DW-RBAC: A formal security model of delegation and revocation in workflow systems

One reason workflow systems have been criticized as being inflexible is that they lack support for delegation. This paper shows how delegation can be introduced in a workflow system by extending the role-based access control (RBAC) model. The current RBAC model is a security mechanism to implement access control in organizations by allowing users to be assigned to roles and privileges to be associated with the roles. Thus, users can perform tasks based on the privileges possessed by their own role or roles they inherit by virtue of their organizational position. However, there is no easy way to handle delegations within this model. This paper tries to treat the issues surrounding delegation in workflow systems in a comprehensive way. We show how delegations can be incorporated into the RBAC model in a simple and straightforward manner. The new extended model is called RBAC with delegation in a workflow context (DW-RBAC). It allows for delegations to be specified from a user to another user, and later revoked when the delegation is no longer required. The implications of such specifications and their subsequent revocations are examined. Several formal definitions for assertion, acceptance, execution and revocation are provided, and proofs are given for the important properties of our delegation framework.     

Improving process models by discovering decision points

Workflow management systems (WfMS) are widely used by business enterprises as tools for administrating, automating and scheduling the business process activities with the available resources. Since the control flow specifications of workflows are manually designed, they entail assumptions and errors, leading to inaccurate workflow models. Decision points, the XOR nodes in a workflow graph model, determine the path chosen toward completion of any process invocation. In this work, we show that positioning the decision points at their earliest points can improve process efficiency by decreasing their uncertainties and identifying redundant activities. We present novel techniques to discover the earliest positions by analyzing workflow logs and to transform the model graph. The experimental results show that the transformed model is more efficient with respect to its average execution time and uncertainty, when compared to the original model.     

The Application of Critical Path Method (CPM) in Workflow Schema of Marble Processing Plants

The critical path method (CPM) is a widely applied technique in large-scale industrial project planning and control. Based on a detailed review of the current literature, no references have been found referring to the use of the CPM in marble processing plants and other industrial mineral plants. In this regard, this study proposes a new application area of CPM and suggests the implementation details of mineral processing workflows with particular emphasis on marble production facilities. In the study, the CPM is applied to marble processing plants for selecting an applicable production process and for determining the workflow schema in order to optimize the cost of operation and to effectively manage time. As a consequence of this analysis, a new production plan is proposed for medium-scale marble processing plants. A suitable marble processing plant has been built and taken into operation in accordance with the proposed plant plan. It has been observed that this plant has a higher production rate at a preferable capacity when compared to three other plants studied as a part of this research.     

基于CSCW技术工作流系统

本文研究了基于Web Services技术的协同工作流在信息系统中的作用,并分别结合CSCW、工作流系统和WebServices的技术优点.讨论了新的基于Web Services的协同工作流系统结构.     

迁移工作流系统模型及框架

目前工作流管理系统在应用过程中普遍存在着建模过程很难完整正确描述业务过程和当具体的业务过程发生很小的变化时,工作流流程定义需要相应的改动等情况,针对这种情况,通过对基于移动agent的工作流管理系统的研究基础上,提出了迁移工作流的系统模型及相关概念,并构建了迁移工作流系统框架,通过迁移工作流的相关特性解决上述问题。     

Reliable workflow scheduling with less resource redundancy

We examine the problem of reliable workflow scheduling with less resource redundancy. As scheduling workflow applications in heterogeneous systems, either for optimizing the reliability or for minimizing the makespan, are NP-Complete problems, we alternatively find schedules for meeting specific reliability and deadline requirements. First, we analyze the reliability of a given schedule using two important definitions: Accumulated Processor Reliability (APR) and Accumulated Communication Reliability (ACR). Second, inspired by the reliability analysis, we present three scheduling algorithms: RR algorithm schedules least Resources to meet the Reliability requirement; DRR algorithm extends RR by further considering the Deadline requirement; and dynamic algorithm schedules tasks dynamically: It avoids the “Chain effect” caused by uncertainties on the task execution time estimates, and relieves the impact from the inaccuracy on failure estimation. Finally, the empirical evaluation shows that our algorithms can save a significant amount of computation and communication resources when performing a similar reliability compared to Fault-Tolerant-Scheduling-Algorithm (FTSA) algorithm.     

A reflective infrastructure for workflow adaptability

We present a flexible framework that enables workflow systems to adapt to changing conditions. The model is designed to reveal key aspects of the tasks involved in representing and enacting business processes. These fundamental characteristics are identified as state, behaviour, distribution, coordination and enactment. By isolating such core concepts in a way that allows them to be varied, we open up the general process of task coordination and execution, allowing for extensions in a planned way. By suitable manipulation of each of these aspects, at the appropriate level, a workflow system may be extensively modified in a way that minimises the effect of such change upon other aspects of the system.     

敏捷产品开发的研究

为了适应市场全球化的发展趋势，现代企业必须能够面对不断变化的市场，迅速作出反映。这就要求企业具有敏捷产品开发的能力。敏捷产品开发要求企业的产品开发资源具有可扩充性、可重用性和可扩展性的特点。基于Ｉｎｔｅｒｎｅｔ／ＣＯＲＢＡ的多智能主体结构的产品开发模式使得企业具有这种敏捷的特性。文章论述了这种基于多智能主体结构产品开发模式，和Ｉｎｔｅｒｎｅｔ／ＵＣＯＲＢＡ技术和工作流管理技术在敏捷产品开发模式中的重要作用。     

基于工作流的中小企业绩效评价平台的研究

根据当前中小企业信息化建设的需要,将工作流技术应用于绩效评价平台的设计中,设计了通用的中小企业绩效评价平台,满足了不同企业对员工绩效评价的要求。     

A reference model for team-enabled workflow management systems

Today's workflow systems assume that each work item is executed by a single worker. From the viewpoint of the system, a worker with the proper qualifications selects a work item, executes the associated work, and reports the result. There is usually no support for teams, i.e., groups of people collaborating by jointly executing work items (e.g., the program committee of a conference, the management team of a company, a working group, and the board of directors). In this paper, we propose the addition of a team concept to today's workflow management systems. Clearly, this involves a marriage of workflow and groupware technology. To shed light on the introduction of teams, we extend the traditional organizational meta model with teams and propose a team-enabled workflow reference model. For this reference model and to express constraints with respect to the distribution of work to teams, we use object constraint language (OCL).