Topic Maps as a Virtual Observatory tool

One major component of the VO will be catalogs measuring gigabytes and terrabytes if not more. Some mechanism like XML will be used for structuring the information. However, such mechanisms are not good for information retrieval on their own. For retrieval we use queries. Topic Maps that have started becoming popular recently are excellent for segregating information that results from a query. A Topic Map is a structured network of hyperlinks above an information pool. Different Topic Maps can form different layers above the same information pool and provide us with different views of it. This facilitates in being able to ask exact questions, aiding us in looking for gold needles in the proverbial haystack. Here we discuss the specifics of what Topic Maps are and how they can be implemented within the VO framework. URL: http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~aam/science/topicmaps/Comment: 11 pages, 5 eps figures, to appear in SPIE Annual Meeting 2001 proceedings (Astronomical Data Analysis), uses spie.st

Ontologies on the semantic web

As an informational technology, the World Wide Web has enjoyed spectacular success. In just ten years it has transformed the way information is produced, stored, and shared in arenas as diverse as shopping, family photo albums, and high-level academic research. The “Semantic Web” was touted by its developers as equally revolutionary but has not yet achieved anything like the Web’s exponential uptake. This 17 000 word survey article explores why this might be so, from a perspective that bridges both philosophy and IT

Data DNA: The Next Generation of Statistical Metadata

Describes the components of a complete statistical metadata system and suggests ways to create and structure metadata for better access and understanding of data sets by diverse users

XML: GATEWAY FOR DATA MOBILITY AND UNIVERSAL CONNECTIVITY

Extensible Markup Language (XML) started as an effort to simplify the standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), which was the International Organization for Standardization’s (ISO) standard for defining data vocabularies. This study investigates XML technology as a substitute to SGML that would be Web friendly, and easy to learn and use while supporting a variety of applications for faster and more efficient data mobility on the Web. It describes several compelling reasons why XML is a useful technology for representing structured data mobility. XML is a markup language used for data structure in a textual form. A specific goal of XML is to keep most of the descriptive power of SGML, while removing as much of the complexity as possible. This article includes an overview of XML and its specifications and corresponding components, development of schemas for defining industry standards data definitions, potential problematic impact on information systems and recommended solutions for developers and practitioners

A Look Back on the XML Benchmark Project

The XML Benchmark Project was started to provide a framework for evaluating the interplay of XML technologies and Database Management Systems. The benchmark lays emphasis on engineering aspects as well as on performance of the query processor. In this chapter the authors present a quick overview of the benchmark and point at some of the experience they gathered during the design of the benchmark and while running it on a variety of platforms. Since the benchmark was designed early in the evolution of XML, our experiences also reflect how the perception of XML changed during the three years that have passed since we started working on the subject. The chapter comprises an overview of the benchmark as well as discussions of some lessons learned

XQuery Summer Institute: Advancing XML-Based Scholarship from Representation to Discovery

The XQuery Summer Institute at Vanderbilt University will be aimed at archivists, librarians, professors, and students who have experience marking up texts in XML, but do not yet know how to work computationally with those documents. Our institute aspires to recruit twelve members of the digital humanities community to a two week institute in June 2014. The faculty of the institute will teach participants to work productively with their XML-encoded texts using XQuery, a programming language designed specifically for XML. With XQuery, scholars can learn a single language to ingest their texts into an XML database, ask questions of them, connect them with other sources of information, and publish them on the web. Participants will go beyond using XML for representation to querying XML for discovery