Abstract: "Various components of an SGML system are examined using a graphical framework; where applicable, software applications and the relevance of XML are reviewed within this framework. Using a broad concept of an SGML document, the following tools which work with these documents are discussed, including their interrelationships: authoring, conversion, document management, and output. The basic structure of a document is a DTD, a set of rules for applying SGML to the markup of a document ('tagging'). SGML Editors make possible the creation of information using SGML tags from the DTD. Conversion tools facilitate changing data to and from various coding schemes. Document managers permit a number of functions, including revision control, and coordination of the other tools. Having defined content with these tools, formatters use output specifications to control the output of data in a formatted fashion. The introduction of XML increases the importance of application documentation as XML removes the requirement of a DTD."

"Abstract: We address the problem of automating the display of database records in an intelligent way. By this we mean the synthesis of complete multimedia documents from database records. We propose an architecture for mapping diverse data stored in a database to markup language (SGML) programs. These programs are ready for final presentation. The mapping is based on a computational extension of the linguistic concept of registers. The resulting presentation represents data as information in an intelligent way. General conditions for such a system are discussed. Our own treatment of registers as rule-based computational structures is offered with some early results on the behaviour of rule-based registers."

Abstract: "The Publications Division of SAS Institute needed a way to replace the hardcopy formatting tools it had been using, and also faced the challenge of producing online documentation for its large variety of software products. After deciding to implement an SGML solution using Adept, the Institute decided to apply good software engineering and programming principles to the effort and develop a modular, maintainable store of declarative SGML structures and custom executables. This paper describes the implementation of that system."

Abstract: "This article advocates the use of SGML technology for the creation, dissemination, and display of Web documents. It presents a software architecture that allows for defining the operational interpretation of arbitrary document types by means of style sheets, written in a scripting language. Our approach has been motivated by a desire to extend the functionality of the Web with support for multimedia and active documents. Although growing in complexity, HTML is still lacking in functionality. We prefer a more flexible and generic approach, as enabled by the employment of SGML."

"After a brief introduction to SGML, we will illustrate how our approach accommodates (extensions of) HTML as well as arbitrary SGML documents containing multimedia data such as video and audio. We will then briefly sketch the software components used in the realization of our approach and discuss some topics for further research."

Abstract: "The presentation will be a summary of a project at the University of Oslo, where about 80 persons have been working with SGML. The way we work with SGML is a bit different from many others. We want to use SGML as an infrastructure, applied to a wide range of documents. In this presentation I will summarize the evaluation of the project, and the interviews that I have done with some of the writers."

Abstract: "The Astrophysical Journal, published by the University of Chicago Press for the American Astronomical Society, is a large and complex scientific journal of more than 25,000 pages per year. Over the last several years the production system for this publication has been re-engineered to be SGML-based, including on-screen SGML copy editing, exporting SGML for conventional typesetting, and producing an online HTML edition from the SGML archive. The most difficult part of the implementation was the use of SGML math and the problems encountered in translating complex mathematics between LaTeX, TeX, SGML, ASCII, HTML, and two different commercial typesetting systems. The key benefits of this implementation were (1) reduced conventional production costs, (2) the creation of additional electronic products, and (3) the establishment of a rigorous framework for future non-text content."

Abstract: "The World Wide Web is fast becoming the de facto repository of preference for on-line information, yet the technology of the Web has inadvertently created barriers for people with disabilities. Worldwide, more than 750 million people with disabilities (more than 100 million in Europe alone) are affected by the emergence of the Web, directly or indirectly. In order to 'push the envelope' of information access and truly realize the full potential of the Web, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) intends to take a leadership role in removing accessibility barriers by launching the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI, pronounced 'WAY').

"Mr. Paciello, creator of the WAI, will discuss the initiative's goals and mission and how SGML plays a major role in the advancement of information accessibility."

[No abstract available.]

Abstract: "Microsoft cofounded the XML working group at the W3C in July 96 and actively participated in the definition of the standard. This article describes why Microsoft implemented its first XML application and how it led to the development of two XML parsers shipping in Internet Explorer 4.0, one written in C++ and the other in Java. We describe the importance of designing an object model API and our vision of XML as a universal, open data format for the Internet."

Abstract: "The importance of reuse of information is well recognised for electronic publishing. However, it is rarely achieved satisfactorily because of the complexity of the task: integrating different formats, handling updates of information, addressing the document author's need for intuitiveness and simplicity, etc. An approach which addresses these problems is to dynamically generate and update documents through a descriptive definition of virtual documents. We present a document interpreter that allows information to be gathered from multiple sources and combined dynamically to produce a virtual document. Two strengths of our approach are: the generic information objects that we use, which enable access to distributed, heterogeneous data sources; and the interpreter's evaluation strategy, which permits a minimum re-evaluation of the information objects from the data sources."

"The RIO (Reuse of Information Objects) project aims to develop techniques which can support information reuse in various contexts. The focus of the project is currently on the specification and interpretation of virtual documents to enable reuse of structured information from heterogeneous sources. The instructions for the construction of virtual documents are stored in a document prescription, which is processed by the document interpreter to generate or update a virtual document. An editor facilitates the writing of the document prescriptions; it is connected to the document interpreter in order to provide dynamic editing. The document prescription consists of: 1) Static data, or the structure and the text that does not change in the document; 2) Queries, or the commands needed to generate the dynamic part of the document; 3) Transformation instructions, to convert the reused information objects into new document objects. The document prescription is written as an SGML document or as one of its derivatives such as HTML or XML, that might not enforce compliance to a formal DTD. Static data is expressed using normal SGML constructs. Queries and transformation instructions are expressed as SGML Processing Instructions (PI). There are two kinds of queries: native queries, which send requests to the data sources in their specific language (e.g., SQL for a relational database, URL for an HTML server), and pick queries, written in an OQL-like language that we designed to combine results and provide search capabilities for semi-structured information."

