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[August 31, 2001] Researchers at the Institut für Informatik, Universität Freiburg are developing the XPathLog/LoPiX project as a continuation and migration of F-Logic/Florid to XML. The LoPiX system "is an implementation of the XML querying and data manipulation language XPathLog; it is free for evaluation, research and teaching purposes. XPathLogic is a logic which is interpreted with respect to XML documents. Its Horn fragment, XPathLog, provides a logic-based language for manipulating and integrating XML data. Due to many similarities between the F-Logic and XPath languages, F-Logic is a natural candidate for a migration to XML/XPath: The XPathLog language is a crossbreed between XPath and F-Logic, i.e., it extends XPath with variable bindings to an XML querying and data manipulation language. XPathLog assigns a declarative constructive semantics to XPath expressions for specifying database updates. The LoPiX system which implements XPathLog is based on the Florid system. The research on data integration is now continued with LoPiX. One of the main results -- apart from the fact that XPathLog/LoPiX is the first implementation of updates in an XML database language, is that the DOM/XML Query Data Model is not suitable for updating and integrating XML data. Instead, XPathLog/LoPiX use the XTreeGraph data model which allows for representing multiple, overlapping XML trees in an internal database. Result trees are then defined as views over the XTreeGraph database." [Full context] [August 31, 2001] A posting from Graham Klyne (Baltimore Technologies) announces the availability of a prototype work-in-progess RDF-driven expert system shell. The RDFExpert software uses Brian McBride's JENA API and parser. Distributed as a single ZIP archive containing a number of Java .jar files, the application provides "a simple expert system shell that uses RDF for all of its input: knowledge base, inference rules and elements of the resolution strategy employed. It supports forward and backward chaining. The tool uses a special vocabulary to build arbitrary n-place predicate facts and rules. Other RDF statements are interpreted as binary facts (i.e., predicates with constant arguments). There is also a representation for n-place predicates that generalizes the normal RDF representation of binary facts." The RDFExpert web site provides a manual, sample test cases, and an overview document which outlines the influences, capabilities and future directions of a research project entitled the RDFExpert' undertaken at the strategic research department of Baltimore Technologies. Graham writes: "Craig Pugsley has been working on an experimental expert system shell that uses RDF for all of its input data (knowledge base, rules and 'control'). We can now use it to read arbitrary RDF from the web and perform inferences on that data. We have been exercising this capability using RDFweb/webwho data. A simple example query we have run is to list RDFweb people with a common interest... It is very much an experimental/prototype piece of software, and all the usual caveats apply about being provided as-is, without warranty, etc. Further developments under consideration for the tool include support for an inference rule format compatible with RuleML work; forward chaining from a designated set of facts; rules containing variable predicate names; extension of resolution strategy component to provide greater control over fact resolution process." [Full context] [August 30, 2001] Proposals are now being floated within several user communities for increasing the number of standardized language codes beyond the 200-400 range found in current ISO standards. A new work item approved by ISO earlier in 2001, for example, addresses the need for an International Standard with mechanisms for encoding language variation in terms of time, geography, dialectal variation, writing system, and so forth. An initial proposal calls for codes supporting representation of the language along at least five axes: "geog (geographical specification), script (writing system), temp (temporal specification), socli (sociolinguistic specification), and style (stylistic specification)." Other draft proposals call for adoption of schemes that identify 7,000 or even 70,000 languages and dialects. As the mass of networked digital information grows ever larger and becomes easily accessible, demand increases for a taxonomy of human languages adequate to support language data classification, categorization, and linguistic annotation. It is now widely recognized that the ISO standards providing "codes for the representation of names of languages" (ISO 639, ISO/FDIS 639-1, ISO 639-2) are inadequate to meet the application requirements being levied by users in new domains. The concern for better language description facility is now felt as urgent among digital librarians and archivists seeking to classify and linguistically annotate materials representing minority languages; others now worry about the emergence of de facto standards which conflict with the work of registered standards bodies. Language identification is of critical importance to markup since the use of language codes to assist in machine processing of text is documented in a wide range of specifications, including markup metalanguages (SGML, XML) and most markup language applications. Seeking to raise interest in this topic and awareness of its importance for markup language design, I have prepared a reference document "Language Identifiers in the Markup Context" with summaries of the major standards and emerging initiatives. [Full context] [August 29, 2001] The W3C XSL Working Group has published Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) Version 1.0 as a W3C Proposed Recommendation, indicating that "the specification is stable and that implementation experience has been gathered showing that the features of the specification can be implemented." The Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) "is a language for expressing stylesheets [which] builds on the prior work on Cascading Style Sheets (CSS2) and the Document Style Semantics and Specification Language (DSSSL). Apart from a stylesheet, a processor "could not possibly know how to render the content of an XML document other than as an undifferentiated string of characters. XSL provides a comprehensive model and a vocabulary for writing such stylesheets using XML syntax. Given a class of arbitrarily structured XML documents or data files, designers use an XSL stylesheet to express their intentions about how that structured content should be presented; that is, how the source content should be styled, laid out, and paginated onto some presentation medium, such as a window in a Web browser or a hand-held device, or a set of physical pages in a