On Engineering Support for Business Process Modelling and Redesign

Currently, there is an enormous (research) interest in business process redesign (BPR). Several management-oriented approaches have been proposed showing how to make BPR work. However, detailed descriptions of empirical experience are few. Consistent engineering methodologies to aid and guide a BPR-practitioner are currently emerging. Often, these methodologies are claimed to be developed for business process modelling, but stem directly from information system design cultures. We consider an engineering methodology for BPR to consist of modelling concepts, their representation, computerized tools and methods, and pragmatic skills and guidelines for off-line modelling, communicating, analyzing, (re)designing\ud business processes. The modelling concepts form the architectural basis of such an engineering methodology. Therefore, the choice, understanding and precise definition of these concepts determine the productivity and effectiveness of modelling tasks within a BPR project. The\ud current paper contributes to engineering support for BPR. We work out general issues that play a role in the development of engineering support for BPR. Furthermore, we introduce an architectural framework for business process modelling and redesign. This framework consists of a coherent set of modelling concepts and techniques on how to use them. The framework enables the modelling of both the structural and dynamic characteristics of business processes. We illustrate its applicability by modelling a case from service industry. Moreover, the architectural framework supports abstraction and refinement techniques. The use of these techniques for a BPR trajectory are discussed

An Engineering Approach towards Action Refinement

In the abstract modelling of distributed systems we may need methods to replace abstract behaviours by more concrete behaviours which are closer to implementation mechanisms. Furthermore, we may want these methods to preserve the correctness of such a replacement. This paper introduces an approach towards action refinement in which an abstract action is replaced by a concrete activity. This approach is based on a careful consideration of the `action' and `causality relation' architectural concepts, which enable an abstract action to be replaced by many alternative concrete activities in a general way. This approach is based on the application of abstraction rules to determine whether a concrete activity conforms to an abstract action, considering the context in which the concrete activity and the abstract action are embedde

Jatrophane and lathyrane diterpenoids from Euphorbia hyberna L

A new diterpene tetraester, from the jatrophane family, and two new diterpene triesters, with a lathyrane skeleton, have been isolated from the chloroform extract of the roots of Euphorbia hyberna L. The structures of these compounds have been established by spectroscopic methods, including 2D NMR experiments.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Automatic Generation of Questionnaires for Supporting Users during the Execution of Declarative Business Process Models

When designing an imperative business process (BP) model, analysts have to face many design requirements (e.g., managing uncertainty, optimizing conflicting objective functions). To facilitate such design, declarative BP models are increasingly used. However, how to execute a given declarative model can be quite challenging since there are typically several variants related to such model, each one presenting different degree of goodness. To support users working on declarative models while a high flexibility is maintained, we propose removing the worst variants from the source declarative model at design time while keeping the best variants. This way, the variants which are kept are narrowed down incrementally during run-time. For managing these variants during run-time we suggest to build upon configurable BP models. To configure such models, we additionally propose to automatically generate questionnaires. The results over a real case study are promising

On the resolution of cosmic coincidence problem and phantom crossing with triple interacting fluids

We here investigate a cosmological model in which three fluids interact with each other involving certain coupling parameters and energy exchange rates. The motivation of the problem stems from the puzzling `triple coincidence problem' which naively asks why the cosmic energy densities of matter, radiation and dark energy are almost of the same order of magnitude at the present time. In our model, we determine the conditions under triple interacting fluids will cross the phantom divide.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures, to appear in Eur. Phys. J. C (2009

A Unified Experimental/Theoretical Description of the Ultrafast Photophysics of Single and Double Thionated Uracils

Photoinduced processes in thiouracil derivatives have lately attracted considerable attention due to their suitability for innovative biological and pharmacological applications. Here, sub-20 fs broadband transient absorption spectroscopy in the near-UV are combined with CASPT2/MM decay path calculations to unravel the excited-state decay channels of water solvated 2-thio and 2,4-dithiouracil. These molecules feature linear absorption spectra with overlapping ππ* bands, leading to parallel decay routes which we systematically track for the first time. The results reveal that different processes lead to the triplet states population, both directly from the ππ* absorbing state and via the intermediate nπ* dark state. Moreover, the 2,4-dithiouracil decay pathways is shown to be strongly correlated either to those of 2- or 4-thiouracil, depending on the sulfur atom on which the electronic transition localizes