Workflow management systems (WfMSs) have been used to support various types of business processes for more than a decade now. In workflows for e-commerce and Web-services applications, suppliers and customers define a binding agreement or contract between the two parties, specifying Quality of Service (QoS) items such as products or services to be delivered, deadlines, quality of products, and cost of services. The management of QoS metrics directly impacts the success of organizations participating in e-commerce. Therefore, when services or products are created or managed using workflows, the underlying workflow system must accept the specifications and be able to estimate, monitor, and control the QoS rendered to customers. In this paper, we present a predictive QoS model that makes it possible to compute the quality of service for workflows automatically based on atomic task QoS attributes. To this end, we present a model that specifies QoS and describe an algorithm and a simulation system in order to compute, analyze and monitor workflow QoS metrics. 1

Current workflow management systems still lack support for dynamic and automatic workflow adaptations. However, this functionality is a major requirement for next-generation workflow systems to provide sufficient flexibility to cope with unexpected failure events. We present the concepts and implementation of AGENTWORK, an event-based workflow management system supporting automated workflow adaptations in a comprehensive way. In particular, AGENTWORK uses temporal estimates to determine which remaining parts of running workflows are affected by an exception and is able to predictively perform suitable workflow adaptations. This helps ensure that necessary adaptations are performed in time with minimal user interaction which is especially valuable in complex applications such as for medical treatments.

Workflow management systems (WfMSs) have been used to support various types of business processes for more than a decade now. In ecommerce processes, suppliers and customers define a binding agreement or contract between the two parties, specifying quality of service (QoS) items such as products or services to be delivered, deadlines, quality of products, and cost of service. Management of such QoS directly impacts success of organizations participating in e-commerce. Organizations operating in modem markets require an excellent degree of quality of service management. Products and services must be available to customers with well-defined specifications. A good management of quality leads to the creation of quality products and services, which in mm fulfills customer expectations and achieves customer satisfaction. Therefore, when services or products are created or managed using workflow processes, the underlying WfMS must accept the specification, be able to predict, monitor, and control the QoS rendered to customers. To achieve these objectives the first step is to develop an adequate QoS model for workflow processes and develop methods to compute QoS.

Even though currently available workflow management systems (WFMSs) offer sophisticated modeling tools for specifying and analyzing workflow processes, their time management support is rudimentary. Existing time management functionality mainly addresses process simulations (to identify process bottlenecks, analyze execution durations, etc.), assignment of deadlines to activities, and triggering of process-specific exception-handling activities (referred to as escalations) when deadlines are missed during process execution. In this paper, we address the crucial role of time management in the lifecycle of workflow processes. In particular, we describe how structural (i.e. execution order dependent) and explicit (i.e. fixed-date, periodic, upper- and lowerbound) time constraints can be modeled during process definition, validated during modeling and instantiation-times and, finally, monitored and managed during execution time. 1

Abstract. Personal schedules allow workflow participants to improve their performance of activity executions. Participants are no longer surprised by the entries in their work-lists but receive advance information about (potential) future activity assignments, allowing better possibilities for work-planning. The personal schedule system is based on a probabilistic workflow time management system using duration histograms. A personal schedule collects future activity assignments together with their probability and their timing requirements and allows to analyze the workload of a participant and to support the scheduling of activities with the goal of reduced turn-around times and reduced number of violations of temporal constraints.

Abstract Web-based interorganizational workflows need efficient time management. Variations of activity durations and branching distributions on or-split nodes make it necessary that we treat time management in workflows in a probabilistic way. We introduce the notion of duration histograms for capturing the available temporal information about workflow execution, define the necessary operations for computing timed execution plans for workflows and discuss the application of this new concepts for workflow design as well as time aware workflow execution management.

Introduction and Background In the ADEPT 1 project [ADEPT] we are looking at different facets of advanced process-oriented information systems in conjunction with each other: Component-based application development, exception handling and flexibility issues, dynamic workflow changes, temporal aspects, workflow evolution, inter-workflow dependencies, man-machine interfaces, scalability, and WfMS architectures and implementation. The roots of the ADEPT project go back into the year 1992, when the interdisciplinary research project "Open Clinical Information and Database System for the Integration of Autonomous Subsystems" (OKIS, 1992-94) started. The intensive discussions we had with the medical personnel and the investigations performed within the OKIS project have made clear to us that "passive", data-centric information systems alone are by far not sufficient to solve the pressing problems found in most clinical application areas. Being conf

Clinical information processing is a big challenge for computer-based information systems, especially when looking at the support of clinical workflows (i.e., clinical processes) [1, 2, 3, 4]. From the viewpoint of the medical personnel the current situation can be characterized as follows (cf. [1, 5]): Organizational and medical tasks are usually accompanied

Abstract. Workflow Management Systems (WfMSs) are implemented to support the modelling, analysis and enactment of rigidly structured business processes. However, they typically have difficulty supporting unexpected or developmental change occurring in the work practices they model, and are unable to provide adequate support for exceptions, or deviations from the process model, even though such deviations are a common occurrence for almost all processes. These limitations mean a large subset of business practices do not easily translate to the inflexible modelling frameworks imposed by WfMSs, and so has inhibited their wider acceptance. Workflow modelling frameworks are usually based on software programming principles and proprietary formats, which may not be the most ideal base for the support of flexible work practices. A better approach may be to develop a WfMS based on accepted ideas of how people actually work. This paper derives a set of principles for work practice from a sound theoretical base called Activity Theory. These grounded principles are then applied to a set of criteria that a WfMS must meet if it is to provide adequate support for flexible work methods. Commercial workflow products, and some research trends, are discussed in relation to the criteria specified. 1

Abstract. Distributed computing often needs to cope with information integration challenges. Up to now, several models have been proposed for information integration in heterogeneous, distributed and (loosely) dynamic environments. Nevertheless, in network environments where actors and their information sources are characterized by high dynamism and non permanent connections, traditional approaches are not adequate. In such a context, we believe that the recent Peer-to-Peer (P2P) distributed computing approach is an ideal solution. Despite several P2P applications/protocols have been realized, they are not able to exchange complex information and to cope with heterogeneity and information integration problems. In particular, for what concerns distributiveness this means to deal also with users that do not own sophisticated (hardware and software) platforms and permanent network connections. Namely, autonomous network users often use simple systems (i.e., personal computers, laptops, wireless devices, etc.) and their network accesses are characterized by variable connectivity. In this project, we want to extends the capabilities of a Multi-Agent