catalog, report, pamphlet, or book." The PR review period for XSL Version 1.0 which began on 28-August-2001 lasts through 25-September-2001, during which time the W3C Advisory Committee representatives return comments; following the review the W3C Director will announce the document's disposition (W3C Recommendation, Working Draft). [Full context] [August 27, 2001] W3C has published a new working draft document which describes constructors, operators, and functions that are used in XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0. The draft "was produced through the efforts of a joint task force of the W3C XML Query Working Group and the W3C XML Schema Working Group and a second joint task force of the W3C XML Query Working Group and the W3C XSL Working Group. The specification defines basic operators and functions on the datatypes defined in XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes for use in XQuery, XPath, and other related XML standards. It also discusses operators and functions on nodes and node sequences as defined in the XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Data Model for use in XQuery, XPath, and other related XML standards. Where XML Schema Part 2 defines a number of primitive and derived datatypes, collectively known as built-in datatypes, the new working draft defines operations on those datatypes. The document defines a number of constructors and other functions that apply to one or more data types; each constructor and function is defined by specifying its signature, a description of each of its arguments, and its semantics. In addition, examples are given of many constructors and functions to illustrate their use. The WD is generally unconcerned with the specific syntax with which the constructors, operators, and functions will be used, and focuses instead on defining the semantics of them as precisely as feasible." [Full context] [August 25, 2001] Working groups in the Financial Information Services Division (FISD) of the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) have prepared beta versions of XML schemas and DTDs in the Market Data Definition Language (MDDL) project. The latest MDDL 0.92 release includes also MDDL samples, MDDL Content Model diagrams, and a Glossary of Terms. MDDL is being developed actively in preparation of its inaugural release at the World Financial Information Conference on November 2, 2001. The goal in the MDDL project is to "define a publicly available standard that provides a generic XML-based interchange format on the fields needed to describe financial instruments (including identifiers and current/historical values), corporate events (including specific corporate and instrument information affecting value and tradability), and market-related information (including economic and industrial indicators). The goal is to promote data interoperability. MDDL is an open standard; anyone interested in the work of MDDL is free to participate. MDDL will focus on broad field definitions for market data content, applicable to multiple classes. The initial focus of MDDL will be end-of-day and snapshot applications that can be extended to historical, streaming and interpretative and vendor-specific data models as appropriate. An MDDL Steering Committee provides oversight of MDDL, operational management of the standards development process and external relations. A Technical Working Group has been established to define the structural model of the data including the architecture, structure and rules of MDDL. A Vocabulary Working Group defines the scope of the MDDL standard and identifies the specific data sets to be covered." [Full context] [August 24, 2001] A posting from Fabrice Desré (France Telecom R&D/DMI/GRI) announces the availability of an XSLT stylesheet documentation generator tool. XSLTDoc is itself "an XSLT stylesheet that analyzes another stylesheet, builds clean documentation on it, and also makes some sanity checks. The stylesheet has been developed and tested with xsltproc, part of the 'libxslt' XSLT C library for Gnome. The documentation generated will: (1) show global parameters; (2) show global variables; (3) list all the templates; (4) for each template it shows parameters, variables, templates called via <apply-templates/> from the current one, and templates called via <call-template/> from the current one, checking parameters; (4) builds a cross-reference matrix of called templates; it emits warnings if a named template is never used; (5) in several situations, it tries to show the relevant comments. The supporting web site for XSLTDoc provides an online demo; one may submit a stylesheet and get the result online via a Web browser. A current limitation of the tool is that stylesheets using <xsl:include/> or <xsl:import/> cannot be analyzed." The author plans to support additional semantic checks (à la XSL Lint) and provide DocBook output so it will be easy to make non-HTML documentation. [Full context] [August 24, 2001] ToX (The Toronto XML Engine) is a research project of the Database Group in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto. The Toronto XML Server is "a repository for XML data and metadata, which supports real and virtual XML documents. Real documents are stored as files or mapped into relational or object databases, depending on their structuredness; indices are defined according to the storage method used. Virtual documents can be remote documents, defined as arbitrary WebOQL queries, or views, defined as queries over documents registered in the system. The system catalog contains metadata for the documents, especially their schemata, used for query processing and optimization. Queries can range over both the catalog and the documents, and multiple query languages are supported." [Full context] [August 24, 2001] Public comment is invited through September 17, 2001 on the Proposed Recommendation release of XML-Signature Syntax and Processing. Issued by the IETF/W3C XML Signature Working Group as a joint IETF and W3C draft, the XML digital signature specification provides for integrity, message authentication, and signer authentication services. The PR document "specifies XML syntax and processing rules for creating and representing digital signatures. XML Signatures can be applied to any digital content (data object), including XML. An XML Signature may be applied to the content of one or more resources. Enveloped or enveloping signatures are over data within the same XML document as the signature; detached signatures are over data external to the signature element. More specifically, this specification defines an XML signature element type and an XML signature application; conformance requirements for each are specified by way of schema definitions and prose respectively. This specification also includes other useful types that identify methods for