Abstract: "The article presents an intelligent information agent which provides just-in-time help to flight simulator maintenance technicians. The agent, called STEALTH, is embedded within an information management system, TOPSS, and works as a personal digital assistant (PDA) for information filtering. It provides users with intelligent guidance to useful information within a given context, taking user's preferences into account. STEALTH offers numerous advantages compared to several other information filtering paradigms: (1) its intelligence is based on an artificial neural network (ANN) technology which can easily add new documents to its knowledge base, as well as learn and forget user's preferences; (2) its information search strategy includes theme indexing and stemming, which goes beyond the use of full text keywords; (3) it can take advantage of an SGML document base, retrieving documents at different granularity levels (paragraph, section, chapter, document); and (4) it allows users to build their own collection of documents using available document parts. The approach taken in the development of STEALTH is outlined here: from the ergonomic task analysis to the actual implementation and testing of the agent. Although STEALTH is presently only used within a flight simulator context, it is believed that its generic design will make it applicable to a wide range of domains. In effect, one only has to provide the agent with the document base to be used in order to profile the agent for the new context."

Abstract: "A significant economical objective at Norsk Hydro is to reduce the time and cost of maintaining equipment used in oil production.

"According to NORSOK (NORsk SOkkels Konkuranseposisjon, or in English the competitive standing of the Norwegian offshore sector), 50% of the development cost of an off-shore installation is related to information. NORSOK is the Norwegian initiative to reduce development and operation cost for the off-shore oil and gas industry. An important part of this effort is to develop cost efficient standards to replace individual oil company specifications.

"In this case study we will explain the implementation of an interactive system to improve the accessibility of technical supplier documentation by utilising the SGML standard."

Abstract: "A significant economical objective at Norsk Hydro is to reduce the time and cost of maintaining equipment used in oil production.

"According to NORSOK (NORsk SOkkels Konkuranseposisjon or in English the competitive standing of the Norwegian offshore sector), 50% of the development cost of an off-shore installation, is related to information. That will explain why there is substantial savings in make the information management process and methods more efficient.

"In this case study we will explain the implementation of an integrated, interactive system to improve the accessibility of information needed for the maintenance procedures at an off-shore installation by utilising the SGML standard. This system contains all the relevant parts in an information management process like authoring, storage and information distribution."

Abstract: "Wärtsilä Diesel is the largest medium speed diesel engine manufacturer in the world, with offices and factories all over the world. This is a case study where Wartsila Diesel Power Plant provides an editorial system for their subcontractors, so that they can easily produce content oriented information modules, based on the physical equipment breakdown structure (EBS) according to the WD Base-DTD. The study also covers the production system that is used in Wartsila to maintain and to produce presentation-oriented technical manuals from the content oriented information modules delivered by the subcontractors. We will also cover the background and problems of handling lots of information coming from several sources in different formats, why WD decided to implement an CALS/SGML information environment and what they achieved so far.

The editorial system consists of the WD Base-DTD that is mapped in SGML Author to templates in Microsoft WORD and a database that is used for mapping the information modules into the correct level in the EBS. This editorial system makes it very easy to author content oriented information, because of the familiar wordprocessor that helps the user to navigate in the DTD without having any knowledge about SGML. The key thing in the application is having an interface of a database from where the author chooses an information module and puts in information by using the next legal style, which follow the structure in the WD Base-DTD.

The production system consists of tools for navigating, searching, browsing and publishing of the technical information from the main repository. When the subcontractor delivers the technical information, it will be analysed in Wartsila Diesel and if it becomes approved it is saved into a main repository for the information. The main tool in the production system is a browser that is configured to the relational database (main repository) that holds the EBS with the associated information modules. The tool is used for searching, viewing and publishing of the information modules in a very object oriented way. By choosing publish, the user can produce information products, such as IETM, Online and/or paper manuals very easy by 'dragging and dropping'."

[A presentation based upon the author's popular "Whirlwind Guide to SGML Tools and Vendors."]

Abstract: "SGML products could make 'good SGML' easier by separating tabular display from tabular data organization more thoroughly. This presentation will describe and discuss the structural versus display approaches to tabular data in SGML, and will describe the author's dream table-oriented capabilities for display-oriented SGML tools, especially editors. In the process, there will be provided a description of various simple and more complicated tabular structures. We don't accept products that only recognize one or two DTDs in general; why should we for tables?"

"There is a difference between tabular display of data and tabular organization of data. Tabular display involves how data is placed on the screen or page, whereas tabular organization involves the semantic relationships between various pieces of data. Most programs, such as SGML-aware editors, that provide a tabular data display currently require that the SGML markup for the data directly indicate how it is to be displayed, rather than any structural relationship between the pieces of data, and generally require that all data to be displayed tabularly be marked up to the same DTD fragment (hereinafter called a 'schema'). This should not be necessary. My 'dream' is that it not be necessary."

Abstract: "There are differences of opinion as to how the current SGML standard (ISO 8879 as amended in 1988) should be interpreted with respect to the handling of the characters that make up the SGML documents it describes. But a consensus has pretty well been achieved as to how the revision now being worked on will treat 'characters' and 'character strings', and how the 'character sets' described in an SGML declaration will be interpreted and used. This paper presents the character model that is being considered by the group working on the revision of ISO 8879 (the SGML Raporteur Group of ISO/IEC JTC1 SC 18 WG8).

Characters are recognized as 'abstract' data types, just as, for example, are integers. The new model will not assume, for example, that characters of a given character repertoire are always represented by fixed-width bit strings and that strings of characters are not always represented by direct concatenation of the representations of single characters.

The new character model clarifies the relationship between the character representations being used by an SGML system, the character representations used to store external entities, and the character sets described in the SGML declarations of SGML documents. It provides for the possibility of character representation information being in the SGML declaration's 'document character set' description or the 'formal system identifier' of an entity, or even being provided via external-to-the-document, system-dependent means."

Abstract: "SGML was designed in an environment where other-than-8-bit character representations were only vaguely known and not understood. The designers did not differentiate between (abstract) characters and the bit-patterns by which they are represented in machines. This resulted in a character-handling model that is no longer adequate in many respects. In addition, there have surfaced differences of opinion as to how the current SGML standard (ISO 8879 as amended in 1988) should be interpreted with respect to the handling of the characters that make up the SGML documents it describes.

"A new character and character-string model has been adopted by the SGML Rapporteur Group within WG8 [now WG4], where the ISO 8879 revision is being prepared. The new model encompasses handling of variable-width-character string representations such as Shift-JIS, and outside-the-document specification of character representations, as well as the traditional 'document character set' specification.

