Adaptation in mobile workflow management systems

Workflow management systems (WFMS) are an emerging technology for supporting the coordinated execution of business processes by a group of users. One goal of introducing a WFMS into an enterprise is to integrate all personnel working on a business process into the system. This article describes a new approach to the integration of mobile users into a WFMS. This is of special interest because key personnel such as sales representatives and executives are often travelling and can only be integrated into the WFMS through mobile computing technologies. After introducing an architecture for mobile WFMS, we focus on the handling of one specific feature of mobile systems: the high diversity of environments in which mobile users operate. For handling this feature we have to implement adaptable software systems. In our approach, we start by introducing a formal model of mobile systems. This model offers a basis for the use of optimisation techniques to realise an adaptive mobile WFMS.     

Process-oriented architectures for electronic commerce and interorganizational workflow

The Internet's World Wide Web has become the prime driver of contemporary Electronic commerce (E-commerce). Although the emphasis has moved from Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) to the Internet, the focus is still on the technology required to exchange information rather than supporting business processes crossing organizational borders. E-commerce is not just about facilitating individual business transactions, it also comprises the management of the causal relations between these transactions. This paper stresses the process aspect of E-commerce by relating it to workflow management. Traditional workflow management systems assume one centralized enactment service and have problems dealing with dynamic changes and local variations. Since E-commerce is characterized by interorganizational workflows distributed over autonomous business units, these systems tend to be useless in the context of E-commerce. This paper reviews new and existing architectures to enable interorganizational workflow. The presentation focuses on two approaches to partition an interorganizational workflow over multiple business partners. Both approaches are evaluated. One of the key concerns in this paper is the possibility to verify the correctness of the interorganizational workflow. The dynamics of the marketplace, with rapid changing business processes and relationships, underlines the need for verification tools.     

What agents can do in workflow management systems

Workflow management systems are an emerging category of information systems, currently under dynamic evolution. On the other hand software agents are a distinct research area as well as an emerging paradigm for information systems design and development. This paper tries to examine the integration of these two fields; reveal the stimulation and the advantages of such a mixing. Popular standards of the workflow management field are used to derive a classification scheme, which is exploited to map existing approaches. As a significant number of existing approaches is reviewed, a plethora of integration patterns are identified and grouped according to the proposed classification scheme. The overall goal of the paper is to clear the vague picture of the consolidation of workflow management systems and software agents and to provide an unifying framework for this intersected area.     

移动边缘环境下面向工作流管理的计算迁移方法

针对移动边缘环境下移动设备大量的能源消耗问题，为了优化移动设备的能源消耗，提出一种能耗感知的工作流计算迁移（EOW）方法。首先，基于排队论分析边缘设备中计算任务的平均等待时间，建立了移动设备的时间模型和能耗模型；然后，基于非支配排序算法（NSGA-Ⅲ）提出对应的计算迁移方法，对工作流的计算任务进行合理的分配，将一部分计算任务留在移动设备处理，或者迁移到边缘计算平台和远程云端，实现每个移动设备的节能目标；最后，通过CloudSim仿真平台对提出的计算迁移方法进行仿真和对比实验。实验结果表明，EOW方法能够明显地减少每个移动设备的能源消耗，同时满足每一个工作流的截止时间的要求。     

Structured workflow approach to support evolvability

This work aims at explicitly modelling key concepts of the evolution process to support the product development process of complex multi-disciplinary systems such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) systems. The key concepts span over different domains of the product development process: product use (workflow models), system functionality (Function–Behaviour–State modelling), component interfaces (Design Structure Matrix and Interface model) and the organisational view (stakeholder analysis). By having an explicit view on these domains, effectiveness of change management is improved by showing how changes in one domain propagate to other domains. The focus on simplicity of the models and human understandable language is essential to ensure understanding by all (non-engineering) stakeholders such as nurses and physicians from the start of the evolution process. From these models a modularisation of the system can be extracted. The modularisation separates closely connected elements and thereby reduces the risk of unknown future changes having a high impact. The method is illustrated using a real industrial example, namely, the development of a product that facilitates intra-operative MRI.     

