"Abstract: Since every aspect of the business process is under continuous scrutiny, and remaining competitive in today's global marketplace demands that we redefine the ways in which we do business, IBM has pioneered the Electronic Purchasing Service, founded on the cornerstone of SGML.

"The Electronic Purchasing Service (EPS) was designed as a way to provide IBM's vendor customers with a way of reducing costs and improving control, while providing a better level of service to their own customer bases. The Electronic Purchasing Service is an advanced, network-based sales and procurement solution that allows end users to locate, compare and purchase items directly through electronic catalogs. With its preeminence as a electronic document exchange standard and its focus on reusability, SGML was deemed ideal for this electronic commerce application. Therefore, IBM Thornwood has used the Standard Generalized Markup Language to develop an electronic catalog application.

"The presentation will cover the four basic tasks or stages in the implementation of the Electronic Purchasing Service application: (1) planning the Electronic Purchasing Service application; (2) capturing the data in SGML format; (3) managing the information with SGML tools; (4) putting it to work. This session will briefly describe the most important functions in each of these stages, and the kinds of tools IBM used in performing them."

Abstract: "DSSSL, the Document Style Semantics and Specification Language, is ISO/IEC 10179, an International Standard for the formatting and other processing of SGML documents. DSSSL was completed in January 1996 after eight (8) years of development. From its inception, DSSSL was conceived as a companion standard to SGML, where SGML is a language for standardizing the way we represent document structures without regard to form or presentation. It is possible to use SGML markup to represent formatting information, but this is discouraged, since doing so makes a document more difficult to reuse and reprocess. Reuse is generally a significant requirement for SGML data so it is not a good idea to 'pollute' your document with presentational markup. Yet formatting of some nature is still desirable, and sometimes critical, for all documents, and in some cases users want to interchange this formatting information (informally known in the industry as style sheets) in a standardized, non-proprietary format. DSSSL is key to enabling this interchange."

Abstract: "We study the problem of automatic generation of a document type definition (DTD) for a set of Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) documents. We present various situations where we have tagged documents but no DTD, and discuss the requirements various applications may have with respect to the generation process. We also present an automatic DTD generation tool that can be adjusted for several tasks necessary in the applications. The method is also demonstrated with some experimental cases."

Abstract: "A Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) document has a document type definition (DTD) that specifies the allowed structures for the document. The basic components of a DTD are element declarations that contain for each element a content model, i.e., a regular expression that defines the allowed content for this element. The SGML standard requires that the content models of element declarations are unambiguous in the following sense: a content model is ambiguous if an element or character string occurring in the document instance can satisfy more than one primitive token in the content model without look-ahead. A. Bruggemann-Klein and D. Wood (1992; 1994) have studied the unambiguity of content models, and they presented an algorithm that decides whether a content model is unambiguous. We present a disambiguation algorithm that, based on the work of Bruggemann-Klein and Wood, transforms an ambiguous content model into an unambiguous one by generalizing the language. We also present some experimental results obtained by our implementation of the algorithm in connection to an automatic DTD generation tool."

Abstract: "We consider assembling documents using, as a source, a digital library containing SGML documents. The assembly process contains two parts: 1) finding interesting fragments, and 2) constructing a coherent document. We present a general document assembly framework. First, we describe a system for tailoring control engineering textbooks. Its assembling facilities are rather restricted but, on the other hand, the quality of documents produced is high. Second, we address the problem of filtering and combining interesting information from a large heterogeneous document collection. The methods presented offer various ways to find the interesting document fragments. Moreover, the elements found in the fragments are mapped to generic elements, like sections, paragraph containers, paragraphs and strings, which have known semantics. Hence, even arbitrary compositions can be formatted and printed."

Abstract: "Computers support the management of large collections of text documents, but efficient reuse of document collections for producing new documents remains inherently difficult. We describe and discuss the design and implementation of a document assembly system based on a document assembly model, where the user produces new specialized documents by querying and browsing a collection of structured document fragments."

