15241965
A Workflow-Centric Study of Organizational Knowledge Distribution
Organizations require mechanisms to efficientlydistribute knowledge such as news releases, seminarannouncements, and memos. While the machinery forinformation storage, manipulation. and retrieval exists,research dealing directly with knowledge distribution inan organizational context is scarce. In this paper, weaddress this need by first examining the pros and cons ofthe conventional "mailing lists" approach and thenproposing new workflow mechanisms that improve theefficiency and effectiveness of knowledge distribution.The main contributions of this study include: (I) aworkflow perspective on organizational knowledgedistribution. (2) workflow analysis of two new knowledgedistribution methods based on dynamic mailing lists andprofile matching, respectively, and (3) a new way ofmatching knowledge supply and demand that extendsexisting information filtering algorithms.
45847616
EROICA: A Rule-Based Approach to Organizational Policy Management in Workflow Systems
Conventional workflow management systems have been criticized for being too rigid in dealing with changes in organizational policies, in particular for the lack of flexible mechanisms for handling complex role resolution. In this paper we describe a rule-based approach (EROICA) for managing organizational policies in workflow systems. Our approach extends the well-known ECA (event-condition-action) approach used in database systems by elevating roles, objects and time intervals to first class citizens, hence the term EROICA (event-role-object-interval-condition-action). In this paper, we focus on the development of a flexible role resolution mechanism that operates under various business constraints specified with EROICA rules. We further discuss the issues of architecture and implementation and demonstrate that the EROICA framework is promising in making next generation of workflow systems more powerful and flexible.
14897390
Meta workflows as a control and coordination mechanism for exception handling in workflow systems
A higher level control and coordination mechanism is required for exception handling in workflow systems. This paper describes such a framework based on events, states, and a new kind of process called a meta workflow. Meta workflows have five kinds of meta activities and facilitate control over base workflows. We describe the framework and illustrate it with examples to show its features. The paper gives an architecture for incorporating it into existing workflows and also provides a formal semantics of execution. This framework can be used in Web services, supply chains, and inter-organizational applications where coordination requirements are complex, and flexible and adaptable workflows are needed. It is also useful for handling not just failure recovery but also various kinds of special situations, which arise frequently in web-based applications.
206778468
A performance study of general grid structures for replicated data
Recently, there has been considerable interest in the study of replica-control protocols which are based on organizing several copies of an object into logical structures, such as rectangular grids. In addition to high availability, another objective in exploiting such structures is to improve the degree of load sharing in a system. The authors extend the scope of grid structures to general grids, which allow holes in various positions of a rectangular structure and are useful to consider because they often produce availabilities that are higher than solid grids, where every position must be occupied by a node. In addition to proposing an improvement to the existing grid protocol, new insights are offered into the performance of the grids, from both availability and load sharing points of view. Algorithms for designing grids to maximize availability independently and also in conjunction with a load sharing constraint are given.<<ETX>>
16012186
A fine-grained, controllable, user-to-user delegation method in RBAC
This paper addresses the issues surrounding user-to-user delegation in RBAC. We show how delegations can be incorporated into the RBAC model in a simple and straightforward manner. A special feature of the model is that it allows fine-grained control over what rights a user wishes to delegate as opposed to delegation at the role level where all the rights of a role must be delegated. In addition, the model provides a rich set of controls regarding further delegations of a right, generic constraints that further control delegations, and an innovative model for revocations. Properties of both delegation and revocation are discussed, and our work is compared with other related research.
59757838
Operating System Support for Data Management.
31048080
Advertising data analysis using rough sets model
This study explores the use of rough-set methods for marketing decision support systems in the retail business. A tutorial presentation of Rough Set Data Analysis (RSDA) in the context of knowledge discovery from time series databases is given. We show how an RSDA model can be used to develop a marketing decision support system which can capture the complex relationships between marketing factors, such as advertising and promotion, and the total impact on sales levels in order to find influential advertising strategies. This information is used by the business manager to make faster and better strategy decisions for the business to survive in the rapidly changing and competitive environments. The data set used for RSDA application example contains weekly investments in different media categories: TV, radio, cinema, morning press, evening press, popular press, special interest press, and outdoor posters; for seven makes of cars in the Swedish market.
8488383
Sorting and selection with structured costs
The study of the effect of priced information on basic algorithmic problems was initiated by M. Charikar et al. (2000). The authors continue the study of sorting and selection in the priced comparison model, i.e., when each comparison has an associated cost, and answer some of the open problems suggested by Charikar et al. If the comparison costs are allowed to be arbitrary, we show that one cannot get good approximation ratios. A different way to assign costs is based on the idea that one can distill out an intrinsic value for each item being compared, such that the cost of comparing two elements is some "well-behaved" or "structured" function of their values. We feel that most practical applications will have some structured cost property. The authors study the problems of sorting and selection (which includes finding the maximum and the median) in the structured cost model. We get a variety of approximation results for these problems, depending on the restrictions we put on the structured costs. We show that it is possible to get much improved results with the structured cost model than the case when we do not have any assumptions on comparison costs.
33509544
Multiscale rough set data analysis with application to stock performance modeling
Multiscale Rough Set Data Analysis (MSRSDA) combines the feature selection and feature extraction ability of RSDA with the multiresolution property of the wavelet transform. RSDA removes the irrelevant (having no impact on prediction performance) and dependent (having no discriminatory power) market variables from the multivariate time series data matrix, thereby improving generalization capability of the forecasting engine (neural network, fuzzy inference system). A wavelet transform is used to decompose the time series into varying scales of resolution so that the underlying temporal structures of the original time series become more tractable; the decomposition is additive in details and approximation. Significance of market variables at various wavelet scales representing "detailed" short-term history and "general" long-term history of the time series, is computed using RSDA in wavelet space. Irrelevant and redundant variables at each scale are removed and a forecasting engine is then trained on each of the relevant resolution scales (i.e., those scales where significant events are detected); individual wavelets forecasts are recombined to form the overall forecast. The superior performance of MSRSDA is illustrated through stock performance modeling example. For prediction of S&P500 index, a data matrix of 21 variables has been used. MSRSDA gives 69% accuracy on stock-trend prediction.
28378631
The Universal Medical Language System and the Gene Ontology: Some Critical Reflections
The Unified Medical Language System and the Gene Ontology are among the most widely used terminology resources in the biomedical domain. However, when we evaluate them in the light of simple principles for well-constructed ontologies we find a number of characteristic inadequacies. Employing the theory of granular partitions, a new approach to the understanding of ontologies and of the relationships ontologies bear to instances in reality, we provide an application of this theory in relation to an example drawn from the context of the pathophysiology of hypertension. This exercise is designed to demonstrate how, by taking ontological principles into account we can create more realistic biomedical ontologies which will also bring advantages in terms of efficiency and robustness of associated software applications.
6288937
Iterative error diffusion halftoning using a zero phase error filter
The halftone quality of an error diffusion halftone depends on the error filter response. Apart form the magnitude response being a low pass, it is desirable to have a zero phase response. We propose the iterative error diffusion halftoning algorithm that allows use of non-causal error filter (such as zero phase error filter). We present simulation results showing that the proposed halftoning scheme is substantially better, specially in retaining the sharpness of the edges and in truthfullness.