"A Technical 'Correction' to ISO 8879 was made official in 1996, which made it more feasible to use SGML with very-large-character-set languages such as Japanese and Chinese, for use on SGML systems not constrained to an 8-bit character set.

"This presentation will explain the distinction between (abstract) characters and the computer representations of characters, and will explain the new character handling model in terms thereof. It will further explain the relationship to the old character-handling model of 1986, and how older systems may be upgraded, and what is possible when still running under the old (1986/88) rules. This involves the relationship of the 'document character set' to the way systems may actually represent characters, and the use or non-use of the 'shunned character numbers' specification."

Abstract: "This presentation provides an overview of four techniques that combine the principles of data storage and generalized markup into database publishing systems. These four techniques are ordered by increasing document structure flexibility. Their effects are illustrated by a simple yet realistic example. The conclusion argues in favor of document structure independent data modeling.

"Consider a class of database publishing systems that exploit the principles of generalized markup. Each system in this class encompasses three main subsystems: a data storage subsystem, processes that transform the stored data into SGML, and processes that transform the SGML documents into final publication form.

"We are interested in the impact that the chosen style of storing data has on the structural flexibility of the database publishing system. In other words, we wonder how much effort, and of what kind, is involved in adding a DTD (Document Type Definition) to the publication domain, or in altering an existing DTD.

"Four styles of data storage are beforehand, namely: 1) storing text files containing the SGML; 2) a database whose schema has been designed after one or more DTDs; 3) a generally applicable SGML database; and 4) databases designed independently of document structure. Each of these approaches has its own advantages and disadvantages, but regarding structural flexibility, document structure independent data modeling is the winner by far."

"A collection-level structured document like the finding aid clearly would serve this function well. The kind of collection that I have in mind here, though, is not one determined by the archival principle of provenance, but rather a collection that represents the shared interests of intellectual communities. Fortunately the model for such a collection already exists in the print world. It is the comprehensive, critical subject bibliography. In order for the bibliography to serve as the new axis of electronic academic publishing, we need to design it in such a way that it can be collaboratively and cooperatively built and extended by publishers, scholarly societies, and libraries. It must enable all of the critical functions to take place under the control and jurisdiction of the appropriate experts and professionals. An underlying assumption is that the subject bibliography will be organized hierarchically." [extracted]

Abstract: The DTD editing tool is a window and icon based tool for the creation, manipulation, and comprehension of SGML Document Type Definitions (DTDs). This tool allows users to manipulate SGML DTDs without any knowledge of the rather complex SGML syntax. More generally, the tool allows users to manipulate context-free grammars without any knowledge of the syntax used to describe them. The tool generates SGML DTDs, and has features specific to that application; however, the approach could also be applied to manipulation of context-free grammars represented in other grammar description languages.

Abstract: "In recent years, authors of scholarly materials have had to choose between a bewildering number of formats for information distribution. Some formats, such as Microsoft Word's file format or PostScript, assured excellent print quality. Others, like the Web's HTML and Microsoft's Windows Help format, allowed fast electronic distribution. None allowed for optimal print and online representation. To compound the problem, new formats are being created every day. The Internet world had seen Gopher, HTML, HTML 2.0, HTML 3.0, HTML 3.2, Hyper-G's HTF, and Adobe's PDF. In the print world, PostScript, WordPerfect, MS Word 2.0, MS Word 6.0, and Rick Text Format have vied for favor. The University of Waterloo English Department successfully used the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) to transcend these 'notation wars' and deliver high-quality World Wide Web and print documentation for on-campus and distance education students. We found the system robust enough that we also taught students to use SGML for multimedia publishing in a four-month course in technical writing, English 210E."

Abstract: "The DSSSL (Document Style Semantics and Specification Language) Style Language is the International Standard for specifying a formatting procedure for a document. DSSSL stylesheets can be simple declarative specifications of formatting to be applied to elements. But if the situation warrants they can also be complex computer programs. When they are complex it becomes important to be able to reuse code in order to save development time and increase reliability and consistency. We have investigated mechanisms for reusing code across document types and for designing style specifications that would publish documents both on the web and in print."

"We evaluated and experimented with simple templates, multi-stage transformations, HyTime architectural forms and a convention we call pseudo flow object constructors. This paper will compare these strategies, discuss the applicability of non-DSSSL tools and consider some extensions to DSSSL to make code reuse easier."

"Despite the difficulties we still feel that higher-level flow objects are a reasonable route to code and style reuse. Until the Web matures into a DSSSL-capable platform this route will be the only one that can capture the commonalities of print and web delivery. Even after the Web matures, higher level flow objects could speed the creation of stylesheets for new document types. DSSSL as it stands does not seem to be a hospitable development environment for creating higher-level objects. There are a few ways this situation could be improved. . ."

Abstract: "The challenge of navigating the morass of available electronic information is a frequent topic of news groups, newspapers, and professional association publications. Global indexing schemes are proliferating in response to this concern and many are providing at least minimally effective information organization and search aids. However, indexing alone is not sufficient. Much information is inherent within the structure (e.g., chapter headings, section headings, and their relation to each other) of full text scientific and technical documents.

"At the NLM (National Library of Medicine), NIH (National Institutes of Health), we have been working on a relatively small scale project that demonstrates the larger issue of how to provide improved search discrimination for, and navigation of related but diverse collections of biomedical full text documents by exploiting the structural information. This project supports the NLM collection of HSTAT (Health Services/Technology Assessment Text) which currently includes over 120 different on-line documents ranging from a 600-page monograph to a six-page pamphlet.

"Our approach has been to use SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) to define the objects of information in the collection. The use of SGML (required, by our FTRS [Full Text Search and Retrieval System]) enables us to provide the users a roadmap to the information available via a dynamically created table of contents, context-qualified search results, and context-flags while browsing the full text. The benefits of this approach include the users' ability to expand the table of contents to the lowest possible level of structure in the document, and the system's ability to consistently provide context information for all information retrieved -- whether browsing the text or submitting specific searches. Challenges have included the conversion of legacy data to SGML and development of a suitable DTD (Document Type Definition) - a DTD that is at the same time specific enough to support a particular document and general enough to provide some continuity across the collection.

