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 paper examines the aspects of hyperlinking that are relevant to document management systems. Various standard mechanisms for hyperlinking -- XML, HyTime, and HTML -- are reviewed and their relative merits discussed. Ways in which document management systems can facilitate link creation, maintenance, and delivery are presented, along with their effect on integrated authoring and delivery systems."

"Traditionally, the topic of hyperlinking has been primarily discussed in the context of distribution, viewing, and display systems. This paper examines the requirements put on document management systems, and in turn, integrated authoring tools for creation and management of hyperlinks. One of the distinguishing characteristics of hyperlink management in a document management environment versus a display environment is the dynamic nature of the information to which the hyperlinks apply. Fixed linking schemes layered onto static information are no longer sufficient. Changes in information imply the need for linking mechanisms that can adapt to changed resources, ongoing validation that links are still valid, and the need for creation of additional links."

Abstract: "To provide report program developers [with] a single output format, while allowing multiple presentation formats, we are using an SGML language based on HTML tables. The reporting programs generate the SGML documents which are translated into HTML, LaTeX or ASCII depending on the needs of the users."

The project relates to a "myriad of reports" produced for Lucent Technologies': "5ESS-200 is a large telephone switch involving the work of thousands of developers. The ADEPT project tracking system records the work items, completion dates, quality records and other information to assure the project conforms to its processes. [...] Each report program generates a complete SGML document. These are then run through the sgmls parser. The parse tree that results is analyzed by a translation program that converts the SGML tags and their contents to the appropriate statements in the presentation language. [...] We use marked sections to hide the embedded SGML from the parser when the error file is processed. We have extended our definition of reports to include printouts of the forms customers fill out on the screen. The form printing system also generates SGML which passes through the translation system to be printed. We are examining how DSSSL and XML could alter our translation mechanism."

"Our project is different than many other uses of SGML as the SGML documents are transitory and limited in nature. Once the SGML is generated and translated, it is deleted. We believe that using SGML as a report writing language provides several benefits. It is easy to understand and write, it provides independence from the presentation mechanism and results in smaller, easier to understand report code."

Abstract: "Text has a special place in the digital library as the primary medium of human communication. While sometimes a picture may be worth a thousand words, more often, the best way to convey any complex thought is through text. The reason is simple; the richness of concepts, the detail, and the precision of ideas that can be expressed in words are remarkable. This talks looks at the role of text in digital libraries and attempts to place the various methods for managing text in context. A theme of the talk is the trade-off between generality and simplicity. Generality is the great strength of SGML and also its principal weakness. Simple formats are easier for the non-specialist to learn and easier for interoperability in distributed computing, but fail when asked to do too much. The early success of HTML is a fine example of simplicity; more recent troubles show what happens when simplicity is abandoned in a piecemeal fashion. Digital libraries are interested in both ends of the spectrum. At the high end, libraries must support every language and character set in the world, past or present. They must work with mathematics, music, chemical symbols, and special formats from every discipline. However, while accepting high-end formats, such as the encoding used by the Text Encoding Initiative, libraries ask questions about the long term [...] Unicode is emerging as the extended character set of choice, partly because the developers have been steadfast in providing compatibility with other standards, notably ASCII. The introduction of XML is paying close attention to these factors, thus greatly increasing the chance of broad acceptance."

Abstract: "In 1986, the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) became an international standard for the format of text and documents. SGML has withstood the test of time. Its popularity is rapidly increasing among organizations with large amounts of document data to create, manage, and distribute. However, various barriers exist to delivering SGML over the Web. These barriers include the lack of widely supported stylesheets, complex software because of SGML's broad and powerful options, and obstacles to interchange of SGML data because of varying levels of SGML compliance among SGML software products.

"Because mainstream Web browsers lack SGML support, most applications that deliver SGML over the Web convert the SGML to HTML. This down-translation removes much of the intelligence of the original SGML information. That lost intelligence virtually eliminates information flexibility and poses a significant barrier to reuse, interchange, and automation.

"The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is being developed to enable delivery of SGML information over the Web while overcoming the limitations of HTML. The momentum building behind the XML effort means that XML is inevitably destined to become the mainstream technology for powering broadly functional and highly valuable business applications on the Internet, intranets, and extranets."

Abstract: "This presentation aims at giving an understanding of the work with STEP and SGML/XML integration, the reasons for it and current status of work. It begins with a presentation of the STEP standard and its parts, and discusses what the relations between STEP and SGML/XML are, and what inter-operability between the two might provide.

"A few current initiatives or projects will also be covered, with the Hägglunds LOTS project presented in somewhat more detail, being one of the more advanced STEP and SGML projects so far. Finally, a status report of the current standardization efforts within the STEP and SGML/XML communities will be given."

"STEP is an international standard, ISO 10303 'Product Data Representation and Exchange'. The former name was 'Standard for the Exchange of Product Model Data', thereby the acronym STEP. The objective with the series of standards that together are called STEP is to define a common way to describe product model information for the product's complete life-cycle, independently from the software used. [...] Today, efforts are spent to make STEP more open, i.e., to permit STEP to cooperate with other standards. An example of that is the efforts to achieve inter-operability between STEP and SGML."

Abstract: "This presentation examines the benefits of structured data files, compares different file formats (SGML, HTML, PDF, and XML) and their suitability for various deliveries, and discusses criteria for selection of structured authoring tools from the perspective of the user of the tools, the technical writer. The presentation is intended for people new to structured authoring who may have become interested in the topic because of the popularity of the new XML standard, and would benefit from hearing about structured authoring environments in general and how SGML, HTML, PDF, and XML fit into the picture."

Abstract: "SGML information systems usually come into being in the form of small-scale prototype systems supporting a few users and a relatively small set of representative documents. After a successful proof-of-concept phase comes the time of production on a larger scale where the problems encountered are of a totally different nature from those uncovered during the prototyping phase.

"This paper addresses scalability of SGML authoring and dissemination systems. An area highlighted is the need to have a set of detailed production procedures taking into account human as well as automated operations."

"SGML information systems usually come into being in the form of small-scale prototype systems supporting a few users and a relatively small set of representative documents. After a successful proof-of-concept phase comes the time of production on a larger scale where the problems encountered while growing to a full-scale production system are of a totally different nature from those uncovered during the prototyping phase. For example there are the different and sometimes contradictory constraints of the authoring and dissemination systems, which often show up only in high-volume/high-update rate conditions. This paper addresses scalability. Neglecting the more obvious aspects of scalability it highlights some issues, which are not always considered when designing complex document management systems. One aspect highlighted is the need to have a set of detailed production procedures which are adhered to in order to avoid cascading effects of incorrectly entered data, among other potential problems."

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to present some of the issues involved in taking advantage of the current advances in Web new technologies, in the aim of distribute linguistic resources in an opened client/server environment. The paper is organized as follows: First, we describe our experiment within the first season of the SILFIDE (Serveur Intéractif pour la Langue Française, son Identité, sa Diffusion et son Étude) Server Project currently under development at the CRIN (Centre de Recherche en Informatique de Nancy) a laboratory associated with the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) and INRIA Lorraine (Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique). We developed a first SILFIDE Server prototype implementing the TEI guidelines, the CGI (Common Gateway Interface) and Java technologies. Next, we sketch the new directions within a second season of the SILFIDE Server Project concerning new related topics: (1) managing linguistic resources encoding in XML/TEI, (2) distributing linguistic resources over a SILFIDE network using the possibilities given by new technologies for a Web information server and (3) integrating and standardizing linguistic tools in a distributed environment."

Abstract: "Mathematical Markup Language (MathML), designed by the W3C HTML Math working group, is a XML application for describing mathematical expression structure and content. The goal of MathML is to enable mathematics to be served, received and processed on the Web.

"This paper discusses the particular problems posed by the representation of mathematics on the web and outlines the XML-based solution proposed. This solution supports both presentation and semantic models of mathematics. The paper looks at the relationship between MathML and some existing mathematical representations which have contributed significantly to its development.

"Initially MathML will be processed and rendered by helper applications. An overview of the browser interface and techniques for embedding of MathML in HTML pages will be presented. The requirements on tools for the creation, editing and viewing of MathML are reviewed. An outline of MathML support in applications, under development or planned, will be given."

Abstract: "The editorial process of the budget of the European Union provides a good example of a production environment that is entirely SGML-based, and meets severe constraints in terms of production time, quality, and costs."

