Refactoring Process Models in Large Process Repositories.

With the increasing adoption of process-aware information systems (PAIS), large process model repositories have emerged. Over time respective models have to be re-aligned to the real-world business processes through customization or adaptation. This bears the risk that model redundancies are introduced and complexity is increased. If no continuous investment is made in keeping models simple, changes are becoming increasingly costly and error-prone. Though refactoring techniques are widely used in software engineering to address related problems, this does not yet constitute state-of-the art in business process management. Process designers either have to refactor process models by hand or cannot apply respective techniques at all. This paper proposes a set of behaviour-preserving techniques for refactoring large process repositories. This enables process designers to eectively deal with model complexity by making process models better understandable and easier to maintain

Pattern Tool Support to Guide Interface Design

Part 1: Long and Short PapersInternational audienceDesign patterns have proved very helpful in encapsulating the knowledge required for solving design related problems, and have found their way into the CHI domain. Many interface patterns can be formalised and expressed via UML models, which provides the opportunity to incorporate such patterns into CASE tools in order to assist user interface designers. This paper presents an implemented tool-based approach for the discovery of an appropriate set of design patterns applicable to a high-level model of the system. The tool accepts a UML model of the system and presents a set of interface design patterns that can be used to create an effective implementation. The tool is aimed at providing designers with guidance as to which successful design approaches are potentially appropriate for a new interactive system, acting as a supportive aid to the design process. The use of high-level modelling approaches allows designers to focus on the interactions and nature of their systems, rather than on the technologically-driven details

La Falla San Mateo : nuevas evidencias paleosismológicas de fallamiento activo en el Graben de Acambay, México

This study focuses on the identification and seismic characterization of the San Mateo fault, herein described for the first time. This fault is located in the central part of the Acambay graben, central Mexico. It is a 13 km long active normal fault with E-W direction and dip to the south. Two trenches were excavated in the locality of La Lechuguilla to determine the recent chronology of paleoearthquakes along this fault and to estimate its seismic parameters. At least three paleo-breaks have been found in one of these trenches and new radiocarbon ages indicate that they occurred from Late Pleistocene to the Holocene times. The oldest event (Event 1) occurred in 31.0-29.3 ky cal BP. Event 2 occurred in 19.1-6.5 ky cal BP and the younger faulting (Event 3) in 6.0 to 4.2 cal ky BP. These results suggest a recurrence interval of surface ruptures of about 11.57 +/- 5.32 ky. A slip rate of 0.085 +/- 0.025 mm / year and a magnitude (M-w) of 6.43 to 6.76 is estimated from the maximum coseismic displacement of 0.85 +/- 0.163 m and a rupture length of 13 km. If we consider a maximum rupture length of 25 km, including the possible continuity of the fault under the present day sediments filling the graben, a M-w magnitude of 6.7 +/- 0.3 could be expected. The paleoseismic data and fault scaling relationships suggest that the San Mateo fault is a significant seismic source in terms of hazard. This study also highlights the recency of the volcanic activity in the Acambay graben

The Ilopango Tierra Blanca Joven (TBJ) eruption, El Salvador: volcano-stratigraphy and physical characterization of the major Holocene event of Central America

The Ilopango caldera is the source of the large Tierra Blanca Joven (TBJ) eruption that occurred about 1.5 ka years ago, between ca. AD270 and AD535. The eruption dispersed volcanic ash over much of the present territory of El Salvador, and pyroclastic density currents (PDCs) extended 40 km from the volcano. In this study, we document the physical characteristics of the deposits from all over El Salvador to further constrain the eruption processes and the intensity and magnitude of the different phases of the eruption. The succession of deposits generated by the TBJ eruption is made of 8 units. The eruption started with PDCs of hydromagmatic origin (Unit A0), followed by fallout deposits (Units A and B) that are <15 cm thick and exposed in sections close to the Ilopango caldera (within 10–15 km). The eruption, then, transitioned into a regime that generated further PDCs (Units C–F), these range from dilute to dense and they filled the depressions near the Ilopango caldera with thicknesses up to 70 m. Deposits from the co-ignimbrite plume (Unit G) are the most widespread, the deposits are found in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and the Pacific Ocean and cm-thick across El Salvador. Modelling of the deposits suggests that column heights were 29 km and 7 km for the first two fallout phases, and that the co-ignimbrite phoenix plume rose up to 49 km. Volumes estimated for the fallout units are 0.15, 0.8 and 16 km3 dense rock equivalent (DRE) for Unit A, B and G respectively. The PDCs deposits volumes were estimated to be ~0.5, ~3.3, ~0.3 and ~9.1 km3 DRE for Units C, D, E and F, respectively. The combined volume of TBJ deposits is ~30 km3 DRE (~58 km3 bulk rock), indicating that it was one of largest Holocene eruptions from Central America. This eruption occurred while Mayan populations were living in the region and it would have had a significant impact on the areas within tens of kilometres of the vent for many years to decades after the eruption

Reconstructing the middle to late Pleistocene explosive eruption histories of Popocatépetl, Iztaccíhuatl and Tláloc-Telapón volcanoes in Central México

The Sierra Nevada Volcanic Range (SNVR), which includes Popocatépetl, Iztaccíhuatl and Tláloc-Telapón volcanoes, has been the source of multiple large explosive eruptions that have dispersed tephra across central México. Several eruptions since 40 ka have previously been described, particularly from Popocatépetl, the southernmost volcano of the range. However, the longer-term eruption history of the SNVR is poorly understood, due to challenges with correlating limited exposures of older pyroclastic sequences, and in discriminating between tephras derived from different sources. Here we describe two extensive exposures located between Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl volcanoes, which provide a more complete and longer-term explosive eruption record of the SNVR: the Nepopualco and Xalitzintla tephra sequences. A detailed tephrostratigraphic survey, together with new 40Ar/39Ar geochronological analyses and glass geochemistry, has permitted the characterization of identified eruption units further leading to the determination of geochemical fields for each volcano and the subsequent discernment of volcanic sources. Our results show that, since the collapse of the Los Pies Cone, which destroyed the Paleo-Iztaccíhuatl edifice at 631 ± 44 ka (2σ), Iztaccíhuatl has produced at least 6 explosive rhyolitic eruptions. After coeval activity with Popocatépetl, between ~600 and ~500 ka, Iztaccíhuatl's explosive activity ceased while Popocatépetl's continued until present day. Popocatépetl has produced at least 27 medium to large explosive eruptions (inferred VEI 4–6), commonly of andesitic to dacitic compositions. Some of these eruptions deposited pumice fallout of >1 m thick in both the Nepopualco and Xalitzintla sequences (e.g. the 339 ± 16 ka [2σ] NT-23/WRT-7 eruption), suggesting that Popocatépetl has produced several eruptions similar in magnitude to the well-known ~14 ka Tutti Frutti Pumice (a VEI 6 eruption with a ~5 km3 tephra volume). The Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl tephras are interbedded with deposits from more distal volcanoes, including some mafic to intermediate products of unknown sources (possibly from nearby monogenetic cones) and tephras related to the late Pleistocene eruptions of Tláloc-Telapón (including the tephra layer produced by the San Valentin Ignimbrite, recently 40Ar/39Ar dated in this study at ~102 ka; 2σ). Our new chemical, stratigraphic and geochronologic investigations of these pyroclastic deposits, predominantly from Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl, provide information on the scale and frequency of medium to large magnitude explosive eruptions over a longer-time period than currently known and that have had potential to disperse tephra across central México since the middle to late Pleistocene. This new data can be used to determine the source of further unknown tephras in the region as well as to better assess the volcanic hazard to the densely populated megalopolis of México City