referencing collections of resources, algorithms, and keying and management information. The XML Signature is a method of associating a key with referenced data (octets); it does not normatively specify how keys are associated with persons or institutions, nor the meaning of the data being referenced and signed. Consequently, while this specification is an important component of secure XML applications, it itself is not sufficient to address all application security/trust concerns, particularly with respect to using signed XML (or other data formats) as a basis of human-to-human communication and agreement. Such an application must specify additional key, algorithm, processing and rendering requirements." [Full context] [August 23, 2001] A posting from Paul Prescod (ActiveState) announces a 'community run' collaborative website called the XSLT Cookbook Project. The designers invite contributions to XSLT lore in the form of code, comments, and ratings for recipes. This dynamic collection "will allow programmers to be more productive with XSLT, and will provide a dynamic space for the rapid content development of a cookbook. The XSLT Cookbook is a new project based on a very successful experiment of ActiveState and O'Reilly called the Python Cookbook. The idea of an online Cookbook is to get people to contribute 'recipes' that other people can then take and use in their programs -- in this case, XSLT snippets to be used in stylesheets and transformations... The XSLT Cookbook is not a FAQ because it only deals with snippets of code and discussions around them. It doesn't talk about implementation issues or deep language semantics or anything other than snippets of code; unlike a FAQ, the Cookbook is completely community run. The Cookbook is also very different than a collection of code in a library such as EXSLT or the XSLT Standard Library. The nice thing about a library is that you directly plug in using import/include. The Cookbook is for the code that cannot be so nicely packaged; XPath expressions are a perfect example..." [Full context] [August 22, 2001] Revision 3 of the WIPO 'Draft Legal Framework and Technical Standard' for electronic patent filings under the international Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) has been released for public comment. This revision includes XML DTDs for the E-PCT Standard. WIPO [World Intellectual Property Organization, Geneva] is an "international organization dedicated to promoting the use and protection of works of the human spirit" through the development of IP protection regulations. Part 7 of the PCT Instructions Relating to The Electronic Filing and Processing of International Applications has been revised with 'XML DTDs for the E-PCT Standard' in Annex F, Appendix I, and is open for comment until August 24, 2001. The working group envisions that additional revised drafts will be issued prior to finalization and promulgation of the standard. The appendix "presents the XML DTDs used for the electronic exchange of international application documents as defined in Annex F and contains details of the methodology adopted in drafting these DTDs. The immediate goal of the specification is to support E-PCT applications, but the Trilateral Offices intends to use it as the basis for their own national electronic applications for a variety of industrial-property types and recommend that it would be the basis for an eventual WIPO standard for use by other Offices. Thus the DTDs created for E-PCT will be constructed in components for element definitions and from which the Trilateral Offices and others can derive elements and DTDs for their needs in a consistent and compatible manner. The other DTDs that will eventually be required will also be based on the component DTD architecture." Ten provisional XML DTDs are presented in graphical [PNG] and plain text format: E-PCT dossier, Request form, Application body, Declaration, Amendment request, Power of attorney, Fee sheet, Biological deposit, Receiving Office information, and Package header. [Full context] [August 22, 2001] XML Schemas first announced in June 2001 have now been published by the Uniform Code Council and are publicly available for download. This initial distribution "contains Version 1.0 of the global voluntary standards for the exchange of electronic business documents using Extensible Markup Language (XML) within the EAN.UCC System. The EAN.UCC System, created by the Uniform Code Council (UCC), with EAN International (EAN), includes the specifications, standards, and guidelines for eCommerce. The EAN.UCC System enables companies of any size, industry, or geography to communicate in the Global Language of Business. This publication was developed through a consensus of interested parties conforming to the global UCC Standards Management Process. The schema development was based on Business Process Models and the principles of simple electronic business (Simpl-eb), in order to simplify the business processes independent from syntax and technology. It includes the following information: Core Party, Core Item, FMCG Item Extension, Core Order, Request for Payment, Allowance-Charge Extension, Payment Terms Extension, Simple Despatch Advice, Party Banking Information, Party Pallet System, Simple Invoice Extension, and Relationship Dependent Data." [Full context] [August 22, 2001] A design team at Charteris plc has developed a 'Meaning Definition Language' (MDL) as a "bridge between XML structure and meaning, expressed precisely in XML. MDL defines how the structures of an XML document (elements, attributes and XPaths) convey meanings (about objects, properties and associations). The purpose of the Meaning Definition Language (MDL) is thus to define what XML documents mean and how they express that meaning. MDL defines what a document can mean in terms of a UML class model or RDF Schema, and defines how to extract the meaning, in terms of XPath. MDL is a simple language with many applications, such as: (1) validating that an XML language can convey its intended meaning, (2) automated translation of documents between XML languages, (3) automated retrieval of information on the Semantic Web, (4) supporting meaning-level XML query languages, and (5) programming APIs to XML at the level of meaning, independent of document structure. MDL will enable tools and users to interface to XML at the level of meaning rather than structure. MDL-based automated XML translation and a meaning-level query language are already supported." [Full context] [August 22, 2001] A 121-page document Recommended Definition Data for Coordinate Reference Systems and Coordinate Transformations has been made available for public review by the Open GIS Consortium. The recommendation paper provides a data model which "harmonizes and improves the relevant XML work previously done by OGC. This OGC