Dulce Domingos

Authorization and Access Control in Adaptive Workflows

In recent years we have witnessed the development of adaptive workflow management systems. These systems offer an extended set of features to support both ad-hoc and evolutionary changes, while ensuring correctness of process definition and their running instances. Ad-hoc and evolutionary changes impose new access control requirements, which have been neglected by adaptive workflow research and are not met by existing models for traditional workflow management systems (WfMSs). In this paper, we extend the role-based access control model for adaptive workflows. This extension is done by defining authorizations for adaptive WfMSs and adaptive authorizations.

A Two-Step Approach for Modelling Flexibility in Software Processes

In this paper, we present a two-step approach for modelling controlled flexibility in software processes: (1) senior process engineers express which, where and how changes can be applied onto process elements, (2) other process participants can easily identify which changes they are allowed to perform, and act accordingly. To support this, we propose a flexibility meta-model and modelling language, and a software process modelling tool called FlexEPFC. Finally, we compare FlexEPFC with three other prominent process-aware tools: SPADE, JIL/Juliette and Jazz.

Using the semantic web to define a language for modelling controlled flexibility in software processes

Software processes and corresponding models are dynamic entities that must evolve to cope with changes occurred in the enacting process, the software development organisation, the market and the methodologies used to produce software. However, in the everyday practice, software team members do not want total flexibility. They rather prefer to learn about and follow previously defined controlled flexibility, that is, advices on which, where, how and by whom process models and related instances can change/adapt. Process engineers can express these advices within a process model with a domain-specific language (DSL), which complements the core process modelling language with additional controlled flexibility information. Then, software team members can browse and learn on this information in process models and instances, and be guided when performing changes. In this study, the authors propose the use of the semantic web and associated ontology-based technologies to develop and evolve their controlled flexibility DSL for software processes. They use an ontology-based format to define the controlled flexibility-related concepts, descriptions and axioms that specify the formal semantics of their DSL. In addition, the authors provide concrete mappings between these ontology concepts and a unified modelling language class-based DSL metamodel and describe how it supports changes made in the ontology.

FlexSPMF: A Framework for Modelling and Learning Flexibility in Software Processes

Software processes are dynamic entities that are often changed and evolved by skillful knowledge workers such as software development team members. Consequently, flexibility is one of the most important features within software process representations and related tools. However, in the everyday practice, team members do not wish for total flexibility. They rather prefer to learn about and follow previously defined advices on which, where and how they can change/adapt process representations. In this paper we present FlexSPMF: a framework for modelling controlled flexibility in software processes. It comprises three main contributions: 1) identifying a core set of flexibility concepts; 2) extending a Process Modelling Language (PML)s metamodel with these concepts; and 3) providing modelling resources to this extended PML. This enables process engineers to define and publish software process models with additional (textual/graphical) flexibility information. Other team members can then visualise and learn about this information, and change processes accordingly.

Evaluating the Reliability of Ambient-Assisted Living Business Processes

Ambient-Assisted Living (AAL) systems provide a wide range of applications in order to improve the quality of life of patients. These systems commonly gather several components such as sensors, gateways, Information Systems or even actuators. Reliability of these components is of most importance, mainly due to the impact that a failure can have on a monitored patient. In spite of the existing reliability evaluations and countermeasures that can be associated with an AAL system component, we need to take into account the overall reliability for the several activities and interactions that exist between all the AAL system components, for each time a certain value is registered or a certain alert is triggered. In this paper, we propose a new approach to calculate the overall reliability of an AAL system. We take a Business Process Management (BPM) approach to model the activities and interactions between AAL components, using the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) standard. By extending the BPMN standard to include reliability information, we can derive the overall reliability value of a certain AAL BPMN process, and help healthcare managers to better allocate the appropriate resources (including hardware or health care professionals) to improve responsiveness of care to patients.

