Updating semi-structured data

The Web has had a tremendous success with its support for the rapid and inexpensive exchange of information. A considerable body of data exchange is in the form of semi- structured data such as the eXtensible Markup Language (XML). XML, an effective standard to represent and exchange semi-structured data on the Web, is used ubiquitously in almost all areas of information technology. Most researchers in the XML area have concentrated on storing, querying and publishing XML while not many have paid attention to updating XML; thus the XML update area is not fully developed. We propose a solution for updating XML as a representation of semi-structured data. XML is updated through an object-relational database (ORDB) to exploit the maturity of the relational engine and the newer object features of the OR technology. The engine is used to enforce constraints during the updating of the XML whereas the object features are used to handle the XML hierarchical structure. Updating XML via ORDB makes it easier to join XML documents in an update and in turn joins of XML documents make it possible to keep non-redundant data in multiple XML documents. This thesis contributes a solution for the update of XML documents via an ORDB to advance our understanding of the XML update area. Rules for mapping XML structure and constraints to an ORDB schema are presented and a mechanism to handle XML cardinality constraint is provided. An XML update language, an extension to XQuery, has been designed and this language is translated into the standard SQL executed on an ORDB. To handle the recursive nature of XML, a recursive function updating XML data is translated into SQL commands equipped with a programming capability. A method is developed to reflect the changes from the ORDB to XML documents. A prototype of the solution has been implemented to help validate our approach. Experimental study to evaluate the performance of XML update processing based on the prototype has been conducted. The experimental results show that updating multiple XML documents storing non-redundant data yields a better performance than updating a single XML document storing redundant data; an ORDB can take advantage of this by caching data to a greater extent than a native XML database. The solution of updating XML documents via an ORDB can solve some problems in existing update methods as follows. Firstly, the preservation of XML constraints is handled by the ORDB engine. Secondly, non-redundant data is stored in linked XML documents; thus the problem of data inconsistency and low performance caused by data redundancy are solved. Thirdly, joins of XML documents are converted to joins of tables in SQL. Fourthly, fields or tables involved in regular path expressions can be tackled in a short time by using mapping data. Finally, a recursive function is translated into SQL commands equipped with a programming capability

Design and implementation of a filter engine for semantic web documents

This report describes our project that addresses the challenge of changes in the semantic web. Some studies have already been done for the so-called adaptive semantic web, such as applying inferring rules. In this study, we apply the technology of Event Notification System (ENS). Treating changes as events, we developed a notification system for such events

XML Security in Certificate Management - XML Certificator

The trend of rapid growing use of XML format in data/document management system reveals that security measures should be urgently considered into next generation's data/document systems. This paper presents a new certificate management system developed on the basis of XML security mechanisms. The system is supported by the theories of XML security as well as Object oriented technology and database. Finally it has been successfully implemented in using C&#, SQL, XML signature and XML encryption. An implementation metrics is evidently presented

State-of-the-art on evolution and reactivity

This report starts by, in Chapter 1, outlining aspects of querying and updating resources on the Web and on the Semantic Web, including the development of query and update languages to be carried out within the Rewerse project. From this outline, it becomes clear that several existing research areas and topics are of interest for this work in Rewerse. In the remainder of this report we further present state of the art surveys in a selection of such areas and topics. More precisely: in Chapter 2 we give an overview of logics for reasoning about state change and updates; Chapter 3 is devoted to briefly describing existing update languages for the Web, and also for updating logic programs; in Chapter 4 event-condition-action rules, both in the context of active database systems and in the context of semistructured data, are surveyed; in Chapter 5 we give an overview of some relevant rule-based agents frameworks

Potentially Polluting Marine Sites GeoDB: An S-100 Geospatial Database as an Effective Contribution to the Protection of the Marine Environment

Potentially Polluting Marine Sites (PPMS) are objects on, or areas of, the seabed that may release pollution in the future. A rationale for, and design of, a geospatial database to inventory and manipu-late PPMS is presented. Built as an S-100 Product Specification, it is specified through human-readable UML diagrams and implemented through machine-readable GML files, and includes auxiliary information such as pollution-control resources and potentially vulnerable sites in order to support analyses of the core data. The design and some aspects of implementation are presented, along with metadata requirements and structure, and a perspective on potential uses of the database

Database independent Migration of Objects into an Object-Relational Database

This paper reports on the CERN-based WISDOM project which is studying the serialisation and deserialisation of data to/from an object database (objectivity) and ORACLE 9i.Comment: 26 pages, 18 figures; CMS CERN Conference Report cr02_01

Design and implementation of an integrated surface texture information system for design, manufacture and measurement

The optimised design and reliable measurement of surface texture are essential to guarantee the functional performance of a geometric product. Current support tools are however often limited in functionality, integrity and efficiency. In this paper, an integrated surface texture information system for design, manufacture and measurement, called “CatSurf”, has been designed and developed, which aims to facilitate rapid and flexible manufacturing requirements. A category theory based knowledge acquisition and knowledge representation mechanism has been devised to retrieve and organize knowledge from various Geometrical Product Specifications (GPS) documents in surface texture. Two modules (for profile and areal surface texture) each with five components are developed in the CatSurf. It also focuses on integrating the surface texture information into a Computer-aided Technology (CAx) framework. Two test cases demonstrate design process of specifications for the profile and areal surface texture in AutoCAD and SolidWorks environments respectively

XML for Domain Viewpoints

Within research institutions like CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) there are often disparate databases (different in format, type and structure) that users need to access in a domain-specific manner. Users may want to access a simple unit of information without having to understand detail of the underlying schema or they may want to access the same information from several different sources. It is neither desirable nor feasible to require users to have knowledge of these schemas. Instead it would be advantageous if a user could query these sources using his or her own domain models and abstractions of the data. This paper describes the basis of an XML (eXtended Markup Language) framework that provides this functionality and is currently being developed at CERN. The goal of the first prototype was to explore the possibilities of XML for data integration and model management. It shows how XML can be used to integrate data sources. The framework is not only applicable to CERN data sources but other environments too.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, conference report from SCI'2001 Multiconference on Systemics & Informatics, Florid