"As such, it illustrates the fact that SGML realizes its full potential when used as a means of manipulating structured documents. It also highlights certain aspects of SGML, usually considered as advanced, making their significance apparent through a concrete example of their use."

"[Conclusion:] We have described a complex SGML-based client-server system that is used for the creation and maintenance of the European Union's budget, a huge 11-language document, revised three times a year. We have shown that an SGML system can be much more than just having SGML instances as input and output. We have described and illustrated how SGML is used in every aspect of the system, ranging from the server modules, over SGML based processing modules to an SGML-formatted messaging scheme between clients and server. Finally, we have outlined how at the very heart of the system presented here is SIT, the SGML Technologies Group's fully-featured SGML parser and integrated application language."

Abstract: "This paper studies, from an historical perspective, the relationship between SGML and data modeling concerns. SGML did not the invent the concept of structural document models, or 'schemata'. Nevertheless, through the notion of DTDs, it made this powerful concept available and understandable to a large number of people with little or no data modeling experience.

"With the evolutionary trend towards 'content oriented' DTDs, the emergence of well-described methodologies to design them and the appearance of specialized 'case' tools to manipulate them, the potential of SGML as a data modeling methodology became clear, and some SGML enthusiasts suggested to use it as a general purpose tool.

"However, because an SGML DTD intimately mixes the notion of a 'grammar' and that of a 'schema', these two concepts remained partly confused, at least in the 'orthodox' SGML approach. This original characteristic caused some misunderstandings and raised many suspicions from the 'traditional' data modeling world. This largely precluded, so far, the use of SGML as a general data modeling tool outside the restricted arena of structured documents.

"By introducing a simplified syntax with a fixed grammar, XML isolated the role of DTDs as 'pure schemata', and also made them unnecessary for pure recognition of the 'de facto' document structure.

Finally, recent proposals such as MCF and XML-data suggest to use the XML syntax itself to encode document schemata, therefore making 'traditional' DTDs obsolete. At the same time, they propose several extensions to the SGML data modeling semantics, by incorporating object-oriented concepts. Will such an evolution allow XML to become the official, well-accepted and ubiquitous way to exchange structured data and associated models, and bring SGML power much beyond its original application niche?"

[Extract from the section "The Dual Nature of DTDs"]: "With the benefit of hindsight, after ten years of practice, the design of SGML appears as an unlikely and unique mixture of many brilliant ideas and a few mistakes, and strikes [one] by its total lack of references to data modeling or language design theories which had already emerged in computer science at the time it was designed. A major point of originality is the central SGML DTD concept itself: a DTD is both a generative grammar for the markup language which will be used to tag corresponding instances, and a schema which characterizes a document class: it assigns names to things and defines rules stating what structural patterns shall or shall not be not possible/required in an SGML document (modeled as a tree of typed nodes with attributes) which belongs to the class. In the same set of statements, one is instructed that 'the end tag for AUTHOR can be omitted' and that 'the document must have a title and a single one', although these two pieces of information admittedly belong to totally different areas of concern. This dual nature of DTD should not necessarily lead to confusing the two notions. Unfortunately, this is largely what happened in the SGML community..."

Abstract: "The Canadian Department of National Defence requires suppliers to produce technical manuals for equipment supplied to project offices within the department. DND now requires suppliers to support the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML).

"The DND CALS Assembly Information Model is the content-oriented SGML structure mandated to markup information about equipment. The technical manuals are typically presentation-oriented, based on a book paradigm.

"A preliminary publishing system architecture along with Document Type Definitions (DTDs) to support this architecture were designed to address the transformation requirements necessary to produce the technical manuals from the information model as well as future requirements that may arise for electronic-based information products. This paper describes the evolution of this architecture, based on feedback from multiple field trials which validated various segments of this preliminary architecture.

"Version 2.0 of the DND CALS DTD with extensive documentation, applications and scenarios based on this architecture is now available from the DND CALS Office."

Abstract: "This presentation discusses the ways in which SGML is being used to build prototypes of scholarly editions for distribution on the Internet. Based on the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), the sophisticated markup offers greater intellectual access as well as sophisticated frameworks on which to build editions. Chesnutt will review the work of the consortium and its plans to create an American Documentary Heritage Database encompassing documentary editions drawn from all fields of the arts and sciences."

Abstract: "Some of the information processed through SGML systems should never be stored in a document instance. In particular, tabular data may already be maintained and stored in a relational database. This paper discusses the alternatives and outlines a strategy for integrating relational data in an SGML instance, and for automating the process of updating and delivering the information content."

[Conclusion:] "We have seen that not all information contained in documents should be stored there. Graphic elements provide one obvious example of this principle, which we can easily extend to tabular data. Using relational database technology and SQL, the data can be managed appropriately; while SGML provides the mechanism for delivery. This paper has offered a simple strategy for integrating these systems, through the storage of SQL queries in the SGML instance and scripts to intelligently process those queries."

Abstract: "Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) allows the creation of content to be separated from the formatting or delivery of information. The ability to deliver data authored once in several different formats is one of the major benefits organizations site when stating their reasons for moving to SGML. However, few organizations have the foresight to understand how SGML will be spread across their organization. In this paper, I will discuss the two basic adoption models of SGML in corporations and how these two different models can sometimes create the same problem and may have the same solution.

"SGML has always allowed you to define a group of elements and reuse those elements in multiple DTDs. Many companies that have to manage a group of DTDs that are reused in multiple other DTDs use this modularity of SGML to their advantage. However, not until recently was there a way to enforce and express formally these reusable components. The use of the meta-DTD was first defined by ISO/IEC 10744 (HyTime) and defines the structure and semantics of a class of documents which conform to an 'SGML architecture'.

"Declaring an architecture is easy. If you've ever written a DTD, you already know almost everything you need to know how to do it. The SGML Extended facilities describes a new markup declaration type called an AFDR (Architectural Form Definition Requirements). Documents can conform to one or more enabling architectures such as HyTime and SMDL. The declaration consists of two parts, a list of architectures to which the document conforms and a declaration for each architecture in the list. The list of architectures used is declared using a processing instruction that starts with the keyword ArcBase and is followed by a list of architectures used in the document. This processing instruction should precede any architecture declarations for base architectures. You can have more than one ArcBase processing instruction. Architectures are 'connected' to elements via their attribute declaration. If an element in a user DTD is derived from a corporate architecture, that fact is recorded in the user DTD. If two different user DTDs use the same architecture, information can be seamlessly interchanged between the two user DTDs by simply 'deriving' the user DTD content model back to its architectural form. This allows the best of both worlds in SGML. Users can have application specific DTDs that meet their particular needs while the corporation can have a standard base from which to create processing systems, training materials, and develop new authoring DTDs."

Abstract: MCG has developed an SGML database system with a view to information reuse. The system integrates workflow, an SGML editor, and an SGML database. The system implements extensive metadata about the SGML objects.

"MCG worked from a few concepts to build a complete environment: 1) There is only a certain amount of useful information concerning a given product; 2) The information can be divided into distinct, identifiable components; 3) The information components can be implemented in such a way that they can be gathered into myriad deliverable collections and in various media; 4) Handling information in this manner saves time and effort over the long run by reducing noncreative work.

"This paper describes: 1) the methods we used to analyze our information requirements, 2) translating those requirements into a DTD that supports modular information structures, 3) defining metadata requirements so a database supports the information structures, 4) and the application functions and features we integrated into the environment."

Abstract: "The ATA has been developing interchange DTDs since 1989 and several maintenance, training, and operations documents are currently being delivered in SGML. With the introduction of XML ( eXtensible Markup Language ) as a draft standard for web applications of SGML, the ATA must review their interchange DTDs to determine the impact of supporting web delivery of XML documents in the future. This paper will explore the impact of XML on the ATA interchange model. The conference presentation will demonstrate, using a representative ATA document, the steps required to move from SGML to XML for a typical industry interchange and will demonstrate how a data model might be used to facilitate this interchange."

Abstract: "This paper describes the use of XML in a Lotus Notes publishing project at the Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. (BNA). The paper reviews the current batch publishing environment available with the Lotus Notes Newsstand product and describes the new process that utilizes XML. It also covers the advantages of using a well-formed XML over RTF, data conversion issues, and the development of an XML processor to import XML into Lotus Notes."

Abstract: "The SGML community has had increasing interest in the capability of assembling document displays from multiple referenced parts. Elements in such documents reference other elements or objects that are retrieved on the fly and transparently displayed much as if their content had actually occurred inline. This is commonly called 'dynamic document assembly' or 'boilerplating' and traces back to the older notion of transclusion (dynamic data inclusion). Transclusion has previously been very theoretical, but is becoming less so daily, especially with the coming use of XML. This presentation looks at reasons for transclusion, possible problems, and some proposed solutions."

