Dependency Management with WED-flow Techniques and Tools: A Case Study

Abstract

Projects, in Process-Aware Information Systems (PAIS) for medical scientific research, have as requirements all sorts of data coming from many interdependent processes. More concretely, in autopsy study, data are collected from two main interdependent processes: 1) material collection and processing; and 2) interview. These processes are the groundwork to optimize the association between biological material and research projects. However, there is an important challenge for managing dependencies among these processes. In this scenario, we summarize this challenge with the following question: how to implement a PAIS specification efficiently when we have to manage dependencies among processes in a complex domain (such as the one found when constructing an autopsy study system)? To answer this, the authors used an alternative approach, called WED-flow, based on the combination of process-aware, event-based and data- driven paradigms as well as its process specification language called WED-SQL, to develop an autopsy study system called SISAUT. The implementation of dependencies among processes had its complexity reduced based on the maintenance of shared data states and the triggering of events that are responsible for the execution of processes activities as needed. This complexity reduction allows developers to put an extra emphasis on more essential tasks such as business process modelling and also the incremental development of the system.