From: Irene Schena Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 14:40:16 +0000 (+0000) Subject: Modified Files: X-Git-Tag: V_0_3_0_debian_8~244 X-Git-Url: http://matita.cs.unibo.it/gitweb/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=c1318cbfaa63c439e7de90b3c8aa98f029124b88;p=helm.git Modified Files: 1) html/.cvsignore html/Makefile xml/home.xml xml/menu.xml: new menu item for mowgli proposal 2) xml/news.xml: error fixed Added Files: 1) html/proposal/.cvsignore 2) xml/proposal/EC-contribution.xml xml/proposal/contribution.xml xml/proposal/econ-scient-tech-prospects.xml xml/proposal/innovation.xml xml/proposal/project-management.xml xml/proposal/project-objectives.xml xml/proposal/project-summary.xml : files moved in the new dir proposal/ 3) xml/proposal/proposal-index.xml: index of mowgli proposal Removed Files: 1) xml/EC-contribution.xml xml/contribution.xml xml/econ-scient-tech-prospects.xml xml/innovation.xml xml/project-management.xml xml/project-objectives.xml xml/project-summary.xml --- diff --git a/helm/mowgli/home/html/.cvsignore b/helm/mowgli/home/html/.cvsignore index 5dad0d3b8..206e8734b 100644 --- a/helm/mowgli/home/html/.cvsignore +++ b/helm/mowgli/home/html/.cvsignore @@ -1,9 +1,6 @@ home.html index.html menu.html -project-management.html -project-objectives.html -project-summary.html consortium.html project.html news.html @@ -12,8 +9,4 @@ other-events.html deadlines.html people-list.html latest-news.xml -approaching-deadlines.xml -contribution.html -innovation.html -EC-contribution.html -econ-scient-tech-prospects.html \ No newline at end of file +approaching-deadlines.xml \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/helm/mowgli/home/html/Makefile b/helm/mowgli/home/html/Makefile index 8cebc0c94..51d76ba92 100644 --- a/helm/mowgli/home/html/Makefile +++ b/helm/mowgli/home/html/Makefile @@ -55,13 +55,14 @@ DOCUMENTS = \ index.html \ home.html \ menu.html \ - project-management.html \ - project-objectives.html \ - project-summary.html \ - contribution.html \ - innovation.html \ - EC-contribution.html \ - econ-scient-tech-prospects.html \ + proposal/proposal-index.html \ + proposal/project-management.html \ + proposal/project-objectives.html \ + proposal/project-summary.html \ + proposal/contribution.html \ + proposal/innovation.html \ + proposal/EC-contribution.html \ + proposal/econ-scient-tech-prospects.html \ consortium.html \ project.html \ news.html \ @@ -168,33 +169,38 @@ software/index.html: $(XMLROOT)/software/index.xml \ $(XHTMLCONTENT) $(XSLTP) --param path_to_top "'..'" --param use_frames "'$(FRAMES)'" -o $@ $(XHTMLCONTENT) $< -project-management.html: $(XMLROOT)/project-management.xml \ +proposal/proposal-index.html: $(XMLROOT)/proposal/proposal-index.xml \ $(XHTMLCONTENT) - sed $(RMDOCTYPE) $< | $(XSLTP) --param path_to_top "'.'" --param use_frames "'$(FRAMES)'" -o $@ $(XHTMLCONTENT) - + sed $(RMDOCTYPE) $< | $(XSLTP) --param path_to_top "'..'" --param use_frames "'$(FRAMES)'" -o $@ $(XHTMLCONTENT) - + + +proposal/project-management.html: $(XMLROOT)/proposal/project-management.xml \ + $(XHTMLCONTENT) + sed $(RMDOCTYPE) $< | $(XSLTP) --param path_to_top "'..'" --param use_frames "'$(FRAMES)'" -o $@ $(XHTMLCONTENT) - -project-summary.html: $(XMLROOT)/project-summary.xml \ +proposal/project-summary.html: $(XMLROOT)/proposal/project-summary.xml \ $(XHTMLCONTENT) - sed $(RMDOCTYPE) $< | $(XSLTP) --param path_to_top "'.'" --param use_frames "'$(FRAMES)'" -o $@ $(XHTMLCONTENT) - + sed $(RMDOCTYPE) $< | $(XSLTP) --param path_to_top "'..'" --param use_frames "'$(FRAMES)'" -o $@ $(XHTMLCONTENT) - -project-objectives.html: $(XMLROOT)/project-objectives.xml \ +proposal/project-objectives.html: $(XMLROOT)/proposal/project-objectives.xml \ $(XHTMLCONTENT) - sed $(RMDOCTYPE) $< | $(XSLTP) --param path_to_top "'.'" --param use_frames "'$(FRAMES)'" -o $@ $(XHTMLCONTENT) - + sed $(RMDOCTYPE) $< | $(XSLTP) --param path_to_top "'..'" --param use_frames "'$(FRAMES)'" -o $@ $(XHTMLCONTENT) - -contribution.html: $(XMLROOT)/contribution.xml \ +proposal/contribution.html: $(XMLROOT)/proposal/contribution.xml \ $(XHTMLCONTENT) - sed $(RMDOCTYPE) $< | $(XSLTP) --param path_to_top "'.'" --param use_frames "'$(FRAMES)'" -o $@ $(XHTMLCONTENT) - + sed $(RMDOCTYPE) $< | $(XSLTP) --param path_to_top "'..'" --param use_frames "'$(FRAMES)'" -o $@ $(XHTMLCONTENT) - -innovation.html: $(XMLROOT)/innovation.xml \ +proposal/innovation.html: $(XMLROOT)/proposal/innovation.xml \ $(XHTMLCONTENT) - sed $(RMDOCTYPE) $< | $(XSLTP) --param path_to_top "'.'" --param use_frames "'$(FRAMES)'" -o $@ $(XHTMLCONTENT) - + sed $(RMDOCTYPE) $< | $(XSLTP) --param path_to_top "'..'" --param use_frames "'$(FRAMES)'" -o $@ $(XHTMLCONTENT) - -EC-contribution.html: $(XMLROOT)/EC-contribution.xml \ +proposal/EC-contribution.html: $(XMLROOT)/proposal/EC-contribution.xml \ $(XHTMLCONTENT) - sed $(RMDOCTYPE) $< | $(XSLTP) --param path_to_top "'.'" --param use_frames "'$(FRAMES)'" -o $@ $(XHTMLCONTENT) - + sed $(RMDOCTYPE) $< | $(XSLTP) --param path_to_top "'..'" --param use_frames "'$(FRAMES)'" -o $@ $(XHTMLCONTENT) - -econ-scient-tech-prospects.html: $(XMLROOT)/econ-scient-tech-prospects.xml \ +proposal/econ-scient-tech-prospects.html: $(XMLROOT)/proposal/econ-scient-tech-prospects.xml \ $(XHTMLCONTENT) - sed $(RMDOCTYPE) $< | $(XSLTP) --param path_to_top "'.'" --param use_frames "'$(FRAMES)'" -o $@ $(XHTMLCONTENT) - + sed $(RMDOCTYPE) $< | $(XSLTP) --param path_to_top "'..'" --param use_frames "'$(FRAMES)'" -o $@ $(XHTMLCONTENT) - mowgli-events/kick-off.html: $(XMLROOT)/mowgli-events/kick-off.xml \ $(XHTMLCONTENT) diff --git a/helm/mowgli/home/html/proposal/.cvsignore b/helm/mowgli/home/html/proposal/.cvsignore new file mode 100644 index 000000000..3d3dcaf6f --- /dev/null +++ b/helm/mowgli/home/html/proposal/.cvsignore @@ -0,0 +1,8 @@ +proposal-index.html +project-management.html +project-objectives.html +project-summary.html +contribution.html +innovation.html +EC-contribution.html +econ-scient-tech-prospects.html \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/EC-contribution.xml b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/EC-contribution.xml deleted file mode 100644 index 6bfb4ba28..000000000 --- a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/EC-contribution.xml +++ /dev/null @@ -1,154 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - - Contribution to policies of the European Community - - -

Community added value and contribution to EC policies

-

The Project relies in an essential way on the convergence of information - processing, communication and new media, meeting the main policy issue of - the IST programme. In fact, due to its very nature, mathematical - information is particularly suited to an integrated analysis under the - different perspectives of elaboration, communication and (hyper)media - publishing, providing a main arena for innovative experiments and - solutions, especially in view of the new technological frontier of the - Semantic Web.