"XML rules out most of the constructs that make it hard to implement transclusion with SGML, such as asynchronous entities and document portions that can parse differently depending on where they are referenced. This makes truly dynamic transclusion processors more feasible. Also, XLL provides a powerful convention for referring to subtrees of documents on the fly (based on TEI extended pointer notation), making it very easy to transclude very specific document portions as required for quotation. XLL also provides transclusion semantics as a specific property that can be set for individual links: a link can be declared to require on-the-fly retrieval and display, or inline display on demand, or new-window display on demand, and so on, thus allowing all the needed combinations of behavior."

Abstract: "Architectural forms were developed in conjunction with HyTime, but you can take advantage of them without using HyTime. As a bonus, once you get used to them, HyTime will be much easier to understand. This article describes the creation of a simple DTD based on architectural forms defined in another DTD. It also shows how to use James Clark's sgmlnorm program to process a document conforming to the new DTD, and then describes the possibilities opened up by the use of architectural forms."

"Architectural forms give you a way to base a DTD's element types on element types defined in another DTD. You can define an element type of the new DTD as being the equivalent of one in the existing DTD and then give the new one a different element type name, additional attributes, and different names for existing attributes. A processing application that supports architectural forms can then treat elements conforming to the new DTD's declarations as if they conformed to the corresponding declarations in the original DTD (also known as the 'baseDTD' or 'base architecture'). All this can be done using a base DTD designed by someone who has never heard of architectural forms. If the base DTD was designed by someone who knew that it would be used as a base architecture, the new DTD's designer has even more flexibility, potentially being able to revise the content models of the base DTD's element types."

Abstract: "This paper presents the result of an investigation designed to show the possibility of producing an IETM (Interactive Electronic Technical Manual) by means of World Wide Web technology. For the needs of our investigation, we used an SGML document base, relating to the maintenance of an aircraft. This base, enhanced with techniques set forth in this paper, allowed us to build a WEB browser prototype meeting IETM class 3 and higher requirements. An important point shown by our work is that the semantic richness of an SGML base can be kept and used even when using HTML (HyperText Markup Language) as a browsing format."

Abstract: "The decision to go with SGML is only the first step toward complete SGML integration. There are issues and twists that make every implementation of SGML unique. This particular project involved creating and deploying a system that handled multiple configurations of documents customized for specific clients. This presentation discusses the steps necessary to implement fully an SGML authoring environment and SGML repository given a limited budget and challenging set of requirements."

"FSI International is a capital equipment manufacturer for the semiconductor manufacturing industry. The corporation has over $300M annual sales with corporate offices in [5 locations]. The Technical Communications Department is a technical writing and information coordination department for the design and sustaining engineering department of the Chemical Management Division. Our department produces technical operations and maintenance manuals for our product line as well as other technical, safety, and customer service communications. There are three direct employees, one contract employee, and two dotted-line direct employees in Hollister, California. With an annual budget of $350K for fiscal 1997, the group created 5,000 new or revised pages and 176CD ROMs. We are forecasting 5-6,000 pages and 538 CD ROMs for fiscal 1998."

Abstract: "This case study chronicles the successes and shortcomings of an ongoing SGML implementation for electronic publishing from a legacy data conversion at a technical society. A commitment to SGML is most often couched in dollar terms; most implementors are aware of the tremendous costs in data conversion, DTD development, and editorial tools. However, implementors at this technical society realized that an additional level of commitment was needed to successfully publish using SGML. This commitment escaped notice perhaps because implementation planning most often focuses on easily measurable costs. For this quintessential 'content provider,' the need for technically skilled people was one of the unforeseen aspects of its embrace of SGML."

Abstract: "The Electronic Library Project was lunched to study the limits of new technologies like ODBMS (Object Database Management System), SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) / HyTime (Hypermedia/Time-based Structuring Language) structuring and a Web access interface. The result is better than any estimation we could have made. Interactive XML (EXtensible Markup Language) generation is feasible. The submitted talk is as much oriented towards a concrete demonstration as towards the conceptual explanation of the prototype."

Abstract: "During the period of time since the inception of MIL-PRF-87269 and MIL-PRF-87268, vendors have been developing and delivering 'MIL-PRF-87269 compliant' SGML instances to the DoD (Department of Defense) as line item deliverables under various system acquisition/maintenance contracts. Many of these SGML instances have been developed with a limited understanding of the specific information engineering requirements set forth in MIL-PRF-87269. In the absence of this understanding non-conforming IETM (Interactive Electronic Technical Manual) instances have been or are being accepted by the DoD. This has happened partially because there has been no contractual basis to support rejection. This in turn has led to some IETM providers believing that they are creating a fully conforming product when in fact their offerings may have fallen short of what the specification intended.

"It should be noted that the problems encountered with IETM implementation do not stem from any major deficiency in the MIL-PRF-87269 specification. On the contrary, MIL-PRF-87269 and its accompanying implementation guide clearly express a simple but elegant IETM traversement concept.

"This paper reviews the powerful information modeling and information exchange concepts contained in MIL-PRF-87269, and describes how well they fit with existing object-oriented analysis and design methodologies. The MIL-PRF-87269 generic layer architectural forms are discussed in terms of Class 2,3,4 and 5 ETM, ICW and IETM development and their relationship to procedural traversement data modeling. An object-oriented analysis and design approach is offered for interoperable ETM, ICW and IETM content data modeling beginning with the analysis of the users' existing old physical model, the construction of logicalized content data model object classes, the enhancement of logicalized content model object classes with inherited traversement behavior, and finally the implementation of the traversement rules enhanced content data model for ETM, ICW and IETM development. Configuration management and version control issues are addressed as an essential and embedded part of the object-oriented content data modeling approach. The proper use of parameter entities in the creation of re-usable modular DTDs is explained. Issues are raised and strategies are offered regarding the creation and/or adoption of mnemonics and nomenclature related to the naming and name space management and cataloging of information objects and rich content tagged general entities. Finally, the benefits of the object-oriented content modeling approach are revealed in terms of IETM instance acquisition, development and acceptance quality, and in terms of the interoperability that can be achieved among instances through a consolidated ETM, IETM and ICW information server."

Abstract: "Nortel is a large, international telecommunications company, with 68,000 employees, whose documentation needs are diverse and changing. Implementation of SGML in a cross-corporate fashion introduces the difficulty of meeting separate user requirements while still maintaining a level of control over document structures. Using SGML architectures confronts this by defining the relationships between diverse document types, allowing for more effective interchange of cross-corporate information. This information interchange is further enabled by generic tools that can operate on documents conforming to specific classes. This paper highlights the activities of a team tasked with implementing SGML architectures, and describes some of the technical challenges involved. In particular, we show how implementation of architectures relates to the broader area of object-oriented design. We also describe a generic transformation tool written to facilitate interchange."

Abstract: "We use SGML to bridge the gap between early specification documents and analysis models in an object-oriented software development process. Introducing content-oriented DTDs for the specification documents it is possible to define a tool-based transformation from the specification documents to an initial object-oriented analysis model. Our methodology OOSDM (Object Oriented Structuring and Description Method) which structures specification documents in a canonical way and our tool OMC (Object Model Creator) which converts those specification papers to an initial object-oriented analysis model are a first step towards a seamless integration of the early specification and analysis phases into the software development and the documentation process."

"We have implemented the conversion tool OMC which converts an input document (OOSDM based SGML document) to an initial object model in the Case Tool Software through Pictures (StP) from Aonix. The user interface is integrated completely into the user interface of StP. OMC uses the OMCT+Booch notation which is supported by StP. OMC runs under UNIX (SUN OS and HP UNIX) and is implemented as an user customization to StP (using a StP specific programming and query language and C++). We have defined a default rule file tailored for the DTD of our specification documents which we use as the input files for OMC. Our customer has started to use OMC for pilot applications."

Abstract: "This paper discusses, from a corporate point of view, the maintenance of an internally developed SGML environment, continual training for the maintenance team, and training and support of users. These are the practical aspects of an SGML system implementation that are quite often overlooked when making implementation decisions. The author recognizes that external SGML consultants normally provide ongoing maintenance and support of systems they design, as well as ensuring that users of the system are properly trained. However, as a user of, and trainer for, an internally developed SGML environment, the author observes that maintenance, support, and training are items that often occur as afterthoughts because of sudden need, rather than checklist items planned for from the beginning as strategic parts of any SGML system implementation."

