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XML Daily Newslink. Tuesday, 01 May 2007
A Cover Pages Publication http://xml.coverpages.org/
Provided by OASIS http://www.oasis-open.org
Edited by Robin Cover

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This issue of XML Daily Newslink is sponsored by
BEA Systems, Inc. http://www.bea.com

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HEADLINES:

* Expose LDAP Directories to the Semantic Web with SquirrelRDF
* Best Practices for XML Internationalization
* BEA Blending Dev Tools in Workshop Release
* Content Assembly Mechanism (CAM) Version 1.1 Submitted for Approval as
an OASIS Standard
* WSRP and the Future of Grid Portals
* How UML is Used: Many UML Projects Are Not Use Case Driven
* System Prototype and Verification Using Metamodel-Based Transformations

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Expose LDAP Directories to the Semantic Web with SquirrelRDF
Wing Yung, IBM developerWorks

The Semantic Web has promised a new age of data sharing and integration
through use of a common flexible standard, RDF (Resource Description
Framework). RDF's properties make it easy to merge data and query across
data from different sources. A great amount of data exists in other
formats, like XML, relational databases, and LDAP directories. RDF is
flexible enough to represent any of these other formats. However, to
convert existing data to RDF is a huge and expensive task, and is
unnecessary in many cases. Several utilities are available to expose
existing data as a Web endpoint queryable through SPARQL, the query
language of the Semantic Web. One of these utilities is SquirrelRDF,
an open source utility that is part of the Jena Semantic Web framework.
The goal of this article is to explain the process of creating a SPARQL-
queryable endpoint for an LDAP directory, introducing important Semantic
Web concepts along the way. With a little bit of effort, you made LDAP
queryable with SPARQL. Making data sources look like RDF makes it much
easier for an application to integrate this data with data from other
sources, and it gives you a powerful means to query the data. There
are several important differences between RDF and XML. First of all,
RDF is graph-based, while XML is tree-based. RDF has no explicit
ordering because the edges form a set, but XML elements do have
ordering. Finally, RDF is a data model that does not include a standard
serialization. RDF can be serialized to several formats, including
RDF-XML, n3, and Terse RDF Triple Language (Turtle).

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/x-semweb.html
See also SPARQL Query Language for RDF: http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-query/

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Best Practices for XML Internationalization
Yves Savourel and Diane Stoick (eds), W3C Technical Report

W3C's Internationalization Tag Set Working Group has published an
updated Working Draft for "Best Practices for XML Internationalization."
These best practices are a complement to the International Tag Set W3C
Recommendation. The document provides a set of guidelines for
developing XML documents and schemas that are internationalized
properly. Following the best practices describes here allow both the
developer of XML applications, as well as the author of XML content
to create material in different languages. Not all
internationalization-related issues can be solved with special markup
described in the International Tag Set W3C Recommendation; there are
a number of problems that can be avoided by designing correctly the
XML format, and by applying a few guidelines when designing and
authoring documents. For example, include 'xml:lang' in your DTD,
XSD schema, or RELAX-NG schema to allow to specify the natural
language of the content' make sure the 'xml:lang' attribute is
available for the root element of your document, and for any element
where a change of language may occur. The scope of the 'xml:lang'
attribute applies to both the attributes and the content of the
element where it appears; therefore one cannot specify different
languages for an attribute and the element content. It is not
recommended to use your own attribute or element to specify the
language content. The 'xml:lang' attribute is supported by various
XML technologies such as XPath and XSL -- e.g. the lang() function.
Using something different would diminish the interoperability of
your documents and reduce your capability to take advantage of some
XML applications. Note: This document is still in an early draft
stage. Feedback is especially appreciated on the guidelines listed,
and when applicable, the mechanisms defined for the selection of
ITS specific information in XML documents.

http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-xml-i18n-bp-20070427/
See also the W3C Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) WG: http://www.w3.org/International/its/

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BEA Blending Dev Tools in Workshop Release
Paul Krill, InfoWorld

