Toward 2^W beyond Web 2.0

From its inception as a global hypertext system, the Web has evolved into a universal platform for deploying loosely coupled distributed applications. 2^W is a result of the exponentially growing Web building on itself to move from a Web of content to a Web of applications

Supporting a Medication Management Model with Digital Documents

Medication management is an approach to addressing medication-related adverse patient events. We have formulated a model of essential medication-related information components to support pharmacists undertaking this task, because there is currently little technology to support such decision-making. We believe the system should identify necessary components but not mandate their presence because of the dilemma of missing information. A possible additional answer lies in supporting communication and acknowledging the contribution of knowledge, rather than attempting to provide all possible information. Our model underpinned a document-centric approach, using XML-based XForms, to develop a decision support tool. This allowed rapid development of a simple dynamic tool that shows promise for simple decision support in the health environment

XML technologies in language documentation workflows

More and more programs use XML formats for internal data storage, not only for interchange. This includes both general-purpose tools like MS Office and OpenOffice/LibreOffice and specialized linguistic software such as ELAN, EXMARaLDA, FLEx, Speech Analyzer, Arbil, WeSay, SayMore and so on. Thus more and more linguistic data are being created in XML, not just convertible to XML. Although not ideal (verbosity, high processing time), XML formats have a number of benefits to boost workflow efficiency. Importantly, XML documents can be processed with XSL transforms to get new data, remaining still in the realm of XML (the XSL transforms themselves are also XML and can be transformed by other XSL...), displayed as HTML or published into PDF. Finally, there are now mature free native-XML databases like eXist-db and BaseX which offer the full cycle of operations in one application with browser-based interface: store existing documents, browse and query data, create and edit data online, apply XSLT to publish. I will illustrate this with examples of transformations we used in language documentation workflow to convert interlinear texts in Archi (East Caucasian) between various formats including OpenOffice and FLEx. A connected issue which will be addressed is the need for an interchange standard format for interlinear texts

Before-Commit Client State Management Services for AJAX Applications

Heavily script-based browser applications change the manner in which users interact with Web browsers. Instead of downloading a succession of HTML pages, users download a single application and use that application for a long period of time. The application is not a set of HTML pages, but rather a single page that can possible modify its own presentation based on data exchanged with a server. In such an environment, it is necessary to provide some means for the client to manage its own state. We describe the initial results of our work in providing client-side state management services for these script-based applications. We focus on browser-based services that can help the user before any data is committed on the server. Our services include state checkpointing, property binding, operation logging, operational replay, ATOM/RSS data updates, and application-controlled persistence

SozioNet: networking social science resources

"SozioNet forms part of a forthcoming national social science information portal, which is currently being developed by the German Infoconnex initiative. Inspired by successful examples like MathNet or SOSIG, SozioNet provides access to freely available web resources with relevance to social science. It is based on a network of social science institutions and scientists, to agree on and establish common metadata standards. SozioNet implements a general infrastructure for the creation of semantically rich metadata, and for the harvesting and retrieval of relevant resources with a domain specific focus." (author's abstract

Development of a Coral Reef Mapping Tool for St. Maarten

An abstract is a self-contained, summary description of the project report. An abstract Coral reefs contribute significantly to the socio-economic well-being of the people of St. Maarten, an island in the Caribbean. These coral reefs are rapidly declining due to various environmental and social factors. This project developed a prototype citizen scientist mapping tool comprised of an Android mobile application built using a customized version of an Open Source software called Open Data Kit (ODK), and an ArcGIS Online web mapping application built using a standard template of Esri\u27s Web AppBuilder. This tool was designed to assist recreational divers and other local stakeholders to conveniently report their observations on the status of coral reefs in their area. Users can publish these observations directly from their smartphones to a publicly-accessible web mapping application. Such observations will contribute to the development of a Coastal Protection Master Plan for St. Maarten. The tool has the potential to provide vital information for coral reef conservation and repopulation, while at the same time creating awareness on the subject in St. Maarten

Standardization of Forms in Governments – A Meta-Model for a Reference Form Modeling Language

Forms are central interfaces for information exchange between a government and its citizens. As a way to translate laws into practice, forms are an essential part facilitating this exchange. Unfortunately, forms often require substantial development effort to ensure they comply with legal requirements, with the result that citi- zens often describe them as highly complex. Standardiza- tion of forms through reference modeling would help to minimize governments’ effort by reusing elements and would reduce complexity for citizens by providing a uni- fied representation of information. The article contributes a meta-model for a modeling language that can be used in representing reference models for forms. It follows a design science research approach to elicit form structure and editorial process requirements and to iteratively design the meta-model. The paper demonstrates and evaluates the meta-model using focus groups and application in three case studies. It extends research on standardization to ref- erence modeling and government forms

Web application user interface technologies

The World Wide Web has expanded from a huge information storage repository into a worldwide application platform. Web applications have several benefits compared to desktop applications. An application can be used anywhere from any system and device, which means that only one version is needed, they do not need to be installed and developers can modify running applications. Despite all the benefits of the Web, web applications are suffering because they are developed using the same technologies as the static documents on the Web. Some of these web technologies are outdated and were not originally designed for the complex use cases of the modern applications to which they are now applied. For instance, HTML forms comprise the main interaction of an application, despite not having been designed to describe complex and interactive UIs. Another example is HTTP communication on the Web, which always requires client initiative and is too restrictive for dynamic web applications. Additionally, new usage contexts have brought with them new requirements for web applications, which are no longer used only via Graphical User Interfaces. Recently, several parties have developed specialized technologies for web application development. These solutions are not only minor additions to the existing technologies, but also new technologies. The goal of this thesis is to analyze the advanced web technologies and propose improvements to the technologies and architecture where applicable. The technologies are evaluated against a large set of requirements. The aim of the evaluation is two-fold. The first part is to select a technology on which to base the further improvements, and the second is to identify the deficiencies of the current solutions. The improvements focus on the developers' point-of-view. Based on the evaluation, this thesis proposes certain improvements related to multimodal interaction, server push, and remote UI updates. It also discusses software that supports the improvements and XML-based web technologies. Finally, the improvements are evaluated against the requirements and compared to other solutions

Web Engineering for Workflow-based Applications: Models, Systems and Methodologies

This dissertation presents novel solutions for the construction of Workflow-based Web applications: The Web Engineering DSL Framework, a stakeholder-oriented Web Engineering methodology based on Domain-Specific Languages; the Workflow DSL for the efficient engineering of Web-based Workflows with strong stakeholder involvement; the Dialog DSL for the usability-oriented development of advanced Web-based dialogs; the Web Engineering Reuse Sphere enabling holistic, stakeholder-oriented reuse