standard data model for coordinate reference systems and coordinate transformation definition data is intended for initial use with OGC's OpenGIS Geography Markup Language (GML) and Coordinate Transformation (CT) Implementation Specifications. That is, each of these two specifications is expected to use a subset and/or superset of the Definition Data described in the Recommendation Paper. The data model was developed using object-oriented analysis and design principles and is recorded in XML format. Future revisions of this specification will convert the current XML Document Type Definitions (DTD) to XML Schema." Section 6 supplies the normative XML data model; Annex D provides the uncommented XML DTDs; Annex E offers XML examples; Informative Annex G documents correspondences between the XML DTD and UML. OGC is "an international industry consortium of over 200 companies, government agencies and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geoprocessing specifications." [Full context] [August 17, 2001] W3C has announced a new Conformance and Quality Assurance Activity designed "to solidify and extend current W3C quality practices regarding specification editing, validation tools and test suites, and coordination efforts within W3C." The activity will be supervised by Karl Dubost, W3C Conformance Manager. A W3C QA Interest Group has been formed as well as a QA Working Group. The QA activity will "work on the quality of W3C specifications, promote the development of good validators, test tools, and harnesses for implementers, and think ahead to additional steps. The main objective of the QA Working Group is to foster the development of usable and useful test suites endorsed by the W3C, which share a common look and feel, and ensure that the validating tools of the W3C are fully operational, useful and educational. The working group will seek to (1) improve the quality of W3C specifications with respect to conformance statement, test assertions, tutorial/examples, formal representation of languages, etc.), by conducting reviews of specifications and producing guidelines for specification writers; optionally, the WG can work on specification improvement, but this is not a required deliverable; (2) develop a common framework/harness for developing and running tests and a process for maintaining/adding/removing tests from test suites; reviewing existing test tools (3) ensure coordination with W3C Working Groups developing specifications (formal channel, appeal); (4) coordinate works with internal W3C horizontal groups: WAI, I18N, TAG, and Communications Team." [Full context] [August 16, 2001] Wrox Press has published a full-length volume on XML Schemas in its 'Programmer to Programmer' Series. Professional XML Schemas has been authored by Kurt Cagle, Jon Duckett, Oliver Griffin, Stephen Mohr, Francis Norton, Nikola Ozu, Ian Stokes-Rees, Jeni Tennison, and Kevin Williams. Professional XML Schemas "exhaustively details the W3C XML Schema language, and teaches the new syntax in an intuitive and logical way. [It documents] how to declare elements and attributes, how to create complex content models, how to work with multiple namespaces, and how to use XML Schemas in real-world situations. A number of practical case studies illustrate the design and creation of schemas in the diverse worlds of relational databases, document management, and e-commerce applications." The book covers all major aspects of schema application, including: "(1) A complete guide to XML Schema Syntax; (2) Using XML Schema built-in types, and deriving new types; (3) Working with XML Schemas and XML Namespaces; (4) Creating identity and uniqueness constraints; (5) Good schema design, illustrated in a number of different areas; (6) Working with schemas and XSLT; (7) Writing XML Schemas for working with SOAP; (8) Integrating Schematron and XML Schemas." Reference tools in appendices include Schema Element and Attribute Reference, Schema Datatypes Reference, UML Reference, Tools and Parsers, and Bibliography and Further Reading. [Full context] [August 16, 2001] A posting from Dan Connolly to the W3C 'www-rdf-logic' mailing list announces the formation of a new Web Ontology Working Group within W3C. The Web Ontology (WebOnt) Working Group has been chartered to design a web ontology language "that builds on current web languges that allow the specification of classes and subclasses, properties and subproperties (such as RDFS), but which extends these constructs to allow more complex relationships between entities including: means to limit the properties of classes with respect to number and type, means to infer that items with various properties are members of a particular class, a well-defined model of property inheritance, and similar semantic extensions to the base languages. The web ontology language must support the development and linking of ontologies together, in a web-like manner. The products of this working group must be supported by a formal semantics allowing language designers, tool builders, and other 'experts' to be able to precisely understand the meaning and 'legal' inferences for expressions in the language. The language will use the XML syntax and datatypes whereever possible, and will be designed for maximum compatibility with XML and RDF language conventions." [Full context] [August 15, 2001] James Clark (OASIS RELAX NG Technical Committee Chair) has posted an announcement for the release of the RELAX NG Version 0.9 specification. The technical committee has "allocated a period of two months for public comment and implementation. At the end of this period, the team plans to resolve all comments received and release RELAX NG version 1.0." A RELAX NG Tutorial has also been published as an OASIS Committee Specification. Appendices in this tutorial document provide summary comparisons of RELAX NG with XML DTDs, RELAX Core, and TREX. RELAX NG is "a simple schema language for XML, based on RELAX and TREX. A RELAX NG schema specifies a pattern for the structure and content of an XML document; a RELAX NG schema thus identifies a class of XML documents consisting of those documents that match the pattern... The key features of RELAX NG are that it is simple, easy to learn, uses XML syntax, does not change the information set of an XML document, supports XML namespaces, treats attributes uniformly with elements so far as possible, has unrestricted support for unordered content, has unrestricted support for mixed content, has a solid theoretical basis, and can partner with a separate datatyping language. RELAX NG itself performs only validation: it does not change the infoset of an XML document. Most of the features of XML 1.0 DTDs that are not supported by RELAX NG involve modification to the infoset. In XML 1.0, validation and infoset modification are combined in a monolithic XML processor. It