"We describe a document assembly model and architecture, which we have developed to study principles and methods of intelligent document reuse. The work is done in an ongoing research and development project called "Structured and Intelligent Documents (SID)". Document assembly is a central goal application of the project. As the basis for the project we consider structured documents marked up using SGML. We have developed a document assembly framework based on versatile recognizing and manipulating of document fragments, which are consistent and relatively independent document parts used as the basis for new assemblies. Similar ideas recur at document manipulation and IR meetings under different names, such as passages, semantic fragments, information units, minimal revisable units, or micro documents. The assembly framework is not inherently SGML specific, but the possibility of using generic semantic document markup and the existence of tools for a standardized formalism makes the implementation of a document assembly system based on the fragment framework much easier. [Conclusion]: We have presented a model and an implementation of a system for intelligent document assembly. The system uses a database of SGML documents from which the user assembles new documents. The assembly is based on document fragments: the user chooses among document parts and selects appropriate fragments to be included in a new document. The assembly system supports browsing and reorganizing of the fragments as well as some more sophisticated techniques such as cluster-based browsing and structured search. The system is in a prototype phase and we are just beginning to evaluate the usefulness of our assembly model. We expect that further prototyping with document assemblies will reveal some real challenges, like managing explicit and implicit dependencies between document fragments."

Abstract: "Document retrieval based on string searches typically returns either the whole document or just the occurrences of the searched words. What the user often is after, however, is microdocument: a part of the document that contains the occurrences and is reasonably self-contained."

"These microdocuments might, for instance, consist of several successive text paragraphs sharing a mutual subject. Single paragraphs, or corresponding close-to-leaf SGML elements, do not convey enough of the contextual information. On the other hand, sections or subsections of a text document, such as a book or an article, can discuss many heterogeneous topics, and thus be too large a unit for retrieval or assembly.

"We claim that such microdocuments are both suitable retrievable units and appropriate units for document assembly, and that they can be reasonably well located using automatic techniques.

"Optimal creation of microdocuments would require thorough semantic analysis of the text. However, it is possible to catch parts of the elementary semantic content by statistical term-frequency analysis.

"Term-frequency distributions enable us to determine the locations of possible topic changes in the text. Based on this information, we can measure the similarity of two successive elements, and decide whether we wish to have them in the same microdocument. On the other hand, existing markup, for example classifying attributes, can be used in boundary detection. The microdocument, again, can be attributed with content information.

"The results of our preliminary experiments show that the presented approach works well in user-assisted topic-oriented microdocument detection. We currently study the usefulness of this technique in document assembly, i.e., in generating new documents from a collection of existing text documents."

[...] "We consider a topical microdocument to be semantically motivated by the topic the microdocument discusses. Topical microdocuments might, for instance, consist of several successive text paragraphs. Single paragraphs, or corresponding close-to-leaf SGML elements, do not convey enough of the contextual information. On the other hand, sections or subsections of a text document, such as a book or an article, can discuss many heterogeneous topics. Furthermore, sections are often longer than desired with respect to the intended purpose, such as document retrieval or assembly.

In this article, we presented a method for detecting microdocuments based on term-frequency distributions. The detection process has two phases: similarity calculation and fragmentation. In general, the results of our preliminary experiments show that the presented approach works well in user-assisted topic-oriented microdocument detection. We currently study the usefulness of this technique in document assembly, i.e., in generating new documents from a collection of existing text documents.

"Abstract: We describe a technique for forming a context free grammar for a document that has some kind of tagging -- structural or typographical -- but no concise description of the structure is available. The technique is based on ideas from machine learning. It forms first a set of finite-state automata describing the document completely. These automata are modified by considering certain context conditions; the modifications correspond to generalizing the underlying languages. Finally, the automata are converted into regular expressions, which are then used to construct the grammar. An alternative representation, characteristic k-grams, is also introduced. Additionally, the paper describes some interactive operations necessary for generating a grammar for a large and complicated document."