-

The Project also tries to answer to a clear need for wider - interoperability and coherence in the realm of mathematics over the Web, - especially for educational, scientific and commercial purposes.

-

Electronic textbooks are rapidly becoming a main tool for education and - knowledge dissemination. Electronic textbooks must be interactive, - allowing intercommunication between the text and scientific software and - graphics. This is very hard to achieve starting form a mere presentational - description of the information, clearly requiring a sophisticated - semantical description of the content.

-

Similarly, the academic and commercial research communities generate large - volume of dense scientific material. Increasingly, research publications - are being stored in databases, especially for those areas of physics and - mathematics where academic journal prices have been growing at an - unsustainable rate. Still, however, the information is stored in a format - which is machine readable but not machine understandable; in particular it - is not suitable for any form of elaboration other than its rendering. - MOWGLI's content and metadata levels are exactly meant to address complex - elaboration requirements, and to facilitate the maintenance and - operability of large document collections, for which automatic searching - and indexing are crucial.

-

Corporate and academic scientists and engineers also use technical - documents in their work to collaborate, to record results of experiments - and computer simulations, and to verify calculations. The Web is, - potentially, the natural media for sharing this information; MOWGLI is - meant to provide the basic technology to transform this potentiality into - an actual possibility.

-

Commercial publishers are also involved with mathematics on the Web at all - levels from electronic versions of printed books to interactive textbooks - and academic journals. In this case, MOWGLI offers support for advanced - capabilities, such as browsing, interactivity, presentational and - stylistic customisation, and advanced searching and retrieving - features.

-

The project deals with problems traditionally belonging to different - scientific communities: digital libraries, Web publishing, automation of - mathematics and computer aided reasoning. Any serious solution needs a - coordinated effort of all these groups and a synergy of their different - expertise. The members of the consortium have been also carefully chosen - for their experience in the above mentioned areas. From this interaction, - we expect to develop new technologies and solutions, fostering - innovation towards the construction of the Semantic Web.

-

MOWGLI contributes in the spread of information and know-how, since - new information technologies will be applied to realms such as education - and publishing, which are traditionally not very inclined to innovation. - More competitiveness will be acquired both by the end users of the - system and by the technology providers, which will eventually profit by - the expertise gained by applying new and emerging technologies to the huge - and compelling problem of the management of mathematical documents over - the Web.

-

By opening new perspectives in the domains of interactive publishing and - education, MOWGLI suggests new job-profiles in these domains, and - increases job opportunities in the Information Society sector.

-

Finally, the social and cultural cohesion of Europe is eventually - strengthened by the creation of a large distributed repositories of - scientific knowledge.

- -

Contribution to Community Social Objectives

-

The quality of life, in a civilised country, strictly depends on the - quality of its services, and in particular on the attention devoted to - those services aimed to preserve, increase and make accessible to a wider - audience its cultural and scientific heritage. Building a user friendly - Information Society, with particular emphasis on digital heritage, - cultural content and education is indeed a main social objective of the - European Community.

-

The new Information Society is essentially based on the convergence of - information, communication and networking technologies and takes - advantage of infrastructures like the Internet and the Web.

-

Our project builds on these grounds, to create the technological - infrastructure required for the creation and maintenance of a digital - knowledge base of structured mathematical information, universally - and seamlessly accessible to all people, and in particular to students and - professionals, through interoperable, dependable and affordable products - and services.

-

From the educational point of view, our system could easily become a main - tool for a wider and more friendly dissemination of mathematical - knowledge. Indeed, its interactive nature, and the possibility to access - single information units, and possibly applying them, provides a more - operational and far less abstract comprehension of mathematical entities, - and should naturally induce the user to play with the knowledge base, - assembling components in the development of new theorems and results. - From the educational point of view, our system could easily become a main - tool for a wider and more friendly dissemination of mathematical - knowledge. Indeed, its interactive nature, and the possibility to access - single information units, and possibly applying them, provides a more - operational and far less abstract comprehension of mathematical entities, - and should naturally induce the user to play with the knowledge base, - assembling components in the development of new theorems and results.

-

From the point of view of employment and development of individual skills, - there are two different aspects to be considered, according to the - objectives and the methodology of the project.

-

From the methodological point of view, the project makes an essential use - of technologies which are the very foundations of the information society, - driving their development, enhancing their applicability, and accelerating - their take up in Europe. In particular, we shall build on most of the - recent recommendations of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), like XML, - DOM, XSL, XLL, MathML, RDF, etc. testing their applicability to the - definition of a comprehensive, integrated description of a given field of - knowledge.

-

This kind of tools and techniques is of crucial importance in the - development of the Web and of the Information Technology of the next - years, and our project could play a major role in their dissemination in - Europe, and in training people in their use.

-

On the other side, MOWGLI itself could become a major source of - inspiration for the re-invention of existing activities, and in particular - for the exploitation of new business in the publishing market. Currently, - digital journals just offer purely textual objects: our project could - help to define new market possibility for content-based publishing (i.e. - structured, possibly formal mathematical developments), with all the - potentialities offered by this approach, from browsing facilities, to the - personalisation of the style, from enhanced forms of searching, to more - or less arbitrarily complex forms of elaboration.

-

Our system also opens new perspectives on the mechanisation of mathematics - and the automation of formal reasoning. The growing complexity of advanced - technological projects (in the areas of electronic and avionic - engineering, for example) has recently arose a renewed interest in formal - methods. From this respect, our project contributes to build an essential - infrastructure for the exploitation of these methods, providing a major - help for professionals, and fostering their skills.

-

Let us finally remark that the project has no negative impact on the - natural environment. We could even claim a few benefits, related to the - electronic distribution of documents, such as the minimisation in the use - of means of conveyance and the saving of paper.

-

The possible customisation via suitable style-sheets of structured - electronic documents could also meet the needs of particular users, such - as disabled (in particular, disabled students) or elderly (as retired - researchers who would like to continue their professional activity), - providing at the same time comfortable working conditions (e.g. at home). - Another general design requirement is the ability to render mathematical - material in other media such as speech or braille, which is extremely - important for the visually impaired.

-

In conclusion, the aim of our work is to contribute to the creation of the - next generation of user-friendly, dependable and interoperable - general-interest services, meeting user demands for flexible access, for - everybody, from anywhere, at any time.

- - - diff --git a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/contribution.xml b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/contribution.xml deleted file mode 100644 index ee5407906..000000000 --- a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/contribution.xml +++ /dev/null @@ -1,61 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - - Contribution to programme/key action objectives - - -

Contribution to programme/key action objectives

-

The Project contributes to build a user friendly information society, and - in particular it meets the following general objectives of this - program:

-
    -
  1. (multimedia content) confirming Europe as a leading force in this field, - realizing the potential of its creativity and culture;
    2. -
  2. (essential technologies and infrastructure) enabling technologies which - are the foundations of the information society, driving their - development, enhancing their applicability, and accelerating their take - up in Europe.
    3. -
-

As a matter of fact, the project is based in an essential way on the use - of most part of the recent recommendations of the World Wide Web - Organization for Web publishing and human-computer interaction (XML, XSL, - XLL, Namespaces, MathML, RDF, etc.). In particular, we aim to prove how - all these specifications naturally fit together, when trying to build a - full, integrated description (comprising content, notation, metadata, - etc.) of a given field of knowledge. At our knowledge, the project is the - first of the kind, and could become a paradigmatic example in the - integrated use of these technologies.

-

The project also addresses most of the issues of the multimedia content - key action, namely: electronic publishing, digital heritage and cultural - content, education, information access, filtering and handling. Actually, - all these aspects are and must be covered in our project, in order to - reach our objectives. In particular, the educational potential of our - system should not be neglected either: it could become an essential tool - for a wider and more friendly dissemination of mathematical knowledge. For - instance, if supported by a suitable technology, proving theorems in a - proof assistant could be as amusing as playing a video game. We imagine - bunches of young researchers contributing to the free development of the - library for the mere gratification of seeing their name as actual editor - (or, why not, original author) of a specific fragment.

