Robin Cover

XML Daily Newslink. Wednesday, 16 April 2008
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
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HEADLINES:

* W3C Launches New SVG Interest Group and SVG Working Group
* JBossXACML v2.0.2.GA Released
* On the Road to the Semantic Web
* W3C Working Draft: RIF Basic Logic Dialect
* Are You Ready for 'Green SOA'?
* SOB: The Service Oriented Building
* XML Database Server Up for Common Criteria Certification

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W3C Launches New SVG Interest Group and SVG Working Group
Staff, W3C Announcement

W3C recently announced the recharter of the SVG Working Group, part of
the Graphics Activity, to continue the evolution of Scalable Vector
Graphics as a format and a platform, and enhance the adoption and
usability of SVG in combination with other technologies. Erik Dahlstroem
(Opera Software ASA) and Andrew Emmons (W3C Invited Expert) will chair
the group. Members will produce incremental, market-driven revisions to
the SVG format, suitable for both desktop and mobile systems, and will
maintain and clarify existing SVG specifications. Native implementation
of SVG in desktop browsers has increased dramatically, with substantial
support in Opera, Mozilla Firefox, and WebKit/Safari, as well as browser
plug-ins by smaller vendors. With this increased interest, the SVG
specifications have had greater scrutiny and more critical feedback
regarding features and consistency. Response to market pressures and the
need to cover gaps in underlying technologies resulted in a broad feature
set for SVG 1.2 Tiny, which drew criticism. In response, the SVG Working
Group has factored out reusable functionality to the WebAPI Working Group
for use in other specifications, and will continue to improve its
activities in the following ways: (1) increase group membership by broader
base of implementors; (2) improve accountability and transparency,
including maintaining a public issue tracker; (3) develop smaller, more
timely specifications, to reflect market needs and allow for ease of
review; (4) improve integration with other W3C specifications and Working
Groups; (5) create tighter conformance requirements to ensure
interoperability, comprised of a comprehensive test suite, up-to-date
errata, more stringent and clear conformance criteria in the specifications
themselves, test-first methodology to improve the specifications while
also developing test suite, materials, and interoperability reports; (6)
simplify and unify the feature set to appeal universally to desktop and
mobile implementors. In particular, SVG will consider the applicability
of enhancements to the core language to both desktop and resource-limited
devices, such as mobile devices and printers. To allow more advanced
design features and efficient decorative effects, there will be attention
paid to new stroking and filling options, including pseudo-3D effects by
means of new gradients, filters, and non-affine transformations, with
authoring tips for their use. A new SVG Interest Group has also been
chartered to provide requirements, specification feedback, errata
suggestions and tests to the SVG WG. The general structure will be a
collection of focus groups that will report back their findings to the
SVG WG, in such areas as Accessibility, Authoring Tool Requirements,
Design, Development, Layout Use Cases, Localization (with particular
interest on the thriving Japanese market), and Quality Assurance (such
as Test Suites). The SVG IG may also hold workshops in local areas to
reach a broader audience. The SVG WG will accomodate the creation of
new specification modules in order to address the needs raised by the
reports of the SVG IG and workshops. Participation in the SVG Interest
Group is open to the public.

http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/WG
See also the SVG Interest Group: http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/IG/

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JBossXACML v2.0.2.GA Released
Anil Saldhana, Blog

"After a successful OASIS XACML Interoperability event at the RSA
Conference last week at San Francisco, I am pleased to inform you
about the release of JBossXACML v2.0.2.GA... the authorization space
is pretty complex unlike the authentication landscape. Access Control
requirements can become extremely complex and unmanageable. Enterprises
typically employ proprietary mechanisms such as ACLs to handle access
control use cases. OASIS XACML is the only standard that is making an
attempt at addressing the complex access control landscape... Expected
in 2.0.2.GA libraries: (1) OASIS XACML v2.0 core; (2) SOAP v1.1/SAML2.0
payload carrying XACML requests/response capabilities -- using OpenSAML
v2.0, as we will have packaged servlets for usage; (3) JAXB v2.0 Object
Model to deal with policies, requests etc -- if not interested in dealing
with XML. Additionally, as part of the Open Console or Embedded Console
of JBoss AS5, we should have a decent free XACML editor to create policy
sets... The OASIS XACML Interop simulated health care application with
real medical records' data that was driven by XACML based use cases.
There are HL7 Confidentiality Codes that can be associated with Patient
medical records. The VA developed an excellent application that had a
decent GUI and in the background, it interacted with its own PIP (Policy
Information Point) to derive the attributes needed to create the XACML
requests. Once the XACML requests were generated (based on the application
interaction), then they were passed to the PDP (Policy Decision Point)
of the vendors. Examples: [A] Your neighbor is a doctor and is snoopy
in nature. You certainly do not want him to have access to your medical
records. Would you? As a patient, you can associate the UBA
confidentiality code with a list of doctors that you do not want to
have access to your records (dissent list). [B] A patient arrives at
a facility in an emergency. The providers do not have access to the
patient records that is housed at another facility. They can trigger
an "emergency override" to get access to the records. Shouldn't they
in an emergency? [C] A patient can decide to mask a portion of his
medical records (e.g., radiology tests ' results) from a list of
providers..."

