Autonomic Protocol-based Coordination in Dynamic Inter-Organizational Workflow

International audienceGiven the maturity of Internet standards, inter-organizational workflow is expected to be deployed in environments that are more dynamic and open than before. This paper addresses Inter Organizational Workflow (IOW) coordination in such a context, mainly investigating autonomic coordination managed at run-time. It is based on the idea that an agent-based approach is suitable to deal with this issue. More precisely, this paper introduces a framework for dynamic IOW in which involved processes are encapsulated into agents, called Process Agents (PA) in order to give them the capability to autonomously decide with whom, when and how to cooperate, and in which involved processes can access protocol components for their coordination needs. Our approach is based on the capability of PAs in playing different coordination protocols in order to take part in new business opportunities. This solution has numerous advantages. First, it provides extendable and reusable coordination components. Then, it supports run-time protocol integration. Finally, it eases openness since it imposes very few constraints

Do Process-based Systems Support Emergent, Collaborative and Flexible Processes? Comparative Analysis of Current Systems

Advanced process-based applications such as crisis and risk management require Emergent, Collaborative and Flexible (ECF) processes. These three features correspond to specific real-world requirements. Firstly, to face unpredictable situations, emergent processes are needed, i.e. processes whose model/schema is (partially) unknown at design-time and gradually defined/refined at run-time. Secondly, the complexity of the application domain being addressed requires collaborative processes, i.e. processes whose definition and enactment require interactions between groups of actors using their skills and experiences to make the process convergence towards their common goal. Thirdly, to adapt to the frequent changes that occur in their operating environment, flexible processes are needed, i.e. processes whose model/schema can be modified in real time. The objective of this paper is to present a literature review to study the state of the art of process-based systems with a focus on the three above mentioned properties. Our approach is to specify real world requirements, then to discuss the adequacy of current systems to these requirements and finally to provide advices for their improvement. Examined systems fall within the following areas: Business Process Management (BPM), Adaptive Case Management (ACM), Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) and Knowledge Management (KM). The paper concludes on the insufficiency of existing systems and the need for designing and implementing a specific process-based system that integrates these three properties in a coherent framework

Self-adaptive Aided Decision-making - Application to Maritime Surveillance

Information required for decision-making in complex applications, such as éood forecast or maritime surveillance, can be represented using a mathematical function. However, due to the complexity of the considered applications and their dynamics, the parameters involved in the mathematical function can be hard to value a priori. This paper presents a Multi-Agent System, called PaMAS (Parameter Multi-Agent System) that is able to learn such parameters values on the éy, autonomously, cooperatively and by self-adaptation. It also illustrates the application of PaMAS in the context of the maritime surveillance European project I2C. It énally provides an evaluation of the PaMAS learning

Self-adaptive Aided Decision-making - Application to Maritime Surveillance

Information required for decision-making in complex applications, such as éood forecast or maritime surveillance, can be represented using a mathematical function. However, due to the complexity of the considered applications and their dynamics, the parameters involved in the mathematical function can be hard to value a priori. This paper presents a Multi-Agent System, called PaMAS (Parameter Multi-Agent System) that is able to learn such parameters values on the éy, autonomously, cooperatively and by self-adaptation. It also illustrates the application of PaMAS in the context of the maritime surveillance European project I2C. It énally provides an evaluation of the PaMAS learning

Interaction protocols for human-driven crisis resolution processes

This work aims at providing a crisis cell with process-oriented tools to manage crisis resolutions. Indeed, the crisis cell members have to define the crisis resolution process, adapt it to face crisis evolutions, and guide its execution. Crisis resolution processes are interaction-intensive processes: they not only coordinate the performance of tasks to be undertaken on the impacted world, but they also support regulatory interactions between possibly geographically distributed crisis cell members. In order to deal with such an interweaving, this paper proposes to use Interaction Protocols to both model formal interactions and ease a cooperative adaptation and guidance of crisis resolution processes. After highlighting the benefits of Interaction Protocols to support this human and collective dimension, the paper presents a protocol meta-model for their specification. It then shows how to suitably integrate specified protocols into crisis resolution processes and how to implement this conceptual framework into a service oriented architecture

VigiFlood: a serious game for understanding the challenges of risk communication

International audienceEmergency managers receive communication training about the importance of being 'first, right and credible', which is not easy. For instance, in October 2018, the Aude department in the SouthWest of France was hit by intense rain. Flash floods were hard to forecast and only the 'orange' level of vigilance could be raised initially, but the population dismissed this very usual warning in that season. The 'red' level was then raised too late, leading to high criticism. The main problem here is the loss of trust induced by too many 'false alarms'. In this paper we propose a serious game called VigiFlood for raising awareness in the population about the difficulty of crisis communication and their own responsibility for reacting to the alerts. The implemented game still has limited functionality but already shows interesting results in helping the user to visualise and understand the trust dynamics

Conception de Bases de Données Orientées Objet : Une Méthode et Un Exemple d'application

International audienc

A Graphic Tool for Complex and Multimedia Database Querying

International audienc

Process Recommendation using Context in Crisis Management: Application to Flood Management

International audienceThis paper addresses process recommendation in crisis management from relevant facts observed in the field and business knowledge of actors involved in crisis resolution. Facts observed correspond to damage or risk while business knowledge of crisis actors, i.e. actors involved in crisis resolution, corresponds to actions these actors can perform in the field to reduce the crisis and to strategies for using these actions according to the context. The approach recommended in the paper filters facts observed with strategies modelled taking into account the current situation and dynamically builds process models dealing with these facts. Built process models, represented as BPMN diagrams, define actions crisis actors have to perform in the field along with the coordination of these actions. As several strategies are possible to deal with facts, several process models are recommended, each being labelled with its adequacy with the current situation. This paper presents the meta-model for facts and business knowledge modelling along with the recommended approach for process recommendation. Flood of the Loire serves as a case study for process recommendation illustration

Discovering and evaluating organizational knowledge from textual data: Application to crisis management

International audienceCrisis management effectiveness relies mainly on the quality of the distributed human organization deployed for saving lives, limiting damage and reducing risks. Organizations set up in this context are not always predefined and static; they could evolve and new forms could emerge since actors, such as volunteers or NGO, could join dynamically to collaborate. To improve crisis resolution effectiveness, it is first important to understand, analyze and evaluate such dynamic organizations in order to adjust crisis management plans and ease coordination among actors. Giving a textual experience feedback from past crisis, the objective of this paper is to discover the organizational structure deployed in the considered crisis and then evaluate it according to a set of criteria. For that purpose, we combine in a coherent framework text and association rule mining for pattern discovery and annotation, and multi-agent system models and techniques for formally building and evaluating organizational structures. We present the OSminer algorithm that discovers association rules based on relevant textual patterns and then builds an organizational structure including three main relations between actors: power, control and coordination. A real-life case study, a flood crisis hitting the south west of France, serves as a basis for testing/experimenting our solution. The organizational structure, discovered in this case study, has 24 actors. Its evaluation indicates its efficiency, but shows that it is neither robust nor flexible. Our findings highlight the potential of our approach to discover and evaluate organizational structures from a text recording interactions between stakeholders in a crisis context