-

Finally, the project is particularly related to the specific key-action - III.2.3 (access to scientific and cultural heritage). In fact, the aim - of our system is exactly to improve access by students and professionals - to the fast-growing mathematical knowledge base, allowing mathematical - documents to be retrieved, served, and processed directly on the Web. More - over, our system is meant to be compatible with most of the existing tools - for the mechanisation of mathematics and the automation of formal - reasoning (proof assistants and logical frameworks). The possibility to - build coherent sub-libraries of formal mathematical developments would - provide an essential (and unique) added value to the library itself, - making of Europe a leader in this area.

-

Maybe, having the possibility to process, analyse and elaborate - mathematical structures as data, the time will come when we shall finally - be able to start a completely new and exciting field of research on - mathematics: namely a scientific, empirical study on the real - structure of mathematical entities, and the ``way of thinking'' of - mathematicians.

- - diff --git a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/econ-scient-tech-prospects.xml b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/econ-scient-tech-prospects.xml deleted file mode 100644 index 7a71757f2..000000000 --- a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/econ-scient-tech-prospects.xml +++ /dev/null @@ -1,93 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - - Economic development and Scientific and Technological Prospects - - -

Economic development and Scientific and Technological Prospects

- -

Identification of exploitable results

-

MOWGLI is meant to develop, evaluate, fine-tune and deliver a complete - prototype supporting friendly and interactive access to huge, distributed - repositories of content-based mathematical knowledge. The purpose of the - project is to overcome some of the main obstacles that currently hinder a - wider dissemination of Information Technologies in the mathematical and - research community (comprising both professionals and students). This is - intended as a public service for the whole community of users, and we - expect no direct commercial profit by our work.

-

Of course, the core technologies and languages developed in MOWGLI may be - exploited in a lot of different ways, according to the nature and - exploitation plan of each partner.

-

In particular, it should be clear that having a coherent, distributed - library of structured mathematical knowledge, saved in a clearly defined, - well documented and application independent format, is just the starting - point of a wider, potentially enormous process. Building on the grounds - provided by MOWGLI, a lot of different services can be imagined, and - independently developed by different organisations. Inside the project, we - shall just give a few hints in this direction, supporting advanced and - interactive forms of searching and navigation, as well as automatic - validation facilities, for suitable fragments of the library.

- -

Target Market

-

The main target market of MOWGLI is education. Here, the potentiality - offered by a semantic description of the information for the development - of interactive, electronic textbooks are enormous. In particular, the - MOWGLI prototype could become an essential tool for a wider and more - friendly dissemination of mathematical knowledge.

-

A second, potential market is Publishing. Digital libraries currently - suffers from clear limitations due to the machine-readable but not - machine understandable encoding of the information. No other kind of - elaboration than displaying or printing is usually possible. There is no - possibility of cut-and paste, formal checking, complex searching. For - instance, we cannot write a spider going around searching for a proof with - a given template, because there is not structure, and in particular no - semantics inside the text.

-

A third market are industries specialised in formal verification and - security. These industries are usually asked to check a given system or - protocol for security issues or formal validation of functional/temporal - behaviour. The result of the formalisation work and its automatic - validation is typically in an internal format which is obscure even to - experts. Studying the possibility to automatically generate a more - friendly presentation in usual mathematical notation is thus a major - topic.

- -

Consortium's Dissemination and Exploitation Strategy

-

According to the Project Workplan, a considerable effort will be devoted - to the dissemination/exploitation of the results. During the first six - months, the consortium will undertake the development and execution of a - workplan to achieve successful dissemination of the project results. In - particular, the very nature of the project suggests to involve the - largest community of professionals during the modelling phase. Here, we - shall be open to any contribution, even soliciting them, still keeping - final technical decisions inside the Project. -
- The foreseen dissemination steps include:

- -
    -
  1. Preparation of an ``information pack'', including a folder and CDROM - with demos.
    2. -
  2. Presentation of MOWGLI to national and international conferences on - I.T.Technologies.
    3. -
  3. Presentation of MOWGLI to thematic conferences on Education, Digital - Libraries, Formal Verification and so on.
    4. -
  4. Advertising to actors/institutions which may be direct users or may - channel the information to final users (such as the World Wide Web - Consortium).
    5. -
  5. Technical papers and articles to be sent to specialised reviews.
    6. -
  6. Management of the MOWGLI Web site.
    7. -
  7. Dissemination of technical achievements in specific scientific - communities, such as XML-related interests groups.
    8. -
- -

Management of the Exploitation and Dissemination activities is a specific - Work-package that will be lead by the Project Exploitation Board. It is - planned that all partners will nominate qualified persons as exploitation - managers to coordinate their own exploitation activities. The Exploitation - Board will be in charge of the preparation of the exploitation and - dissemination plan.

- - - diff --git a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/home.xml b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/home.xml index 00d5386ac..13434f912 100644 --- a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/home.xml +++ b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/home.xml @@ -53,18 +53,6 @@ (XSLT, RDF, etc).

-

Read more about the project:

- - - diff --git a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/innovation.xml b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/innovation.xml deleted file mode 100644 index f5885fa9c..000000000 --- a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/innovation.xml +++ /dev/null @@ -1,113 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - - Innovation - - -

Innovation

-

The main technical novelty of the project is in its synergy of different - scientific communities and research topics: digital libraries, Web - publishing, logical environments.

- - Architecture - -

From the point of view of Web publishing, our project is the first attempt - to provide a comprehensive description, from content to metadata, of a - given field of knowledge (in our case mathematics), in order to enhance - its accessibility, exchange and elaboration via the World Wide Web. To - this aim, we shall put to use most of the technologies recently introduced - by the W3C: XML, DOM, XSL, XLL, Namespaces, MathML, RDF, etc. From this - respect, the project is first of all a complex test for all these - technologies, and should hopefully become an example of ``best practice'' - in their use. Note that the final architecture is likely to be extendible - to other fields of structured information: the emphasis on mathematics is - motivated by the fact that, due to its complex interplay between content, - structure and notation, it provides a major case study for Web-based - information systems (it is not a case that MathML has been one of few - instances of XML completely developed under the aegis of the World Wide - Web Consortium).

-

From the point of view of digital libraries, our work is aimed at - exploiting all the potential functionalities offered by the Web, and in - particular a more integrated use of its browsing and searching facilities. - The library is not merely seen as a more or less structured collection of - texts, but as a virtual structure inside which we can freely navigate, - jumping for instance from an entity to its definition, or peeping inside - some information at deeper and deeper levels of details (such as different - levels of detail of a proof). This is similar to what we currently do - with HTML texts, but in order to enhance the effectiveness of the - consultation, we clearly need a good metadata model of the information. - Moreover, in such an integrated view, it is hardly conceivable to just - apply some ``general purpose'' metadata model (like the Dublin Core - system, say): the metadata model must be eventually specialised to the - actual structure of the information it is supposed to model (and more - structure we have on the information, more relevant metadata we can - usually infer on the document). For instance, metadata could contain the - whole signature of a given module of mathematical knowledge. The usual - motivation for keeping metadata simple and general is that it is usually - difficult to add this information by hand; but in our case a large part of - the metadata is supposed to be extracted automatically by the (structured) - text itself, allowing for pretty complex metadata models.

-

Finally, a main aspect of our project is the integration with current - tools for the automation of formal reasoning and mechanisation of - mathematics (proof assistants and logical frameworks). This integration - has a mutual benefit. From the point of view of the mathematical library, - the first and fundamental role of these systems is that of providing - friendly authoring tools (for instance, our ``core'' library will be - automatically extracted from existing libraries of these systems). The - relevance of this point should not be underestimated: as a matter of fact, - the main reason for the failure of complex markup modellings is usually - the lack of suitable authoring tools (it is often painful to add the - markup by hand). Of course, they can also provide other functionalities - (like automatic proof checking) on fragments of the library (typically, - the fragments generated by the tool itself, in its specific logical - dialect). These additional functionalities may be especially relevant for - industrial applications, e.g. in the context of IT security evaluation - standards like the Common Criteria standard (see - others/cc). In its highest - assurance level, this standard requires the development of formal models - of the IT product under evaluation, as well as mechanized proofs that it - meets its security objectives. Such models and proofs must be published in - a format that can be easily readable and understood by security - evaluators. Hence, there is a strong need from software industry to be - able to produce such documentation directly from the models introduced in - the proof assistant, and to link it with documents describing the IT - product, etc.