Using cooperative mobile agents to monitor distributed and dynamic environments

Monitoring the changes in data values obtained from the environment (e.g., locations of moving objects) is a primary concern in many fields, as for example in the pervasive computing environment. The monitoring task is challenging from a double perspective. First and foremost, the environment can be highly dynamic in terms of the rate of data changes. Second, the monitored data are often not available from a single computer/device but are distributed; moreover, the set of data providers can change along the course of time. Therefore, obtaining a global snapshot of the environment and keeping it up-to-date is not easy, especially if the conditions (e.g., network delays) change.In this article, a decentralized, loose, and fault-tolerant monitoring approach based on the use of mobile agents is described. Mobile agents allow easy tracking of the involved computers, carrying the monitoring tasks to wherever they are needed. A deadline-based mechanism is used to coordinate the cooperative agents, which strive to perform their continuous tasks in time while considering data as recent as possible, constantly adapting themselves to new environmental conditions (changing communication and processing delays). This approach has been successfully used in a real environment and experiments were carried out to prove its feasibility and benefits.     

Product-based workflow support

Despite the industrial need for the improvement of information-intensive business processes, few scientifically grounded approaches exist to support such initiatives. In this paper, we propose a new approach that builds on concepts that are part of a product-oriented view on process optimization. Essentially, this approach allows end users to flexibly decide on the best possible way to create an informational product within the limits that are imposed by regulations and logical dependencies. We argue that this provides various benefits in comparison to earlier work. To support end users in making sensible decisions, we describe two alternative approaches to provide them with recommendations to this end. We formalize these alternatives and discuss their relative strengths and weaknesses. The feasibility of the overall approach, which we refer to as Product-Based Workflow Support, is demonstrated by a workflow system that is realized using ProM and DECLARE.     

基于工作流和智能手机的城市综合管理平台

为适应现代城市综合管理的需要,提高城市管理水平,提出利用GIS技术的二三维一体化联动提高管理平台可视化;基于工作流的管理使事件处理更加自动化;利用智能手机的方便使管理人员与系统进行动态交互;利用模糊数学提高任务完成质量评价的科学性。整个平台在Windows7下进行开发,基于B/S(浏览器/服务器)和C/S(客户端/服务器)结合的架构,运用JavaEE、工作流、模糊数学、无线通信、视频融合等技术,实现平台对交通灯、人员、车辆、消防、事件和任务的管理。     

基于移动代理的网管研究

由于计算机网络和通信网络内在的复杂性,并且随着网络的不断发展,传统集中式网络管理已经越来越不能满足实际的需要,采用分布式管理策略已经成为网络管理研究和发展的重要方向。针对目前这种现状,提出基于移动代理的网络管理策略,使得网络管理具有分布式管理的功能,提高网络管理的灵活性和自主性,解决集中式网络管理中存在的缺陷和问题。通过建立移动代理工作运行模型,并在相同的网络条件下,与传统网络管理策略进行分析比较,确立基于移动代理网络管理策略的优势。     

Introduction to mobile agents

This article will lead you into the world of mobile agents, an emerging technology that makes it much easier to design, implement and maintain distributed systems. You will find that mobile agents reduce network traffic and provide an effective means of overcoming network latency. Perhaps most important, through their ability to operate asynchronously and independently of the process that created them, they help you to construct highly robust and fault-tolerant systems thereby directly or indirectly benefiting the end user.Read on and let us introduce you to software agents, including mobile as well as stationary agents. We will explain the benefits of mobile agents and demonstrate the impact they have on the design of distributed systems. This article then concludes with a brief overview of some contemporary mobile agent systems.This article is based on a chapter of a book by the authors entitledProgramming and Deploying Java ^TM Mobile Agents with Aglets ^TM, ISBN 0-201-32582-9, Addison-Wesley, 1998.     