Abstract: "The SGML Extended Facilities, part of ISO/IEC 10744:1997 (HyTime Second Edition) add significant functionality to SGML." Thus "HyTime Two" represents two standards in one document: 1) SGML Extended Facilities and 2) Enhanced HyTime architecture, where "SGML Extended Facilities will become part of ISO 8879: SGML." The presentation by Goldfarb covers: SGML Extended Facilities Overview, Architectural Form Definition Requirements (AFDR), Key AFDR Concepts, Architecture Benefits, Property Set Definition Requirements (PSDR), Graph Representation Of property ValuEs (GROVE), General Architecture, Formal System Identifier Definition Requirements (FSIDR), Lexical Type Definition Requirements (LTDR), HyTime Architecture Enhancements, Foundation for Future of SGML and XML, For Further Information ... (see the HyTime User's Group Web Site).

See also the ISO 8879 Review Index Page maintained by Charles Goldfarb, where a summary of HyTime Two and SGML Extended Facilities is available online, and in outline format substantially represents the content of the published paper; [local archive copy]. In this connection, see also the online paper "What You Need to Know About the New HyTime,", by Steven R. Newcomb, of TechnoTeacher Inc..

Abstract: "There are two common, but unfortunate, responses when companies are confronted by a need to do a legacy data conversion to SGML: freezing in fear and doing nothing, or jumping in head-first and creating a disaster. Obviously, there are better ways to react. This presentation discusses how to develop an effective and realistic data conversion strategy. Among the issues considered are whether to do it inhouse or to outsource, selecting a DTD, developing a workable conversion schedule, writing a conversion specification, conversion methodologies, and arriving at a realistic conversion plan."

Abstract: "The XML language is a profile of the full SGML language optimized for use on the Web. XSL -- the Extensible Style Language -- is the name being given to the language designed to be used to specify a stylesheet for an XML document.

"In the original conception of the XML project, its stylesheet language was expected to be a subset of DSSSL. However, the syntax of DSSSL as defined in the 1996 version of the standard -- based on the Scheme programming language -- was seen by many as suboptimal for average use. The current XSL proposal is basically a mapping of a subset of DSSSL into what is mostly a declarative (rather than programming) language.

"The official XSL work being done under the auspices of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is very much in progress. This talk mostly discusses XSL described in the joint proposal made by ArborText, INSO, and Microsoft to the W3C, acknowledged by the W3C in September 1997. Updates on the latest work will be provided at the talk."

Abstract: "Information Providers add value by enabling access to information. On-line Information Providers add value by adding markup which enables access via a search engine. Improving search precision and recall is directly related to the match between the language used in a search query and the collection of searchable information. Markup that enables construction of the search query using the language of the collection is lexical and semantic not structural. SGML parsers allow us to validate structural markup but cannot be used to determine the quality of lexical and semantic markup.

"Natural language is powerful because the rules regarding lexical and semantic information are flexible and mutable. However, the recognition and marking of lexical and semantic information is more difficult, and will be less robust than the recognition of structural and syntactical information. We, as Information Providers, need to make sure that our markup systems maintain a high level of quality.

"The manufacturing industry uses Statistical Process Control to monitor and maintain the quality of their products. This paper demonstrates how Statistical Process Control can be used within an information manufacturing system to monitor and maintain the quality of the processes adding search enabling markup."

Abstract: "Excitement around XML is running high. This paper explores both the roots of XML and the market dynamics which are driving the intense excitement around this emerging standard. It is not the technical merits which will ultimately decide XML's popularity and acceptance - it will be the extent to which emerging applications properly implement XML support to provide significant solutions to important problems. Generating well formed XML does not constitute meaningful XML support. This paper attempts to give a perspective on the value that XML support should bring; XML cast as HTML++ or as SGML-lite will not deliver on the promise of XML. This paper attempts to explain why this is so and why you should care."

Abstract: Parameter entities were once thought to be the domain of only DTD designers. Parameter entities, and their references, can also be placed in the internal DTD subset of document instances. By doing so, authors can indirectly include shared entity declarations or collections of entity declarations. Such indirection can enable groups of authors to share and reuse entities that change frequently. Whereas parameter entities enable entity sharing and reuse, Hytime content location addressing can provide granular reuse of elements within file entities. When combined, paramater entities and content location addressing can enable sharing and reuse of SGML components in either local and far-flung environments."

"The scenario [discussed] is not fictitious; the problems are real and the requirements and objectives are quite common for Company X, as they are for many organizations, large and small. Of course, this paper was written in the referenced DTD and uses all of the features discussed; the SGML markup for this document is available from publish@ibm.net. The creative and judicial use of the features described in this paper provide a reasonable degree of reuse and data management across an organization of virtually any size, without requiring the use of an SGML-enabled data manager. However, a capable SGML-enabled data manager, combined with one or more of these features, can provide an organization with a formidable, extensible, and highly automated reuse environment."

Abstract: "This presentation explains the goals for BNA's new publishing system, why BNA chose SGML as an integral part of that system, and provides an overview of how BNA implemented the system. Topics covered include undertaking business process re-engineering, adopting SGML, converting legacy data, and lessons learned during the process. BNA (The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.) and its subsidiaries provide labor, legal, economic, and regulatory information to business, professional, government, and academic users."

"It really all boils down to the data and the fact that the data is the company's most valuable resource (second only to the people who create it). We used the term 'data repository' to refer to BNA's entire collection of documents and other data, including primary source laws, regulations, opinions, internally created news stories, legal headnotes, and reference materials. BNA has acknowledged that we must manage documents as a corporate asset and we must have the ability to search, retrieve, and update documents throughout the publishing life cycle. SGML was chosen as a way to identify and protect the data. BNA started over 50 years ago using typesetting instructions for Linotype operators. In the 70s we used two digit 'locator codes' to identify typesetting instructions. In 1980 we switched to proprietary (Atex coding) to produce our notification and daily publications. In 1985, with the purchase of a Datalogics system to produce our looseleaf publications, we began using unparsed SGML-like coding. Oh, if we could only recover from the blunder of using unparsed data!"

Abstract: "The Railroad Industry Forum (RIF) is a team of the National Association of Purchasing Managers who were tasked to develop a standard for the exchange of electronic parts catalog data within the North American railroad industry. The RIF members are comprised of major railroads and railroad manufacturers. Mary McCarthy and Betty Harvey, Electronic Commerce Connection, Inc. developed the EPCES DTD. EPCES - Electronic Parts Catalog Exchange Standard, is a standard that was developed by the RIF for interchange and presentation of illustrated parts catalogs. The presentation of EPCES information has been designed to facilitate point and click capability. LinkOne is an electronic parts catalog and service manual delivery system. It has been developed to enable electronic viewing of parts and service information for manufactured equipment and processes. LinkOne provides point and click functionality between graphics and textual information. ISOGEN International Corporation has developed an EPCES filter for LinkOne to support importing and/or exporting parts catalog information from the manufacturers or railroads in SGML compliant to the EPCES standard."

Abstract: "Using SGML within our Web publishing system not only allows us to create better-looking and more complicated HTML than editors could otherwise have authored using a native formatting language, but it also allows our editors and designers to massage the look of the edition as often as desired, and to produce spin-off products without additional editorial effort. To be presented will be an architectural overview describing how our publishing system offers editors a tremendous menu of publish-time choices."

"At The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition, we have been using SGML to mark up news articles since our launch in April, 1996. The elements and attributes we use in our authoring system attempt to answer the question 'What is this content, and what makes it different?' as opposed to 'How do we want this to look in a Web browser?' Even though we may want a byline to wind up looking bold, we mark it up with a <byline> tag, not a <b> tag. Only later in the publishing process do we translate our documents into HTML and its variants. This paper will outline the benefits of this approach, and then describe in some detail how we create our SGML, and how we format it."

Abstract: "Implementing SGML can be a daunting task. To be successful, an implementor must have a good technical background in SGML and must have a clear understanding of data flow and SGML system functionality. Gaining a understanding of the key components of an SGML system is critical. This afternoon's presentations are designed to provide the SGML newcomer with an overview of the major classes of SGML tools and a brief review of the products commercially available today."

Abstract: "This presentation uses a carnival Funhouse as a metaphor for implementing SGML for the first time. The speaker will describe three main areas in the funhouse and the hazards presented in each and some tips for surviving the experience: document analysis, DTD writing, and data markup, including legacy conversion and training users to mark up data."