-

On the other side, there is a compelling need of integration between the - current tools for automation of formal reasoning and mechanisation of - mathematics and the most recent technologies for the development of Web - applications and electronic publishing. XML, which is rapidly imposing as - a pivotal technology in the future development of all Internet - applications, and the main tool for representation, manipulation, and - exchange of structured information in the networked age, looks as a - natural, almost mandatory, choice for modelling the information.

-

In this way, we just obey to the very primitive commandment of the Web: - make your information available. Currently, libraries in logical - frameworks are usually saved in two formats: a textual one, in the - specific tactical language of the proof assistant, and a compiled (proof - checked) one in some internal, concrete representation language. Both - representations are obviously unsatisfactory, since they are too oriented - to the specific application: they restrict the access of the libraries to - the users of the given application, and at the same time they are too - sensible to the evolution and the maintenance of the application itself. - On the other side, as soon as the information is put in a standard format - on the Web, any kind of research becomes virtually possible, and - anybody could start developing his own spider for - implementing his own searching requirements. This is clearly a major - improvement w.r.t. the present situation. Currently, you must not only - rely on the searching facilities offered by the specific applications, but - even if you would wish to implement your own searching algorithm, you - would be prevented by the simple reason that the information is not - accessible (in any reasonable sense of the word).

-

The project builds on the solid ground provided by several existing - XML-based languages for the management of mathematical documents such as - MathML, OpenMath and OMDoc. Each of these markup languages covers a - different aspect of the information. Our aim is not to propose a new - language, but to study and to develop the technological infrastructure - required to integrate all these languages together, in order to take - advantage of the specific features of each of them.

- - - diff --git a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/menu.xml b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/menu.xml index 152e6c3fb..703ce2f91 100644 --- a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/menu.xml +++ b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/menu.xml @@ -27,6 +27,7 @@ Home Consortium People + Proposal Work Packages MoWGLI Events Other Events diff --git a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/news.xml b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/news.xml index 063497f32..da19a3e51 100644 --- a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/news.xml +++ b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/news.xml @@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ 20020306 The agenda of the - MOWGLI Kick-Off meeting + MOWGLI Kick-Off meeting has been detailed. diff --git a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/project-management.xml b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/project-management.xml deleted file mode 100644 index aa1dfaeaa..000000000 --- a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/project-management.xml +++ /dev/null @@ -1,146 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - - Project Management - - -

Project Management

-

The Project management will be assured by the following relevant - roles:

-
    -
  1. Project Manager
    2. -
  2. Exploitation manager
    3. -
  3. Work-package Leaders
    4. -
  4. Technical Contributors
    5. -
-

and by the following Project Bodies:

-
    -
  1. Project Coordination Committee (PCC)
    2. -
  2. Project Exploitation Board
    3. -
  3. Work-package Teams.
    4. -
-
-
Project Manager
-
The mandate of the Project Manager is - to represent the Project, report to the Commission, monitor - overall performance of the project, ensure accomplishment - of the technical objectives, promote project visibility, - promote dissemination of project results in the relevant international - forums, promote acceptance of project results, administer - project resources and monitor project spending.
- -
Exploitation Manager
-
S/he will be responsible for coordinating - exploitation activities undertaken by the Project Exploitation Board - (PEB) in close cooperation with the Project Coordination Committee - (PCC).
- -
Work-package Leaders
-
They are responsible for the performance of - Work-packages, and they must be committed to the Work-package for at - least five man months per year.
- -
Technical Contributors
-
Technical Contributors are specialised - staff provided by the partners. They could be either people active on - a stable basis into a Work-package, or people who contribute from time - to time on specific tasks related to the work-plan (external - contributors).
- -
Project Coordination Committee
-
The PCC is chaired by the Project - Manager and constituted by one representative from each Partner, and - is the main decision body of the Consortium. It is in charge - of all formal decisions regarding technical direction of the work, - proper interrelation between Work-packages, - relations with IST Office, policies for promotion of results, - administrative arrangements. In view of minimising management overhead - and project costs, partners providing the Project Manager, - and the Work-packages Leaders are required to appoint the same - person as their official representative in the Project - Coordination Committee.
- -
Project Exploitation Board
-
The PEB will be chaired by the - Project Exploitation Manager, and composed by the Exploitation - Managers of each partner. It will monitor the state of the art in - the domains of content-based information technologies, W3C activities, - Web publishing, and digital libraries. It will be responsible for - planning the dissemination and exploitation strategies for the - consortium, to be approved by the PCC.
- -
Work-package Teams
-
They are constituted of the technical contributors. - Each team will be chaired by a Work-package Leader, and it will be in - charge of carrying out the technical work described in Section - \ref{Workpackages}.
-
- -

Decision Process

-

Decisions will normally be taken by seeking consensus. However, - after a reasonable amount of time has been allowed to illustrate - and defend of conflicting positions, in order to avoid deadlock - in project operational progress, the approval of two-third majority - of the partners will be sufficient. If the decision being taken - is unacceptable - to partners found in the minority positions, the resolution of the - conflict will be elevated to each partner's higher executive level. - If no resolution is possible, than the standard ``red flag'' procedure - will be used, as a last resort. Either the PCC or the Project Manager - can initiate the conflict resolution procedure.

- -

Information Flow

-

Information flow within the Project will be ensured by exchange of - internal technical papers, notification of relevant new publications - technologies or standards, and reports from external meetings. - All technical documentation generated by the project should be - exchangeable in electronic format, according to a set of guidelines - to be agreed at project start-up. The project Manager will enforce - adherence to these guidelines. Only strictly formal correspondence - will be exchanged by ordinary mail and telefax. Urgent correspondence - over e-mail will be sent with a request for explicit acknowledgement.

-

The Coordinating Partner will be responsible to prepare and maintain - a Web page of the project and a CVS repository (also available via Web). - The CVS repository is meant to keep the trace of the overall - progress of the Project, and it will be used by the PCC to monitor - the state of advancement of the work. Each partner periodically - submit reports to the prime contractor, listing all technical - contributions, publications, meeting attendance and other information - which may help in understanding the provided effort and cost figures.

-

The Project will establish a high quality Web site for internal and - external communications. It will be operational as from one month of - the commencement date and will be maintained during the project duration. - The ``members only'' area will include e.g. all private deliverables, - progress and management reports, and cost statements. The open area will - include - the project presentation as defined in Appendix 2 of the ``Guidelines - for Contract Preparation'' document, all public deliverables, and any - relevant information suggested by the Project Exploitation Board.

- -

Quality Procedures

-

For all deliverables, the following review procedure - will be adopted: release by the Work-Package Leader, two-week review - period for comments by the PCC, two-week amendment period to incorporate - PCC recommendations, one-week balloting period for approval by the - PCC.

- -

Confidentiality and IPR handling

-

Matters related to Confidentiality and IPR handling will be defined - in the ``Consortium Agreement''. As regards literature papers - originated from work in the Project, there will be two - categories of papers:

-
    -
  1. Project Endorsed Publications, requiring notification and approval by - the PCC.
    2. -
  2. Project-related publications, only requiring notification to - the PCC. They must contain an acknowledgement of support by the - project Consortium and, if required by the PCC, a disclaimer that - the views are not necessarily those of the Consortium.
    3. -
-

Concerning possible contributions to Standards, they will be - directly submitted by project members.

- - diff --git a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/project-objectives.xml b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/project-objectives.xml deleted file mode 100644 index 9a422306a..000000000 --- a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/project-objectives.xml +++ /dev/null @@ -1,122 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - - Project Objectives - - -

Project Objectives

-

The new frontier of Content Based Information Systems is the so called - ``Semantic Web'' (see - others/w3c_bl98). - Associating meaning with content or establishing a layer of machine - understandable data will allow automated agents, sophisticated search - engines and interoperable services and will enable higher degree - of automation and more intelligent applications. The ultimate goal of the - Semantic Web is to allow machines to share and exploit knowledge in the - Web way, i.e. without central authority, with few basic rules, in a - scalable, adaptable, extensible manner. However, the actual development - of the Semantic Web and its technologies has been hindered so far by the - lack of large scale, distributed repositories of structured, content - oriented information. The case of Mathematical knowledge, the most - rigorous and condensed form of knowledge, is paradigmatic. The World Wide - Web is already now the largest single resource of mathematical knowledge, - and its importance will be exponentiated by the emerging display - technologies like MathML. However, almost all mathematical documents - available on the Web are marked up only for presentation (in this respect, - current practice in MathML improves on, but does not fundamentally differ - from the older paper-oriented markup schemes like LaTeX or Postscript). - A consequence of this is that the online material is machine-readable, but - not machine-understandable, severely crippling the possibility to offer - added-value services like

- -

Due to its rich notational, logical and semantical structure, mathematical - knowledge is thus a main case study for the development of the new - generation of semantic Web systems. The aim of the proposed project is - both to help in this process, as well as pave the way towards a really - useful virtual, distributed, hyper-textual resource for the working - mathematician, scientist or engineer. All modern sciences have a - strongly mathematicised core, and will benefit. The real market and - application area for the techniques developed in this project, apart from - the obvious realm of education, lies with high-tech and engineering - corporations that rely on huge formula databases. Currently, both the - content markup as well as the added-value services alluded to above are - very underdeveloped, limiting the usefulness of the vital knowledge. The - infrastructure and knowhow needed for mining this information treasure - and obtaining a competitive edge in development is exactly what we are - attempting to develop in our project.