"Although the labor-intensive nature of legacy data conversion to SGML has been costly, the project has been very successful. The SGML-encoded documents have allowed the development of algorithms to automatically convert to many different formats including HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), print, word processing, PDF (Portable Document Format), etc., for reuse. It has proved to be an eminently scalable system, growing from the original 60 documents to the current size -- and still growing. Finally, the use of SGML has provided a framework that allows us to constantly improve the search and retrieval capabilities and add new features without incurring the cost of continually reprocessing the entire collection. HSTAT is accessible at http://text.nlm.nih.gov."

Abstract: "The paper provides an overview of the [following elements]: (1) Reasons which spurred the Commission of the European Union to seek and find 'the SGML solution' for their own Official Journal of the European Communities and its Supplement, including a discussion as to how the technical issues surrounding SGML and the production constraints hampered the full implementation of 'pure' SGML production systems for a decade.

(2) The decision to implement 'SGML transition systems' and an account of the consequential experience gained through their implementation, along with an insight as to how Multilingual, Multiple Media 'pure' SGML production systems will be in place before the end of 1996, thanks to the increasing availability of ever more sophisticated software tools and the recent availability of reasonably priced computer processing power.

(3) Philosophy of the new technical concepts and the names the products which comprise the new production systems.

(4) Meeting of the technical challenges involved in providing Multilingual, Multiple Media SGML services, including overcoming the issues related to the implementation of special character sets and a review of a number of both critical personal and business decisions which were made in order to maximise the scope and optimise the Multilingual, Multiple Media SGML services being provided to the European Union."

Abstract: The Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), defined in International Standard 8879, allows multiple processes to be performed on a single document. The same source file, for example, can be formatted, loaded into an onlinedatabase, or analyzed for various linguistic properties. SGML-based software that is not restricted to particular applications must therefore provide tools for defining new applications. Internal software is being developed at Hewlett-Packard for using SGML in the production of user manuals. At the center of this activity is a general-purpose SGML parser and application generator, called MARKUP. This paper describes MARKUP from the perspective of the programmer responsible for development of SGML applications.

Abstract: "A panel of experienced users (including Marcy Thompson, Neil Bradley, Roger Boncoeur, Alan Burrows, François Chahuneau, Louis Nahas, Steve Newberry) discusses the pros and cons of using industry DTDs. Avoiding the over simplification of two polar positions (drastic or no modification of an existing DTD), the panel members discuss the numerous decisions facing implementers in between these poles. Questions posed to the members include: When a DTD is so large that an organization only uses part of it, what does interchange mean? Do different organizations interpret elements (or attributes) differently? Does any organization implement the entire DTD? How accepted is it to use a different DTD for editing and the industry-standard one for 'interchange'?

"The term industry-standard DTD refers to a DTD, designed by participants from several unrelated companies or other organizations, for use with documents on similar topics produced by these organizations. Despite the word 'standard,' industry-standard DTDs are not necessarily produced by recognized standards authorities. Often, they are intended for interchanging documents rather than for creating new ones. This panel brings together two groups of users of such DTDs -- end users and vendors (or SGML service providers) -- for a discussion of practical issues in the implementation of SGML projects based on such DTDs.

Abstract: The Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), defined in International Standard (ISO) 8879, is a notation for representing documents and making their inherent structure explicit. The open-ended list of SGML applications includes document interchange, formatting or typesetting, loading databases for information retrieval, stylistic or linguistic analysis, and computer-aided translation. The combination of SGML and TeX is a natural one. This paper reviews the philosophy of SGML and then describes a particular environment where SGML and TeX are used together, giving specific examples of how processing is shared between the SGML application and TeX macros.

Abstract: "This paper examines three well-known SGML applications: CALS tables, the DocBook DTD, and Adobe FrameMaker+SGML. Although none of them are defined using architectural forms, all three applications provide constructs that are functionally equivalent to architectural forms. Identifying these equivalences promotes understanding of the concepts and similarities and may even suggest possible future generalizations."

"ISO/IEC 10744, Hypermedia/Time-based Structuring Language (HyTime), defines architectural forms to be rules for creating document components. In particular, architectural forms are rules for creating element type, attribute definition list, and notation declarations. The rules must be documented in an architecture definition document. In addition, the architectural forms are defined using SGML syntax in a meta-DTD, that is, in a DTD that serves as a template for numerous client DTDs. An individual declaration in a client DTD can correspond to a declaration in the meta-DTD. All names can be changed and the client DTD can be more restrictive than the meta-DTD. For example, a meta-DTD can define a list to consist of one or more items. A derived declaration in a client DTD can define a list to consist of a heading item followed by at least two normal items. Since both the heading item and the normal items are items, the declaration in the client DTD is consistent with that in the meta-DTD. Data that occurs as an attribute value in the architectural form can appear as content in the client document."

Abstract: "As described by Charles Goldfarb during talks at SGML '95 and SGML Europe '95, the international standards committee responsible for the SGML standard, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC18/WG8, has been reviewing ISO 8879, which defines SGML. This effort has been more intense recently. After each of its meetings, WG8 makes a point of reporting on the status of the review and the technical issues that have been decided. While these reports are available on the Web at http://www.ornl.gov/sgml/wg8/docs or http://www.sgmlsource.com/8879rev/index.htm, this paper presents the decisions that have been reached to date in order to:

• Assure conference attendees who have not already studied the material that a revised standard will not affect the validity or interpretation of today's documents;
• Encourage attendees to participate in the work of WG8 by commenting on these proposals, suggesting additional possible changes, or representing their national standards bodies at WG8 meetings.

Abstract: The Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) is a notation for describing classes of structured documents and for coding documents belonging to described classes. An advantage of SGML and other grammar-based document representations is the ability to perform multiple applications on a single document source file. This paper describes the evolution of a software development tool for implementing such applications. It explains the original design as well as enhancements made during the system's first eighteen months. Although not statistically significant, data on the use of the enhanced features are presented. The experience described is relevant to other software engineering tools for text processing.