Abstract: "[The presentation] describes several demonstrations of using various tools with the HyTime architecture to do useful and unique tasks. Demonstrations include the creation, management, and presentation of editorial notes, the use of HyTime to create 'virtual' and 'compound' documents. Demonstrates the power of the HyTime architecture both as a set of useful facilities and as a standard that enables interchange and interoperation."

Abstract: "As the Web grows wildly, so do archives of electronic documents. Unfortunately, while novice computer users have a right to electronic information, they are often ill-equipped to master the intricacies of boolean search, SQL, and natural language interfaces. Furthermore, novice users are not versed in how to navigate Web topologies effectively, like determining possible work-arounds for '404: Web page not found' errors. With spatial-oriented user interfaces built directly from SGML / HyTime document databases, we can utilize users' a priori knowledge of information spaces. Users everywhere can enjoy navigating the epitome of well-tended hypermedia databases: digital libraries."

Abstract: "After the decision to use SGML (or XML), the intense activities of Document Analysis, Information Modeling, and DTD Creation must follow. Many committed SGML/XML enthusiasts might announce a 'success' for their SGML/XML effort upon clearing these hurdles, and achieving the profound status of 'ownership of a valid DTD'. Many other casual SGML/XML adopters may 'simply download' a public domain DTD, and presume their success on the same basis, possession of a valid DTD. Any celebration of success is premature, however, until DTDs are subjected to, and pass, rigorous testing, which appraises their applicability to the production purposes for which they were intended."

[Conclusion:] "As with many of the activities necessary to deploy productive SGML and XML, testing is not glamorous, fun, or easy, but it is productive, rewarding, and economically sound. It has been frequently said of SGML/XML that "...standards based systems satisfy users who possess any technology adoption bias; strategists like the technology impact of standards on the organization, pragmatists like the sound economic metrics of standards, and conservatives like the safety and security that standards afford..." As these different markets demand different types of psychic, economic, and reassurance returns on their respective investments of trust, money, and discomfort, they also speak to their demand for meaningful testing by qualified SGML/XML implementors, before those systems are proffered for full-scale production!"

Abstract: "An Interactive Electronic Technical Manual (IETM), as defined in the DoD IETM specifications, is a package of information required for the diagnosis and maintenance of a weapons system, arranged and formatted for interactive screen presentation to the end-user. Technical and Management Services Corporation (TAMSCO) has been assisting the military develop IETMs using commercial off the shelf (COTS) products with open ended software interfaces. IETMs provide many benefits over traditional paper manuals, as will be discussed. TAMSCO recognizes that while the concept of IETM is still a new technology, it is only an application of finding a more efficient and effective way to provide support and maintenance to existing military weapon systems."

Summary: This presentation by the program Co-chair provides an overview of the structure of SGML/XML '97 conference. Lapeyre explains the various technical tracks, vertical tracks, vendor demonstration theatre, exhibit hall, poster sessions, special user group meetings, tutorials, BOF meetings, the SGML/XML '97 bookstore, and other important conference events.

"Welcome to SGML/XML'97, the conference that is both the largest SGML Conference ever and the largest XML conference ever. We're all here to have a good time: to learn new things, to consolidate our positions, to expand our minds, and to make technical progress happen. The first conference in this series, back in 1988, only dealt with SGML and had 52 attendees with no exhibit hall. As this conference has been able to say every year for the last 11 years, this year we have more attendees, more sessions, more tracks, more vendors, and more night events than any SGML conference has ever had before! This year we've expanded; XML has joined SGML as a major technical focus."

Abstract: "Among the major trends in WWW applications today are (1) client side applications and (2) use of SGML and now XML for richer information modeling. Most Web applications today exclusively rely on servers to perform all computations and data manipulation requested through the Web/HTML browser. The limit of this design model have been clearly reached and new models are considered where more intelligence is brought back in the client, that is in the Web browser area.

"At the same time, the limits of the HTML modeling capabilities become more and more obvious as Web applications develop and XML, as a specialized profile of SGML, is now recognized as a major break through in the domain of advanced WWW applications."

"In this article, we present an application in the domain of technical documentation for the automotive industry that requires such Web and client-side architectures. This application provides consultation of Illustrated Parts Catalog (IPC) modules with real-time configuration management. Configuration management here consists in presenting to a user the exact documentation for the vehicle he/she has to repair."

"We present the application itself and how/why it requires such a web and client-side architecture. Because XML browsers are not yet a reality, we also propose a short term integration solution that can implement this architecture with today's HTML browsers coupled with an external XML engine."

Abstract: "Businesses and organizations are increasingly finding that HTML (Hyper-Text Markup Language) offers no help whatsoever in managing the information on their web sites. SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) provides the flexibility and reuse lacking in HTML. However, SGML alone does not address the problems involved in maintaining on-line document repositories. Although traditional database management systems are clumsy at managing hyperlinked documents, a system combining SGML, database technology, and the protocols of the Web can provide a reasonably robust environment for developing and maintaining a web site. Two possible site designs employing SGML are discussed and evaluated with respect to a set of design objectives and choices."

"The emerging XML standard promises to provide web site developers with the best of both worlds, allowing them to enjoy most of the benefits of SGML while not sacrificing the convenience of HTML and interoperability with the rest of the Web. If XML is ultimately successful, not only will it be easier for web site developers to use SGML, but also they will be able to build applets embedding capabilities supporting the manipulation of SGML data in web clients. This will reduce the burden on the server and, more importantly, will open a new world of possibilities for interaction between SGML repositories and other databases and applications. More information about the work discussed in this paper is available at http://www.nist.gov/apde/ [NIST, Application Protocol Development Environment on the Web, Home Page]".

Abstract: "MATHS (Mathematical Access for Technology and Science) is a recently completed project of the European Community which developed a SGML-based computer-oriented approach to teaching mathematics to visually-impaired students. A document-oriented architecture was implemented which permitted the software to be used by sighted, low-vision, and blind students and which supported multiple interactive input methods. SGML was the core component as it permitted the implementation of an application specific to mathematics, supported the input, output and interaction modes defined in the architecture, and enabled implementation with an existing SGML editor in a relatively short period of time. The knowledge gained in the MATHS project is not just of use to specialists in the area of accessibility but is of general applicability to human-computer interaction. In addition to describing the architecture of MATHS and its encoding of mathematics in SGML, this presentation will suggest ways to relate the results of the MATHS project to the general problem of computer application interfaces design."

"MATHS SGML markup was partly visual/presentational and partly semantic/structural, a balance which enabled a single application to provide good visual presentation and all the hooks for software processing. In order to manipulate mathematical expressions, all active objects were available to the software, providing practical lessons to the designers of the forthcoming document object model. Voice and other means of input and of output, critical to the operation of the MATHS environment, are being designed into the next generation of operating systems in order to address problems like repetitive motion syndrome, to make the computer useful to workers in types of work where it is not convenient to rely on a keyboard, and to increase the productivity of all computer users. The recognition that individuals absorb information in many different ways and the desire in interface design to make the presentation of information more flexible highlights the importance in MATHS of the great degree of customization possible in the presentation of math and its multiple modes of operation. Finally, MATHS uses SGML to implement a learning environment which is based on an abstract layer (the DTD) and is extensible (modify or replace the DTD). This extensibility was judged to be critical since mathematics is a field where both notations and pedagogical concepts are constantly evolving. The same approach to extensibility can be used to implement and evolve metaphors used in interface design."

Abstract: "This talk will describe the future of information management within the various organizations and agencies that collectively are known as the United States Intelligence Community, including the CIA, NSA, DIA, and the now declassified NRO . The central focus of this talk will address what the US Intelligence Community believes to be the 'information revolution' of the Third Millennium, with an impact similar to that experienced in past millennia in both the agriculture and industrial revolutions. Kept secret as classified information in all fifty previous years since its inception, the Intelligence Community of the US Government recently confirmed that its budget last year totaled $26.6 billion dollars. This talk will provide an explanation of the possible role and impact that the ITMRA (Information Technology Management Reform Act), passed by Congress in August 1996, will have on the future of information management in the Intelligence Community, and how that relates to this industry. It will describe the transition to web-centric, electronic publishing of our nation's intelligence reports, known as 'finished intelligence' into an integrated information space. Describing what the future world of 'Virtual Intelligence' will really look like, this talk will explore the concept of a more 'agile' intelligence enterprise, giving us insight into how the US Intelligence Community plans to achieve its goal of an electronically networked environment for the production and exchange of intelligence, a goal deemed essential to national security in the 21st Century."

