3) models profiles and goals for semantic discovery purposes, 4) at levels of basic aspects of models such as the informational type. Common ontologies, including: Workflow ontology, domain specific ontology, profiles ontology, goals ontology and a set of ontologies related to these aspects, are used to achieve semantic interoperability. One of the advantages of this proposal is its flexibility and its openness since we take an agnostic approach to ontology representation languages (such as OWL-S or WSDL-S). Povzetek

An Approach for Building an OWL Ontology for Workflow Interoperability

ISBN: 978-1-84628-857-9International audienceA Workflow process is a support for business activities and it is necessary to take into account the knowledge context of these activities. Use of ontologies is one the ways to consider this kind of knowledge. In this paper, we present an approach to build an OWL ontology Workflow. We firstly define a common Workflow meta-model using Meta-Object-Facility (MOF). It gathers all the common concepts that are generic and shared by the most Workflow models and it defines their semantics. These concepts (activity, resource, etc.) are extracted from different formalisms used in the field of business process (or Workflow). Then, we translated it into an Ontology Definition Meta-model (ODM) based on MOF and use the main OWL concepts and subsequently, from ODM to OWL meta-model which is also a MOF-compliant and is based on the Web Ontology Language (OWL). Finally, we mainly focus on OWL DL (Description language) that provides the leading ontological tool Protégé OWL Plugin for the generation of our OWL ontology Workflow

An Architecture for the Interoperability of Workflow Models

held at the ACM Fourteenth Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM)The goal of this work is to contribute to the field of interoperability of Workflow models. To achieve interoperability, we have built a generic architecture that addresses three levels of abstraction: a common meta-model that the Workflow models must share, a common model that they enact collectively, and a common data model whose management is shared. So, the approach we have adopted is based on a strategy of uniformity to solve the problems related to the semantic, syntactic and execution platform heterogeneity. The common meta-model gathers the common concepts that are shared between Workflow models and it defines their semantics. Common concepts (activity, event, etc.) that are extracted from different formalisms used in the field of business process (or Workflow) allow us to instantiate a canonical model that describes only common parts (activities, artifacts). As for the common data model, it is instantiated by the common model. For the control interoperability, we have adopted an approach that deals with a flexible connection mechanism based on events through a connection server. This approach can be implemented above any interoperability platform (CORBA, EJB, etc.). Moreover, the shared canonical model that we have proposed is generic, simple and re-usable

Electronic Journal of Theoretical Physics Fractional-order Hybrid Optical System and its Chaos Control Synchronization

Abstract: In this work, a fractional chaotic system is introduced, where the capacitor and the inductor of the original circuit are replaced by a fractional electric element called fractance. Moreover, a feedback nonlinear controller is designated and used both to control chaos in this fractional system to its unstable (equilibriums or periodic orbits) and to achieve identical synchronization. Furthermore non-identical synchronization is studied to achieve synchronization between two coupled systems with different fractional orders. Numerical simulations show the effectiveness of the theoretical analysis

Swelling and thermal behavior of a cross-linked polymer networks poly(2-phenoxyethyl acrylate): exploitation by the Voigt viscoelastic model

International audienceThe response-ability to the external and internal environmental condition qualifies the smart polymer material to be successfully applied in artificial muscle, drug delivery and water treatment. A three-dimensional polymer network based on the phenyl monomer, 2-phenoxy ethyl acrylate (PEA), was polymerized under ultraviolet (UV) radiation using the Darocur 1173 as an initiator of the polymerization reaction, and the 1,6-hexane-diol diacrylate (HDDA) as a chemical cross-linker. The analysis of the thermophysical properties of this elaborated polymeric material represents the main goal of the present work. The infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and the dynamic scaling calorimetry (DSC) were used to examine, respectively, the vibration of the carbon double bond (C=C) and the glass transition temperature Tg. It is found that parameters, the rate of reticulation and monomer composition have a remarkable effect on the variation of Tg. The swelling behavior of the cross-linked poly(PEA/HDDA) was investigated; the effects of solvent nature, the degree of cross-linking, temperature and chemical structure have a significant influence on material swelling properties. The theoretical investigation based, especially on the Voigt model, Flory–Rehner theory and solubility approximation, permits to give much information about several parameters such as the swelling time constant, swelling equilibrium constant, solubility prediction, entropy and enthalpy. It ended interestingly that the Voigt model shows a good agreement with swelling experimental results

Conformational modeling of the system pollutant/three-dimensional poly (2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (PHEMA) in aqueous medium: a new approach

International audienceThe polluted water, mixture of chemicals and dyes, discharged by various textile and paper industries, is a serious problem for the environment, peculiarly the water. Dyes are stable to light, heat and oxidizing agents and are usually biologically non-degradable, which makes them complicated environmental pollutants. To examine the removal of dye from water, a three-dimensional poly (2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (PHEMA) and eosin Y were used, respectively, as a dye retention support and pollutant. The study of the interaction between dye and a hydrophilic polymer networks by the conformational modeling using computer software represents the goal of the present work. Both the swelling and ultraviolet–visible spectrophotometry studies show that the pollutant was well retained by the porous polymer network PHEMA. The conformational study of the system composed of polymer network/dye shows that the interaction of the oxygen (O) and bromine (Br) of eosin Y with the hydrogen (H) of the PHEMA depends on the polymer porosity that was varied by the cross-linking rate of the three-dimensional polymer networks. The results obtained by this work can be applied to improve the retention efficiency of such material for use in wastewater application

Cleaning of Wastewater Using Crosslinked Poly(Acrylamide-<i>co</i>-Acrylic Acid) Hydrogels: Analysis of Rotatable Bonds, Binding Energy and Hydrogen Bonding

The discharge of untreated wastewater, often contaminated by harmful substances, such as industrially used dyes, can provoke environmental and health risks. Among various techniques, the adsorption of dyes, using three-dimensional (3D) networks consisting of hydrophilic polymers (hydrogels), represents a low-cost, clean, and efficient remediation method. Three industrially used dyes, Methylene Blue, Eosin, and Rose Bengal, were selected as models of pollutants. Poly(acrylamide) (poly(AM)) and poly(acrylamide-co-acrylic acid) (poly(AM-co-AA)) networks were chosen as adsorbent materials (hydrogels). These polymers were synthesized by crosslinking the photopolymerization of their respective monomer(s) in an aqueous medium under exposure to UV light. Experimental adsorption measurements revealed substantially higher dye uptakes for poly(AM-co-AA) compared to poly(AM) hydrogels. In this report, a theoretical model based on docking simulations was applied to analyze the conformation of polymers and pollutants in order to investigate some aspects of the adsorption process. In particular, hydrogen and halogen interactions were studied. The presence of strong hydrogen bonding plays a crucial role in the retention of dyes, whereas halogen bonding has a small or negligible effect on adsorption. An evaluation of binding energies allowed us to obtain information about the degree of affinity between polymers and dyes. The number of rotatable bonds in the copolymer exceeds those of poly(AM),meaning that poly(AM-co-AA) is revealed to be more suitable for obtaining a high retention rate for pollutants