BEA Workshop 10.1 combines the company's Workshop for WebLogic and
Workshop Studio products. The product merges existing developer tools
with Eclipse-based NitroX technology, which BEA acquired when it
bought M7 in 2005. According to the announcement, BEA Workshop 10.1
is designed to provide Java Enterprise Edition (Java EE) 5 tooling
support to help accelerate and radically simplify application
development. An integrated Object/Relational Mapping Studio can
deliver superior EJB3/JPA, BEA Kodo, OpenJPA and Hibernate tools for
Eclipse. The product also includes the unique AppXRay technology and
WYSIWYG development capabilities designed for open source and industry
standard frameworks including Java Server Faces (JSF), Struts/Tiles,
Spring, JSP/JSTL, EJB3/Hibernate, Apache Beehive and others to further
help simplify development and increase overall productivity. A full
drag-and-drop integrated development environment (IDE) for building
enterprise-class services on BEA WebLogic Server as well as a single
point of management for builds, build reporting and build documentation
for the open source maven build system are also new features in
Workshop 10.1, showing the mix-and-match philosophy of blended in
action. BEA Workshop also supports other application servers like
those from IBM, JBoss/Redhat, as well as open source servers like
Apache Tomcat.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/05/01/HNworkshop51_1.html

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Content Assembly Mechanism (CAM) Version 1.1 Submitted for Approval as
an OASIS Standard
Staff, OASIS Announcement

The OASIS Content Assembly Mechanism Technical Committee voted to submit
its CAM Version 1.1 specification to the membership for approval as
an OASIS Standard. The Content Assembly Mechanism (CAM) provides an
open XML based system for using business rules to define, validate and
compose specific business documents from generalized schema elements
and structures. A CAM rule set and document assembly template defines
the specific business context, content requirement, and transactional
function of a document. A CAM template must be capable of consistently
reproducing documents that can successfully carry out the specific
transactional function that they were designed for. CAM also provides
the foundation for creating industry libraries and dictionaries of
schema elements and business document structures to support business
process needs. The core role of the OASIS CAM specifications is
therefore to provide a generic standalone content assembly mechanism
that extends beyond the basic structural definition features in XML
and schema to provide a comprehensive system with which to define
dynamic e-business interoperability. The CAM work can be used in
conjunction with and by other OASIS TCs to formalize use patterns and
templates for their own schemas or to generate / validate policies
such as SAML and XACML assertions. CAM implementations can provide
validation web services for registry or general transaction exchanges
for industry standards groups use. Related external work includes
ISO/IEC 19757-3:2006 Schematron and the W3C XSD work and the W3C SML
submission, along with work by UN/CEFACT on UCM and CCMA.

http://docs.oasis-open.org/cam/v1.1/cs01/OASIS-CAM-Specification-1_1-015-041007.html
See also the announcement: http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/tc-announce/200705/msg00001.html

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WSRP and the Future of Grid Portals
Xiaobo Yang, Xiao Dong Wang, Robert Allan; IBM developerWorks

This three-part series on the development of standards-based grid
portals provides an overview of grid portals, focusing on today's
standards-based second-generation grid portals: JSR 168 and Web Services
for Remote Portlets (WSRP) V1.0. JSR 168 and WSRP V1.0 are two
specifications that aim to solve interoperability issues between
portlets and portlet containers. In particular, today's grid portals
are service-oriented. On one hand, portals are acting as service
clients to consume traditional data-centric Web services. On the other
hand, portals are providing presentation-centric services so federated
portals can be easily built. With basic grid related functions like
proxy manager and job submission successfully implemented, advanced
grid portals today are aimed at the integration of complex applications,
including visualisation and workflow systems. When we talk about
adoption of SOA for portal development, one of the key concepts is
that presentation logic can be integrated with business logic and
provided as a service. The WSRP V1.0 specification standardises how
portlets can be exposed to remote portlet containers using Web services
technology. In WSRP, a producer is modelled as a portlet container
within which portlets reside. Such a producer acts as a service
provider, while at the same time, various clients are able to consume
this service through which portlets are evoked. Although the Apache
WSRP4J project initiated by IBM is still in its incubation phase, the
WSRP4J producer is, in our experience, more practical than WSRP
producers from other open source portal frameworks, such as the eXo
platform and Liferay. Therefore, we selected WSRP4J to illustrate how
grid portlets we developed in this series can be reused in other
systems, allowing WSRP-equipped consumers to benefit from having grid
tools without local development. The WSRP4J producer uses Pluto, the
Reference Implementation of JSR 168 provided by Apache, as its portlet
container.

