Percorrer por autor "Domingos, Dulce"
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- Ad-hoc changes in IoT-aware business processesPublication . Domingos, Dulce; Martins, Francisco; Martinho, Ricardo; Silva, MárioThe 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.
- CF4BPMN: A BPMN Extension for Controlled Flexibility in Business ProcessesPublication . Martinho, Ricardo; Domingos, Dulce; Varajão, JoãoThe need for flexibility in business process languages and tools has evolved over the past few decades, from totally rigid approaches, to totally flexible ones. The need to allow process designers to control this flexibility has risen due to the fact that, in the everyday practice, people do not wish for total flexibility. They rather prefer to be guided, even when they feel the need to change some part of business process. In this paper we propose CF4BPMN, a BPMN language extension to allow modeling and execution of controlled flexibility in business processes. Using this extension, process designers can express how a certain process element can or cannot be changed in execution time, taking into account their experience or other organizational restriction. Then, other process participants can visually learn and follow the advised changes onto a business process in a controlled manner.
- Concept Maps for the Modelling of Controlled Flexibility in Software ProcessesPublication . Martinho, Ricardo; Domingos, Dulce; Varajão, JoãoSoftware processes and corresponding models are dynamic entities that are often changed and evolved by skillful knowledge workers such as the members of a software development team. Consequently, process flexibility has been identified as one of the most important features that should be supported by both Process Modelling Languages (PMLs) and software tools that manage the processes. However, in the everyday practice, most software team members do not want total flexibility. They rather prefer to have controlled flexibility, i.e., to learn and follow advices previously modelled by a process engineer on which and how they can change the elements that compose a software process. Since process models constitute a preferred vehicle for sharing and communicating knowledge on software processes, the process engineer needs a PML that can express this controlled flexibility, along with other process perspectives. To achieve this enhanced PML, we first need a sound core set of concepts and relationships that defines the knowledge domain associated with the modelling of controlled flexibility. In this paper we capture and represent this domain by using Concept Maps (Cmaps). These include diagrams and descriptions that elicit the relationships between the concepts involved. The proposed Cmaps can then be used as input to extend a PML with modelling constructs to express controlled flexibility within software processes. Process engineers can use these constructs to define, in a process model, advices on changes that can be made to the model itself or to related instances. Software team members can then consult this controlled flexibility information within the process models and perform changes accordingly.
- Evaluating the Reliability of Ambient-Assisted Living Business ProcessesPublication . Martinho, Ricardo; Domingos, Dulce; Respício, AnaAmbient-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.
- FlexSPMF: A Framework for Modelling and Learning Flexibility in Software ProcessesPublication . Martinho, Ricardo; Varajão, João; Domingos, DulceSoftware 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.
- Goals and Requirements for Supporting Controlled Flexibility in Software ProcessesPublication . Martinho, Ricardo; Domingos, Dulce; Varajão, JoãoSoftware 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 team members browse and learn from this information, and perform changes accordingly.
- Goals for an IoT Context-Based Process Modelling Language Regarding LogisticsPublication . Ferreira, Pedro Henrique; Martinho, Ricardo; Domingos, DulceThe Internet of Things (IoT) aims at bridging the gap between real-world business processes and information systems. When attached to physical items, the IoT technologies such as sensor networks transform objects of the supply chain into smart items. These items have the ability to capture context data and provide business process management systems (BPMSs) with a representation of things. To adequately describe a business process, process engineers commonly use Business Process Modelling Languages (BPMLs). However, in a larger scope, BPMLs differ according to the application area they are used in, and there is no current language solution to represent IoT context data within a process model. In this paper we introduce the goals for a BPML to represent these data. The language will enable process engineers to model business process behaviour taking into account IoT context data.
- Internet of Things Aware WS-BPEL Business Processes - Context Variables and Expected ExceptionsPublication . Domingos, Dulce; Martins, Francisco; Cândido, Carlos; Martinho, RicardoBusiness processes can use Internet of Things (IoT) information to monitor context data in real-time and to respond to changes in their values in a timely fashion. For this matter, business process definition and execution languages should foresee an easy way for process modelers to define which values to monitor, and which automatic behaviors to adopt when these values change. In this paper, we propose the use of context variables to monitor sensor values, as well as a when-then language construct to detect and handle changes in these values within business processes.We define aWeb Services Business Process Execution Language (WS-BPEL) extension to convey these constructs, and implement then using a “BPEL language transformation” approach. With these contributions, process modelers can define IoT-aware business processes avoiding the increase of process complexity and keeping their focus on modeling the processes’ main logic. In addition, the language transformation approach assures the portability of processes using our constructs amongst WS-BPEL execution engines.
- Modelling and learning controlled flexibility in software processesPublication . Martinho, Ricardo; Varajão, João; Domingos, DulceSoftware 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 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.
- Reliability of AAL Systems Modeled as BPMN Business ProcessesPublication . Respício, Ana; Martinho, Ricardo; Domingos, DulceThe use of Ambient-Assisted Living (AAL) systems has been spreading across several countries, with the ultimate purpose of improving the quality of life of patients. These systems often reflect complex architectures including several components such as sensors, gateways, Information Systems or even actuators, as well as messaging and transmitting protocols. Failures in these systems can have severe impact on a monitored patient, and most components foresee some kind of compensation countermeasures to increase reliability. Nevertheless, these measures are often self-contained to a single component and do not address the overall AAL system reliability, disregarding precedent and successor activities and interactions that exist 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 of a certain AAL system. To prove this approach, we also present a reliability study considering scenarios with single and pairwise reliability variations of AAL system components. With this approach, healthcare managers can benefit from important overall reliability information of an AAL system, and better allocate the appropriate resources (including hardware or health care professionals) to improve responsiveness of care to patients.