Global transaction support for workflow management systems: from formal specification to practical implementation

In this paper, we present an approach to global transaction management in workflow environments. The transaction mechanism is based on the well-known notion of compensation, but extended to deal with both arbitrary process structures to allow cycles in processes and safepoints to allow partial compensation of processes. We present a formal specification of the transaction model and transaction management algorithms in set and graph theory, providing clear, unambiguous transaction semantics. The specification is straightforwardly mapped to a modular architecture, the implementation of which is first applied in a testing environment, then in the prototype of a commercial workflow management system. The modular nature of the resulting system allows easy distribution using middleware technology. The path from abstract semantics specification to concrete, real-world implementation of a workflow transaction mechanism is thus covered in a complete and coherent fashion. As such, this paper provides a complete framework for the application of well-founded transactional workflows. Received: 16 November 1999 / Accepted 29 August 2001 Published online: 6 November 2001     

Using RSS to support mobile learning based on media richness theory

With the rapid development of mobile technologies, mobile learning has become a new trend in education. A better understanding of how to effectively use communication technologies to improve mobile learning is important. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the media richness of various message delivery methods in the proposed m-learning environment based on media richness theory. Regarding the implications of the media richness theory, this study has identified four factors to evaluate a content in respect to the media richness among SMS, Email, and RSS: timeliness, richness, accuracy and adaptability. By the repeated-measures one-way ANOVA analysis, the results show that: (1) SMS has better performance than Email and RSS on content timeliness; thus SMS may be appropriate for immediate information delivery such as notifying or reminding of some time-sensitive matters; (2) Email has better performance than SMS and RSS on content richness and so may be applied in exhaustive information delivery; (3) RSS has better performance than SMS and Email on content accuracy and adaptability; thus RSS is more appropriate for supporting various front-end mobile devices to access and present the content in a mobile learning environment. According to the results, this study suggests developer and designer of an m-learning environment could adopt suitable information delivery medium to support the corresponding learning activities in a mobile learning environment; moreover, current general e-learning systems, particularly those intending to provide a mobile learning environment, can take advantage of RSS techniques to support mobile access and achieve the goal of mobile learning anytime and anywhere.     

Context-aware workflow management for virtual enterprises based on coordination of agents

Although virtual enterprises (VE) make it possible for small flexible enterprises to form a collaborative network to respond to business opportunities through dynamic coalition and sharing of the core competencies and resources, they also pose new challenges and issues. Creation of VE involves dynamically established partnerships between the partners and relies on a flexible coordination scheme. The dynamic organizations formed in VE present a challenge in the development of a new methodology to dynamically allocate re-sources and deliver the relevant information to the right people at the right time. A key issue is the development of an effective workflow management scheme for VE. Multi-agent systems (MAS) provide a flexible architecture to deal with changes based on dynamic organization and collaboration of autonomous agents. Despite the extensive studies and research results on MAS, development of a design methodology to support coordination and operations is critical to the success and adoption of VE. The objectives of this research are to propose a design methodology to facilitate coordination and development of context-aware workflow management systems and achieve effective resource allocation for VE based on MAS architecture. To achieve these objectives, a scheme for coordination of agents is proposed. Petri net models are used in the coordination scheme to describe workflows and capture resource activities in VE. The interactions between agents lead to a dynamic workflow model for VE. Based on the aforementioned model, we propose architecture to dynamically generate context-aware graphical user interface to guide the users and control resource allocation based on the state of VE. An order management example is used throughout this paper to illustrate the proposed design methodology.     

Analysis of mobile agents in network fault management

Network domains have become more and more advanced in terms of their size, complexity and the level of heterogeneity. Comprehensive fault management is the most significant challenge in network management. Fault management can help increase the availability of the network by quickly identifying the faults and then, proactively, start the recovery process. Current centralized configured network management systems suffer from problems such as insufficient scalability, availability and flexibility as networks become more distributed. Mobile agents (MAs), with integral intelligence, can present a reasonable new technology that will help to achieve distributed management, several researchers have embraced these approaches. In this paper, we introduce a general analytical model for network management client/server (CS) and MA paradigms. We express how to build up an analytical framework, which can be used to quantitatively assess the performances of the MA and CS paradigms under different scenarios. We present some numerical and experimental results that demonstrate the applicability of our proposed framework, which will be based on a combination of MA and CS schemes called Adaptive Intelligent Mobile Agent.     