is a goal of the [RELAX NG] specification to provide a clean separation between validation and infoset modification, so that a wide variety of implementation scenarios are possible." [Full context] [August 15, 2001] Members of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative's DC-Libraries Application Profile working group have completed an initial DCMI public working draft for a Library Application Profile. Edited by Rebecca Guenther of the US Library of Congress, the document proposes a possible application profile that clarifies the use of the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set in libraries and library-related applications and projects. The concept of application profiles ('mixing and matching metadata schemas') "has emerged within the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative as a way to declare which elements from which namespaces are used in a particular application or project. Application profiles are defined as schemas which consist of data elements drawn from one or more namespaces, combined together by implementors, and optimised for a particular local application. The DCMI-Libraries Working Group has explored various uses of the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set in library and related applications and has has envisioned the following possible uses: (1) to serve as an interchange format between various systems using different metadata standards/formats; (2) to use for harvesting metadata from data sources within and outside of the library domain; (3) to support simple creation of library catalog records for resources within a variety of systems (e.g., using MARC equivalents of Dublin Core elements); (4) to expose MARC data to other communities (through a conversion to DC); (5) to allow for acquiring resource discovery metadata from non-library creators using Dublin Core." [Full context] [August 15, 2001] The World Wide Web Consortium recently announced the publication of Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) 2.0 as a W3C Recommendation, reflecting the director's judgment that the specification "has significant support for a technical report from the Advisory Committee, the Team, W3C Working groups, and the public; SMIL 2.0 is a stable document and may be used as reference material or cited as a normative reference from another document." The SMIL 2.0 specification defines an XML-based language that authors can use to write interactive multimedia presentations. Version 2.0 includes approximately one hundred predefined transition effects, and support for hierarchical layout and animation. In addition to full incorporation of the successful SMIL 1.0 features, SMIL 2.0 Modules provide functionalities including animation; content control; layout; linking; media objects; metainformation; structure; timing and synchronization; time manipulations; and transition effects. This gives authors the ability to create sophisticated animation, event-based interaction with a presentation, and graceful transition effects." Two design goals have been followed: "(1) providing an XML-based language that allows authors to describe the temporal behavior of a multimedia presentation, associate hyperlinks with media objects and describe the layout of the presentation on a screen. (2) allowing re-use of SMIL syntax and semantics in other XML-based languages, in particular those who need to represent timing and synchronization. For example, SMIL 2.0 components are used for integrating timing into XHTML and into SVG. The strategy adopted in SMIL 2.0 for integrating its functionality with other XML-based languages is based on the concepts of modularization and profiling." [Full context] [August 15, 2001] The XML Query Language tool announced by Microsoft in May 2001 has been updated to be conformant to the June 07, 2001 W3C Working Draft specification for XQuery 1.0: An XML Query Language. The development team has also provided a new managed class library containing XQuery classes "that can be programmed against using the beta 2 release of the .Net Frameworks SDK. These classes allow one to run XQuery queries over arbitrary XML documents." Description: "The purpose of the XQuery demo is to enable you to experience the XQuery language and provide feedback on the implementation. Microsoft is committed to supporting the XQuery working group's progress; we will continue to revise this page and the downloadable class library as the XQuery specification develops... Since the demo page is a website, we provide a set of predefined XML documents and disallow the use of user-specified documents for security reasons. In order to execute queries over an arbitrary collection of XML documents you can download the XQuery Demo class library... The demo is implemented in C# and is currently only available via the website. The demo is not meant to give you any indication on how and where XQuery will be implemented in Microsoft products. Its main use is to familiarize the public with XQuery and to gather feedback and requirements for both the W3C working group and our own implementation effort." [Full context] [August 15, 2001] A posting from Bob McWhirter announces the availability of Jaxen Version 1.0-beta-4. With development hosted on SourceForge, the Jaxen project is developing a Java XPath Engine. Jaxen is "a universal object model walker, capable of evaluating XPath expressions across multiple models." The current version provides support for parsing and evaluating XPath expressions against JDOM, dom4j, EXML, and W3C-DOM documents. Beta version 4 has better public API for each support model, and includes numerous bugfixes. According to the developers' description, "Jaxen itself is based upon SAXPath, which is an event-based model for parsing XPath expressions. Since Jaxen works against an adaptor which provides InfoSet access to arbitrary object models, it should be possible to build even larger tools in terms of Jaxen, to work with multiple models. For example, an XQL engine could be developed, which would automagically work with all models already supported by Jaxen. Jaxen may be perceived to be better than other XPath technologies since it provides a single cohesive API for evaluating XPaths against multiple object models. Learn the Jaxen API, and apply it to dom4j, JDOM, EXML or DOM trees in exactly the same way..." [Full context] [August 15, 2001] W3C has announced the availability of an online validation service for RDF (Resource Description Framework) documents. The new RDF validation service "is based on version 1.0.3 of the Another RDF Parser (ARP). ARP was created and is maintained by Jeremy Carroll at Hewlett-Packard Labs in Bristol." The RDF validation service at W3C was created and is maintained by Art Barstow of HP, visiting W3C Fellow at MIT. One may use the online validation service by entering