Abstract: "Authoring DTDs is a difficult task: they typically contain over fifty element declarations and they are often recursive. This complexity implies high costs for DTD design and subsequent document processing. It also means that DTDs may have corresponding problems with quality.

"Exceptions are used in many standard DTDs because they add expressive power for DTD authors. However, there is a tradeoff: although they are useful, they are also a big part of the complexity problem. It is difficult to view the effects of exceptions on DTDs, primarily because of the lack of a formal static model.

"This presentation describes a static model that gives a complete and precise view of DTDs with exceptions. The model provides a foundation for new kinds of applications for processing SGML. A software tool has been developed to implement the model and to demonstrate its potential. Some specific projects are outlined, where continued development of the model and tool will have a significant impact on the success of SGML and related web publishing standards. One proposed project is the development of an automated SGML to XML converter."

Abstract: "SGML (and XML) documents consist of a grammar-constrained tree of typed, attributed nodes with ordered children. This structure can be used to represent almost any kind of information.

"We are using SGML to represent software engineering metainformation, specifically language-independent, formal class library interface descriptions. Standard SGML document transformation tools can then be used to translate the interface description into support code or into human-readable documentation. We use DSSSL to generate the documentation and Perl in conjunction with SGMLSPL to generate code.

"Unlike other systems designed to do similar things (i.e., CORBA's IDL) the SGML metadocument approach is extensible, and extra-language constraints such as protocols and design patterns can be represented. Furthermore, the transformation can be annotated to specialize the transformation for a particular target programming language.

"We have used this system to formally document the interface to a 3D graphics class library and automatically generate multiple language interfaces to it. Our METADOC DTD and transformation system is formed from a set of reusable DTD/DSSSL/Perl components which we have used to build other document types, and we will discuss our strategy in this regard."

[Conclusion:] "We have presented a prototype implementation of a system for expressing software object metainformation in SGML. We have used this metainformation to automatically generate code to build scripting interfaces and generic access to objects. This approach has much more flexibility than the CORBA IDL approach, and can be tuned to produce better interfaces in specific target languages from generic object descriptions. SGML can also combine formal and informal documentation in a clean way, and can itself be a target language. The essential feature of the SGML approach is its extensibility, unlike the fixed and restrictive format of the CORBA IDL. This flexibility arises because there is an additional layer of metainformation, the SGML DTDs and the transformations on them. Unlike CORBA IDL, a good SGML system permits small incremental change without making it impossible to recover the necessary information needed by an application. As stated above, we intend to extend these ideas and the lessons we have learned to METADTDs that can support multiple components. Benefits of such an approach include better documentation and reuse of document designs. Namespaces can also be added to current SGML systems without internal modification of existing SGML tools."

Abstract: "The main purpose of the Ricci Institute (Paris and Taipei) is to publish an encyclopaedia of Chinese language and culture in the main Western languages, including of course French. After issuing a first dictionary of the Chinese language in 1976, the Ricci Institute soon realized that the continuation of its work leading up to the publication of a second encyclopaedia Le Grand Ricci (the Complete Ricci) would not be possible without the use of powerful computer tools.

"Unfortunately, the computer structures developed in the early days of the project proved difficult to use. Based on techniques borrowed from compilation theory, the Computing Institute at Lausanne University developed a translator to convert the content of the dictionary into SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language).

"Many existing types of software are incapable of mastering the problems associated with the main systems of script. A work like Le Grand Ricci obviously cannot be fitted into the straight-jacket of standardized norms (such as BIG5, UNICODE, etc.). These norms are only capable of handling current characters, whereas the dictionary is encyclopaedic."

"The Grand Dictionnaire Ricci (Complete Ricci Dictionary) of the Chinese language was begun in 1950 by a group of Jesuit sinologists, mostly of French origin. For twenty years, they assembled, selected and studied around 11,000 characters and 180,000 expressions. This thesaurus, which fills 40 volumes typewritten in two copies, led to the publication of the Petit Ricci: dictionnaire français de la langue chinoise which contains translations into a rich, clear and precise French of some 6,000 Chinese characters and 50,000 expressions. Over 18,000 copies of this work have been sold to date, not counting the versions published in other Western languages."

Abstract: "This presentation will introduce the concept of Web Application Frameworks for standards technology like SGML, XML, and DSSSL within web environments. It will outline their relationship of these standards to web-oriented languages like Java. The talk will focus on examples of solving problems and delivering solutions through frameworks in a web environment. The idea of 'resources' will be introduced and several standard resources will be identified that should be available on both the client (browser) and server (web server) through these examples. The presentation will introduce several design patterns for how these standards in conjunction with programming language and implementation standards can be used to deliver complex document applications to arbitrary web clients.

"In addition, this presentation will introduce several of the application programming interface standards initiatives that have taken place within the industry recently. From the examples presented within the talk, a vision of standard Web Application Framework will be developed outlining what further development in both standards and technology needs to happen to realize such frameworks."

Abstract: "The largest commercial application of SGML being fed to the Web was released this summer by RIAG, Inc. CHECKPOINT (tm) is a paid-access site offering gigabytes of tax-related law, regulations, cases and analytical material to professionals in the accounting and corporate finance markets. The frequency of update, depth and breadth of coverage, and sophisticated functionality of this system have challenged even the most powerful Web-based tools and systems. RIAG also had to reengineer internal SGML editorial systems to take advantage of some of these unique capabilities."

"The main Architect of this system, Kevin Moran, VP of Product Technology at RIAG, Inc., will describe and demonstrate the capabilities of CHECKPOINT (tm) as well as the intense development project requirements needed to deploy CHECKPOINT. Dale Waldt, VP of Product Systems will describe the reengineering efforts of the SGML-based publishing systems that were needed to support the CHECKPOINT system data feeds."

Abstract: "On the basis of the tree automaton theory, this paper demonstrates DTD transformation. Controlled by patterns and contextual conditions, operators transform not only XML documents, but also DTDs. It is guaranteed that transformation of XML documents permitted by the input DTD creates XML documents permitted by the output DTD. Furthermore, the output DTD is minimally sufficient. Patterns are conditions on (possibly non-immediate) subordinate nodes, and contextual conditions are conditions on non-subordinate nodes (e.g., superior nodes, ancestor nodes, sibling nodes, and subordinates of sibling nodes)."

"This presentation shows transformations of DTDs and XML documents. [...] Such DTD transformation is highly important for at least two reasons. First, it helps DTD evolution; by writing an update program with operators, we can update not only instances, but also DTDs. Second, transformation from a DTD to another DTD becomes much easier; we can examine DTDs created by transformation operators. This work is based on the theory of tree automatons. A DTD is first translated to a tree automaton. This tree automaton is then repeatedly transformed. Finally, this tree automaton is translated back to a DTD. Patterns and contextual conditions of operators are also captured as tree automatons."

"[Conclusion and future work:] We have presented an example of DTD transformation. Although this example uses a single source DTD, the underlying framework can easily handle multiple source DTDs. Implementation on top of an automaton construction toolkit called 'Grail' is in progress. A declarative query language for document database systems is also in progress."

Abstract: "Only a few markets around the globe can mandate the universal use of a single language for documentation. Further, it was once the case that the author had some sight of the user of the information. With global markets this luxury has all but vanished. Today authors have little sight of the intended user of the information. It is more than likely the user will work in a different culture, a different language, using different media. Organisations must be cogniscent of these conditions of entry into the market, and in most cases the requirement to provide localised, translated information must be absorbed as part of the cost of entry. Such costs can rapidly exceed the original startup costs for production of the source language version. Today the pressure is on to find ways to reduce startup and ongoing costs and time frames whilst maintaining or improving quality.

"The presentation discusses such initiatives. The key argument presented will be that translation activity and management of information encoded in SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) can provide reductions in cost and timescales whilst offering real opportunity to improve the quality and consistency of the content. The advantages offered by the SGML context when applied against technologies and concepts such as Translation Memory, SGML Element-level management and Controlled Terminology will be presented and discussed. The application of these capabilities will then be presented as part of a Component Based Document Management System providing a concurrent translation processing environment.

"Within the presentation references will be made to ongoing initiatives to implement such systems, providing an analysis of the issues to be addressed, and the savings generated have provided towards the justification for the use of SGML."

