Adaptive Hypermedia made simple using HTML/XML Style Sheet Selectors

This paper addresses enhancing HTML and XML with adaptation functionalities. The approach consists in using the path selectors of the HTML and XML style sheet languages CSS and XSLT for expressing content and navigation adaptation. Thus, the necessary extensions of the selector languages are minimal (a few additional constructs suffice), the processors of these languages can be kept almost unchanged, and no new algorithms are needed. In addition, XML is used for expressing the user model data like browsing history, browsing environment (such as device, location, time, etc.), and application data (such as user performances on exercises). The goal of the research presented here is not to propose novel forms or applications of adaptation, but instead to extend widespread web standards with adaptation functionalities. Essential features of the proposed approach are its simplicity and both the upwards and downwards compatibility of the extension

XML Document Adaptation Queries (XDAQ)

Adaptive web applications combine data retrieval on the web with reasoning so as to generate context dependent contents. The data is retrieved either as content or as context specifications. Content data is, for example, fragments of a textbook or e-commerce catalogue, whereas context data is, for example, a user model or a device profile. Current adaptive web applications are often implemented using ad hoc and heterogeneous techniques. This paper describes a novel approach called ”XML Document Adaptation Queries (XDAQ)” requiring less heterogeneous software components. The approach is based on using a web query language for data retrieval (content as well as context) and on a novel generic formalism to express adaptation. The approach is generic in the sense that it is applicable with all web query and transformation languages, for example with XQuery and XSLT

Hyper-Text-Linguistik

This doctoral thesis suggests a text-linguistic approach dealing with linked electronic texts, so called HYPERTEXTS. After explaining the concept and philosophy of the hypertext-idea and elaborating on a pragmatic definition of WWW-hypertexts (Part A of the thesis), a linguistic framework, the Textlinguistisches Analysemodell für Hypertexte (TAH), is proposed (Part B). TAH provides a pragmatic-functional, top-down model to analyze CONTEXT, FUNCTION and STRUCTURE of complete hypertexts and the hypertext-components NODE and LINK. Main aim of TAH is to strictly separate the different aspects of each hypertext- and linguistic level – without isolating them. The theoretical approach of TAH is used for a case study (Part C). Therefore a corpus of WWW-hypertexts, mainly informative and instructive ones, is examined with TAH-methods. Aim of this study is on the one hand to provide some sort of evidence for the plausibility of TAH and is on the other hand linked with a specific question of research: It deals with possibilities provided by linguistics to enhance hypertext-links with logically, semantically and/or rhetorically typed information. The conclusion of the study is to distinguish exactly between semantics of a deepstructure-knowledge-presentation, semantic and rhetoric relations of the surface, i.e. the hypertext the user can see, and the layout or traversal behavior respectively of the user interface, i.e. the browsersoftware. Part C mainly deals with problems of typed links on the surface of hypertexts