Cover Pages: XML Daily Newslink: Tuesday, 15 September 2009

A Cover Pages Publication http://xml.coverpages.org/
Provided by OASIS and Sponsor Members
Edited by Robin Cover

This issue of XML Daily Newslink is sponsored by:
Sun Microsystems, Inc. http://sun.com

Headlines

Enforce Basic Document Structure with XML Constraint Checking
Requirements for String Identity Matching and String Indexing
U.S. Government Steps Into the Cloud
Google Readies Government Cloud Offering
Information Management Trends 2: CMIS Will Save Us
W3C Invites Implementations of WebCGM 2.1
Google Chrome Update Adds Speed, Themes, HTML 5
Opera Mini 5 Beta Browser Strikes It Rich
The Rise of Complex Event Processing
Identity Management a Complex Process with a Simple Goal

Enforce Basic Document Structure with XML Constraint Checking
Susan Malaika and Christian Pichler, IBM developerWorks

"The ability to specify, check and act upon constraints is vital to ensuring the overall quality of healthcare information. The Health Level 7 (HL7) Clinical Document Architecture (CDA), described through XML Schema, allows the specification of constraints through HL7 Templates, which can be implemented in Schematron. Schematron can be applied through XSLT...

This article introduces a classification for constraints. It then shows that XML Schema and Schematron are complementary and can be used to specify structural constraints and constraints on the content of HL7 CDA XML document instances. It illustrates that commercial software and hardware solutions exist that can handle both Schematron and XML Schema processing. Areas for further work include performing the various constraint check approaches on large volumes of data and exploring the applicability of XML constraint check methodologies in other industry domains.

Schematron is suitable for partial structure and HL7 CDA content constraints, which is highly appropriate for HL7 Templates. The article describes some constraints (type III and type IV) that are not enforced by XML Schema and Schematron. Schematron fulfills two main requirements in regards of HL7 Templates. It can be used to specify structural constraints in addition to the HL7 CDA XML schema, and it allows the specification of constraints to evaluate the content of HL7 CDA XML documents, which can be constraints for specific clinical situations. Schematron could be the basis for a reference implementation for the validating rule sets for HL7 Template..."

See also: the ISO Schematron web site

Requirements for String Identity Matching and String Indexing
Martin Dürst (ed), W3C Working Group Note

This document was developed and extensively reviewed by the W3C Internationalization Working Group, and is being published by its successor, the Internationalization Core Working Group, part of the W3C Internationalization Activity. It describes requirements for some important aspects of the character model for W3C specifications. The two aspects discussed are string identity matching and string indexing. Both aspects are considered to be vital for the seamless interaction of many components of the current and future web architecture...

String identity matching is a subset of the more general problem of string matching. String matching in general can be done with various degrees of specificity, from very approximate matching such as e.g., regular expressions or phonetic matching for English, to more specific matches such as case-insensitive or accent-insensitive matching. This document deals only with string identity matching. Two strings match as identical if they contain no user-identifiable distinctions...

At various places in the WWW infrastructure, strings, and in particular identifiers, are compared for identity. If different places use different definitions of string identity matching, this results in undesired unpredictability. Such comparisons are unproblematic if the expectations of the users and the results of a simple binary comparison coincide, or can be made to coincide. For ASCII, such a coincidence is established and assumed, including some degree of user education, e.g. about the differences between the digit 0 and the uppercase letter O. For the full repertoire of the UCS, however, the aforementioned coincidence between user expectations and binary comparisons is not a priori guaranteed... In order to ensure consistent behavior on the WWW, a character model for W3C specifications must make sure that the gap between user expectations and internal operation is bridged. A character model for W3C specifications must therefore specify how the problem of string identity matching is handled..."

U.S. Government Steps Into the Cloud
Charles Babcock, InformationWeek

"The Obama Administration has committed itself to reducing federal computing costs by pursuing cloud computing, but its first steps appear tentative. The administration launched Apps.gov as a storefront where federal agencies may go to purchase on-demand applications from private vendors. In its first iteration, federal computing in the cloud consists strictly of software-as-a-service applications or other Internet services.... Exactly how cloud computing will evolve with support from the federal government remains up in the air, with many candidates still in play...

The applications first available at Apps.gov Tuesday featured known social networking options such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. For customer relationship management, recruitment, and project management, Saleforce.com apps were prominent. Google Docs and other on-line apps were also available under the productivity applications category... To investigate the way private suppliers of cloud services can be substituted for building more government data centers, the administration will seek funding for pilot cloud projects in next year's budget. It will seek to set standards and policies to be able to begin implementing cloud services by 2011, Federal CIO Vivek Kundra said..."

