Processing XML with Java – a performance benchmark

Over time, XML markup language has acquired a considerable importance in applications development, standards definition and in the representation of large volumes of data, such as databases. Today, processing XML documents in a short period of time is a critical activity in a large range of applications, which imposes choosing the most appropriate mechanism to parse XML documents quickly and efficiently. When using a programming language for XML processing, such as Java, it becomes necessary to use effective mechanisms, e.g. APIs, which allow reading and processing of large documents in appropriated manners. This paper presents a performance study of the main existing Java APIs that deal with XML documents, in order to identify the most suitable one for processing large XML files

Performance analysis of Java APIS for XML processing

Over time, XML markup language has acquired a considerable importance in applications development, standards definition and in the representation of large volumes of data, such as databases. Today, processing XML documents in a short period of time is a critical activity in a large range of applications, which imposes choosing the most appropriate mechanism to parse XML documents quickly and efficiently. When using a programming language for XML processing, such as Java, it becomes necessary to use effective mechanisms, e.g. APIs, which allow reading and processing of large documents in appropriated manners. This paper presents a performance study of the main existing Java APIs that deal with XML documents, in order to identify the most suitable one for processing large XML files.

Introdução às linguagens de marcas

Apresenta-se o paradigma de gerenciamento da informação que surgiu com o padrão das linguagens ditas "de marcação" (ou markup languages). Faz-se uma rápida introdução à linguagem SGML, e analisam-se as características e os diferenciais que estão por trás do sucesso da linguagem XML, que promete uma revolução na Web. Mostram-se quais são as bases conceituais de uma nova geração de aplicações das áreas da Informação e da tecnologia da informação que democratizarão ainda mais o acesso à informação organizada na Internet. Aborda-se a evolução das pesquisas em direção à chamada Web Semântica, com o desenvolvimento de ontologias.

Information Discovery in Distributed Systems-A Novel Concept Based on Modelling of Information Elements

Sharing of information with those in need of it has always been an idealistic goal of networked environments. With the proliferation of computer networks, information is so widely distributed among systems, that it is imperative to have well-organized schemes for retrieval and also discovery. This thesis attempts to investigate the problems associated with such schemes and suggests a software architecture, which is aimed towards achieving a meaningful discovery. Usage of information elements as a modelling base for efficient information discovery in distributed systems is demonstrated with the aid of a novel conceptual entity called infotron.The investigations are focused on distributed systems and their associated problems. The study was directed towards identifying suitable software architecture and incorporating the same in an environment where information growth is phenomenal and a proper mechanism for carrying out information discovery becomes feasible. An empirical study undertaken with the aid of an election database of constituencies distributed geographically, provided the insights required. This is manifested in the Election Counting and Reporting Software (ECRS) System. ECRS system is a software system, which is essentially distributed in nature designed to prepare reports to district administrators about the election counting process and to generate other miscellaneous statutory reports.Most of the distributed systems of the nature of ECRS normally will possess a "fragile architecture" which would make them amenable to collapse, with the occurrence of minor faults. This is resolved with the help of the penta-tier architecture proposed, that contained five different technologies at different tiers of the architecture.The results of experiment conducted and its analysis show that such an architecture would help to maintain different components of the software intact in an impermeable manner from any internal or external faults. The architecture thus evolved needed a mechanism to support information processing and discovery. This necessitated the introduction of the noveI concept of infotrons. Further, when a computing machine has to perform any meaningful extraction of information, it is guided by what is termed an infotron dictionary.The other empirical study was to find out which of the two prominent markup languages namely HTML and XML, is best suited for the incorporation of infotrons. A comparative study of 200 documents in HTML and XML was undertaken. The result was in favor ofXML.The concept of infotron and that of infotron dictionary, which were developed, was applied to implement an Information Discovery System (IDS). IDS is essentially, a system, that starts with the infotron(s) supplied as clue(s), and results in brewing the information required to satisfy the need of the information discoverer by utilizing the documents available at its disposal (as information space). The various components of the system and their interaction follows the penta-tier architectural model and therefore can be considered fault-tolerant. IDS is generic in nature and therefore the characteristics and the specifications were drawn up accordingly. Many subsystems interacted with multiple infotron dictionaries that were maintained in the system.In order to demonstrate the working of the IDS and to discover the information without modification of a typical Library Information System (LIS), an Information Discovery in Library Information System (lDLIS) application was developed. IDLIS is essentially a wrapper for the LIS, which maintains all the databases of the library. The purpose was to demonstrate that the functionality of a legacy system could be enhanced with the augmentation of IDS leading to information discovery service. IDLIS demonstrates IDS in action. IDLIS proves that any legacy system could be augmented with IDS effectively to provide the additional functionality of information discovery service.Possible applications of IDS and scope for further research in the field are covered.

