Saturday, January 28, 2012

CFP: Intl. Workshop on Theory and Applications of Process Visualization

1st Intl. Workshop on Theory and Applications of Process Visualization

Visualizations can make the structure and dependencies between elements in processes accessible in order to support users who need to analyze process models and their instances.

However, effectively visualizing processes in a user-friendly way is often a big challenge, especially for complex process models which can consist of hundreds of process components (e.g., process activities, data flows, and resources) and thousands of running process instances in different execution states.

Many challenges remain to be addressed within the broad area of process visualization such as: scalability, human-computer interaction, cognitive aspects, applicability of different approaches, collaboration, process evolution, run-time requirements of process instances and applications, etc.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):
  • Visual Metaphors in Processes
  • Visual Design and Aesthetics for Processes
  • Visualization of Dynamic Data in Processes
  • Change Visualization for Processes
  • Interface and Interaction Techniques for Process Visualization
  • Visualization Techniques for Collaboration and Distributed Processes
  • Visualization of Large-scale Processes
  • Cognition and Perception in Process Visualization
  • Evaluation and User Studies of Process Visualization
  • Visual Modeling Languages
  • Analysis Techniques and Visualization for Processes
  • Process Visualization of Large Screens
  • Mobile Process Visualization
  • Visualization Tools and Systems for Processes
  • Visualization Techniques for Processes
  • Process Visualization and Sonification
  • Virtual World Process Visualization
  • Immersive Process Modeling Approaches
  • 3D Process Visualization Approaches
Format of the Workshop

The ½ day workshop will comprise accepted papers and tool presentations. Papers should be submitted in advance and will be reviewed by at least three members of the program committee. All accepted papers will appear in the workshop proceedings published by Springer in the Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing (LNBIP) series. There will be a single LNBIP volume dedicated to the proceedings of all BPM workshops. As this volume will appear after the conference, there will be informal proceedings during the workshop. At least one author for each accepted paper should register for the workshop and present the paper.

Important Dates
  • Deadline for workshop paper submissions: 1 June 2012
  • Notification of acceptance: 2 July 2012
  • Camera-ready version: 30 July 2012
  • Workshop: 3 September 2012
Paper Submission

Prospective authors are invited to submit papers for presentation in any of the areas listed above.

Three types of submissions are possible:
  1. full papers (12 pages long) reporting mature research results
  2. position papers reporting research that may be in preliminary stage that has not yet been evaluated
  3. tool reports
Position papers and tool reports should be no longer than 6 pages.

Only papers in English will be accepted and must present original research contributions not concurrently submitted elsewhere. Papers should be submitted in the LNBIP format. The title page must contain a short abstract, a classification of the topics covered, preferably using the list of topics above, and an indication of the submission category (regular paper/position paper/tool report).

All accepted workshop papers will be published by Springer as a post-workshop proceedings volume in the series Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing (LNBIP). Hard copies of these proceedings will be shipped to all registered participants approximately four months after the workshops, while preliminary proceedings will be distributed during the workshop.

Submitted papers will be evaluated, in a double blind manner, on the basis of significance, originality, technical quality, and exposition. Papers should clearly establish their research contribution and the relation to the theory and application of process visualization.

Registration

Accepted papers imply that at least one of the authors will register for the BPM2012 and present the paper at the TAProViz workshop.

Further workshop information is available from the website.

Ross

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Paper: Human resource behaviour simulation in business processes

Rune Rasmussen and I have just had a new ERA A journal paper accepted with Future Generation Computer Systems (FGCS). QUT EPrints Link

Title: Human resource behaviour simulation in business processes

Abstract: The structure and dynamics of a modern business environment are very hard to model using traditional methods. Such complexity raises challenges to effective business analysis and improvement. The importance of applying business process simulation to analyze and improve business activities has been widely recognized. However, one remaining challenge is the development of approaches to human resource behavior simulation. To address this problem, we describe a novel simulation approach where intelligent agents are used to simulate human resources by performing allocated work from a workflow management system. The behavior of the intelligent agents is driven a by state transition mechanism called a Hierarchical Task Network (HTN). We demonstrate and validate our simulator via a medical treatment process case study. Analysis of the simulation results shows that the behavior driven by the HTN is consistent with design of the workflow model. We believe these preliminary results support the development of more sophisticated agent-based human resource simulation systems.

Ross