Abstract: "The International Standard for the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) published in 1986 is now seen as a mature language for expressing document structure and is accepted as the basis for major projects such as the Text Encoding Initiative and important hypertext languages such as HTML and the XML. The historical origin of SGML as a technique for adding marks to texts has left a legacy of complexities and difficulties which hinder its wide acceptance. A key difficulty is the dual role that SGML documents currently play: they are both a representation for interchange and a human readable presentation. We examine possible document markup techniques in a post-SGML 86 world with emphasis on the framework architecture and the inclusion of richer agent behaviour. The novel ideas include the generalized recursion of elements and attributes, and the generalization of the notion of a 'character' to much broader token which is strongly typed." See particularly the document sections "Relation between grammar and document" and "The recursion of elements and attributes" ['SGML 86 allows mutual recursion of elements, but not recursions between elements and attributes. The overall design may be simplified by removing this restriction; at the same time allowing more general structures to be created in the ASN.l style. SGML 86 also distinguishes between the content of the those elements which have content, and the other properties represented by attributes. This also seems to be an artificial complexity which we shall remove.']

[Conclusion:] "We have reviewed the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) as defined by IS0 8879:1986 and identified difficulties in its implementation and use. Our post SGML 86 system integrates other media besides texts and includes rules in a natural way. We claim that the alternative readings of a document provided by views based on the syntax and semantics of other languages provide a natural extension to more complex bchaviours. We have shown that all this can be done without excessive culture shock: When an SGML 86 grammar (DTD) is used, the SGML 86 human readable document, can always be produced as a view of the stored document. The major advantages of our post SGML 86 approach are: a) More generalized structures may be described in a simpler recursive way. b) Multiple media can be included in a straighforward and natural way. All media, including rules and agents, are marked up in the same way, with straightforward semantics. c) Confusion between the different usages of text characters are avoided by strong typing of all characters. d) Multiple views may he created of a document, each corresponding to the needs of a particular class of reader. e) SGML 86 documents may be easily migrated to and from post SGML 86 systems, thus preserving the considerable investment in SGML 86."

"Abstract: This paper discusses the textual and software resources necessary for the establishment of a generalized wide-area textual analysis system. A distinction is made between textual analytical systems and text retrieval systems. The necessity of using standards and open systems in implementing such systems is emphasized. The paper includes a review of critical characteristics of generalized analytical software. It is argued that the resources necessary for the establishment of a service are currently available. The paper concludes with a discussion of deficiencies in current resources and standards. The author also includes an appendix discussing the need to incorporate a recognition of structure in textual retrieval systems."

Abstract: "The SGML literature divides DTDs into two types: those that describe existing information structures and those that prescribe a fixed set of structures. A purely prescriptive approach has been in vogue for several years; however, the descriptive approach has much to offer. It is suggested that many DTDs should in fact fall somewhere between the two extremes, and could be termed suggestive. In a Suggestive DTD, certain structures are fixed, others are flexible, and still others are configured through the simple use of attributes to permit previously unexpected values. Relationships are explicitly marked where they cannot be derived."

Abstract: "SGML Documents that include references to SGML SDATA character entities are today inherently not portable. It is not possible to define a new SDATA entity in such a way that any arbitrary SGML system is likely to display the corresponding character or characters correctly.

"ISO has published some standard PUBLIC texts containing definitions of the more common entities, such as é, but they are defined in such a way that any given SGML system is certain to have to change them, or to provide a mapping onto system-specific definitions. As a result, many SGML software packages do not display even the core ISO SDATA character entities in a useful way.

"This paper briefly reviews the current state of the art, introduces terminology from relevant existing ISO standards, outlines a set of requirements for a possible solution, and then proposes one such solution, the Glyph Interchange Language (GIL).

"This paper is limited in scope to those SGML SDATA entities that are intended to represent a single character or a sequence of characters; other uses of SGML SDATA entities are not affected. The paper also discusses possible uses of the Glyph Interchange Language both in XML, the eXtensible Markup language, and in the context of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) P3 Guidelines."

Abstract: "An SGML Document Type Definition serves many purposes, and is read both by software and by people. It must therefore be presented in a way which is clear and effective. A DTD is neither a program nor a document, but shares some characteristics of both. Techniques for presenting both textual information and structured information have been developed in other fields, and it is instructive to study these techniques and to see how they apply to SGML DTDs. In particular, graphic design and typography on the one hand and computer science and program layout on the other are very relevant.

"Existing literature on document analysis and the preparation of SGML Document Type Definitions does not generally discuss the layout of SGML DTDs from a typographic or engineering point of view. This paper describes a number of techniques and principles used in typography, graphic design, information architecture and also in engineering and computer science.

"The principles of design that underline these techniques are discussed in turn, and a clear way to organise and lay out a DTD is then presented. Further reading is given in an annotated bibliography."

"Abstract: This paper presents the experience gained in developing and using the hypertext functions of the Grif system [sincluding work funded by ESF Eureka programme EU 43]. Grif is a structured document editor based on the generic structure concept: each document is represented in the system by its logical structure which is an instance of a generic structure. This notion of logical structure encompasses both hierarchical structures (as is usual in structured documents) and non-hierarchical links (as is usual in hypertext).

"The document model on which Grif is based is presented, focusing on the different types of links. Various applications using these links are also described. It is shown that the approaches of electronic documents and hypertext, which are often opposed to each other, can be combined for building more powerful integrated systems."

"Abstract: Methods and techniques used in software engineering are compared with the ones used for handling electronic documents. The authors show the common features in both domains, but also the differences and propose an approach which extends the field of document manipulation to document engineering. They show also in what respect document engineering is different from software engineering. Therefore specific techniques must be developed for building integrated environments for document engineering."

"Abstract: Several attempts have been made for making TEX more user-friendly by providing specific tools for preview or input of documents. We propose a different approach which uses an interactive system for editing the documents intended to be formatted by TEX. This system, GRIF, is based on a structural model of documents and allows the user to define the structure and the presentation of documents edited. We present how it may be used for efficiently preparing documents to be printed by TEX."

"Abstract: This paper introduces the concepts of structured and active documents and shows how they can be used for making the user interface for different applications in the field of computer algebra. A system for active structured documents is briefly presented as well as some examples of its use."

Abstract: "Dans toute application informatique il est nécessaire de définir clairement un modèle des informations à traiter pour pouvoir spécifier les traitements à leur appliquer. Les documents n'échappent pas à cette règle. Différents types de modèles ont été utilisés ou sont proposés dans le domaine du traitement des documents; les plus riches et les plus puissants considèrent un document comme une structure ou même comme plusieurs structures. Grâce à un haut degré d'abstraction, ils représentent une partie de la sémantique du document et autorisent ainsi des traitements élaborés.