nla_internal_2830853.jpg also the RSA Conference 2008 OASIS XACML Interoperability Event: http://anil-identity.blogspot.com/2008/04/summary-review-oasis-xacml.html

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On the Road to the Semantic Web
Dan Farber, CNET News.com

The Semantic Web has been just around the corner for a few years. It
turns out that bringing a semantic layer of metadata to the Internet
is like climbing a mountain in flip-flops. Last night, Semantic Web
mountain climbers Powerset, Radar Networks, and Metaweb participated
in a salon at Powerset's San Francisco office, where I talked with
them about their product plans. (1) Powerset gives wings to Wikipedia:
I got a preview of Powerset's search engine, which is due to go into
beta in the coming weeks, according to co-founder and CEO Barney Pell
and as reported by TechCrunch. Powerset differs from Google and other
mainstream search engines in that it linguistically parses sentences,
finding subjects, verbs, objects, synonyms, and other elements using
a highly sophisticated, language-independent parser licensed from Xerox
PARC). Powerset then extracts and indexes concepts, relationships, and
meanings, rather than keywords. (2) True Knowledge: I also got a look
at True Knowledge's search engine. Company CEO William Tunstall-Pedoe
said the search engine is in private beta for now, with about 7,000
users. Unlike Powerset and other search engines, Cambridge,
England-based True Knowledge is building its own knowledge base. Users
input facts, as in Wikipedia, but in a more structured manner. The
capability to infer truths based on the data repository would be a
welcome feature for Wikipedia, which doesn't have an automated method
for dealing with contradictions. (3) Metaweb: Another San Francisco
Semantic Web start-up; the company's Freebase is more similar to True
Knowledge than Powerset. Freebase is an community-built database with
a large corpus of open data sets, including Wikipedia and MusicBrainz.
Powerset includes some Freebase-structured content in its index, and
True Knowledge could add Freebase data to its knowledge repository.
(4) Radar Networks' Twine: an application combining bookmarking,
blogging, and RSS reading, with an underlying semantic engine to tie
the pieces of data together... Twine has about 7,000 users in private
beta, as well as 40,000 standing in line for access. Half of the users
have created private Twines, with corporations and closed communities
of interest using the service for collaboration.

http://www.news.com/8301-13953_3-9919917-80.html
See also W3C Semantic Web: http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/

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W3C Working Draft: RIF Basic Logic Dialect
Harold Boley and Michael Kifer

W3C announced the release of three Working Drafts from the Rule
Interchange Format (RIF) Working Group: "RIF Basic Logic Dialect
(RIF-BLD)", "RIF Framework for Logic Dialects (RIF-FLD)", and "RIF RDF
and OWL Compatibility (RIF-RDF-OWL)." The RIF Working Group was
chartered to produce a core rule language plus extensions which together
allow rules to be translated between rule languages and thus transferred
between rule systems. The Working Group seeks to balance the needs of
a diverse community -- including Business Rules and Semantic Web users --
specifying extensions for which it can articulate a consensus design and
which are sufficiently motivated by use cases. The new drafts help
solidify the "pure logic rules" branch of RIF, which is distinct from
the "production rules" branch -- on which a Working Draft is expected
within the next six months. Both branches share "RIF Core", also expected
within the next six months. The Framework document (FLD) specifies
how the various logic dialects relate, while the Basic Logic Dialect
(BLD) provides an interlingua for rule languages providing approximately
"Horn" expressivity. The third document specifies how BLD can be
logically combined with RDF and OWL.

http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-rif-bld-20080415/
See also the W3C news item: http://www.w3.org/News/2008#item82

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Are You Ready for 'Green SOA'?
Frank Dzubeck, InfoWorld