"Abstract: We consider the problem of generating grammars for classes of structured documents -- dictionaries, encyclopedias, user manuals, and so on -- from examples. The examples consist of structures of individual documents, and they can be collected either by converting typographical tagging of documents prepared for printing into structural tags, or by using document recognition techniques. Our method forms first finite-state automata describing the examples completely . These automata are modified by considering certain context conditions; the modifications correspond to generalizing the underlying language. Finally, the automata are converted into regular expressions, and they are used to construct the grammar. In addition to automata, an alternative representation, characteristic k-grams, is in-troduced. Some interactive operations are also described that are necessary for generating a grammar for a large and complicated document."

"Abstract: Recent advances in structured editing systems have put the emphasis on an important problem, which prevents structured editing systems from being used as easily as other document preparation systems: type transformation. This paper identifies two aspects of the problem. Dynamic transformations allow a structured editor to change the structure of a part of a document when this part is copied or moved to different places in the document or when it is restructured by the user. Static transformations allow specific tools to restructure documents when their generic structrure is modified. Various types of such transformations are analyzed and the specific tools implemented in the Grif system are presented."

Abstract: "The problem of direct access to Web data from within business applications has until recently been largely ignored. The Web Interface Definition Language (WIDL) is an application of the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) which allows the resources of the World Wide Web to be described as functional interfaces that can be accessed by remote systems over standard Web protocols. WIDL provides a practical and cost-effective means for diverse systems to be rapidly integrated across corporate intranets, extranets, and the Internet."

Abstract: "SGML documents can be large and complex, composed of many parts in various formats. These parts may be entities, subdocuments, or other SGML documents that are linked to as part of the content of an enframing document."

"Such a compound document may consist of an SGML declaration, a DTD (which may be composed of modules stored in separate files), a document entity (where the DOCTYPE declaration appears and in which parsing begins), external entities, other SGML documents, and noncharacter data (such as pictures and sounds). Beyond that, a document may require style sheets, fonts, an SGML Open catalogue, a 'readme' file, a statement of conditions of use, digital signatures, authentication information, and on and on.

"In this paper I'll point out some circumstances under which one might need to package together some or all of the items comprising a full compound document, describe some advantages of and requirements for packaging, briefly mention some existing packaging schemes, and outline my own suggested solution."

"If SGMLlers want to control their own destiny in archival preservation, copyright, and commerce, it would be wise to take up the challenge of packaging specifically for SGML (and XML), or at least come to agreement on what requirements a packaging system must meet. If we don't figure out packaging, someone else may do so in ways we find painful. Our first attempt, MIMESGML, seems to have failed because it was too complex. I hope the simpler solution I've offered has the clarity necessary for success."

Abstract: "This talk looks at different approaches to introducing SGML, at different perceptions of the language and related technology, and at the changing nature of the audience for SGML. It is for those who are just being introduced to SGML and for those who must now make the case for SGML within their organization or industry."

Summary: "There is a growing consensus that healthcare records, including the individual patient record, will be gathered, managed, and distributed electronically, but there is little consensus on how this will be done. One study estimates that fewer than five percent of providers have determined how they will computerize patient records. In this climate, where our second largest industry has yet to establish an informational infrastructure, what does SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) have to offer? What are the prospects of large-scale use of SGML-based technology? How does use of SGML relate to other standards efforts?

"This paper examines the place of SGML within healthcare informatics, reports on some recent work demonstrating the application of SGML to healthcare records, and discusses the relationship between SGML-based standards for healthcare and other standards initiatives. It concludes with a brief discussion of one type of SGML architecture and applications envisioned for healthcare."

Abstract: "The paper introduces a new initiative for SGML in the medical informatics industry. It describes the current state of information processing in medicine, gives some of the requirements for a new, SGML-based approach to medical information processing, introduces the group working for the introduction of SGML into medical informatics and gives a brief description of the umbrella medical information standard called HL7 under which the new initiative is working. The paper concludes with a summary of the challenges facing the new initiative and an invitation to all to participate and contribute. Up-to-date information on contacts and programs will be available at the conference session."