An Introduction to iTasks: Defining Interactive Work Flows for the Web

Workflow systems coordinate tasks of humans and computers. The iTask system is a recently developed toolkit with which workflows can be defined declaratively on a very high level of abstraction. It offers functionality which cannot be found in commercial workflow systems: workflows are constructed dynamically depending on the outcome of earlier work, workflows are strongly typed, and they can be of higher order. From the specification, a web-based multi-user workflow system is generated. Up until now we could only generate thin clients. All information produced by a worker triggers a round trip to the server. For real world workflows this is unsatisfactory. Modern Ajax web technology to update part of a web page is required, as well as the ability to execute tasks on clients. The architecture of any system that supports such features is complex: it manages distributed computing on clients and server which generally involves the collaboration of applications written in different programming languages. The contribution of this paper is that we integrate partial updates of web pages and client side task evaluation within the iTask system, while retaining its approach of a single language and declarative nature. The workflow designer uses light-weight annotations to control the run-time behavior of work. The iTask implementation takes care of all the hard work under the hood. Arbitrary tasks (functional programs) can be evaluated at web clients. When such a task cannot be evaluated on the client for some reason, the system switches to server side evaluation. All communication and synchronization issues are handled by the extended iTask system

Workflow systems have won widespread enterprise adoption due to their role in automation of executive processes. It leads to the development of a wide-range of workflow systems with different design technologies which aid design and implementation of workflows. Though difference in implementation issues, all workflow systems conform to a generic paradigm, which is exposed by abstract substrate of Workflow Patterns. Workflow patterns provide a coherent template for design of workflow systems. However, the dynamism presented in business environments, demands support and management of dynamic changes in the workflow systems designed. To accommodate dynamic change management, we introduce Workflow Change Patterns. Workflow change patterns, abstracting the dynamic behavior of workflow systems, provide a sound substrate for management of dynamism in workflow systems. Based on this idea, we capture and introduce a portion of change behavior of workflow systems in the form of control-flow and data change patterns.

Workflow systems have gained increasing importance in recent decades. Some of the most important drivers for this rising interest have been the shifts within organizations, first in the mid-1990s from function structures to business processes, then more recently toward service oriented architectures. Today workflow systems support a wide range of processes, from the highly standardized to the relatively flexible. The efficient management of workflow is of great importance for the performance of any organization, but it still remains a challenge in dynamic and often unpredictable environments. Methods of dealing with such challenges include dynamic instance adaptation, partial completion, case handling and even manual over-riding in the case of exceptions. Besides classic approaches that utilize stochastic methods, soft computing concepts have been proposed in order to improve the management of workflows; one example is the use of fuzzy Petri nets. In this chapter, we discuss the further potential of soft computing concepts, in particular rough set theory, for supporting the management of workflow systems. We show how rough sets can support the design of lean workflow systems, particularly lean decision rules at decision gate (in particular OR-splits), by detecting excessive and redundant information. Furthermore, we discuss how rough sets can be utilized to disclose missing information in a workflow system. We also discuss where the accountability lies for resolving missing information, and assign the responsibility to either the workflow design or the monitoring phase. Finally, we demonstrate how rough sets help predict the routing of a process within a workflow system. Early information about the routing of a process helps to efficiently allocate the resources of an organization.

A concept is introduced in this article which has strong practical impact for computer aided system configuration. System configuration is a cumbersome and fault sensitive task while setting up systems in a broad range of business applications like ERP (enterprise resource planning) and other workflow-systems. Given a generic process or workflow model in YAWL-notation (yet another workflow language) or any other process modeling language like business process model and notation or WFMC (workflow management coalition), it could be stated that, by using a set of reduction rules as introduced, it is possible to generate a hierarchically structured tree of sub graphs of the workflow graph-representation. According to the notation used, authors call these sub graphs facts. The tree structure of the graph-representation on one hand and the logical relation between the branches and leafs of the tree on the other can be utilized to create a set of constraints and dependencies among the single facts. Some researchers showed that the nested branches can be associated to (predefined) questions with respect to the configuration of a workflow management system, for instance an ERP-application. They presented an algorithm which dynamically sorts the questions and answers in a maximum efficient configuration path, while working through the corresponding questionnaire. By combining the different elements as facts, constraints on questions, and configuration space, it is thus possible to algorithmically generate the efficient structured and interactive questionnaire for the configuration of workflow systems and algorithmically check the consistency (dead lock free, free of synchronization structural conflict) of the underlying workflow model. The concept was tested in the prototype of the interactive questionnaire for configuration of the web-service based ERP-Application