"Ce texte s'intéresse principalement aux modèles de documents structurés. Il présente les concepts qui sont à la base de la structuration des documents et il montre quelques cas d'application de ces concepts. Il est divisé en trois parties.

"La première partie traite des différents types de structures qu'on peut identifier dans les documents, aussi bien les structures logiques, abstraites, que les structures graphiques, concrètes.

"La deuxième partie présente une norme qui est de plus en plus largement utilisée pour traiter des documents et les échanger entre systèmes différents. Il s'agit de la norme SGML qui est fondée sur une structuration logique des documents.

"La troisième partie est consacrée à l'utilisation des modèles de documents structurés dans la création et la manipulation interactive des documents. Elle fait le point sur les éditeurs de documents structurés."

"Abstract: Grif is an interactive system for editing and formatting complex documents. It manipulates structured documents containing objects of various types: tables, mathematical formulae, programs, pictures, graphics. etc. It is a structure directed editor which guides the user in accordance with the structure of the document and of the objects being edited; the image displayed on the screen also being constructed from that structure. Flexibility is one of the most interesting characteristics of Grif. The user can define new document structures and new types of objects, as well as [sic! to] specify the way in which the system displays these documents and objects."

Abstract: "SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) introduced DTD (Document Type Definition) concept to formally describe document syntax and structure. One of its main characteristics is the fact of being purely declarative and fully independent of the future document's processing (typesetting, formatting, translation/transformation). In this context, SGML has become the international standard to be followed.

Sooner or later, a document must be processed. In order to do that we need to associate semantics to the document's structure. In compiler's context, normally we separate semantics in two, static and dynamic. Establishing a parallelism with document processing, we can think of the document's decorated tree (as recognized by a SGML analyzer) as representing the static semantics and document's tree transformation as dynamic semantics.

Pursuing this idea, we will present and discuss a study of the relationship between SGML, DAST (Decorated Abstract Syntax Tree), and Algebraic Specification, in order to better understand how to formally process documents and how to specify and build generic document processing tools."

Abstract: "Quality Control in Electronic Publications should be one of the major concerns of every project. Big projects try to gather information from a series of different sources: universities, libraries, museums and other scientific or cultural organizations. Collecting and treating information from several different sources raises a very interesting problem: the assurance of quality.

"Quality in Electronic Publications can be reflected in several forms, from the visual aspects of the interface and linguistic/literary ones to the correctness of data. We are concerned with the lowest boundary of this spectrum, correctness of data. With SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) we can solve a small part of the problem, structural correctness. SGML provides a nice way to structure documents keeping a complete separation between structure (syntax) and typesetting. Today there are lots of editors and environments that can assist the user producing well-formed SGML documents (validating their structure). But, there is clearly a lack for content validation. There are situations where pre-conditions over the information being introduced should be enforced in order to prevent the user from introducing erroneous data; we shall call this process data semantics validation. In SGML is not possible to implement this process."

"We will discuss an adaptation of the SGML syntax that will enable us to express constraints to allow some semantic validation when authoring. Furthermore, we will propose a new SGML processing model capable of dealing with this extension. This model will be built extending the existing one. So, we will not restrict any SGML capability, instead we will add new ones. Both, the SGML extension and the model extension, will be defined and implemented resorting to algebraic specification (SET theory and functional programming)."

Abstract: "Croner Publications Ltd's experiences with SGML over the last three years have been both exciting and traumatic! In this presentation, Mr. Rankin describes how and why Croner considered SGML to be the answer to many of their problems and details the difficulties encountered along the way. The presentation emphasizes the need to have the courage to press ahead and 'open the envelope'. Finally, he plots the future strategy his company will adopt and the role SGML is set to play over the next decade."

"Croner Publications is a successful publishing company based in London and is market leader in the UK in areas of publishing information relating to tax, employment law, transport, education, health & safety and the environment. The publications interpret the law for business managers and directors and the text of the publications is mainly in the form of commentary. Today, Croner publish over 100 loose-leaf books, 75 newsletters, 40 special reports, 70 bound books and 50 electronic products. Publications are updated frequently, including weekly, fortnightly, monthly and quarterly. [...] The presentation will be in the form of a case study and will look at how Croner Publications tackled the whole issue of adopting the SGML standard. Covering the period 1993 to 1997, the presentation will highlight some of the problems encountered, how the business benefits of SGML were perceived and how the business case for SGML was sold to the publishers at Croner. The future is also addressed and an outline of Croner's future strategy will be given. The theme of the presentation is simply that it took courage to finally grasp the nettle and 'open the envelope'!

Abstract: "This report describes our experience with a conversion project involving IBM BookMaster and HTML.

"Credit Suisse, a large Swiss Bank, has an existing document processing infrastructure based on IBM host. They use IBM BookMaster -- a markup language based on GML (Generalized Markup Language). Their BookMaster documents are traditionally distributed on paper. The content is the documentation of bank-internal software applications -- everything from user manuals to technical descriptions for audit purposes. The document size varies from about five to several hundred pages.

"To improve the accessibility of their documents the bank wants to publish and keep these documents in a corporate intranet in the future. While this intranet is currently coming into existence the old paper publishing process must be maintained. The coexistence of the old and the new 'world' will be necessary for several years. Conversion tools are therefore needed to ease the way from BookMaster to HTML and back. This paper is a description of the current status of the ongoing project.

"Brian Reid's work with markup systems began in the 1970s. He independently invented and implemented descriptive markup and developed its theory. His Scribe system may have been the cleanest separation of structure and format ever built. His dissertation on it was already complete in 1981, the year he presented in Lausanne in the same session where Charles Goldfarb publicly presented GML; SGML was proposed about a year later. In recent years Reid has turned his attention to network systems and the internet."

This keynote address ("20 Years of Abstract Markup - Any Progress?") was a reflection upon the early development of descriptive markup based upon a presentation made at the Conference on Research and Trends in Document Preparation Systems at Lausanne, Switzerland, February 27-28, 1981. Many of the slides in Reid's Chicago keynote presentation were taken from the 1981 paper, "The Scribe Document Specification Language and its Compiler."

