Process Execution Environment Research Articles

CHALLENGES OF USING LIVE PROCESS MIGRATION IN DISTRIBUTED EXASCALE SYSTEMS

Virtual machine-based process migrator mechanisms have the potential to be used in distributed exascale systems due to their ability to execute process execution and support environments with the heterogenous of the computational unit. The ability to reduce process suspension time and use the concept of live process migrator makes it possible to use this mechanism to transfer processes in distributed exascale systems to prevent related process activity failure. The performance function of a virtual machine-based process migrator mechanism cannot manage dynamic and interactive events and the effects of this event on the mechanism operation and the change in the basic concept of system activity from the concept of the process to the concept of global activity. This paper examines the challenges of dynamic and interactive event occurrence on virtual machine-based process migrators by analyzing VM-based migrator's performance function

A knowledge-intensive adaptive business process management framework

Business process management has been the driving force of optimization and operational efficiency for companies until now, but the digitalization era we have been experiencing requires businesses to be agile and responsive as well. In order to be a part of this digital transformation, delivering new levels of automation-fueled agility through digitalization of BPM itself is required. However, the automation of BPM cannot be achieved by solely focusing on process space and classical planning techniques. It requires a holistic approach that also captures the social aspects of the business environment, such as corporate strategies, organization policies, negotiations, and cooperation. For this purpose, we combine BPM, knowledge-intensive systems and intelligent agent technologies, and yield one consolidated intelligent business process management framework, namely agileBPM, that governs the entire BPM life-cycle. Accordingly, agileBPM proposes a modeling methodology to semantically capture the business interests, enterprise environment and process space in accordance with the agent-oriented software engineering paradigm. The proposed agent-based process execution environment provides cognitive capabilities (such as goal-driven planning, norm compliance, knowledge-driven actions, and dynamic cooperation) on top of the developed business models to support knowledge workers’ multi-criteria decision making tasks. The context awareness and exception handling capabilities of the proposed approach have been presented with experimental studies. Through comparative evaluations, it is shown that agileBPM is the most comprehensive knowledge-intensive process management solution.

A survey on dynamic modeling of manipulation of nanoparticles based on atomic force microscope and investigation of involved factors

In this article, the collection of studies with regard to the modeling of nanomanipulation based on atomic force microscope (AFM) is discussed. To model the manipulation process, two-dimensional and three-dimensional models in the classical environment and molecular dynamics can be presented. The decisive factor in determining the solution’s type depends on the dimensions and application of manipulation. In general, however, benefiting from multiscale methods offers more realistic results from the inherent characteristics of AFM point of view. In addition, the manipulation process is examined empirically. Different parameters affect the process. Overall, these include the geometric properties of AFM, geometric properties and material of nanoparticles, process execution environment, initial impact of nanoparticles, contact mechanics, and roughness. The geometric parameters of AFM have less importance compared with other factors. The material and geometry of nanoparticles and environmental reaction play their most dominant role in contact and roughness equations as well as intermolecular forces. For instance, for softer nanoparticles, elastoplastic and viscoelastic contact theories are more suited. In contrast, in environments except vacuum and air, roughness models with more developed adhesion terms are better choices. Employing complex contact theories can provide us with permanent deformations, roughness, reduction in force, and critical indentation depth. In addition to the involved parameters in modeling the nanomanipulation process, path planning techniques for obtaining the optimal path and control of the AFM set for its exact execution are other influential notions.

MakeSense: Simplifying the Integration of Wireless Sensor Networks into Business Processes

A wide gap exists between the state of the art in developing Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) software and current practices concerning the design, execution, and maintenance of business processes. WSN software is most often developed based on low-level OS abstractions, whereas business process development leverages high-level languages and tools. This state of affairs places WSNs at the fringe of industry. The makeSense system addresses this problem by simplifying the integration of WSNs into business processes. Developers use BPMN models extended with WSN-specific constructs to specify the application behavior across both traditional business process execution environments and the WSN itself, which is to be equipped with application-specific software. We compile these models into a high-level intermediate language—also directly usable by WSN developers—and then into OS-specific deployment-ready binaries. Key to this process is the notion of meta-abstraction, which we define to capture fundamental patterns of interaction with and within the WSN. The concrete realization of meta-abstractions is application-specific; developers tailor the system configuration by selecting concrete abstractions out of the existing codebase or by providing their own. Our evaluation of makeSense shows that i) users perceive our approach as a significant advance over the state of the art, providing evidence of the increased developer productivity when using makeSense; ii) in large-scale simulations, our prototype exhibits an acceptable system overhead and good scaling properties, demonstrating the general applicability of makeSense; and, iii) our prototype—including the complete tool-chain and underlying system support—sustains a real-world deployment where estimates by domain specialists indicate the potential for drastic reductions in the total cost of ownership compared to wired and conventional WSN-based solutions.