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: "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: "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: "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: "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: "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 &eacute;, 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: "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: "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: "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: "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: "Up to now SGML has tended to be used primarily in technical publishing applications, usually at a departmental level. However, with today's focus on web-based enterprise information management, and the recent introduction of XML, many more opportunities for SGML have become apparent. This whitepaper surveys the current state of the information industry, from both a business and technical point of view, and shows how SGML and XML technology can and should be positioned within an organization's overall I/T and intranet strategy."

Abstract: "This paper develops a solution to the problem of importing existing SGML data into an existing object-oriented database schema without changing the SGML data or the database schema. After investigating the general problem of where the mismatch lies between the SGML model and the object model, the paper proposes a solution based on architectural processing. Two meta-DTDs are used, one to define the architectural forms for the object model and another to map the existing SGML data onto those forms."

"Much of the promise of SGML lies in the fact that descriptively marked up data can be used by multiple applications. Given the fact that an SGML DTD has much in common with the conceptual model that results from an object-oriented analysis of a problem domain, it is logical to conclude that SGML data should be particularly amenable to being imported into software that uses an object-oriented data model. This is not a trivial task, however, since there are some fundamental differences between the SGML model of data and the object model.

"The paper explores this general problem as it develops a solution to a more specific problem, namely, how to import existing SGML data into an existing object-oriented database schema without changing either the SGML data or the database schema. The target system is an object-oriented database system named CELLAR (for Computing Environment for Linguistic, Literary, and Anthropological Research). The solution uses architectural processing to map the SGML data onto architectural forms that the CELLAR system can use to construct the appropriate structure of objects."

Abstract: "The OpenTag format proposes to use the power of an open standard (XML) to access valuable information hidden away in private-format files. One of the primary benefits of using the OpenTag format to leverage information is that you don't have to change anything about the way you're currently working. Users of FrameMaker or Interleaf can continue to author and publish in their familiar environments, and still benefit without ever converting to a complete SGML/XML solution. Of course, certain tweaks to your development techniques can maximize your return on information investment. One of the biggest challenges is to efficiently access text when it's embedded within code and other non-textual data in a multitude of different formats, so using a standard method of marking up that extracted text can greatly boost the efficiency with which it can be consistently reused.

"The OpenTag Initiative is a working group in which both localization customers and their suppliers are defining a standard that will support open data encoding methods during the localization process, and permit robust data interchange between suppliers and customers. The OpenTag format is a single common markup format to encode text extracted from documents of varying and arbitrary formats. By abstracting a file's heterogeneous formatting information into OpenTag markup, you can produce homogeneously tagged text files, regardless of the original file format. Rather than converting information from 'format X' into the OpenTag format, data are extracted from 'format X', manipulated in an OpenTag environment, and later merged back into the 'format X' file."

Summary: "The major themes of the conference will be recapitulated with observations on the state of the SGML/XML world. Observations on important or telling events at the conference will be interspersed with opinions on their significance." [watch this space for a link to a published summary]

Abstract: "There are many advantages to breaking up complete documents into small, relatively discreet chunks or 'text modules': multiple authors can more easily work on the same document, the text modules could be served up individually as part of an on-line help or performance support system, and the modules can be reused in other documents. But how can we reuse modules between different documents with some assurances that they fit the new context? How will we track the dependencies between modules? In short, how will we address the increased complexity of managing a library of text modules? In the spirit of reuse, this paper explores two fields of research in the software engineering community that might be able to provide some answers to these questions: module interconnection languages and faceted classification."

Abstract: "We explore a new structure of input specifications for document generators based on the micro-document approach. The structure is based on the intentional properties of texts. We focus on the writers' intentions and readers' need to be informed, besides the actual content of the document. The generator processes the specification, and decides on the appropriate actions needed to create a document in accordance to the plan. The intentional properties can be marked up using SGML. Some examples are provided."

"[Conclusion]: We believe that the main benefits of using the intentional approach for document structuring in generation, consist in giving an increased awareness of the underlying nature of documentation. In any authoring activity, these matters are very important. If you are careless you will not get the message across, and the documentation will not be used. We have also made a point about distinguishing generic information from product specific information. It allows for a generalization of the generation problem and better opportunities for re-use."

Abstract: "Many companies are required to deliver documentation to customers electronically. As a significant step in solving Electronic Document Delivery (EDD) issues, the telecommunications industry has developed an interchange DTD and a packaging guideline that provide a common 'language' for expressing document content and logical structure. Documents created on any system may be translated to this 'language' by document producers, and from this 'language' to any display or production system by document recipients. Although the interchange DTD and packaging guideline were designed by telecommunications industry, they are general enough to be directly used or slightly modified to meet EDD requirements in other industries as well."

Abstract: "Two recent proposals for meta-applications of XML (XML-Data and MCF) have included DTD fragments for describing document structure, sometimes called 'schemata'. In this paper I describe the XML-Data schemata proposal, concentrating on the motivation for and nature of the provision of an element-type hierarchy, in which element types can inherit attribute declarations and positions in content models from ancestors in the hierarchy. I argue that this represents a major improvement over the use of parameter entities to structure and maintain DTDs."

"Complex document types require rich and complex structural markup. SGML provides powerful mechanisms for defining the grammar of such markup, with element type and attribute declarations in the document type definition (DTD). The structure of the DTD itself, however, finds no explicit expression in SGML. The fact that element types are related in a structured fashion can only be represented implicitly, e.g., through the use of parameter entities. There is a real need, for ease of understanding and ease of maintenance, to address this issue. [...] The only coherent development policy in my view is to introduce things into the schema DTD which we know how to translate into vanilla XML. Not only does this guarantee inter-operability in the limit, but the translation serves to define the semantics of each part of the schema DTD in a concrete and unequivocal way."

Abstract: "Implementing SGML is a big task, and one of the obstacles to be overcome is the development of an appropriate DTD or suite of DTDs. In many industries, there are high-profile 'industry standard' DTDs (developed by an industry consortium or a formalized standards activity) which hold out the promise of DTD nirvana: all gain with no pain. To what extent can an industry standard DTD help you achieve your implementation goals? What pitfalls must you avoid in order to prevent this nirvana from becoming just another failed SGML implementation?"

Abstract: "IBM's TaskGuide technology gives Technical Writers and Human Factors professionals the ability to create wizards. Based on the premise that task analysis is the most difficult part of creating an effective wizard, our tools let you focus on design, not writing code.

"This paper discusses the basics of wizard technology, followed by a brief introduction to the XML-based system we have created. We cover some of the key design decisions we had to make, and introduce some of the unique features of our product. Finally, we demonstrate a recursive document, a wizard that creates another wizard."

Abstract: "SGML is a great technology. It has attracted the attention of some pretty influential companies, which have found that they can save money, get to market faster, and increase the accuracy of their documentation by using SGML.

"However, SGML by itself it not the answer. SGML can only work if it is part of an intelligent document management environment that utilizes other appropriate technologies.

"This talk is about the mixing of SGML and other technologies, like relational and object-oriented databases, internet and intranet servers, email, voice mail, and external protocol servers, and other new and old technologies. It ends with a methodology, called 'microdocument architectures', that can pull all of these technologies together to create an intelligent document management environment.

"You will leave this session with a better understanding of where SGML can fit, and where it might not necessarily the best solution. You will have the ammunition to convince your company that SGML should be part of an intelligent document management system and how you might go about integrating SGML with other technologies."

Abstract: "ISO 10303, Standard Exchange for Product Data (STEP), is being developed by a broad range of industries to provide extensive support for modelling, automated storage schema generation, life-cycle support, plus many more data management facilities. ISO 8879, Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), and the SGML family of standards, including HyTime and DSSSL, is used for modelling and encoding the documentation of industrial products, many of which are produced using STEP.

"There are technical differences between the STEP and SGML as well as differences in their application and spheres of enterprise. For example, STEP is used during the early stages of product development, e.g., design, testing, whereas SGML is more commonly applied during the latter processes of a product's life cycle.

"This paper discusses the technical differences and problems between the two technologies and outlines some of the identified requirements needed to harmonize the two types of data. An approach based on information objects is presented showing how SGML product documentation information can be incorporated and stored together with STEP information. Using an information object methodology could allow textual data such as designer's and testing notes, method annotations, comments, etc. produced during the beginning of the product development cycle to be associated and archived with the actual design models.

"The definition of an information object is discussed and the distinction is drawn between a perceptual documentation object type and the conceptual information object type needed in modelling STEP data. Implementation suggestions are made along with the practical requirements needed to make information objects effective and useful.