A critical challenge in workflow analysis and design is the verification of workflow models, considering commercial workflow systems merely provide a simulation tool for validating workflow models through trial and error. As a result, the current workflow technology does not guarantee that workflow models do not fail or will behave in a manner expected by the modeler. While a couple of verification methods have been reported in the recent literature, how to verify cyclic workflow models remains an open research question. In this paper, we propose a novel integrated approach of hierarchical decomposition and verification of cyclic workflows. This result is significant since it helps close the research gap that other known workflow verification methods fail to deal with cyclic workflow models.KeywordsSplit NodeGraph ReductionCandidate BlockInstance FlowNest CycleThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

The recent development of broad-band communication technology and of image management and communication systems (IMACS) allows wider use of teleradiology applications. The history of teleradiology is briefly reported, evaluated and the state of the art discussed. Besides the fact that in most applications the transmission speed is still not sufficient, major reasons for limited progress are rather functional in nature. The teleradiology project of Marburg University is presented: the transmission of CT-scans between radiology departments of two hospitals and image transmission inside the main hospital complex. The hard- and software basis of the project is a Siemens IMACS connecting the two hospitals (3,5 km apart) with a glassfiber ethernet connection and linking different types of work stations and videoscreens into the IMACS network. The implementation of the system and detailed work flow analysis showed that the image system is even more influential on the traditional patterns of work flow than was the radiology information system which was introduced in 1987. The evaluation of the literature and of recent teleradiology projects as well as our own experience in the last two years prove that the introduction of teleradiology systems into the work flow of radiology departments is a major organisational undertaking for which most departments will lack appropiate manpower in quantity and quality.

Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) has grown a lot during the last years. But providing user support for constructing workflows is still problematic. The large number of operators available in current KDD systems makes it difficult for a user to successfully solve her task. Also, workflows can easily reach a huge number of operators(hundreds) and parts of the workflows are applied several times. Therefore, it becomes hard for the user to construct them manually. In addition, workflows are not checked for correctness before execution. Hence, it frequently happens that the execution of the workflow stops with an error after several hours runtime. In this paper we present a solution to these problems. We introduce a knowledge-based representation of Data Mining (DM) workflows as a basis for cooperative interactive planning. Moreover, we discuss workflow templates, i.e. abstract workflows that can mix executable operators and tasks to be refined later into sub-workflows. This new representation helps users to structure and handle workflows, as it constrains the number of operators that need to be considered. Finally, workflows can be grouped in templates which foster re-use further simplifying DM workflow construction.

Current commercial workflow systems handle only information that is in digital format. However, when they are applied to actual business in an office, we sometimes want to manage not only digital information but also human activities and documents, under some constraints such as the work context and computer environment. In this study, a workflow that handles information found in the real world as well as digital information in the system is called a oriented To study the workflow, we implemented a prototype workflow system for research budget management in a national facility as a case study. Based on this case study, this paper describes the design principles and methods of supporting the real-world oriented workflow. The effectiveness of the prototype workflow system, which was used for actual business for three years, is shown.

A database interface based on Montague's approachto the interpretation of natural language

The image of workflow systems as being context-insensitive technology, hindering rather than supporting people in performing their work may still exist at present. This impression is also raised in the well-known and often cited case study within Establishment Printers. Using this case as a starting point, this paper presents an analysis of more recent workflow implementations to support the view that modern workflow systems are widely applied in the services industry and are considered useful by performers to support their way of working. In cases where the introduction of workflow technology initially disrupted the flow of work, a wide range of configuration options was available to mend such situations. A detailed analysis of a workflow implementation in a Belgian financial organization clearly shows that re-configuration decisions, like a finer step granularity, can transform a pre-structured production-type workflow system into a flexible application allowing and supporting a smooth flow of work.