Toward a framework for self-adaptive workflows in cyber-physical systems

With the establishment of Cyber-physical Systems (CPS) and the Internet of Things, the virtual world of software and services and the physical world of objects and humans move closer together. Despite being a useful means for automation, BPM technologies and workflow systems are yet not fully capable of executing processes in CPS. The effects on and possible errors and inconsistencies in the physical world are not considered by “traditional” workflow engines. In this work we propose a framework for self-adaptive workflows in CPS based on the MAPE-K feedback loop. Within this loop monitoring and analysis of additional sensor and context data is used to check for unanticipated errors in the physical world. Planning and execution of compensation actions restores Cyber-physical Consistency, which leads to an increased resilience of the process execution environment. The framework facilitates the separation of CPS aspects from the “regular” workflow views. We show the feasibility of this approach in a smart home scenario and discuss the application of our approach for legacy BPM systems.

Containerization of high level architecture-based simulations: A case study

NATO and the nations use distributed simulation environments for various purposes, such as training, mission rehearsal, and decision support in acquisition processes. Consequently, modeling and simulation (M&S) has become a critical technology for the coalition and its nations. Achieving interoperability between participating simulation systems and ensuring credibility of results currently often requires enormous effort with regards to time, personnel, and budget. Recent technical developments in the area of cloud computing technology and service oriented architecture (SOA) may offer opportunities to better utilize M&S capabilities in order to satisfy NATO critical needs. A new concept that includes service orientation and the provision of M&S applications via the as-a-service model of cloud computing may enable composable simulation environments that can be deployed rapidly and on-demand. This new concept is known as M&S as a Service (MSaaS). There has also been the recent emergence of containerization as an alternative to virtualization. Containerization is the process of creating, packaging, distributing, deploying, and executing applications in a lightweight and standardized process execution environment known as a container. Because containers are, in principle, lightweight, they are suitable to serve as the vehicle for the provision of packaged (micro)services. Service orientation is an approach to the design of heterogeneous, distributed systems in which solution logic is structured in the form of interoperating services. This paper investigates various aspects of service orientation and containerization including simulation composition, networking, discovery, scalability, and overall performance. This investigation provides background information on the topics of service orientation, containerization, and Docker – a technology ecosystem for working with containers. A case study is presented for the use of Docker in support of a training simulation based on the high level architecture (HLA). The HLA is an IEEE standard architecture for distributed simulation environments that was originally developed for defense applications. The case study introduces a number of training use cases, and shows how Docker can be used to assist in their implementation. The performance impact of running a simulation within container technology is also investigated. The application of container technology to HLA-based simulations as presented in this paper is novel. The motivation for looking at this topic stems from the activity being conducted within NATO MSG-136.

Improving business process intelligence by observing object state transitions

During the execution of business processes several events happen that are recorded in the company's information systems. These events deliver insights into process executions so that process monitoring and analysis can be performed resulting, for instance, in prediction of upcoming process steps or the analysis of the run time of single steps. While event capturing is trivial when a process engine with integrated logging capabilities is used, manual process execution environments do not provide automatic logging of events, so that typically external devices, like bar code scanners, have to be used. As experience shows, these manual steps are error-prone and induce additional work. Therefore, we use object state transitions as additional monitoring information, so-called object state transition events. Based on these object state transition events, we reason about the enablement and termination of activities and provide the basis for process monitoring and analysis in terms of a large event log. In this paper, we present the concept to utilize information from these object state transition events for capturing process progress. Furthermore, we discuss a methodology to create the required design time artifacts that then are used for monitoring at run time. In a proof-of-concept implementation, we show how the design time and run time side work and prove applicability of the introduced concept of object state transition events.

Virtual Machining Environment Construction in Vericut for Process Planning

Virtual machining environment in Vericut was proposed with purpose of enhancing process planning practice training for undergraduates. Main issues include construction of virtual manufacturing resource library and virtual machining process execution environment for planned process. Virtual manufacturing resource library is composed of virtual and digital models for diverse kinds of machine tools. Type determination and classification principle of machine tools and virtual equipment modeling method in the proposed environment are studied. Virtual machining for particular process by multi setup and cut stock transfer method are defined. The proposed Virtual machining process execution environment provides effective ways for enrolled undergraduates applying machining knowledge in process planning, gaining experience with advanced machine tools and manufacturing technology in industrial world.