-

Several languages have been already proposed for the management of - mathematical information on the Web, both for publishing, communication - and archiving purposes: most notably, - MathML, - OpenMath, - OMDoc. Other languages - must be also considered for definition and specification of Metadata, - such as the Dublin Core System, or - the Resource Description Framework - [RDF]. - All these languages, which tend to cover different and orthogonal aspects - of the management of mathematical documents, must be eventually taken into - account for the ambitious goal of our project. One of our aims is actually - the definition of a modular architecture which could exploit the - distinctive potentialities of each one of these languages, integrating - them into a single application. The integration is in this case - facilitated by the fact that all the languages mentioned are particular - instances of XML, providing the opportunity to use standard XML - technology, and in particular XSL Transformations or - stylesheets [XSLT], to pass from - one language to the other.

- - Architecture - -

The fact of encoding also the microscopic, logical level of mathematics - opens the possibility to have completely formalised subsystems of the - library, which could be checked automatically by standard tools for the - automation of formal reasoning and the mechanisation of mathematics - (proof assistants and logical frameworks, see - others/cup_hp91 and - others/cup_hp93). At - the same time, any of these tools could be used as an authoring system for - documents of the library, by simply exporting their internal libraries - into XML, and using stylesheets to transform the output into a standard, - machine-understandable representation, such as MathML content markup or - OpenMath.

-

The precise formal content can still be preserved by the machinery of - Xlinks. Moreover, stylesheets - can be also used to solve the annoying notational problem that usually - afflicts formal mathematics, providing a simple way for adding - user-defined styles and notations.

- -

So, our approach leads to a natural integration of proof assistant tools - and the Web. In this integration, the emphasis is just on ``content'': - we do not try to link directly the specific applications to the Web, - that would be a major mistake, for obvious modularity reasons. On the - contrary, we adopt XML as a neutral specification language, and then we - merely work on XML-documents, forgetting the underlying application. In - this way, similar software tools can be applied to different logical - dialects, regardless of their concrete nature. Moreover, if having a - common representation layer is not the ultimate solution to all - inter-operability problems between different applications, it is - however a first and essential step in this direction. Finally, this - ``standardisation'' process should naturally lead to a substantial - simplification and re-organisation of the current, ``monolithic'' - architecture of logical frameworks. All the many different and often - loosely connected functionalities of these complex programs (proof - checking, editing, search and consulting, program extraction, and so on) - could be clearly split in more or less autonomous tasks, and could be - developed by different teams, in totally different languages. This is - the new, ``content-based'' architectural design of future systems.

- - diff --git a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/project-summary.xml b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/project-summary.xml deleted file mode 100644 index df880ff95..000000000 --- a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/project-summary.xml +++ /dev/null @@ -1,87 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - - Project Summary - - -

Project Summary

- -

Objectives

-

The World Wide Web is already the largest resource of mathematical - knowledge, and its importance will be exponentiated by emerging display - technologies like MathML. However, almost all mathematical documents - available on the Web are marked up only for presentation, severely - crippling the potentialities for automation, interoperability, - sophisticated searching mechanisms, intelligent applications, - transformation and processing. The goal of the project is to overcome - these limitations, passing form a machine-readable to a - machine-understandable representation of the information, and developing - the technological infrastructure for its exploitation. MOWGLI builds on - previous ``standards'' for the management and publishing of mathematical - documents (MathML, OpenMath, OMDoc), integrating them with different XML - technology (XSLT, RDF, ...).

- -

Description of Work

-

The goal of the project is to provide a comprehensive description, from - content to metadata, of a given field of knowledge (in our case - mathematics), in order to enhance its accessibility, exchange and - elaboration via the World Wide Web. MOWGLI will make an essential use of - standard XML technology and aspires to become an example of ``best - practice'' in its use, and a leading project in the new area of the - Semantic Web.

-

In particular, we shall deeply explore the potentialities of XML in the - following directions:

- -
-
Publishing
-
XML offers sophisticated publishing technologies (Stylesheets, MathML, - SVG, ...) which can be profitably used to solve, in a standard way, the - annoying notational problems that traditionally afflict - content based and machine-understandable encodings of the - information.
- -
Searching and Retrieving
-
Metadata will play a major role in MOWGLI. New W3C languages such as - the Resource Description Framework or XML Query are likely to produce - major innovative solutions in this field.
- -
Interoperability
-
Disposing of a common, machine understandable layer is a major and - essential step in this direction.
- -
Distribution
-
All XML technology is finally aimed to the access of the Web as a - single, distributed resource, with no central authority and few, - simple rules.
-
- -

MOWGLI builds on the solid ground already provided by previous European - projects (Such as OpenMAth and Euler) and several XML dialects for the - management of mathematical documents (MathML, OpenMath, OMDoc, ...). - All these languages cover different and orthogonal aspects of the - information; our aim is not to propose a new standard, but to study and - to develop the technological infrastructure required for taking advantage - of the potentialities of all of them.

- -

Milestones and Expected Results

-
-
First MOWGLI prototype (month 18)
-
Supporting browsing, rendering and on-line consultation of large - repositories of (content-based) mathematical knowledge. The translation - from content to presentation will be done via suitable notational - stylesheets.
- -
Advanced MOWGLI prototype (month 24)
-
Supporting distribution, indexing, searching and retrieval (based on a - sophisticated metadata model).
- -
Final MOWGLI prototype (month 30)
-
Result of validation.
-
- - - - diff --git a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/proposal/EC-contribution.xml b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/proposal/EC-contribution.xml new file mode 100644 index 000000000..6bfb4ba28 --- /dev/null +++ b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/proposal/EC-contribution.xml @@ -0,0 +1,154 @@ + + + + + + + Contribution to policies of the European Community + + +

Community added value and contribution to EC policies

+

The Project relies in an essential way on the convergence of information + processing, communication and new media, meeting the main policy issue of + the IST programme. In fact, due to its very nature, mathematical + information is particularly suited to an integrated analysis under the + different perspectives of elaboration, communication and (hyper)media + publishing, providing a main arena for innovative experiments and + solutions, especially in view of the new technological frontier of the + Semantic Web.

+

The Project also tries to answer to a clear need for wider + interoperability and coherence in the realm of mathematics over the Web, + especially for educational, scientific and commercial purposes.

+

Electronic textbooks are rapidly becoming a main tool for education and + knowledge dissemination. Electronic textbooks must be interactive, + allowing intercommunication between the text and scientific software and + graphics. This is very hard to achieve starting form a mere presentational + description of the information, clearly requiring a sophisticated + semantical description of the content.

+

Similarly, the academic and commercial research communities generate large + volume of dense scientific material. Increasingly, research publications + are being stored in databases, especially for those areas of physics and + mathematics where academic journal prices have been growing at an + unsustainable rate. Still, however, the information is stored in a format + which is machine readable but not machine understandable; in particular it + is not suitable for any form of elaboration other than its rendering. + MOWGLI's content and metadata levels are exactly meant to address complex + elaboration requirements, and to facilitate the maintenance and + operability of large document collections, for which automatic searching + and indexing are crucial.

+

Corporate and academic scientists and engineers also use technical + documents in their work to collaborate, to record results of experiments + and computer simulations, and to verify calculations. The Web is, + potentially, the natural media for sharing this information; MOWGLI is + meant to provide the basic technology to transform this potentiality into + an actual possibility.

