Workflow

About: Workflow is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 31996 publications have been published within this topic receiving 498339 citations.

System and method for managing healthcare work flow

Abstract: A system and method for managing tasks and workflow in a complex environment such as a healthcare unit are described. The architecture of the inventive system includes core components and peripheral components that interact with each primarily through an interfacing event framework application within the core system. In addition to the event framework, the core system comprises a collaborative task platform and an intelligence application. The peripheral components include input devices for users, a system applications server, an integration server, person and asset tracking tags, a database server, and a knowledge base. The system manages workflow through a task-based orientation, and making use of task-based process mapping. Tasks may be created, including unstructured tasks, tasks may further be monitored, shared, transferred, and completed. The process may be envisioned as circular feedback loop including task management, metrics tracking, and real time process feedback. The task is a unit of transaction and central to system-based calculations which can measure return on investment that may, for example, include shorter length of stay in an emergency room, a decrease in medical errors, and an increase in revenue.

Workflow task clustering for best effort systems with Pegasus

Abstract: Many scientific workflows are composed of fine computational granularity tasks, yet they are composed of thousands of them and are data intensive in nature, thus requiring resources such as the TeraGrid to execute efficiently. In order to improve the performance of such applications, we often employ task clustering techniques to increase the computational granularity of workflow tasks. The goal is to minimize the completion time of the workflow by reducing the impact of queue wait times. In this paper, we examine the performance impact of the clustering techniques using the Pegasus workflow management system. Experiments performed using an astronomy workflow on the NCSA TeraGrid cluster show that clustering can achieve a significant reduction in the workflow completion time (up to 97%).

Dynamic Routing and Operational Controls in Workflow Management Systems

Abstract: Businesses around the world are paying more attention to process management and process automation to improve organizational efficiency and effectiveness. In this paper, we describe a general framework for implementing dynamic routing and operational control mechanisms in Workflow Management Systems (WMSs). The framework consists of three techniques: workflow control tables, sequence constraints, and event-based workflow management rules. Our approach offers several unique features that are missing in commercial workflow management systems: (1) it provides more flexibility in process modeling and control; (2) it permits rework on an ad hoc basis; (3) it handles exceptions to routing and operational controls; and (4) it exploits parallelism to increase system throughput and response time. Finally, the workflow management techniques are applied to the case of consumer loan management and compared with other approaches based on static routing.

Validation of web service compositions

Abstract: Web services support software architectures that can evolve dynamically. In particular, in this paper the focus is on architectures where services are composed (orchestrated) through a workflow described in the business process execution language (BPEL). It is assumed that the resulting composite service refers to external services through assertions that specify their expected functional and non-functional properties. On the basis of these assertions, the composite service may be verified at design time by checking that it ensures certain relevant properties. Because of the dynamic nature of web services and the multiple stakeholders involved in their provision, however, the external services may evolve dynamically, and even unexpectedly. They may become inconsistent with respect to the assertions against which the workflow was verified during development. As a consequence, validation of the composition must extend to run time. In this work, an assertion language, called assertion language for BPEL process interactions (ALBERT), is introduced; it can be used to specify both functional and non-functional properties. An environment which supports design-time verification of ALBERT assertions for BPEL workflows via model checking is also described. At run time, the assertions can be turned into checks that a software monitor performs on the composite system to verify that it continues to guarantee its required properties. A TeleAssistance application is provided as a running example to illustrate our validation framework.