Modelling and learning controlled flexibility in software processes

Software processes are dynamic entities that are often changed and evolved by skilful knowledge workers such as software development team members. Consequently, flexibility is one of the most important features within software process representations and related tools. However, in the everyday practice, team members do not wish for total flexibility. They rather prefer to learn about and follow previously defined advices on which, where and how they can change/adapt process representations. In this paper, we present FlexSPMF: a framework for modelling controlled flexibility in software processes. It comprises three main contributions: 1) identifying a core set of flexibility concepts; 2) extending a process modelling languages (PML) metamodel with these concepts; 3) providing modelling resources to this extended PML. This enables process engineers to define and publish software process models with additional (textual/graphical) flexibility information. Other team members can then visualise and learn about this information and change processes accordingly.

Towards a Business Process Management Governance Approach Using Process Model Templates and Flexibility

Organizations that include several organizational units with similar business processes often suffer, with time, from the proliferation of processes variant models that significantly deviate from the original (to be followed) one. Take, for instance, student enrolment processes on distinct faculties of the same university, or healthcare processes of a National Health Service across distinct health centers. This can lead to poor global (process) management, since measuring and improving processes can be difficult with too many variants of the same business process. Related works analyse the generalisation and flexibility aspects of process models and related variants, but do not deal with the overall process model lifecycle, especially for this kind of organizations. This paper introduces a novel approach for the Governance and continuous improvement of process models for this kind of organizations. The approach is based on the general Business Process Management (BPM) cycle for process models, proposing concrete techniques for the phases of evaluation, classification and analysis between real and concrete variant models from each organizational unit. It includes the use of similarity metrics and flexibility in business processes, and the main output is a continuously improved template process model. This template foresees a common process part (best practice-based) including process elements collected from the process model variants verified in organizational units, and a flexible part, referring to possible (controlled) deviations that can be tolerated by the organizations headquarters. This approach enhances overall business process management and associated resources by enforcing uniform (good) behavior across similar organizational units. We present the results of our approach applied to a real-world case study of home-healthcare related business process models.

Group-Based Discretionary Access Control in Health Related Repositories

The authors introduce a group-based discretionary access control with decentralized permission and group management for scientific repositories. Currently, access control approaches for repositories have inflexible centralized administrations, which do not scale well to large numbers of users. Moreover, discretionary access control is a legal standard for health-related resources. The proposed access control model, which is formalized using Barkers Unifying Meta-model, differentiates permissions for data and meta-data, enabling the sharing of meta-data while protecting sensitive data. The authors describe how the model was implemented, and what challenges were tackled, in the Epidemic Marketplace, an open software information platform for epidemic studies, designed to foster cooperative behavior and data sharing.

Ad-hoc changes in IoT-aware business processes

The Internet of Things makes it possible to adapt the behaviour of business processes in response to real-time context updates. In addition, physical items can run and validate parts of the business processes and optimise their execution, while reducing message transmissions. State-of-the-art event-driven, service-oriented architecture approaches contribute to enabling inter-organisational collaboration and interoperability of heterogeneous hardware, but their applicability is limited to preplanned, well-structured processes. We take a step forward by supporting ad-hoc changes within business processes, considering changes in the state of the Things; likewise, whenever needed, the software controlling the behaviour of sensors may be dynamically reconfigured as a result of changes in the functional specifications of business processes.

Goals and Requirements for Supporting Controlled Flexibility in Software Processes

Software processes are dynamic entities that are often changed and evolved by software development team members. Consequently, flexibility is one of the most important features within software processes and related tools. However, in the everyday practice, team members do not wish for total flexibility. They prefer to learn about and follow controlled flexibility advice, that is, previously defined information on which, where, how and by whom they can change software process representations to match real-world situations. In this paper, the authors define a set of goals and requirements for a language and supporting software tool to control the flexibility within software processes. They follow a two-step approach, where 1 process engineers use the language constructs and supporting tool to define controlled flexibility-related information within software process models, and 2 software tem members browse and learn from this information, and perform changes accordingly.