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XML and Web Services In The News - 08 March 2006
Provided by OASIS |
Edited by Robin Cover
This issue of XML.org Daily Newslink is sponsored by SAP
HEADLINES:
How to Solve the Business Standards Dilemma: CCTS Key Model Concepts
Gunther Stuhec, SAP Developer Network
Beyond traditional syntax rules and modeling languages, the primary
concept of the Core Components Technical Specification (CCTS) is its
building block system that enables reusable and common understandable
data. The CCTS follows key concepts of conceptual, logical and physical
data modeling, reflects Codd's rules and normalization for data base
management systems, and aligns with the current OO-modeling approach as
typified by UML from OMG. Beyond this, CCTS has very important aspects
for enabling the common understanding and reuse of data, through
semantics and context. CCTS conceptual model template constructs are
the focal point in the definition of unambiguous business data models.
These templates play a pivotal role in transforming context-neutral
components into contextualized components. These templates provide a
mechanism through building block derivation by restriction for
flexibility in the required business contexts. In comparison to other
modeling languages, CCTS uses a derivation by restriction methodology.
This methodology enables the development of similar yet context specific
physical/logical Business Information Entities using the conceptual
Core Component templates. CCTS aligns to the OO-approach as expressed
by UML. As such, the key model concepts of CCTS are easier to understand.
However, these key model concepts do not in and of themselves guarantee
unambiguous semantically meaningful, context specific business data
models. Fixed core data types, consistent naming concepts -- such as
those identified in ISO 11179, specific modeling methodologies and
detailed context driver principles are also required.
See also: Context Driven Business Exchange
NIST Conference to Focus on Interoperability
George Leopold, InformationWeek
The National Institute of Standards and Technology will shine the
spotlight on interoperability standards during its conference on
March 13-17, 2006. Operating on the premise that too many software
standards can be as harmful as no standards, the NIST (Gaithersburg, Md.)
meeting will focus on developing specs that allow software to
communicate across different formats. Incompatible standards, NIST
officials said, often have the same effect as proprietary software:
impeding data exchange among researchers. The conference will focus on:
XML standards used to exchange supply chain data; open information and
communications technology standards used for manufacturing and health
care records management; and sensor standards.
See also: the meeting agenda
A Shared Solution for Upstream Oil and Gas Companies
Staff, ARC Wire News
A group of energy companies have launched an initiative to help
producers independently optimize their oil and gas production. The
PRODuction xML, or PRODML, Work Group is seeking the development of
commercial software products within a twelve-month work effort that will
improve data exchange and work process efficiency in production
optimization. PRODML will build on the earlier success of WITSML, a
similar XML-based standard for drilling information. WITSML (Wellsite
Information Transfer Standard Markup Language) is now an open industry
standard maintained by POSC (Petrotechnical Open Standards Consortium).
PRODML will extend the results of the ongoing WITSML standards
development efforts to include data needed for field production
optimization. Production optimization involves integrating real time
data from specialty, multi-vendor software applications and streamlining
work processes to enable oil and gas field operational efficiencies.
PRODML will develop the necessary XML-based data exchange solutions as
an open industry standard. After a working PRODML pilot is launched,
POSC will maintain the standard and make it publicly available.
See also: WITSML resources
ActiveBPEL 2.0 Enhances Integration Tooling
Vance McCarthy, Integration Developers News
An upgraded ActiveBPEL Open Source Business Process Execution Language
engine is now making it easier for a variety of enterprise Java and .NET
devs to work with business-focused web services projects. ActiveBPEL
2.0, now available for free download. The ActiveBPEL download is
available here from Freshmeat. ActiveBPEL 2.0 new features include
support for XQuery, JavaScript and support for direct invocation of
another BPEL process. ActiveBPEL 2.0 also supports Tomcat 5.5 and Java
1.5, as well as adds support for web services standards WS-Addressing
and WS-Policy, with support for WS-Security and WS-ReliableMessaging,
due for a later release. The ActiveBPEL engine is an Open Source
implementation of a BPEL engine. Written in Java, ActiveBPEL engine runs
in any standard Java servlet container such as Tomcat. It reads BPEL
process definitions (and other inputs such as WSDL files) and creates
representations of BPEL processes. When an incoming message triggers a
start activity, the engine creates a new process instance and starts it
running. The engine takes care of persistence, queues, alarms, and many
other execution details.
See also: BPEL references
Metatomix Provides Free Semantic Toolkit for Eclipse Developers Worldwide
Staff, dBusinessNews
Metatomix, Inc., a semantic composite applications vendor, has announced
the availability of a free Semantic Toolkit to Eclipse developers
worldwide, enabling them to create and modify semantically enabled
software solutions quickly, easily and reliably. The toolkit, developed
and in current use at Metatomix, enables developers to take full
advantage of the most advanced semantic technology standards approved by
the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The Metatomix Semantic Toolkit is a
set of standards-based plug-ins for the vendor-neutral, open-source
Eclipse development framework that allows software engineers to create
and modify semantic applications with a simple set of controls. Its two
main features are a Web Ontology Language (OWL) Editor and a Resource
Definition Framework (RDF) Editor. The toolkit is being distributed to
attendees at the Semantic Technology Conference in San Jose, CA, this
week, and is available for immediate download.
See also: the company web site
Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) Version 1.1
Anders Berglund (ed), W3C Candidate Recommendation
XSL is a language for expressing stylesheets. Given a class of
arbitrarily structured XML 1.0 or XML 1.1 documents or data files,
designers use an XSL stylesheet to express their intentions about how
that structured content should be presented; that is, how the source
content should be styled, laid out, and paginated onto some
presentation medium, such as a window in a Web browser or a hand-held
device, or a set of physical pages in a catalog, report, pamphlet, or
book. An XSL stylesheet processor accepts a document or data in XML
and an XSL stylesheet and produces the presentation of that XML source
content that was intended by the designer of that stylesheet. There
are two aspects of this presentation process: first, constructing a
result tree from the XML source tree and second, interpreting the
result tree to produce formatted results suitable for presentation on
a display, on paper, in speech, or onto other media. The first aspect
is called tree transformation and the second is called formatting. The
process of formatting is performed by the formatter. This formatter
may simply be a rendering engine inside a browser. Version 1.1
updates and enhances the XSL 1.0 Recommendation for change
marks, indexes, multiple flows, and bookmarks, and extends support for
graphics scaling, markers, and page numbers. Comments are welcome
through May 31, 2006.
See also: the W3C news item
Syncro Soft Releases New Version of XML Editor
Staff, eContent Magazine
Syncro Soft Ltd, the producer of XML Editor, has announced the
immediate availability of version 7.1 of its XML Editor, Schema Editor,
and XSLT/XQuery Debugger. Version 7.1 of the XML Editor adds support
for Berkeley and eXist XML Databases, an XSL templates view for
navigation through the edited XSL stylesheet and an XPath builder view
for editing complex XPath expressions. New features in version 7.1
include: the ability to run XQuery transformation scenarios against
the eXist or the Berkeley DB XML Databases content; document loading
time was optimized so that large documents are loaded up to four
times faster. The spell checking works faster for long documents and
for documents that have very long lines (thousands of characters);
a annotation tooltips for the XML attributes has been added -- if a user
places the cursor over an attribute, the application will display a
tooltip containing the annotation defined for that attribute in the
associated document schema; users can define colors for the tags
starting with a certain prefix.
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