a URI or copying an RDF/XML document into the text field of the HTML forms interface; a 3-tuple (triple) representation of the corresponding data model as well as a graphical visualization of the data model will be displayed. The graph is generated using the GraphViz open source graph drawing software from AT&T Labs. The servlet uses ARP, and thus depends on Xerces and SAX2 as documented at the ARP home page. The servlet source code is available from the W3C website. [Full context] [August 15, 2001] A posting from James Tauber and Daniel Krech announces the release of Redfoot version 0.9.9, with improvements designed to make it easier to write applications on top of Redfoot. Redfoot is a "framework for distributed RDF-based applications, written in Python. It includes an RDF database, a query API for RDF with numerous higher-level query functions, an RDF parser and serializer, a simple HTTP server providing a Web interface for viewing and editing RDF, and the beginnings of a peer-to-peer architecture for communication between different RDF databases. The developers plan to enhance Redfoot to include a complete peer-to-peer architecture for discovery of RDF statements, an inference engine, and connectors for mapping non-RDF data into RDF triples. The current 0.9.9 version available from the Sourceforge CVS repository represents a complete rewrite from the ground up, and has a much cleaner architecture that will support the continuing development of Redfoot well into 1.x and beyond. Version 0.9.9 should be viewed as a beta for version 1.0, to be released in the first half of September 2001. This release supports a cleaner notion of modules, with the beginnings of modules like RSS and authentication; it offers improvements to the 'RedCode' language for combining Python and XHTML." [Full context] [August 14, 2001] A posting from Norman Walsh (Sun Microsystems) announces the release of a set of Java classes originally written to implement the OASIS XML Catalogs Committee Specification for SAX entityResolver() and JAXP URIResolver(). These classes "greatly simplify the task of using Catalog files to perform entity resolution. You can use these classes directly 'out of the box' with their applications (such as Xalan and Saxon) or customize them to suit your particular needs. Developers will also be interested in the included JavaDoc API Documentation. The distribution package includes Java classes, JavaDoc API documentation, and step-by-step instructions explaining how to use and customize the resolver components." The Preview Version 0.2 requires JDK 1.2 or later. The package with binaries and sample code is available for download from the Sun XML Developer Connection. [Full context] [August 13, 2001] A new web site 'XML.HOUSE.GOV' for XML and Legislative Documents has been opened to the public, providing a number of XML DTDs for bills, resolutions, house membership, etc. The purpose of the new web site is "to provide information related to the ongoing work of the U.S. House of Representatives in relation to the Extensible Markup Language (XML). Under the direction of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration and the House Committee on Administration, the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House have worked together with the Library of Congress and the Government Printing Office to create Document Type Definition files (DTDs) for use in the creation of legislative documents using XML. The DTDs may be redistributed and/or modified freely provided that any derivative works bear some notice that they are derived from it, and any modified versions bear some notice that they have been modified. As this is an ongoing project, it is important to note that the DTDs presented on the web site have not been finalized, and may change over time; any documents or programs created with these DTDs should be treated as beta material and not used in a production capacity. A date has not been set for producing legislative material with XML." [Full context] [August 11, 2001] The XML development team at IBM alphaWorks has released a 'Web Services Invocation Framework' described as "a tool that provides a standard API for invoking services described in Web Services Description Language (WSDL), no matter how or where the services are provided. The WSIF architecture allows new bindings to be added at runtime. WSIF enables developers to interact with representations of Web services instead of working directly with the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) APIs, which is the usual programming model. With WSIF, developers can work with the same programming model regardless of how the Web service is implemented and accessed. The WSIF architecture also allows stub-less invocation of Web services: no stub is generated, and the services can be dynamically invoked. WSIF is based on WSDL4J model 'JSR 110', but in simple usage cases, WSDL4J representation is hidden from the user by portType compiler. Currently, WSIF supports a subset of WSDL SOAP binding (it implements the RPC-oriented part) and very simple Java binding that will be improved in future releases of WSIF." [Full context] [August 11, 2001] The W3C SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) Working Group has released two working draft documents specifying requirements for the next phase of SVG development. SVG is "a language for defining 2D graphics that uses XML syntax to describe graphical elements that may be rendered in a resolution-independent manner. The SVG 1.0 specification, currently at Proposed Recommendation status, defines the visual representation of the elements which can be used in a stand-alone SVG file or included in another XML document within the SVG namespace. The next step in the SVG process will be the development of two specifications, SVG 1.1 and SVG 2.0. SVG 1.1 will include a modularized version of SVG 1.0, and new features driven by the requirements of an SVG profile for mobile devices. Parallel to the development of SVG 1.1, the SVG Working Group will develop a number of profiles for SVG (e.g., full SVG, SVG Tiny, SVG. Basic and possibly a printing profile). SVG 2.0 will include the additional SVG 1.1 features, and other new features of value to the SVG community." SVG 1.1/2.0 Requirements "lists the design principles and requirements for future versions of the SVG language, in particular versions 1.1 and 2.0, to be developed by the W3C." SVG Mobile Requirements outlines design principles and requirements for the creation of a mobile profile of the SVG specification." The SVG Working Group intends to release a first draft of the 'future' SVG specification in October 2001. [Full context] [August 09, 2001] An announcement from the Web3D Consortium describes the launch of the X3D Open Web3D Standard as "a new-generation successor to VRML to bring rich and