Event-based Failure Prediction in Distributed Business Processes

Traditionally, research in Business Process Management has put a strong focus on centralized and intra-organizational processes. However, today's business processes are increasingly distributed, deviating from a centralized layout, and therefore calling for novel methodologies of detecting and responding to unforeseen events, such as errors occurring during process runtime. In this article, we demonstrate how to employ event-based failure prediction in business processes. This approach allows to make use of the best of both traditional Business Process Management Systems and event-based systems. Our approach employs machine learning techniques and considers various types of events. We evaluate our solution using two business process data sets, including one from a real-world event log, and show that we are able to detect errors and predict failures with high accuracy

Mycotoxins adsorption by microorganisms isolated from Kefir grains

ICFC 2017 - International Conference on Food Contaminants (Book of Abstracts)A novel alternative for mycotoxins decontamination is the use of microorganisms that bind mycotoxins and reduce their gastrointestinal absorption. Lactic acid bacteria and yeasts were isolated from a Kefir culture and evaluated for their mycotoxin adsorption and biotransformation ability. Strains with high binding ability were identified based on DNA sequenci ng. The binding stability was determined by washing the complexes microorganism/mycotoxin with buffer solutions to simulate the pH conditions in the gastrointestinal tract. The results indicate that the microorganism consortium of Kefir grains adsorbed 82 to 100% of aflatoxin B 1(AFB1), zearalenone (ZEA) and ochratoxin A (OTA) when cultivated in milk. The most effective strains in adsorbing the mycotoxins were identified as Lactobacillus kefiri, Kazachstania servazzii and Acetobacter syzygii. The strains L. kefiri KFLM3 was able to adsorb 80 to 100% of the mycotoxins when cultivated in milk. However, desorption experiments showed that yeast K. servazzii KFGY7 retained more mycotoxin (65, 69 and 67% for AFB 1, OTA and ZEA, respectively) in the cells. Our findings revealed that kefir consumption can possibly reduce gastrointestinal absorption of these mycotoxins and consequently reduce their toxic effects. These Kefir isolates are promising for the development of fermented dairy products for human consumptionGrant UMINHO/BPD/51/2015 from project UID/BIO/04469/2013 financed by FCT/MEC (OE). This study was supported by FCT under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit and COMPETE 2 020 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006684); of BioTecNorte operation (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000004) funded by European Regional Development Fund under the scope f orte2020 -Programa Operacional Regional do Norte; and under the scope of the projects RECI/BBB-EBI/0179/2012 (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER- 027462)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Applying Laser Doppler Anemometry inside a Taylor-Couette geometry - Using a ray-tracer to correct for curvature effects

In the present work it will be shown how the curvature of the outer cylinder affects Laser Doppler anemometry measurements inside a Taylor-Couette apparatus. The measurement position and the measured velocity are altered by curved surfaces. Conventional methods for curvature correction are not applicable to our setup, and it will be shown how a ray-tracer can be used to solve this complication. By using a ray-tracer the focal position can be calculated, and the velocity can be corrected. The results of the ray-tracer are verified by measuring an a priori known velocity field, and after applying refractive corrections good agreement with theoretical predictions are found. The methods described in this paper are applied to measure the azimuthal velocity profiles in high Reynolds number Taylor-Couette flow for the case of outer cylinder rotation

Change Propagation in Collaborative Processes Scenarios

Process flexibility and change constitute major challenges for process-aware information systems. This does not only hold for centralized process scenarios, but also for collaborative ones involving multiple distributed and autonomous partners. If one partner adapts its private process, the applied change might affect the processes of the other partners as well. Hence the change must be propagated to concerned partners in a transitive way. A fundamental challenge is then to find ways of propagating the changes in a decentralized manner. Existing approaches dealing with changes of collaborative processes are limited with respect to the change operations considered and their dependency on certain process specification languages. By contrast, this paper presents a generic change propagation approach based on the Refined Process Structure Tree. Our approach is applicable independently of a particular process specification language. Further, it considers a comprehensive set of change patterns. Finally, it is shown that the provided change propagation algorithms preserve structural dependencies for any change pattern

Change and Compliance in Collaborative Processes

During their lifecycle, business processes are keen to change. Changes either concern the process model structure or the accompanying rules; e.g. compliance rules (laws and regulations). In the context of business process collaborations, several process partners collaborate together, and changing one process might result in knock-on effects on the other processes; i.e., change propagation. Since business processes are often subject to restrictions that stem from laws, regulations or guidelines; i.e., compliance rules, changing them might lead to the violations of these rules (non-compliability). So far, only the impacts of process changes in choreographies have been studied. In this work, we propose an approach that analyzes and evaluates the impacts of process changes on the different compliance rules and inversely, the impacts of compliance rule changes on the process choreography

Decomposition-based Verification of Global Compliance in Process Choreographies

The verification of global compliance rules (GCR) in process choreographies (e.g., partner-spanning quality assurance in supply chains) is crucial and challenging due to the restricted visibility of the private processes of the collaborating partners. This paper provides a novel algorithm that decomposes global compliance rules into assertions that can be verified by the partners in a distributed way without revealing any private process details. The decomposition is based on transitivity properties of the underlying GCR specification. This work uses GCR based on antecedent and occurrence patterns and illustrates the transitivity properties based on their specification in first order predicate logic. It is formally shown that the original GCR can be reconstructed from the assertions, which ensures the viability of the approach. The algorithms are prototypically implemented and applied to several scenarios. The ability of checking global compliance constitutes a fundamental pillar of any approach implementing process choreographies with multiple partners