The visuals from Brian Reid's keynote at the Markup Technologies '98 conference, given 19 November 1998, are available online in PowerPoint 97 format. Please note that the file is almost 10 megabytes - it has 25 full-page scanned images in it. [local archive copy, 1999-01-04]

Abstract: We still have to overcome a number of difficulties before a terminographic interchange standard can be put into practice. Although the recent SGML-based approach seems feasible and promising, describing the content of a complex universal terminological entry still represents an essential problem. It is not sufficient to define an open catalogue of terminological data categories. The difficulties start when it comes to specifying the relationships between them. Yet, a detailed description is a precondition for applying SGML. A different kind of problem will occur when a workable standard will have to be established for the commercial market and TMS developers will have to be convinced of the necessity of offering suitable export and import routines for their programs allowing for the conversion of terminographic data between the individual TMS and the standard format. This aspect is essential because many of the interchange problems have to be solved by the conversion programs rather than by the interchange standard itself. However, by using SGML the recent approach has been based on a standard that has already been applied in several cases where large amounts of electronic data had to be exchanged. Moreover, several SGML programs, such as SGML editors or parsers for checking the conformity of an SGML document, are already available today.

Abstract: We examine the claim that 'text is an ordered hierarchy of content objects [OHCO]'; this thesis was affirmed by the authors, and others, in the late 1980s and has been associated with certain approaches to text processing and the encoding of literary texts. First we discuss the nature of this claim and its connection with the history of text processing and text encoding standardization projects such as SGML and the Text Encoding Initiative. We then describe how the experience of the text encoding community, as represented and codified in the TEI Guidelines, have raised difficulties for this thesis. Next we consider two progressively weaker versions of this thesis formulated in response to these difficulties. Ultimately we find that no version appears to be free from counterexample.

Although none of these formulations proves to be theoretically sound, they are nonetheless methodologically illuminating as each generalizes actual encoding practices, making explicit certain assumptions that, even though they have been fundamental to the working methodologies of most text encoding projects, have never been explicitly articulated, let alone explained or defended. The counterexamples to the different versions of the OHCO thesis also arise in actual encoding projects -- so although our focus is theoretical it is grounded in the methodology and problems of contemporary encoding practices. The problems discussed here have implications not only for text encoding and our understanding of the nature of textual communication, but raise very fundamental issues in the logic and methodology of the humanities.

Abstract: "In 1996, we began a work on a project to develop for the State of Alabama an application modeled on the processes of the state legislative system. Among other things we needed to develop an effective set of solutions for some complex information authoring, management and delivery requirements. A true code generating OO (Object Oriented) RAD (Rapid Application Development) tool would be used to model business processes and to generate the application which would run on top of an Oracle database. However, there were questions as to how the data management component would be effectively designed and integrated. [...] Our requirements were to develop functions to manage the creation, revision, indexing, output delivery, and search and retrieval for a number of document types. According to the business processes, not only document types but individual document component types were subject to versioning. Furthermore, it had to be possible to retrieve any particular version of a document from any stage of its life. Authors worked with a number of document types, such as Draft Legislation, Draft Resolutions, and Amendments. Several of these documents could go through important semantic state changes that a simple static Document Type label was inadequate to describe.

"Here we will focus on three practical aspects of the application design: data management, versioning, and retrieval. We will also discuss the object/relational environment in which the application was designed and how that environment enabled, constrained, or otherwise affected our decisions. [...] We present what we believe to be some logical methodologies for managing SGML components in the context of a larger application. We believe this approach that can be successfully and efficiently repeated and can be successfully applied in a number of different business areas."

Abstract: "Designing style sheets for structured documents is often a difficult task. In this paper, we discuss the way to support style design through direct manipulation and propose an interactive method of specification by example for editing style sheets. In this approach, style editing actions within a formatted document are generalized into ''generic'' style specifications and the ''generic'' style sheet is dynamically updated. An initial implementation of a direct-manipulation editor for structured document style sheet is presented. Based on a structured authoring environment, this prototype provides a comfortable environment for editing style properties as defined in style sheets through the visual representation of any document, without programming the style language."

[Conclusion]: "This paper has presented a tool for the design of style sheets for structured documents, which does not require users to program the style language. The proposed approach is based on a presentation graph and enables the generalization process to produce the style sheet properly. In this approach, designers or authors directly modify the presentation on a formatted document. By immediately visualizing the formatted document, users are able to discover relationships among logical components and style rules. This ability helps users to update the generic style in an efficient way. A first prototype, based on the structured Thot editor, provides an interactive environment for editing the typography, topology, and style of a document, and for updating style sheets written in the P language. Since P-edit is a prototype used for the validation of our generic approach, it does not provide all the functionality of a full system. Some features such as page layout, footnotes, views, or decorative boxes should be improved. And we have made the simplifying assumption that an initial style sheet is provided. Until now, not much attention has been paid to the problem of generic style editing. The results of this experiment reveal that this approach can be used to edit style sheets with simple contextual conditions as defined in the CSS language."

Abstract: "Document structure provides facilities for accessing and presenting hypermedia documents, and style sheets support their layout on screen (or paper). However, little attention is given to the quality of these documents in terms of typography, in the sense, for example, of abiding by the rules of The Chicago Manual of Style. This paper shows how the specification of typographic sheets can help apply typographic control to structured documents. This approach provides a mapping between elements and typographic properties. A typographic checker based on typographic sheets is presented."

"Abstract: This paper describes the integration of a spelling corrector into the structured editor Grif. The corrector is based on the Levensthein metric concept which is particularly efficient for string correction. This method can be implemented efficiently and can produce good results with short response time on a new RISC workstation even with large dictionaries. The integration within Grif enables checking of textual content of structured documents where large vocabularies are required. Thanks to an attribute language, the editor can automatically adapt the correction to the language and can apply a specific word recognition algorithm and dictionaries, thus allowing checking and correcting of multilingual documents."

Abstract: "This composition system accepts documents coded according to multiple authoring DTDs (of many versions) and provides a maintainable method for updating the system to keep pace with DTD changes. The key is that lower level elements, such as paragraphs and phrases, are identical across DTDs while Division (section) level elements differ. The solution automatically creates a document-type-specific transformation program and creates a generic SGML file from one of multiple authoring document type SGML instances. The generic SGML file can then be input to a more structure-based composition converter to create the final composed (targeted) output."