Using conversational agents to support the adoption of knowledge sharing practices

In this paper, we present an agent-based system designed to support the adoption of knowledge sharing practices within communities. The system is based on a conceptual framework that, by modelling the adoption of knowledge management practices as a change process, identifies the pedagogical strategies best suited to support users through the various stages of the adoption process. Learning knowledge management practices is seen as a continuous process, taking place at individual and social level that includes the acquisition of information, as well as the contextual use of the information acquired.The resulting community-based system provides each member of the community with an artificial personal change-management agent capable of guiding users in the acquisition and adoption of new knowledge sharing practices by activating personalised and contextualised intervention.     

Exotica/FMDC: A workflow management system for mobile and disconnected clients

Workflow Management Systems (WFMSs) automate the execution of business processes in environments encompassing large numbers of users distributed over a wide geographic area and using heterogeneous resources. Current implementations allow the definition and controlled execution of complex and long lived business processes as the basis for an enterprise-wide collaborative system but, in most cases, the autonomy of the users is greatly restricted due to architectural and design considerations. In particular, existing systems are built around a centralized server. As a result, users need to maintain an uninterrupted connection with the server to perform the different tasks assigned to them. This is a severe restriction, especially when considering the emergence of mobile computing, and the increase in use of laptops and small computers which are connected to the network only occasionally and which will, undoubtedly, be the tool of choice for many users. This paper addresses the problem of supporting disconnected workflow clients in large workflow management systems while still preserving the correctness of the overall execution and allowing coordinated interactions between the different users regardless of their location.Recommended by: Daniel Barbara, Ravi Jain, Narayanan Krishnakumar     

基于移动代理的工作流原型研究与设计

快速发展的移动代理和网格技术给工作流提供了新的集成各种分布式资源的计算环境。传统的工作流架构有很多弱点,比如在动态环境中缺少灵活性等。提出了一个集成Web Services,网格,工作流和移动代理技术的分布式工作流架构,可以通过移动代理间的通讯来达到工作流之间协同工作,而且这个架构增强了工作流的灵活性和可靠性,以这个新的模型为基础实现了一个具体的工作流工作站,且可实现系统的安全使用。     

A policy-based B2C e-Contract management workflow methodology using semantic web agents

Since e-Commerce has become a discipline, e-Contracts are acknowledged as the tools that will assure the safety and robustness of the transactions. A typical e-Contract is a binding agreement between parties that creates relations and obligations. It consists of clauses that address specific tasks of the overall procedure which can be represented as workflows. Similarly to e-Contracts, Intelligent Agents manage a private policy, a set of rules representing requirements, obligations and restrictions, additionally to personal data that meet their user’s interests. In this context, this study aims at proposing a policy-based e-Contract workflow management methodology that can be used by semantic web agents, since agents benefit from Semantic Web technologies for data and policy exchanges, such as RDF and RuleML that maximize interoperability among parties. Furthermore, this study presents the integration of the above methodology into a multi-agent knowledge-based framework in order to deal with issues related to rules exchange where no common syntax is used, since this framework provides reasoning services that assist agents in interpreting the exchanged policies. Finally, a B2C e-Commerce scenario is presented that demonstrates the added value of the approach.     

An overview of workflow management: From process modeling to workflow automation infrastructure

Today's business enterprises must deal with global competition, reduce the cost of doing business, and rapidly develop new services and products. To address these requirements enterprises must constantly reconsider and optimize the way they do business and change their information systems and applications to support evolving business processes. Workflow technology facilitates these by providing methodologies and software to support (i) business process modeling to capture business processes as workflow specifications, (ii) business process reengineering to optimize specified processes, and (iii) workflow automation to generate workflow implementations from workflow specifications. This paper provides a high-level overview of the current workflow management methodologies and software products. In addition, we discuss the infrastructure technologies that can address the limitations of current commercial workflow technology and extend the scope and mission of workflow management systems to support increased workflow automation in complex real-world environments involving heterogeneous, autonomous, and distributed information systems. In particular, we discuss how distributed object management and customized transaction management can support further advances in the commercial state of the art in this area. Recomended by: Omran Bukhres and e. Kühn     

面向Web的工作流管理

提出了一种以Internet技术为基础的面向Web核心环境的企业工作管理控制系统，面向Web的企业工作流管理控制系统不仅在时间和空间上突破了传统工作系统的应用局限性，而且还能够在开发和管理方面，通过软件构件的包装协作方式解决开放式网络环境下的协作自动化管理控制问题。