Business process artefact adaptability approach based on artificial immune systems

Changes in business conditions have forced enterprises to continuously be dynamic and flexible. Recent research has focused on developing adaptive business process management systems. However, those approaches do not take in consideration the business process context execution. On the other hand, modularity concern is a common strategy to a lower application complexity: it results in modules that are easy to maintain, to adapt, and to replace. In this work, each activity of a business process is encapsulated in an entity named artefact. These artefacts have an interface, a function and manual instruction described with very expressive formal languages that manage high level concepts. This study aims to apply artificial immune systems AIS to business process applications making their business process artefacts capable to be adaptive to changes that their environments are faced. We explore how in some ways, stimulus or change in business process execution environment can be considered as an antigen and the business process fragment artefact considered as antibody react to this stimulus.

Process Evolution in a Distributed Process Execution Environment

To allow the distribution of control and visibility of cross-organizational process models and increase availability and performance of the processes, a process model can be fragmented into logically different parts and distributed in the enterprise architecture. Fragmentation algorithms and execution environments which connect the fragmented process model parts together, recreating the original process execution semantics, have been proposed in earlier work. However, a critical challenge that is left open is the ability of the distributed process execution environment to respond effectively to process changes. In this paper, the authors describe the difficulties, advantages and issues of process model change support in a fragmented and distributed environment. Moreover, the authors propose a system which tackles the identified issues and allows the propagation and coordination of process changes at runtime in the distributed process execution architecture.

Integrated Process and Data Management for Healthcare Applications

Healthcare applications are demanding with respect to their IT needs. Due to their complexity they need strong IT support which must provide enough freedom to their users in the medical domain because of the high degree of flexibility required by them. We have chosen a process based technology, called data logistics, which can cope with these almost conflicting requirements. Data logistics is based on clinical processes. However, when data logistics processes are executed, this happens transparently to the users and provides them a huge degree of freedom in determining the sequence of process execution. In order to cope with these challenging features, the process execution environment for data logistics processes is generated according to our model driven development approach called process driven architecture (PDA). Several clinical studies illustrate the feasibility, effectiveness, and efficiency of the data logistics approach. This article both exposes the rationale of the data logistics approach and provides a deep inside into the implementation concepts.

A TCPN based approach to model the coordination in virtual manufacturing organizations☆

The recent developments of communication technologies and network computing have enabled the occurrence of the advanced manufacturing strategy--agile manufacturing. The essence of the agile manufacturing strategy is to form a virtual manufacturing organization (VMO), which integrates the core competencies of member enterprises in order to respond to the global market and increasing customer requirements rapidly. In a VMO, the manufacturing processes are distributed. So modeling and coordination of these processes are very complex. In this paper, we present a Petri Net based approach to model these distributed manufacturing processes and interaction relations among them. A workflow based manufacturing process execution environment is also established to support the implementation of the distributed manufacturing processes.

A TCPN based approach to model the coordination in virtual manufacturing organizations$star;*1

The recent developments of communication technologies and network computing have enabled the occurrence of the advanced manufacturing strategy—agile manufacturing. The essence of the agile manufacturing strategy is to form a virtual manufacturing organization (VMO), which integrates the core competencies of member enterprises in order to respond to the global market and increasing customer requirements rapidly. In a VMO, the manufacturing processes are distributed. So modeling and coordination of these processes are very complex. In this paper, we present a Petri Net based approach to model these distributed manufacturing processes and interaction relations among them. A workflow based manufacturing process execution environment is also established to support the implementation of the distributed manufacturing processes.

A framework for evaluating specification methods for reactive systems-experience report

Numerous formal specification methods for reactive systems have been proposed in the literature. Because the significant differences between the methods are hard to determine, choosing the best method for a particular application can be difficult. We have applied several different methods, including Modechart, VFSM, ESTEREL, Basic LOTOS, Z, SDL, and C, to an application problem encountered in the design of software for AT&T's 5ESS telephone switching system. We have developed a set of criteria for evaluating and comparing the different specification methods. We argue that the evaluation of a method must take into account not only academic concerns, but also the maturity of the method, its compatibility with the existing software development process and system execution environment, and its suitability for the chosen application domain.