Current microscopy techniques hugely profit from modern microscopes producing a massive amount of increasingly complex data which are analysed by sophisticated algorithms. As a result, previously undistinguishable phenomena can be observed. However, this development coincides with new challenges for the biologist executing these experiments. Data storage, data processing, parallelisation, automation, and reproducibility are important factors in mastering these new techniques as they incur additional effort previously of less impact for the biologists. Existing solutions address the mentioned factors separately. Image storage systems manage the storage of data, specialised tool solve individual processing problems, and workflow systems help with automation and ensure reproducibility. Finally, parallelisation is a topic that is slowly gaining traction in the field of the specialised tools. However, there exist gaps between these solutions that the biologist has to bridge by hand, and which lower the overall efficiency. This work introduces a new software, whose design considers the mentioned aspects. It is a plugin to the microscopy images storage system OMERO and is called OPE. This approach eliminates nearly all overhead the biologist faces by integrating a system covering processing, reproducibility, and parallelisation into the data storage.

After analyzing the basic concept and method of Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP), the method based on AOP was presented to solved the security validate, permissions verification, log and so on. Compared to the conventional Object Oriented (OO) approach, AOP technology could avoid such problems as tangled code and scattered code, and had obvious advantages in raising the component reusability, optimizing processes and reducing the system complexity. Finally, an integration example of permissions verification in workflow system was provided, and the implement based on AOP was provided too.

Many scientific endeavors, such as molecular biology, have become dependent on big data and its analysis. For example, precision medicine depends on molecular measurements and data analysis per patient. Data analyses supporting medical decisions must be standardized and performed consistently across patients. While perhaps not life-threatening, data analyses in basic research have become increasingly complex. RNAseq data, for example, entails a multi-step analysis ranging from quality assessment of the measurements to statistical analyses. Workflow management systems (WFMS) enable the development of data analysis workflows (WF), their reproduction, and their application to datasets of the same type. However, far more than a hundred WFMS are available, and there is no way to convert data analysis WFs among WFMS. Therefore, the initial choice of a WFMS is important as it entails a lockin to the system. The reach in their particular field (number of citations) can be used as a proxy for selecting a WFMS, but of the about 25 WFMS we mention in this work, at least 5 have a large reach in scientific data analysis. Hence other criteria are needed to delineate among WFMS. By extracting such criteria from selected studies concerning WFMS and adding additional criteria, we arrived at five critical criteria: reproducibility, reusability, FAIRness, versioning support, and security. Another five criteria (providing a graphical user interface, WF flexibility, WF scalability, WF shareability, and computational transparency) we deemed important but not critical for the assessment of WFMS. We applied the criteria to the most cited WFMS in PubMed and found none that support all criteria. We hope that suggesting these criteria will spark a discussion on what features are important for WFMS in scientific data analysis and may lead to developing WFMS that fulfill such criteria.

As the global marketplace becomes more and more competitive, business organisations often need to team up and operate as a virtual enterprise to utilise the best of their resources for achieving their common business goals. As the business environment of a virtual enterprise is highly dynamic, it is necessary to develop a workflow management technology that is capable of handling dynamic workflows across enterprise boundaries. This paper describes a Dynamic Workflow Model (DWM) and a dynamic workflow management system (DynaFlow) for modelling and controlling the execution of inter-organisational business processes. DWM enables the specification of dynamic properties associated with a business process model. It extends the underlying model of the WfMC's WPDL by adding connectors, events, triggers and rules as its modelling constructs. It also encapsulates activity definitions and allows web service (or e-service) requests to be included as a part of the activity specification. Using DWM as the underlying model, DynaFlow makes use of an Event-Trigger-Rule (ETR) server to trigger rules during the enactment of a workflow process to enforce business rules and policies and/or to modify the process model at run-time. A constraint-based, dynamic service binding mechanism is used to dynamically bind web service requests to web services that satisfy the requirements of the requests.

Integrating and sharing multidisciplinary model data and improving robusticity and validity of product conceptual design system in distributed environment is one of the key technical problems in Virtual Prototype design and simulation of complex products. After long time research on multi-agent systems, an agent-based product conceptual design system combining XML and Web Service technology was proposed, system architecture, communication style and system workflow were illustrated. Further more it discussed product conceptual design development process, decision arithmetic and gave a unified intelligent agent group form for electronic, software and control systems involved in virtual prototyping product conceptual design, realized a service-oriented, supporting distributed, heterogeneous and multi-field collaborative product conceptual design supporting platform.