The IT industry has been increasingly moving toward greener practices
in order to cut costs and consumption, and adopting SOA is seen as the
next step. Based upon recent studies, the overall corporate adoption
rate of SOA is 64 percent with the most important decision issues being
business case justification and ROI. Couple this with the fact that 56
percent of corporate adopters cite lack of key process and architecture
skills as implementation inhibitors. Simplistically, green SOA allows
us to blend green concepts subliminally and in a symbiotic manner into
corporate business processes. This is a win-win for the corporation.
Green SOA allows a corporation to minimize economic demand (such as
rising cost for energy, raw materials, and waste disposal), satisfy
customer and stakeholder demand (such as environmental, social,
competitive, and market concerns) and compliance (such as regulatory
requirements, global treaty enforcement, and legal constraints). Over
time there will be numerous approaches to applying green philosophies
to SOA. Right now the thunder belongs to IBM. What started as a
suggestion has become a major strategic and product initiative! To
effectively green the corporation, IBM believes that one must address
people, processes, assets, information, infrastructure, and
communications/application connectivity. No architecture changes were
required by IBM to SOA. But additions to the concepts of policy and
metrics were required to "green" SOA. IBM seized upon the business
concepts of carbon emission management for policy and linked it to a
metric called a KPI (key performance indicator) as a base for what it
calls Green Sigma. Classically, KPIs are financial and nonfinancial
metrics used to help organizations define and measure progress toward
organizational goals. Apply that concept to carbon management, and we
green SOA.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/16/Are-you-ready-for-green-SOA_1.html
See also Six Sigma USPS approval: http://www.redorbit.com/news/business/1302300/six_sigma_receives_usps_stamp_of_approval/

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SOB: The Service Oriented Building
Toby Considine, AutomatedBuildings.com

"I have more than 25 years experience in business process optimization
using information technology, My recent career has been in the Facilities
Services group at the University of North Carolina. My frustration at
integrating the unintegratable, meaning the products of the Automated
Buildings industry, led to involvement with oBIX, FIATECH and other
efforts to bring building systems IT up to the standards of other
enterprise functions. That work has allowed me to peek in on the work
being done within NBIMS, the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), and the
GridWise Architectural Council... Building Information Models (BIMs)
are data models to track all information about the design, construction,
acquisition, and operation of a building. A good BIM starts with the
earliest design intents and continues through the final destruction of
the building. BuildingSmart is the National Building Information Model
Standard (NBIMS) rebranded to be more user friendly and international
in scope... BIM defines energy models during design, models that are not
much use during operations. BIM describes assets and provides a framework
for defining the interaction between those assets. This sounds quite
close to defining the surfaces used in Service Oriented Architecture
(SOA)... IDM (Information Delivery Manual) defines the performance
standards to be tested during commissioning. It should be straightforward
to add this IDM information to the COBIE (Common Operations Building
Information Exchange) commissioning information. COBIE is that portion
of BuildingSmart that defines the handover at the end of construction of
building information to operations. COBIE also includes a framework for
tying commissioning reports to the underlying systems from the design.
It is easy to imagine that an IDM standard for building systems becomes
the basis for bidding and construction as well. It is not hard to imagine
that IDMs could be defined for each of the 48 types of systems in the
original list of vertical markets compiled at the founding of oBIX,
whether Intrusion Detection or Medical Gas Distribution. Who is willing
to help me define IDMs for building systems so controls can find a home
in the BIM? When we do, all of the Web Services interfaces to building
systems, whether BACnet or LON or proprietary or even the OASIS standard
oBIX will become valuable."

http://www.automatedbuildings.com/news/mar08/columns/080227011303considine.htm
See also NBIMS: http://www.facilityinformationcouncil.org/bim/publications.php

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XML Database Server Up for Common Criteria Certification
Joab Jackson, Government Computer News

"Mark Logic Corp. has submitted its Extensible Markup Language (XML)
database server for Common Criteria certification. Version 4.0 of
MarkLogic Server Enterprise Edition will be tested at Evaluation
Assurance Level 3. In a addition, the certification will be augmented
with ALC_FLR.3, an assurance on the part of the vendor that it has a
process in place to track and fix flaws found in the software found
after the certification is issued. Overseen in the U.S. by the National
Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP), Common Criteria is a set of
security requirements set by government agencies and private companies.
To get their products certified, vendors provide a set of security
attributes for each product, which are verified by an independent
laboratory. The Defense Department uses the Common Criteria as a
baseline for purchasing IT products for secure networks. NIAP is a
partnership between the National Institute of Standards and Technology
and the National Security Agency... MarkLogic Server is database server
software for handling XML data, one that uses the XQuery and XPath
standards. To date, no other XML databases have achieved Common Criteria
certification, though the latest releases of some widely-used relational
databases such as Oracle and IBM DB2 do support XML parsing..." Mark
Logic Corporation is a leading provider of information access and
delivery solutions used by publishers, government agencies, and other
large enterprises. The company's flagship product, MarkLogic Server,
is an XML content platform that includes a unique set of capabilities
to store, aggregate, enrich, search, navigate, and dynamically deliver
content. The company has two patents on its innovative technology, is
privately held, and is backed by Sequoia Capital and Lehman Brothers.

http://www.gcn.com/online/vol1_no1/46129-1.html
See also the MarkLogic Server description: http://developer.marklogic.com/about/whatiscis.xqy

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XML Daily Newslink. Wednesday, 16 April 2008