+

Commercial publishers are also involved with mathematics on the Web at all + levels from electronic versions of printed books to interactive textbooks + and academic journals. In this case, MOWGLI offers support for advanced + capabilities, such as browsing, interactivity, presentational and + stylistic customisation, and advanced searching and retrieving + features.

+

The project deals with problems traditionally belonging to different + scientific communities: digital libraries, Web publishing, automation of + mathematics and computer aided reasoning. Any serious solution needs a + coordinated effort of all these groups and a synergy of their different + expertise. The members of the consortium have been also carefully chosen + for their experience in the above mentioned areas. From this interaction, + we expect to develop new technologies and solutions, fostering + innovation towards the construction of the Semantic Web.

+

MOWGLI contributes in the spread of information and know-how, since + new information technologies will be applied to realms such as education + and publishing, which are traditionally not very inclined to innovation. + More competitiveness will be acquired both by the end users of the + system and by the technology providers, which will eventually profit by + the expertise gained by applying new and emerging technologies to the huge + and compelling problem of the management of mathematical documents over + the Web.

+

By opening new perspectives in the domains of interactive publishing and + education, MOWGLI suggests new job-profiles in these domains, and + increases job opportunities in the Information Society sector.

+

Finally, the social and cultural cohesion of Europe is eventually + strengthened by the creation of a large distributed repositories of + scientific knowledge.

+ +

Contribution to Community Social Objectives

+

The quality of life, in a civilised country, strictly depends on the + quality of its services, and in particular on the attention devoted to + those services aimed to preserve, increase and make accessible to a wider + audience its cultural and scientific heritage. Building a user friendly + Information Society, with particular emphasis on digital heritage, + cultural content and education is indeed a main social objective of the + European Community.

+

The new Information Society is essentially based on the convergence of + information, communication and networking technologies and takes + advantage of infrastructures like the Internet and the Web.

+

Our project builds on these grounds, to create the technological + infrastructure required for the creation and maintenance of a digital + knowledge base of structured mathematical information, universally + and seamlessly accessible to all people, and in particular to students and + professionals, through interoperable, dependable and affordable products + and services.

+

From the educational point of view, our system could easily become a main + tool for a wider and more friendly dissemination of mathematical + knowledge. Indeed, its interactive nature, and the possibility to access + single information units, and possibly applying them, provides a more + operational and far less abstract comprehension of mathematical entities, + and should naturally induce the user to play with the knowledge base, + assembling components in the development of new theorems and results. + From the educational point of view, our system could easily become a main + tool for a wider and more friendly dissemination of mathematical + knowledge. Indeed, its interactive nature, and the possibility to access + single information units, and possibly applying them, provides a more + operational and far less abstract comprehension of mathematical entities, + and should naturally induce the user to play with the knowledge base, + assembling components in the development of new theorems and results.

+

From the point of view of employment and development of individual skills, + there are two different aspects to be considered, according to the + objectives and the methodology of the project.

+

From the methodological point of view, the project makes an essential use + of technologies which are the very foundations of the information society, + driving their development, enhancing their applicability, and accelerating + their take up in Europe. In particular, we shall build on most of the + recent recommendations of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), like XML, + DOM, XSL, XLL, MathML, RDF, etc. testing their applicability to the + definition of a comprehensive, integrated description of a given field of + knowledge.

+

This kind of tools and techniques is of crucial importance in the + development of the Web and of the Information Technology of the next + years, and our project could play a major role in their dissemination in + Europe, and in training people in their use.

+

On the other side, MOWGLI itself could become a major source of + inspiration for the re-invention of existing activities, and in particular + for the exploitation of new business in the publishing market. Currently, + digital journals just offer purely textual objects: our project could + help to define new market possibility for content-based publishing (i.e. + structured, possibly formal mathematical developments), with all the + potentialities offered by this approach, from browsing facilities, to the + personalisation of the style, from enhanced forms of searching, to more + or less arbitrarily complex forms of elaboration.

+

Our system also opens new perspectives on the mechanisation of mathematics + and the automation of formal reasoning. The growing complexity of advanced + technological projects (in the areas of electronic and avionic + engineering, for example) has recently arose a renewed interest in formal + methods. From this respect, our project contributes to build an essential + infrastructure for the exploitation of these methods, providing a major + help for professionals, and fostering their skills.

+

Let us finally remark that the project has no negative impact on the + natural environment. We could even claim a few benefits, related to the + electronic distribution of documents, such as the minimisation in the use + of means of conveyance and the saving of paper.

+

The possible customisation via suitable style-sheets of structured + electronic documents could also meet the needs of particular users, such + as disabled (in particular, disabled students) or elderly (as retired + researchers who would like to continue their professional activity), + providing at the same time comfortable working conditions (e.g. at home). + Another general design requirement is the ability to render mathematical + material in other media such as speech or braille, which is extremely + important for the visually impaired.

+

In conclusion, the aim of our work is to contribute to the creation of the + next generation of user-friendly, dependable and interoperable + general-interest services, meeting user demands for flexible access, for + everybody, from anywhere, at any time.

+ + + diff --git a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/proposal/contribution.xml b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/proposal/contribution.xml new file mode 100644 index 000000000..ee5407906 --- /dev/null +++ b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/proposal/contribution.xml @@ -0,0 +1,61 @@ + + + + + + + Contribution to programme/key action objectives + + +

Contribution to programme/key action objectives

+

The Project contributes to build a user friendly information society, and + in particular it meets the following general objectives of this + program:

+
    +
  1. (multimedia content) confirming Europe as a leading force in this field, + realizing the potential of its creativity and culture;
    2. +
  2. (essential technologies and infrastructure) enabling technologies which + are the foundations of the information society, driving their + development, enhancing their applicability, and accelerating their take + up in Europe.
    3. +
+

As a matter of fact, the project is based in an essential way on the use + of most part of the recent recommendations of the World Wide Web + Organization for Web publishing and human-computer interaction (XML, XSL, + XLL, Namespaces, MathML, RDF, etc.). In particular, we aim to prove how + all these specifications naturally fit together, when trying to build a + full, integrated description (comprising content, notation, metadata, + etc.) of a given field of knowledge. At our knowledge, the project is the + first of the kind, and could become a paradigmatic example in the + integrated use of these technologies.

+

The project also addresses most of the issues of the multimedia content + key action, namely: electronic publishing, digital heritage and cultural + content, education, information access, filtering and handling. Actually, + all these aspects are and must be covered in our project, in order to + reach our objectives. In particular, the educational potential of our + system should not be neglected either: it could become an essential tool + for a wider and more friendly dissemination of mathematical knowledge. For + instance, if supported by a suitable technology, proving theorems in a + proof assistant could be as amusing as playing a video game. We imagine + bunches of young researchers contributing to the free development of the + library for the mere gratification of seeing their name as actual editor + (or, why not, original author) of a specific fragment.

+

Finally, the project is particularly related to the specific key-action + III.2.3 (access to scientific and cultural heritage). In fact, the aim + of our system is exactly to improve access by students and professionals + to the fast-growing mathematical knowledge base, allowing mathematical + documents to be retrieved, served, and processed directly on the Web. More + over, our system is meant to be compatible with most of the existing tools + for the mechanisation of mathematics and the automation of formal + reasoning (proof assistants and logical frameworks). The possibility to + build coherent sub-libraries of formal mathematical developments would + provide an essential (and unique) added value to the library itself, + making of Europe a leader in this area.

+

Maybe, having the possibility to process, analyse and elaborate + mathematical structures as data, the time will come when we shall finally + be able to start a completely new and exciting field of research on + mathematics: namely a scientific, empirical study on the real + structure of mathematical entities, and the ``way of thinking'' of + mathematicians.

+ + diff --git a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/proposal/econ-scient-tech-prospects.xml b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/proposal/econ-scient-tech-prospects.xml new file mode 100644 index 000000000..7a71757f2 --- /dev/null +++ b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/proposal/econ-scient-tech-prospects.xml @@ -0,0 +1,93 @@ + + + + + + + Economic development and Scientific and Technological Prospects + + +

Economic development and Scientific and Technological Prospects

+ +

Identification of exploitable results

+

MOWGLI is meant to develop, evaluate, fine-tune and deliver a complete + prototype supporting friendly and interactive access to huge, distributed + repositories of content-based mathematical knowledge. The purpose of the + project is to overcome some of the main obstacles that currently hinder a + wider dissemination of Information Technologies in the mathematical and + research community (comprising both professionals and students). This is + intended as a public service for the whole community of users, and we + expect no direct commercial profit by our work.