Abstract: "This case study shows how XML has been used by RivCom in projects for Logica and Shell International. Both projects required the delivery of highly structured information in an accessible and easily navigable form to the desktops of users world-wide. The solution adopted in each case was to store the information in the form of XML files. These files could then be accessed by users over the network via corporate intranet, or locally from CD-ROM. The users were provided with a browser plugin developed by RivCom. The plugin intercepts the stream of incoming XML, and then composes HTML on the fly which it passes to the browser for presentation to the user. The HTML reflects presentational preferences resulting from a dynamic combination of styles defined by the publisher (the corporation) and user choices or actions. [...] And XML, we found, was ideally suited to meeting the needs of our clients."

"The two projects I want to describe and illustrate in this paper are the following: 1) Logica is a major computer consultancy and systems integration company with over 5,000 staff in 22 countries around the world. Their Cortex Business Model describes all aspects of Logica's business. 2) Shell International is one of the world's largest oil companies. Their Downstream Business Activity Model is a structured description of the company's entire downstream business - from the arrival of crude oil at refineries to the delivery of refined oil products to customers at Shell service stations. A common requirement of both projects was the need to deliver highly structured information in an accessible and easily navigable form to users distributed throughout the world."

Abstract: "Recently, the SGML world has been rediscovering the database repository. Many SGML users have documents which need to be shared at different levels of granularity, distributed among workgroups, created on the fly from smaller pieces, versioned, found via queries, or managed in parts because they are too large to fit in RAM. All of these requirements suggest that documents need to be composed of smaller units, 'components', which can be exchanged among users, combined to form documents, versioned, returned as the result of queries, and validated.

The term 'component' is abstract, and does not concretely specify the relationship of components to an SGML document or DTD. However, the manner in which components are used clearly indicate certain properties which they must have. This presentation uses three specific scenarios to determine these properties: versioning in a workgroup environment, logical access to the components of a document, and dynamic document generation.

Based on these scenarios, we define components in terms of their basic properties and uses, discuss the design choices available for implementing components in an SGML repository, and outline some of the design choices made in an SGML repository system which was jointly designed by F.A.Davis, a medical textbook and multi-media publisher, and POET Software, an object database company."

Abstract: "As XML has brought SGML into mainstream software development, the SGML community has had to change some basic assumptions about editing environments and documents. Recently, a variety of new XML-related standards have been proposed that envision using XML as a core technology for internet software development. These standards are in early phases, but if they come to be accepted and used, they paint a very interesting future for XML and SGML. SGML tools have generally been designed for single-user use or for use on a LAN. There are now proposed standards that define protocols for joint authoring across the internet, specifying how documents and document components can be created, traversed, locked, changed, checked in or out, versioned, and protected from unauthorized access. These programming interfaces may be used by distributed editing tools to allow XML documents, databases, and repositories to be edited or viewed simultaneously by many users working from different locations. By supporting these standards as they come out, SGML and XML tools can become a vital part of new Internet development."

"As an open format for structured documents, XML has made structured documents a natural way to define new standards. The SGML community has generally assumed that all documents were created by human beings, and ultimately read by other human beings. Although most XML documents probably will be written and read by humans, many of the new XML standards are for environments in which documents are created or consumed by programs. Some of these use XML as a rich data interchange format; others use XML to define protocols, software installation procedures, financial transactions, document transfer schedules, and system configuration."

"Finally, this paper explores the use of software components in SGML systems. Many new applications are based on the concept of reusable software components, and many SGML programs seem to use similar controls, such as tree browsers, list viewers, SGML browsers. Several suggestions are made for improving SGML software systems to support component based programming."

"Abstract: Large documents are the most suitable for online viewing. They can be stored compactly on the system and they can be searched in ways not possible in their printed form, by using full-text search retrieval methods or by making the underlying structure of the document accessible. Large documents can be searched more accurately and more completely by users, making their tasks easier. This paper reviews some of the issues that must be considered when putting large documents online."

The article discusses theoretical issues in abstraction concepts, including the semantics of markup languages. The second part of the contribution deals with the MAX (SGML-based) system developed at the University of Karlsruhe; MAX is a descriptive SGML-like markup language and document compiler.

"Abstract: This paper addresses the problem of transforming the structure of a part of document when it is moved by the cut-and-paste operation in a structured editing system. The solution presented in this paper is based on the modelling of document types (DTD), allowing several order relations between types to be identified in order to determine when and how transformations can be done. Basically, the structural representation of a document type is given by a tree where the leaves are basic types. A canonical form of the types has been defined in order to eliminate syntactic details of SGML and to allow correct analysis of types. For efficient dynamic transformations, the tree representation is linearized in a 'Dyck' word, keeping only structural information and types of the leaves. A cut-and-paste operation is then implemented as a string comparison between the source instance word and the target type word; the result gives a way to construct a new target instance which conforms to the target type even if the source type is different."

Abstract: "Producing and storing medical documentation is time-consuming and costly. Studies have shown that physicians spend upwards of 35% of their time on documentation, and the documents produced yearly number in the billions. Very little of this generated medical data is recorded in a format that is computer-readable. The result is a combination of high administrative costs and the inability of clinical decision-makers to use most of the data generated during the patient care process.

Kurzweil Applied Intelligence has received a research grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to build a prototype system which will use large-vocabulary voice-recognition technology to produce SGML-structured medical reports.

SGML addresses the need for a structured reporting framework for medical applications because:

• SGML enables the preservation of context and structure in medical reporting, making the information gathered more useful and accessible. The current lack of a widely accepted standard format for medical reporting has limited the benefits of computerized patient records.
• The open systems approach of SGML facilitates communication among and porting between diverse platforms.
• The SGML standard supports a wide variety of information types in addition to text; images, video and audio clips can be incorporated into the medical report. SGML formats can be extended to meet the industry's changing requirements.

Many of the issues surrounding the use of SGML in this project will be familiar to the general SGML community, particularly the advantages of tagging and structuring the data. In other respects, however, the project raises some new and interesting problems, such as the dynamic creation of SGML documents from a voice-controlled application. Another important issue is the lack of any standard DTD for clinical data. We have developed DTDs for patient demographic information, prescriptions, and primary care reports, and we are actively involved in the HL7 SGML Initiative, which is an effort to standardize healthcare DTDs."