According to the Apps.gov FAQ document: "Cloud computing offers a cost-effective service oriented approach for sharing computing resources, whereby common infrastructure, applications, information, and solutions can be utilized across the Government. The overall objective is to create a more agile Federal enterprise, where services can be provisioned and reused on demand to meet business needs.... Cloud computing can provide data storage, web hosting, and virtual machines all in the cloud. Use as much or as little as needed. Growing adoption of cloud computing will improve data sharing and promote collaboration among federal, state and local governments... The General Services Administration (GSA) is participating in the Federal Cloud Computing Initiative and is responsible for the coordination of GSA's activities with respect to the Initiative via its Program Management Office (CC PMO). GSA and the CC PMO are focusing on implementing projects for planning, acquiring, deploying and utilizing cloud computing solutions for the Federal Government that increase operational efficiencies, optimize common services and solutions across organizational boundaries and enable transparent, collaborative and participatory government..."

See also: the Apps.gov web site

Google Readies Government Cloud Offering
Joab Jackson, Application Development Trends

"In the wake of the General Services Administration's (GSA's) launch of its Apps.gov cloud computing storefront, Google has announced that it will soon offer a set of cloud services to government through Apps.gov. Expected to go live in 2010, Google's government cloud offering will offer Google Apps in a dedicated environment within undisclosed Google facilities in the United States, according to Matthew Glotzbach, Google's director of enterprise product management...

The Google Apps facilities used will meet the security requirements of the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA). Because federal agencies must comply with FISMA, some agency officials have raised questions about how cloud computing offerings for agencies could be covered under that law... In additionl to Google, other companies are preparing their own government-specific cloud offerings. Officials from the federal branches of Microsoft and Sun Microsystems have also indicated that their respective companies may also offer federal-specific cloud offerings in the near future..."

From the Google announcement: "[We] announce our intent to create a government cloud, which we expect to become operational in 2010. Offering the same services and features as our existing commercial cloud (such as Google Apps), this dedicated environment within existing Google facilities in the US will serve the unique needs of US federal, state, and local governments. It is similar to a 'Community Cloud' as defined by the National Institute for Science and Technology (NIST). The government cloud will allow Google to manage and meet additional government policy requirements beyond FISMA... Our FISMA process is nearing completion. We will submit a Certification and Accreditation (C&A) package to the U.S. Government before the end of this year. Upon review and approval of the Google Apps C&A package, agencies will be able to deploy Google Apps knowing that it is authorized to operate under FISMA..."

See also: the Google announcement

Information Management Trends 2: CMIS Will Save Us
Julian Carver, Seradigm Blog

"One of the big challenges for Enterprise Content Management in the last few years has been the sharing of different content types. ECM covers records, documents, images, emails, forum posts, web content, lists, people profiles, and more recently blog posts, wiki pages, and microblogging. These content types were managed in different stores. Traditionally the only way to get single sourcing of content and sharing/reuse/blending of different content types across different stores was to buy all of the solution components from one vendor...

Enter CMIS, The Content Management Interoperability Services standard... Once implemented it will be a way to break down the silos, and enable reuse of content amongst multiple systems. It should allow ECM applications, portals, and intranets to be built that aggregate content from a range of CMIS compliant repositories, and allow them to be mixed and mashed up in a 'loosely coupled' way. You'll be able to have best of breed repositories/content applications, from different vendors, and join them together seamlessly... CMIS will open up the enterprise content management space to more innovation, remixing, and creative solutions than we've ever seen before. Organisations will be able to choose best of breed components, and glue them together with relatively minimal effort. Solutions won't be restricted by vendor lock-in, but will be responsive to real business/user needs..."

W3C Invites Implementations of WebCGM 2.1
Benoit Bezaire and Lofton Henderson (eds), W3C Technical Report

"The W3C WebCGM Working Group invites implementation of the Candidate Recommendation of WebCGM 2.1. Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM) is an ISO standard, defined by ISO/IEC 8632:1999, for the interchange of 2D vector and mixed vector/raster graphics. WebCGM is a profile of CGM, which adds Web linking and is optimized for Web applications in technical illustration, electronic documentation, geophysical data visualization, and similar fields. The Working Group has adopted a public test suite for WebCGM 2.1 and has produced a preliminary WebCGM 2.1 implementation report...