"The STEP standard task group, Product Documentation (ISO 184/SC4/WG3/T14) is currently tasked with the responsibility for creating a methodology for the cooperation of the STEP and SGML standards. Information will be provided about how current corporate initiatives could impact and provide pertinent input in the T14 Working Group."

Summary: Usdin's presentation was in the form of a "Welcome to SGML/XML'97." Usdin reflected on the previous SGML conferences, where both HTML and XML have been important: "We have been discussing HTML at SGML conferences since 1994. XML was publicly introduced at SGML'96, and is in the name of the conference (SGML/XML '97) in 1997."

[Excerpted:] "I'm not sure how we as a community will feel about XML by the end of this week, but coming into SGML/XML '97 I detect an attitude as different from our 1994 attitude on HTML as day is from night. We don't despise XML, we worship it. We aren't worried about the threat XML poses to SGML, we worry about the threat SGML poses to XML. We remove the word SGML from our marketing materials, our web sites, and our products. The dirty little secret is that underneath our new XML toys lies an SGML core. Shhhh. Don't tell anyone.

"There are vendors who want to be associated with XML but not SGML. They want to sponsor XML events but to avoid having their names sullied by an association with SGML. The revisionist historians are claiming five-year old SGML projects as XML experience. We've gone completely nuts over XML. At least, some of the noisiest of us have. Well, we certainly are a moody group, aren't we. It seems to me that the 1994 hysteria was unreasonable; HTML did not destroy SGML. It seems to me that the 1997 hysteria is equally unreasonable; SGML will not destroy XML.

"The relationship between SGML and XML is deep and complex. XML is SGML. And it can be because SGML has grown quickly and significantly in order to accommodate the requirements of XML. In the process, SGML has been improved for all applications, not just for XML. SGML has given XML a rational structure and discipline within which to grow and an installed base of users and tools; XML has given SGML momentum and visibility."

Abstract: "The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) recently adopted SGML as the standard to create a non-proprietary publishing database to produce policy and procedure documents for dissemination on the World Wide Web (WWW).

"From April 1995 to November 1996, a complete SGML subsystem was developed from a detailed library analysis through the development of DTDs and style sheets, to active production of new and revised documents. After conducting a market survey in June 1996, SoftQuad's Panorama PRO was selected to post the documents to the WWW because no conversion to HTML was necessary. Style sheets were developed and in November 1966 the first SGML-tagged DoD issuances were placed on the WWW.

"A multi-site production process has grown from these humble beginnings and is being enhanced to include electronic coordination with digital signatures and integration with the DoD electronic forms library. Along the way, many lessons were learned, that can be shared with newcomers to SGML, to make the transition to SGML easier for those who contemplate starting an SGML project."

Abstract: "This paper describes the use of SGML in the EDIDOC project for the European Space Agency. The project involved the creation of a flexible framework for exchanging different types of documents, being a gateway for workflow, document conversions, security, and communication. It is used for calls for tenders, working documents, and press releases, and also covers WWW publication.

"SGML was used for many aspects including attaching the different envelopes of the messages exchanged and as a technology for defining workflow scenarios. Benefits and challenges of using SGML or XML at different levels are highlighted, both technically and organizationally."

"[Conclusion:] This paper has demonstrated where SGML is invaluable for system development and integration, based on the EDIDOC experience. XML can be considered as a candidate of choice for structuring data in EDI applications, when no EDIFACT message fulfills the needs. It is also very useful as a way to structure interprocess communications when integrating distributed applications. Full-blown SGML toolkits are a must for data processing. They are particularly useful for implementing data convertors, just by using standard features such as OMITAG, SHORTREF, LINK, and CONCUR. Finally, SGML and related development tools offer a nice way for addressing, at the same time, the definition, documentation, and implementation of workflow scenarios."

Abstract: "SGML promises to free information from the stranglehold of proprietary application file formats and codes, and to make information reusable, repurposable, and restructurable. However, because of the way in which SGML markup is traditionally implemented, it frequently accomplishes no more than the replacement of the proprietary codes with generic codes that still inhibit reuse, repurposing, and restructuring.

"S4 technology, from Infrastructures for Information, fulfills the promise of SGML by making the information truly free and independent of the markup in a way that traditional SGML cannot.

"In addition, by making the power of SGML available to all sorts of non-document applications, S4 addresses the issues of working with the non-text information objects inside an application, allowing SGML to manage information regardless of the source or the file format used to store it."

Abstract: "Many of our customers have recently focused their attention on the descriptive data about content objects which can be found in and around document processing systems. This 'meta' data plays a key role in providing descriptive information that drives the processing of SGML content (i.e., printing, searching or filtering) while also providing behind-the-scenes information about authors or changes to the content. This data can be used for descriptive content or as the content itself, adding additional layers of usefulness that must be managed and tracked when processed. Recent advances in document management technology have introduced a new set of metadata that provide object attribution at the database layer of the system. This metadata can and should be used in concert with SGML to provide a more robust solution that can be exported outside of the corporate enterprise. Metadata is also being used on the web in many creative ways. The introduction of XML into the web environment will only enhance the effectiveness that metadata can play in the processing and communication of corporate assets. This paper will introduce these concepts and describe some examples of how a properly designed system can meet internal and external production requirements."

Abstract: "This paper describes the steps taken by Oceania Inc., creator of the WAVE EHR (Electronic Health Record), to develop SGML solutions to better manage healthcare information. WAVE allows clinicians to create structured documents which then become a part of the patient's medical record. Oceania has developed a Document Type Definition so that these documents may be encoded using SGML. The combination of relational database technology with an SGML document repository within WAVE will provide maximum access to the information for retrieval purposes for data reporting and analysis purposes. For our customers, SGML encoding will greatly enhance the portability of documents created by WAVE, especially as major healthcare standards bodies are rapidly adopting SGML as one solution to facilitate data exchange."

Abstract: "SGML is like the proverbial elephant being examined by the blind men; it means different things to different people. Some folks are concerned about structure, others about media independence. Some want platform portability, others are fixated on the Web. Some are purists, some just want to save money. Some are experienced SGML pros and some don't know their entities from their attributes. Whether you're a vendor, a service provider or just a colleague, it's useful - and maybe profitable - to know where your fellow SGML travelers are coming from when you talk shop with them. There aren't any hard-and-fast rules, but there are patterns within industries that will assist you in determining SGML perspective. This presentation examines those patterns."

Abstract: "'The Document Object Model is a platform- and language-neutral interface that will allow programs and scripts to dynamically access and update the content, structure and style of HTML and XML documents. The document can be further processed and the results of that processing can be incorporated back into the presented page'."

"This sentence is taken from the pages at the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) site that discuss the work being done by the DOM (Document Object Model) Working Group. This group is working hard to standardize the various ways of accessing HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and XML (eXtensible/Extensible Markup Language) documents that exist, from JavaScript and applets to the various vendor-dependent command language interfaces. The group consists of representatives from many of the companies one would expect, from both the HTML and SGML / XML communities. This talk will present an overview of the current specifications, what has been done, and what yet remains to be specified. The latest specification of the DOM [The DOM Book] will always be found on the W3C site."

Abstract: "Will describe a commercial project to create software which manages and tracks both physical and software collections based upon the 'Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules' (AACR) and SGML. How the software takes advantage of these standards, particularly in its management of computer files, will be the focus. Although the software's primary market is graphic artists, the principles behind the design will be of particular interest to those managing any collection."

Abstract: "Hard goods like books and CD-ROMs are not the only things being sold over the internet anymore. There is now a secure way to sell information over the internet, and this 'Information Marketplace' is changing the face of commercial publishing. The internet is providing incredible access to vast amounts of information, the real challenge for users is knowing where to look for the information and then how to access it. The obvious challenge to publishers is how to tap the internet market potential while still finding a way to generate revenue, provide secure transactions and increase advantages over their competition. We will explore both the publisher and user issues involved in electronic information commerce and show examples of working information commerce sites. We will also discuss how information commerce will drive more and more published content to be created, stored and managed in SGML and XML."

Abstract: "Document image analysis is not a new field of study, as there are several different methods discussed in the research. Because of the newness of the XML standard, however, integrating XML-related technology with some of these classical algorithms has not yet been discussed. This will not only improve the image processing results, but also provide a standard method for representing various structured document types. XML will open the door for richer and more direct access of document images on the Internet. These advantages will be demonstrated in a Java-based application that analyzes document images, classifies them according to their type, and converts them to a tagged XML file. The resulting document will be ready for indexing by a structure-aware text search engine and for electronic delivery on the Internet."