A virtual radiation therapy workflow training simulation

Aim Simulation forms an increasingly vital component of clinical skills development in a wide range of professional disciplines. Simulation of clinical techniques and equipment is designed to better prepare students for placement by providing an opportunity to learn technical skills in a “safe” academic environment. In radiotherapy training over the last decade or so this has predominantly comprised treatment planning software and small ancillary equipment such as mould room apparatus. Recent virtual reality developments have dramatically changed this approach. Innovative new simulation applications and file processing and interrogation software have helped to fill in the gaps to provide a streamlined virtual workflow solution. This paper outlines the innovations that have enabled this, along with an evaluation of the impact on students and educators. Method Virtual reality software and workflow applications have been developed to enable the following steps of radiation therapy to be simulated in an academic environment: CT scanning using a 3D virtual CT scanner simulation; batch CT duplication; treatment planning; 3D plan evaluation using a virtual linear accelerator; quantitative plan assessment, patient setup with lasers; and image guided radiotherapy software. Results Evaluation of the impact of the virtual reality workflow system highlighted substantial time saving for academic staff as well as positive feedback from students relating to preparation for clinical placements. Students valued practice in the “safe” environment and the opportunity to understand the clinical workflow ahead of clinical department experience. Conclusion Simulation of most of the radiation therapy workflow and tasks is feasible using a raft of virtual reality simulation applications and supporting software. Benefits of this approach include time-saving, embedding of a case-study based approach, increased student confidence, and optimal use of the clinical environment. Ongoing work seeks to determine the impact of simulation on clinical skills.

Realisation of cost-informed process support within the YAWL workflow environment

Organisations are always focussed on ensuring that their business operations are performed in the most cost-effective manner, and that processes are responsive to ever-changing cost pressures. In many organisations, however, strategic cost-based decisions at the managerial level are not directly or quickly translatable to process-level operational support. A primary reason for this disconnect is the limited system-based support for cost-informed decisions at the process-operational level in real time. In this paper, we describe the different ways in which a workflow management system can support process-related decisions, guided by cost-informed considerations at the operational level, during execution. As a result, cost information is elevated from its non-functional attribute role to a first-class, fully functional process perspective. The paper defines success criteria that a WfMS should meet to provide such support, and discusses a reference implementation within the YAWL workflow environment that demonstrates how the various types of cost-informed decision rules are supported, using an illustrative example.

Pattern-based analysis of EAI languages : the case of the business modelling language

Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) is a challenging area that is attracting growing attention from the software industry and the research community. A landscape of languages and techniques for EAI has emerged and is continuously being enriched with new proposals from different software vendors and coalitions. However, little or no effort has been dedicated to systematically evaluate and compare these languages and techniques. The work reported in this paper is a first step in this direction. It presents an in-depth analysis of a language, namely the Business Modeling Language, specifically developed for EAI. The framework used for this analysis is based on a number of workflow and communication patterns. This framework provides a basis for evaluating the advantages and drawbacks of EAI languages with respect to recurrent problems and situations.

Testing a framework for the quality of process models: A case study

Process modeling can be regarded as the currently most popular form of conceptual modeling. Research evidence illustrates how process modeling is applied across the different information system life cycle phases for a range of different applications, such as configuration of Enterprise Systems, workflow management, or software development. However, a detailed discussion of critical factors of the quality of process models is still missing. This paper proposes a framework consisting of six quality factors, which is derived from a comprehensive literature review. It then presents in a case study, a utility provider, who had designed various business process models for the selection of an Enterprise System. The paper summarizes potential means of conducting a successful process modeling initiative and evaluates the described modeling approach within the Guidelines of Modeling (GoM) framework. An outlook shows the potential lessons learnt, and concludes with insights to the next phases of this study.