The present version, WebCGM 2.1, refines and completes the features of the major WebCGM 2.0 release. WebCGM 2.0 added a DOM (API) specification for programmatic access to WebCGM objects, a specification of an XML Companion File (XCF) architecture, and extended the graphical and intelligent content of WebCGM 1.0...

The WebCGM Working Group expects to advance the CR specification document to Proposed Recommendation when the following exit criteria have been met: (1) Sufficient reports of implementation experience have been gathered to demonstrate that the WebCGM 2.1 features are implementable and are interpreted in a consistent manner; to do so, the Working Group will insure that all features in the WebCGM 2.1 specification have been implemented at least twice independently in an interoperable way; (2) The Working Group has adopted a public test suite for WebCGM 2.1 and has produced a preliminary WebCGM 2.1 implementation report..."

Google Chrome Update Adds Speed, Themes, HTML 5
Thomas Claburn, InformationWeek

"Google has announced a new stable release of Google Chrome, the company's Web browser. Chrome 3.0.195.21, the fifteenth stable update in the past year, is faster than its predecessor. Google claims that the new version makes JavaScript code run 25% faster than the previous stable version and that JavaScript execution speed has increased 150% since the first Chrome beta...

The new Chrome adds support for HTML 5 features, like the audio and video tags. These allow audio and video playback without a plug-in. Firefox 3.5 added HMTL 5 support when it was released the end of June, 2009... Chrome also offers an improved Omnibox, the address bar text box that can be used for both search keyword entry and Web address entry. The changes make the Omnibox drop-down menu, which provides search keyword and Web site suggestions as you type, more readable..."

See also: the Google Chrome Blog

Opera Mini 5 Beta Browser Strikes It Rich
Jessica Dolcourt, CNET News.com

"Introducing a graphically enriched layout topside and new features below decks, the new Opera Mini 5 beta browser is snappier, more attractive, and more advanced than last year's predecessor, and brings over several features from Opera's desktop browser... Tabbed browsing is among them, as is a password manager...

Each page opens with Speed Dial, a grid of nine thumbnail images and Opera Desktop mainstay, that you assign to favorite Web sites and can select among to quickly launch a Web page. The Speed Dial view replaces Opera Mini's previous landing page, a tangle of links capped with a search box and URL field. These thumbnail images make the landing page more meaningful, both in giving users a visual they can instantly recognize, and creating an easier target for users to accurately hit on touchscreen phones than a scrawny little link... To address another long-overdue fix, Opera now lets you type directly into a text field. In previous versions, clicking a field opened up a blank page, where you were prompted to start typing before you could return to the main interface... The password manager that's new to Opera Mini works as expected, producing a dialog box the first time you log into a site asking if you'd like it to remember your credentials... You can download Opera Mini 5 beta for free..."

See also: the announcement

The Rise of Complex Event Processing
Stephen Swoyer, Application Development Trends

"Message queuing stalwarts such as IBM and TIBCO bring decades of messaging processing expertise to the table, but some would-be players, including Informatica, come to CEP from what seems like a tangential trajectory. In tandem with the rise of service enablement and service orchestration, industry watchers and a growing number of software vendors have highlighted a new wrinkle on the message queuing of old: so-called complex event processing (CEP). Advocates distinguish CEP from ordinary event processing by emphasizing both the heterogeneity and the ever-accelerating real-time nature of messages: CEP, proponents claim, involves the management and orchestration of events from a heterogeneous mix of applications or resources—typically at or approaching real-time speeds...

Agent Logic [recently acquired by Informatica] currently markets three products: Rule Point, Rule Cost, and Real-Time Alert Manager.. They are aimed at business analysts. They're very collaborative, so multiple business analysts can work together to effectively define the business rules with respect to events and time windows. Agent Logic specifically focused on both operational intelligence (which was kind of focused on the public sector) and in financial services—where they have some customers using it to enforce credit card policies..."

Identity Management a Complex Process with a Simple Goal
Drew Robb, Government Computer News

"Identity management and access control systems have a simple purpose: ensure that users can access only the data and applications they need. However, getting to that point is not so simple... Implementing an identity management system goes beyond just making sure people have their Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 Personal Identity Verification cards and can remember their passwords...

Forrester Research evaluates identity management vendors based on fourteen different technologies: directories, enterprise single sign-on, entitlement management, federation, identity audit, metadirectories, multifactor authentication, password management, privileged user and password management, provisioning, role management, user-centric identity, virtual directories, and Web single sign-on. Gartner tracks vendors in three different categories related to identity management: single sign-on, user provisioning and Web access management..."


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