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/grid/library/gr-stdsportal3/index.html

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How UML is Used: Many UML Projects Are Not Use Case Driven
Brian Dobing and Jeffrey Parsons, ACM Queue and CACM

The Unified Modeling Language (UML) emerged in the mid-1990s through
the combination of previously competing object-oriented (OO) software
engineering methods developed by Booch, Jacobson et al., Rumbaugh
et al., and others. Control over its formal evolution was placed in
the hands of the Object Management Group (OMG), and the language has
become widely accepted as a modeling standard for OO software development.
UML should not be considered exclusively as a language for software
professionals; a greater understanding of UML diagrams and their
roles in building systems is needed throughout organizations.
Standardization of UML has made a major contribution toward this goal;
standardization of usage guidelines is needed as well. Summary: (1)
The frequency of use of UML components varies considerably: Class,
Sequence, and Use Case Diagrams are used most often, while
Collaboration Diagrams are used least. (2) Apparently, at least half
of UML projects are not Use Case driven: Class Diagram use substantially
exceeds Use Case Diagram and Narrative use. (3) Contrary to claims in
the popular literature, developers appear to believe that UML diagrams
can be understood by clients: Clients are most involved with Use Case
Narratives and Activity Diagrams, but are more involved with the
remaining components than we expected. (4) While systems analysts and
programmers rely most on Class and Sequence Diagrams they also use the
Use Case Narratives, suggesting that the potential communication
disconnect may not be a concern in practice. (5) Use Case Narratives
appear not to capture all requirements: Class, Sequence, and Statechart
Diagrams provide the most additional information beyond Use Case
Narratives.

http://www.acmqueue.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=461

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System Prototype and Verification Using Metamodel-Based Transformations
Luis Pedro, Levi Lucio, Didier Buchs; IEEE DS Online

Mapping domain-specific languages' core concepts into the Concurrent
Object-Oriented Petri Nets formal specification language provides users
with the semantics necessary for developing prototypes for these DSLs.
DSLs are less comprehensive than general-purpose languages (such as
C++ or Java) but much more expressive in their domain, letting domain
experts understand, validate, modify, and often develop DSL programs
themselves. The article discusses transformation of a DSL into the
Concurrent Object-Oriented Petri Nets formalism. The DSL metamodel
serves as the transformation's starting point. The transformation
represents the semantic mapping between the DSL and CO-OPN. "The CO-OPN
object-oriented modeling language is based on abstract algebraic data
types (ADTs) and Petri nets. It provides a syntax and semantics that
let developers use heterogeneous object-oriented concepts for system
specification. The specifications are collections of ADTs, classes,
and contexts -- the CO-OPN modules. We use the Meta-Object Facility
(MOF) or Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) Ecore formalism to define
the metamodel. For prototype generation and execution, we transform
CO-OPN specifications into a Java package including ADT classes and
JavaBean-like components. CoopnBuilder also provides a prototype
simulation environment via Java reflection functions. It lets users
interpret the prototype as it's integrated into an application.
Graphical simulation lets users manually explore the system's state
space. For systems with large state spaces, users can dump the complete
simulation trace into an XML file and use automatic analysis tools to
deduce properties such as the coverage of state space during the
simulation."

http://dsonline.computer.org/portal/pages/dsonline/2007/04/o4001.html
See also XML and Petri Nets: http://xml.coverpages.org/xmlAndPetriNets.html

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XML Daily Newslink and Cover Pages are sponsored by:

BEA Systems, Inc. http://www.bea.com
IBM Corporation http://www.ibm.com
Primeton http://www.primeton.com
SAP AG http://www.sap.com
Sun Microsystems, Inc. http://sun.com

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