compelling 3D graphics to the Web for a wide variety of applications and devices." Demonstrations of commecial X3D browser applications will be shown at the upcoming SIGGRAPH 2001 exhibition in Los Angeles. The X3D working group created the foundation for the X3D initiative by defining the X3D Core specification, capturing the geometry and behaviorial features of the Virtual Reality Modeling Language in XML. The working groups and supporting companies continue to define, implement, and promote the XML bindings for X3D. The X3D standard "is being developed under the Web3D Consortium's standardization process that provides full and open access to the specification for interested companies and eventual submission to the International Standards Organization (ISO) for ratification to provide long-term stability for Web3D content and applications." [Full context] [August 07, 2001] An announcement from ATIS' Standards Committee T1 describes the completion of an initial standards formulation for tML (Telecommunications Markup Language). Committee T1 "is sponsored by the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions and accredited by the American National Standards Institute to create network interconnections and interoperability standards for the United States. This initial tML standard application provides support for DSL Service Provisioning OSS Interconnection". Telecommunications Markup Language is a telecom-specific XML application "which is expected to become the standard for OSS transactions. Just as other industries, such as the automobile industry, have their own XML derivatives for communications among trading partners for e-commerce, so too will the telecommunications industry via tML. T1M1's DSL specific work is based on DSL Forum's DSL Service Flow Through Provisioning requirements (Common order sharing, Standard order deployment, Common Customer information records). The expected benefits of using tML include lower OSS development costs, lower operating costs, more flexible systems integration, and improved time to market... Several schemas are involved with this first application. The most reusable schemas are targeted to be part of a family of tML-Base schemas within the overall tML family of schemas. The DSL Service Provisioning schema will be considered part of the overall tML family of schemas." [Full context] [August 07, 2001] Researchers in Hewlett-Packard's CoolTown research program are developing a "Websign" application for wireless devices which combines the advantages of wireless technology and ubiquitous computing "to provide a transparent linkage between the physical world and resources available on the Web." The websign technology "uses commonly available Internet-enabled wireless devices such as PDAs or smart phones equipped with client software, a positioning system such as GPS, and a digital compass to visualize services for physical entities. Devices sense physical entities in the environment and map them to a Web browser. When the user requests new information, the mobile device connects to a Web server and downloads and caches XML descriptions of websigns in a wide surrounding area. Websigns essentially bind location coordinates, control parameters such as access range, and a service represented by a URL. The Websign Markup Language (WsML), an XML application, is used to express the binding semantics: the Web servers host WsML for mobile devices to download over a cellular wireless connection. Mobile devices can also host WsML for other peer-to-peer devices. Typically, peer devices can communicate over short-range radio networks such as Bluetooth or send WsML embedded in text-message-over systems such as Short Message Service." WsML, similar to Geography Markup Language (GML), "provides a compact format for transmitting binding information over a low-bandwidth wireless network." [Full context] [August 03, 2001] The latest issue of Markup Languages: Theory and Practice by MIT Press has been published, carrying a number of high-quality refereed technical articles. For the reader's convenience, I have prepared an annotated Table of Contents document with abstracts, excerpts, and additional references. Articles in MLTP Volume 2, Number 3 [pages 205-335] include: "Managing XML Documents in an Integrated Digital Library" [David A. Smith, Anne Mahoney, Jeffrey A. Rydberg-Cox]; "Meaning and Interpretation of Markup" [C. M. Sperberg-McQueen, Claus Huitfeldt, Allen Renear]; "Managing Web Relationships With Document Structures" [Michael Priestley]; "An XML Messaging Architecture for Border Management Systems" [Andy Adler, James MacLean, Alan Boate]; "Navigable Topic Maps for Overlaying Multiple Acquired Semantic Classifications" [Helka Folch, Benoît Habert, Saadi Lahlou]; "Beyond Schemas: Schema Adjuncts and the Outside World" [Scott Vorthmann, Jonathan Robie]; "Using UML to Define XML Document Types" [W. Eliot Kimber, John Heintz]; "Using Java for XML Processing: Review of Java and XML and Java and XML" [Keith W. Boone]; "Review of DocBook - The Definitive Guide" [Normand Montour]. Edited by C. Michael Sperberg-McQueen (W3C) and B. Tommie Usdin (Mulberry Technologies), Markup Languages: Theory and Practice is a "peer-reviewed journal devoted to research, development, and practical applications of text markup for computer processing, management, manipulation, and display. Specific areas of interest include: new syntaxes for generic markup languages; refinements to existing markup languages; theory of formal languages as applied to document markup; systems for mark-up; uses of markup for printing, hypertext, electronic display, content analysis, information reuse and repurposing, search and retrieval, and interchange; shared applications of markup languages; and techniques and methodologies for developing markup languages and applications of markup languages." [Full context] [August 03, 2001] Two new CSS3 working drafts have been released by the W3C CSS working group editors as part of the W3C Style Activity. CSS3 Module: The Box Model "describes the layout of textual documents in visual media. The box model builds on the inline text model, which describes how text is laid out on a line, including treatment of superscripts and bidirectional ('bidi') text. The flow can be horizontal, which is typical for most languages, but in level 3 of CSS, flows can also be vertical; this is typical for the Uighur script and often used for ideographic scripts." The working draft document CSS3 Module: Fonts "presents a set of properties allowing font specification by a user agent as well as additional font decoration properties like font effects, emphasis, smoothing, etc. While the font specification is identical to the similar section in CSS 2, the font decoration properties are new to CSS3. This new module only addresses the font specification part; all