Sharing and visualizing environmental data using Virtual Globes

Virtual globe technology holds many exciting possibilities for environmental science. These easy-to-use, intuitive systems provide means for simultaneously visualizing four-dimensional environmental data from many different sources, enabling the generation of new hypotheses and driving greater understanding of the Earth system. Through the use of simple markup languages, scientists can publish and consume data in interoperable formats without the need for technical assistance. In this paper we give, with examples from our own work, a number of scientific uses for virtual globes, demonstrating their particular advantages. We explain how we have used Web Services to connect virtual globes with diverse data sources and enable more sophisticated usage such as data analysis and collaborative visualization. We also discuss the current limitations of the technology, with particular regard to the visualization of subsurface data and vertical sections.

As contribuições das linguagens de marcação para a gestão da informação arquivística digital

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Recursos tecno-metodológicos para descrição e recuperação de informações na Web

Pós-graduação em Ciência da Informação - FFC

Metadados para a descrição de recursos da Internet: o padrão Dublin Core, aplicações e a questão da interoperabilidade

Pós-graduação em Ciência da Informação - FFC

Structural patterns for document engineering: from an empirical bottom-up analysis to an ontological theory

This thesis aims at investigating a new approach to document analysis based on the idea of structural patterns in XML vocabularies. My work is founded on the belief that authors do naturally converge to a reasonable use of markup languages and that extreme, yet valid instances are rare and limited. Actual documents, therefore, may be used to derive classes of elements (patterns) persisting across documents and distilling the conceptualization of the documents and their components, and may give ground for automatic tools and services that rely on no background information (such as schemas) at all. The central part of my work consists in introducing from the ground up a formal theory of eight structural patterns (with three sub-patterns) that are able to express the logical organization of any XML document, and verifying their identifiability in a number of different vocabularies. This model is characterized by and validated against three main dimensions: terseness (i.e. the ability to represent the structure of a document with a small number of objects and composition rules), coverage (i.e. the ability to capture any possible situation in any document) and expressiveness (i.e. the ability to make explicit the semantics of structures, relations and dependencies). An algorithm for the automatic recognition of structural patterns is then presented, together with an evaluation of the results of a test performed on a set of more than 1100 documents from eight very different vocabularies. This language-independent analysis confirms the ability of patterns to capture and summarize the guidelines used by the authors in their everyday practice. Finally, I present some systems that work directly on the pattern-based representation of documents. The ability of these tools to cover very different situations and contexts confirms the effectiveness of the model.

The Role of the National Library in Preserving National Written Heritage

The first part presented at the meeting by A. Dipchikova is a brief report of the role of the National library as an institution in collecting, preserving and making accessible the national written heritage. Problems of digitization are examined from the point of view of the existing experience in cataloguing. Special attention is paid to the history and the significance of international standards, the experience in the field of development and maintenance of authority files on national and international level as well as in markup languages. Possibilities of using MARC and XML in the library are discussed. The second part presented here by E. Moussakova is giving an overview of the latest activities of the Library in the sphere of digitisation of the old Slavic manuscripts which are component of the national cultural heritage. It is pointed out that the current work is rather limited within the scope of preparation of metadata than being focused on digital products.

The Design of XML-Based Model and Experiment Description Languages for Network Simulation

The Simulation Automation Framework for Experiments (SAFE) is a project created to raise the level of abstraction in network simulation tools and thereby address issues that undermine credibility. SAFE incorporates best practices in network simulationto automate the experimental process and to guide users in the development of sound scientific studies using the popular ns-3 network simulator. My contributions to the SAFE project: the design of two XML-based languages called NEDL (ns-3 Experiment Description Language) and NSTL (ns-3 Script Templating Language), which facilitate the description of experiments and network simulationmodels, respectively. The languages provide a foundation for the construction of better interfaces between the user and the ns-3 simulator. They also provide input to a mechanism which automates the execution of network simulation experiments. Additionally,this thesis demonstrates that one can develop tools to generate ns-3 scripts in Python or C++ automatically from NSTL model descriptions.

A cross-linguistic comparison of address pronoun use in four European languages: Intralingual and interlingual dimensions

As part of a major ongoing project, we consider and compare contemporary patterns of address pronoun use in four major European languages- French, German, Italian and Swedish. We are specifically interested in two major aspects: intralingual behaviour, that is, within the same language community, and interlingual dimensions of address pronoun use. With respect to the former, we summarize our key findings to date. We then give consideration in a more preliminary fashion to issues and evidence relevant to the latter.