+

Of course, the core technologies and languages developed in MOWGLI may be + exploited in a lot of different ways, according to the nature and + exploitation plan of each partner.

+

In particular, it should be clear that having a coherent, distributed + library of structured mathematical knowledge, saved in a clearly defined, + well documented and application independent format, is just the starting + point of a wider, potentially enormous process. Building on the grounds + provided by MOWGLI, a lot of different services can be imagined, and + independently developed by different organisations. Inside the project, we + shall just give a few hints in this direction, supporting advanced and + interactive forms of searching and navigation, as well as automatic + validation facilities, for suitable fragments of the library.

+ +

Target Market

+

The main target market of MOWGLI is education. Here, the potentiality + offered by a semantic description of the information for the development + of interactive, electronic textbooks are enormous. In particular, the + MOWGLI prototype could become an essential tool for a wider and more + friendly dissemination of mathematical knowledge.

+

A second, potential market is Publishing. Digital libraries currently + suffers from clear limitations due to the machine-readable but not + machine understandable encoding of the information. No other kind of + elaboration than displaying or printing is usually possible. There is no + possibility of cut-and paste, formal checking, complex searching. For + instance, we cannot write a spider going around searching for a proof with + a given template, because there is not structure, and in particular no + semantics inside the text.

+

A third market are industries specialised in formal verification and + security. These industries are usually asked to check a given system or + protocol for security issues or formal validation of functional/temporal + behaviour. The result of the formalisation work and its automatic + validation is typically in an internal format which is obscure even to + experts. Studying the possibility to automatically generate a more + friendly presentation in usual mathematical notation is thus a major + topic.

+ +

Consortium's Dissemination and Exploitation Strategy

+

According to the Project Workplan, a considerable effort will be devoted + to the dissemination/exploitation of the results. During the first six + months, the consortium will undertake the development and execution of a + workplan to achieve successful dissemination of the project results. In + particular, the very nature of the project suggests to involve the + largest community of professionals during the modelling phase. Here, we + shall be open to any contribution, even soliciting them, still keeping + final technical decisions inside the Project. +
+ The foreseen dissemination steps include:

+ +
    +
  1. Preparation of an ``information pack'', including a folder and CDROM + with demos.
    2. +
  2. Presentation of MOWGLI to national and international conferences on + I.T.Technologies.
    3. +
  3. Presentation of MOWGLI to thematic conferences on Education, Digital + Libraries, Formal Verification and so on.
    4. +
  4. Advertising to actors/institutions which may be direct users or may + channel the information to final users (such as the World Wide Web + Consortium).
    5. +
  5. Technical papers and articles to be sent to specialised reviews.
    6. +
  6. Management of the MOWGLI Web site.
    7. +
  7. Dissemination of technical achievements in specific scientific + communities, such as XML-related interests groups.
    8. +
+ +

Management of the Exploitation and Dissemination activities is a specific + Work-package that will be lead by the Project Exploitation Board. It is + planned that all partners will nominate qualified persons as exploitation + managers to coordinate their own exploitation activities. The Exploitation + Board will be in charge of the preparation of the exploitation and + dissemination plan.

+ + + diff --git a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/proposal/innovation.xml b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/proposal/innovation.xml new file mode 100644 index 000000000..b552de702 --- /dev/null +++ b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/proposal/innovation.xml @@ -0,0 +1,113 @@ + + + + + + + Innovation + + +

Innovation

+

The main technical novelty of the project is in its synergy of different + scientific communities and research topics: digital libraries, Web + publishing, logical environments.

+ + Architecture + +

From the point of view of Web publishing, our project is the first attempt + to provide a comprehensive description, from content to metadata, of a + given field of knowledge (in our case mathematics), in order to enhance + its accessibility, exchange and elaboration via the World Wide Web. To + this aim, we shall put to use most of the technologies recently introduced + by the W3C: XML, DOM, XSL, XLL, Namespaces, MathML, RDF, etc. From this + respect, the project is first of all a complex test for all these + technologies, and should hopefully become an example of ``best practice'' + in their use. Note that the final architecture is likely to be extendible + to other fields of structured information: the emphasis on mathematics is + motivated by the fact that, due to its complex interplay between content, + structure and notation, it provides a major case study for Web-based + information systems (it is not a case that MathML has been one of few + instances of XML completely developed under the aegis of the World Wide + Web Consortium).

+

From the point of view of digital libraries, our work is aimed at + exploiting all the potential functionalities offered by the Web, and in + particular a more integrated use of its browsing and searching facilities. + The library is not merely seen as a more or less structured collection of + texts, but as a virtual structure inside which we can freely navigate, + jumping for instance from an entity to its definition, or peeping inside + some information at deeper and deeper levels of details (such as different + levels of detail of a proof). This is similar to what we currently do + with HTML texts, but in order to enhance the effectiveness of the + consultation, we clearly need a good metadata model of the information. + Moreover, in such an integrated view, it is hardly conceivable to just + apply some ``general purpose'' metadata model (like the Dublin Core + system, say): the metadata model must be eventually specialised to the + actual structure of the information it is supposed to model (and more + structure we have on the information, more relevant metadata we can + usually infer on the document). For instance, metadata could contain the + whole signature of a given module of mathematical knowledge. The usual + motivation for keeping metadata simple and general is that it is usually + difficult to add this information by hand; but in our case a large part of + the metadata is supposed to be extracted automatically by the (structured) + text itself, allowing for pretty complex metadata models.

+

Finally, a main aspect of our project is the integration with current + tools for the automation of formal reasoning and mechanisation of + mathematics (proof assistants and logical frameworks). This integration + has a mutual benefit. From the point of view of the mathematical library, + the first and fundamental role of these systems is that of providing + friendly authoring tools (for instance, our ``core'' library will be + automatically extracted from existing libraries of these systems). The + relevance of this point should not be underestimated: as a matter of fact, + the main reason for the failure of complex markup modellings is usually + the lack of suitable authoring tools (it is often painful to add the + markup by hand). Of course, they can also provide other functionalities + (like automatic proof checking) on fragments of the library (typically, + the fragments generated by the tool itself, in its specific logical + dialect). These additional functionalities may be especially relevant for + industrial applications, e.g. in the context of IT security evaluation + standards like the Common Criteria standard (see + others/cc). In its highest + assurance level, this standard requires the development of formal models + of the IT product under evaluation, as well as mechanized proofs that it + meets its security objectives. Such models and proofs must be published in + a format that can be easily readable and understood by security + evaluators. Hence, there is a strong need from software industry to be + able to produce such documentation directly from the models introduced in + the proof assistant, and to link it with documents describing the IT + product, etc.

+

On the other side, there is a compelling need of integration between the + current tools for automation of formal reasoning and mechanisation of + mathematics and the most recent technologies for the development of Web + applications and electronic publishing. XML, which is rapidly imposing as + a pivotal technology in the future development of all Internet + applications, and the main tool for representation, manipulation, and + exchange of structured information in the networked age, looks as a + natural, almost mandatory, choice for modelling the information.

+

In this way, we just obey to the very primitive commandment of the Web: + make your information available. Currently, libraries in logical + frameworks are usually saved in two formats: a textual one, in the + specific tactical language of the proof assistant, and a compiled (proof + checked) one in some internal, concrete representation language. Both + representations are obviously unsatisfactory, since they are too oriented + to the specific application: they restrict the access of the libraries to + the users of the given application, and at the same time they are too + sensible to the evolution and the maintenance of the application itself. + On the other side, as soon as the information is put in a standard format + on the Web, any kind of research becomes virtually possible, and + anybody could start developing his own spider for + implementing his own searching requirements. This is clearly a major + improvement w.r.t. the present situation. Currently, you must not only + rely on the searching facilities offered by the specific applications, but + even if you would wish to implement your own searching algorithm, you + would be prevented by the simple reason that the information is not + accessible (in any reasonable sense of the word).