other considerations are covered by the Web Font module which addresses: font selection, font characteristics, and font matching algorithm. In addition, this modules specifies various font decoration effects that are glyph related like 3D effect, outline, smoothing and emphasis. These decoration effects are differentiated from the text-decoration through their closer relationship with fonts and their glyphs." [Full context] [August 02, 2001] The NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol Committee (CICP) has released a Twelfth Draft of ANSI/NISO Z39.83-200x (NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol) as a NISO Draft Standard for Trial Use. The accompanying NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol DTD defines the schema for transaction initiation and response messages which together comprise the NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol. The NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol (NCIP) "defines a repertoire of messages and associated rules of syntax and semantics for use by applications to: (1) perform the functions necessary to lend items; (2) provide controlled ac-cess to electronic resources; and, (3) facilitate co-operative management of these functions. The standard specifically addresses conditions in which the application or applications that initiate the lending of items or control of access must acquire or transmit information about the user, agency, items, and/or access that is essential to successful conclusion of the function. The protocol also addresses the use of an agency's circulation application to manage access by a user to electronic resources such as electronic books, serials, and sound recordings." [Full context] [August 01, 2001] The XML development team at IBM alphaWorks labs has released a beta version of a 'Voice Toolkit' to assist in the creation of voice applications "in less time, using a VoiceXML application development environment. The Voice Toolkit features grammar and VoiceXML editors so that application developers do not need to know the internals of voice technology. The Voice Toolkit Beta includes: (1) An integrated development environment (IDE) - runs on the desktop and enables the multi-step process of creating speech applications; (2) A VoiceXML editor - provides content assistance and integrated pronunciation development; (3) A Grammar editor - enables syntax-checking and integrated pronunciation development for generating JSGF grammars for VoiceXML applications. The grammar editor includes grammar creation for SRCL/BNF grammars and it provides conversion capability between SRCL/BNF and JSGF; (4) A pronunciation builder - generates a pronunciation from spelling; and it lets you manually create pronunciations; (5) A basic audio recorder - allows the creation of audio files from spoken text and the playing of previously-recorded audio files; (6) VoiceXML Reusable Dialog Components - pre-written VoiceXML code for use as building blocks for application functions." [Full context] [August 01, 2001] A posting from Kohsuke KAWAGUCHI (Sun Microsystems) announces the availability of a 'Sun Multi-Schema XML Validator.' The Sun Multi-Schema XML Validator (MSV) is "a Java technology tool to validate XML documents against XML schemata. MSV supports RELAX NG, RELAX Namespace, RELAX Core, TREX, XML DTDs, and a subset of W3C XML Schema Part 1. The validator can be used as a command-line tool (to validate XML documents against a schema or DTD) or as a library (to validate documents or to manipulate schemas from inside a Java application). The distribution includes binaries, sample source code, and detailed documentation." [Full context] [August 01, 2001] The WAP Forum has announced the availability of WAP 2.0 for public review. "This next generation of the WAP specification helps content developers deliver a richer and more secure experience to mobile Internet service subscribers. WAP 2.0 is a significant evolutionary step in the worldwide standard and will allow application developers to create compelling mobile content using the same tools and techniques they are already familiar with using for other Internet applications. As WAP continues convergence with Internet specifications, WAP 2.0 builds upon the latest Internet standards: XHTML, TCP/IP, HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1), and Transport Layer Security (TLS). Utilizing standards developed by the W3C, WAP adopts XHTML and CSS Mobile Profile as part of WML 2.0 (while maintaining backwards compatibility with WML 1.x), to reduce the time necessary to create and test applications and manipulate content for various devices. At the protocol level WAP 2.0 adopts IETF specifications Supporting XHTML, WAP 2.0 reduces development costs, allowing developers to write applications for both PC and WAP clients, using a common subset of language elements and development tools. XHTML's modular architecture also enables developers to quickly and easily build applications that can adapt to changes in the hardware environment. WAP 2.0 also gives developers the ability to create applications utilizing enhanced style features. Through the use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), developers can separate style attributes for one or more XML documents from the actual code, reducing the size of the markup code in browser memory." [Full context] [August 01, 2001] TEI editors Lou Burnard and Steve DeRose have announced the official release of version 4 draft Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange. The third edition of the Guidelines known as 'P3' has been edited by participants in the Text Encoding Initiative Consortium (TEI-C); the third edition "has been heavily used since its released in April of 1994 for developing richly encoded and highly portable electronic editions of major works in philosophy, linguistics, history, literary studies, and many other disciplines. The fourth edition, 'P4' will be fully compatible with XML, as well as remaining compatible with SGML (XML's predecessor and the syntactic basis for P3). XML-compatible versions of the TEI DTDs have been available for some time by means of an automatic generation process using the TEI 'pizza chef' tool on the project's website. The first stage in the production of P4 has been to remove the need for this process; accordingly, a preliminary set of dual-capability XML or SGML DTDs was made available for testing at the ACH-ALLC Conference in New York in June. The next stage was to apply a series of systematic changes to the associated documentation, which is now complete: the results may be read online." The TEI editors invite participation in public review of the new P4 draft Guidelines. [Full context]
More Information on Robin Cover's XML pages at xml.coverpages.org
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