Towards a Business Process Management Maturity Model

Business Process Management (BPM) has been identified as the number one business priority by a recent Gartner study (Gartner, 2005). However, BPM has a plethora of facets as its origins are in Business Process Reengineering, Process Innovation, Process Modelling, and Workflow Management to name a few. Organisations increasingly recognize the requirement for an increased process orientation and require appropriate comprehensive frameworks, which help to scope and evaluate their BPM initiative. This research project aims toward the development of a holistic and widely accepted BPM maturity model, which facilitates the assessment of BPM capabilities. This paper provides an overview about the current model with a focus on the actual model development utilizing a series of Delphi studies. The development process includes separate studies that focus on further defining and expanding the six core factors within the model, i.e. strategic alignment, governance, method, Information Technology, people and culture.

The YAWL Architecture

The YAWL system is structured as a service-oriented architecture. It is composed of an extensible set of YAWL Services [1], each of which is deployed at a certain endpoint and offers one or multiple interfaces. Some of these services are userfacing, meaning that they offer interfaces to end users, while others offer interfaces to applications or other services.

QoS-Based Web Service Scheduling Accommodating Inter-Service Dependencies Using Minimal-Conflict Hill-Climbing Repair Genetic Algorithm

In the filed of semantic grid, QoS-based Web service scheduling for workflow optimization is an important problem.However, in semantic and service rich environment like semantic grid, the emergence of context constraints on Web services is very common making the scheduling consider not only quality properties of Web services, but also inter service dependencies which are formed due to the context constraints imposed on Web services. In this paper, we present a repair genetic algorithm, namely minimal-conflict hill-climbing repair genetic algorithm, to address scheduling optimization problems in workflow applications in the presence of domain constraints and inter service dependencies. Experimental results demonstrate the scalability and effectiveness of the genetic algorithm.

YAWL : power through patterns

Workflow Management Systems (WfMSs) enable the development and maintenance of workflow specifications at design time and their execution and monitoring at runtime. The open source WfMS YAWL supports the YAWL language – a formally defined language based on Petri nets which offers comprehensive support for control-flow and resource patterns. In addition, the YAWL system provides extensive support for process flexibility, in particular for process configuration, exception handling, dynamic workflow and declarative workflow. Due to its formal foundation, sophisticated verification support can also be achieved. This paper presents the YAWL system and its main applications.

The impact of Health Information Technology (I-HIT) scale : the Australian results

One of role of the nurse in the clinical setting is that of coordinating communication across the healthcare team. On a daily basis nurses interact with the person receiving care, their family members, and multiple care providers thus placing the nurse in the central position with access to a vast array of information on the person. Through this nurses have historically functioned as “information repositories”. With the advent of Health Information Technology (HIT) tools there is a potential that HIT could impact interdisciplinary communication, practice efficiency and effectiveness, relationships and workflow in acute care settings \[1]\[3]. In 2005, the HIMSS Nursing Informatics Community developed the IHITScale to measure the impact of HIT on the nursing role and interdisciplinary communication in USA hospitals. In 2007, nursing informatics colleagues from Australia, Finland, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland and the USA formed a research collaborative to validate the IHIT in six additional countries. This paper will discuss the background, methodology, results and implications from the Australian IHIT survey of over 1100 nurses. The results are currently being analyzed and will be presented at the conference.

Virtual Environment Visualisation of Executable Business Process Models

Business Process Modelling is a fast growing field in business and information technology, which uses visual grammars to model and execute the processes within an organisation. However, many analysts present such models in a 2D static and iconic manner that is difficult to understand by many stakeholders. Difficulties in understanding such grammars can impede the improvement of processes within an enterprise due to communication problems. In this chapter we present a novel framework for intuitively visualising animated business process models in interactive Virtual Environments. We also show that virtual environment visualisations can be performed with present 2D business process modelling technology, thus providing a low barrier to entry for business process practitioners. Two case studies are presented from film production and healthcare domains that illustrate the ease with which these visualisations can be created. This approach can be generalised to other executable workflow systems, for any application domain being modelled.