+

The project builds on the solid ground provided by several existing + XML-based languages for the management of mathematical documents such as + MathML, OpenMath and OMDoc. Each of these markup languages covers a + different aspect of the information. Our aim is not to propose a new + language, but to study and to develop the technological infrastructure + required to integrate all these languages together, in order to take + advantage of the specific features of each of them.

+ + + diff --git a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/proposal/project-management.xml b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/proposal/project-management.xml new file mode 100644 index 000000000..aa1dfaeaa --- /dev/null +++ b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/proposal/project-management.xml @@ -0,0 +1,146 @@ + + + + + + + Project Management + + +

Project Management

+

The Project management will be assured by the following relevant + roles:

+
    +
  1. Project Manager
    2. +
  2. Exploitation manager
    3. +
  3. Work-package Leaders
    4. +
  4. Technical Contributors
    5. +
+

and by the following Project Bodies:

+
    +
  1. Project Coordination Committee (PCC)
    2. +
  2. Project Exploitation Board
    3. +
  3. Work-package Teams.
    4. +
+
+
Project Manager
+
The mandate of the Project Manager is + to represent the Project, report to the Commission, monitor + overall performance of the project, ensure accomplishment + of the technical objectives, promote project visibility, + promote dissemination of project results in the relevant international + forums, promote acceptance of project results, administer + project resources and monitor project spending.
+ +
Exploitation Manager
+
S/he will be responsible for coordinating + exploitation activities undertaken by the Project Exploitation Board + (PEB) in close cooperation with the Project Coordination Committee + (PCC).
+ +
Work-package Leaders
+
They are responsible for the performance of + Work-packages, and they must be committed to the Work-package for at + least five man months per year.
+ +
Technical Contributors
+
Technical Contributors are specialised + staff provided by the partners. They could be either people active on + a stable basis into a Work-package, or people who contribute from time + to time on specific tasks related to the work-plan (external + contributors).
+ +
Project Coordination Committee
+
The PCC is chaired by the Project + Manager and constituted by one representative from each Partner, and + is the main decision body of the Consortium. It is in charge + of all formal decisions regarding technical direction of the work, + proper interrelation between Work-packages, + relations with IST Office, policies for promotion of results, + administrative arrangements. In view of minimising management overhead + and project costs, partners providing the Project Manager, + and the Work-packages Leaders are required to appoint the same + person as their official representative in the Project + Coordination Committee.
+ +
Project Exploitation Board
+
The PEB will be chaired by the + Project Exploitation Manager, and composed by the Exploitation + Managers of each partner. It will monitor the state of the art in + the domains of content-based information technologies, W3C activities, + Web publishing, and digital libraries. It will be responsible for + planning the dissemination and exploitation strategies for the + consortium, to be approved by the PCC.
+ +
Work-package Teams
+
They are constituted of the technical contributors. + Each team will be chaired by a Work-package Leader, and it will be in + charge of carrying out the technical work described in Section + \ref{Workpackages}.
+
+ +

Decision Process

+

Decisions will normally be taken by seeking consensus. However, + after a reasonable amount of time has been allowed to illustrate + and defend of conflicting positions, in order to avoid deadlock + in project operational progress, the approval of two-third majority + of the partners will be sufficient. If the decision being taken + is unacceptable + to partners found in the minority positions, the resolution of the + conflict will be elevated to each partner's higher executive level. + If no resolution is possible, than the standard ``red flag'' procedure + will be used, as a last resort. Either the PCC or the Project Manager + can initiate the conflict resolution procedure.

+ +

Information Flow

+

Information flow within the Project will be ensured by exchange of + internal technical papers, notification of relevant new publications + technologies or standards, and reports from external meetings. + All technical documentation generated by the project should be + exchangeable in electronic format, according to a set of guidelines + to be agreed at project start-up. The project Manager will enforce + adherence to these guidelines. Only strictly formal correspondence + will be exchanged by ordinary mail and telefax. Urgent correspondence + over e-mail will be sent with a request for explicit acknowledgement.

+

The Coordinating Partner will be responsible to prepare and maintain + a Web page of the project and a CVS repository (also available via Web). + The CVS repository is meant to keep the trace of the overall + progress of the Project, and it will be used by the PCC to monitor + the state of advancement of the work. Each partner periodically + submit reports to the prime contractor, listing all technical + contributions, publications, meeting attendance and other information + which may help in understanding the provided effort and cost figures.

+

The Project will establish a high quality Web site for internal and + external communications. It will be operational as from one month of + the commencement date and will be maintained during the project duration. + The ``members only'' area will include e.g. all private deliverables, + progress and management reports, and cost statements. The open area will + include + the project presentation as defined in Appendix 2 of the ``Guidelines + for Contract Preparation'' document, all public deliverables, and any + relevant information suggested by the Project Exploitation Board.

+ +

Quality Procedures

+

For all deliverables, the following review procedure + will be adopted: release by the Work-Package Leader, two-week review + period for comments by the PCC, two-week amendment period to incorporate + PCC recommendations, one-week balloting period for approval by the + PCC.

+ +

Confidentiality and IPR handling

+

Matters related to Confidentiality and IPR handling will be defined + in the ``Consortium Agreement''. As regards literature papers + originated from work in the Project, there will be two + categories of papers:

+
    +
  1. Project Endorsed Publications, requiring notification and approval by + the PCC.
    2. +
  2. Project-related publications, only requiring notification to + the PCC. They must contain an acknowledgement of support by the + project Consortium and, if required by the PCC, a disclaimer that + the views are not necessarily those of the Consortium.
    3. +
+

Concerning possible contributions to Standards, they will be + directly submitted by project members.

+ + diff --git a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/proposal/project-objectives.xml b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/proposal/project-objectives.xml new file mode 100644 index 000000000..0c7d01cea --- /dev/null +++ b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/proposal/project-objectives.xml @@ -0,0 +1,122 @@ + + + + + + + Project Objectives + + +

Project Objectives

+

The new frontier of Content Based Information Systems is the so called + ``Semantic Web'' (see + others/w3c_bl98). + Associating meaning with content or establishing a layer of machine + understandable data will allow automated agents, sophisticated search + engines and interoperable services and will enable higher degree + of automation and more intelligent applications. The ultimate goal of the + Semantic Web is to allow machines to share and exploit knowledge in the + Web way, i.e. without central authority, with few basic rules, in a + scalable, adaptable, extensible manner. However, the actual development + of the Semantic Web and its technologies has been hindered so far by the + lack of large scale, distributed repositories of structured, content + oriented information. The case of Mathematical knowledge, the most + rigorous and condensed form of knowledge, is paradigmatic. The World Wide + Web is already now the largest single resource of mathematical knowledge, + and its importance will be exponentiated by the emerging display + technologies like MathML. However, almost all mathematical documents + available on the Web are marked up only for presentation (in this respect, + current practice in MathML improves on, but does not fundamentally differ + from the older paper-oriented markup schemes like LaTeX or Postscript). + A consequence of this is that the online material is machine-readable, but + not machine-understandable, severely crippling the possibility to offer + added-value services like

+ +

Due to its rich notational, logical and semantical structure, mathematical + knowledge is thus a main case study for the development of the new + generation of semantic Web systems. The aim of the proposed project is + both to help in this process, as well as pave the way towards a really + useful virtual, distributed, hyper-textual resource for the working + mathematician, scientist or engineer. All modern sciences have a + strongly mathematicised core, and will benefit. The real market and + application area for the techniques developed in this project, apart from + the obvious realm of education, lies with high-tech and engineering + corporations that rely on huge formula databases. Currently, both the + content markup as well as the added-value services alluded to above are + very underdeveloped, limiting the usefulness of the vital knowledge. The + infrastructure and knowhow needed for mining this information treasure + and obtaining a competitive edge in development is exactly what we are + attempting to develop in our project.

+

Several languages have been already proposed for the management of + mathematical information on the Web, both for publishing, communication + and archiving purposes: most notably, + MathML, + OpenMath, + OMDoc. Other languages + must be also considered for definition and specification of Metadata, + such as the Dublin Core System, or + the Resource Description Framework + [RDF]. + All these languages, which tend to cover different and orthogonal aspects + of the management of mathematical documents, must be eventually taken into + account for the ambitious goal of our project. One of our aims is actually + the definition of a modular architecture which could exploit the + distinctive potentialities of each one of these languages, integrating + them into a single application. The integration is in this case + facilitated by the fact that all the languages mentioned are particular + instances of XML, providing the opportunity to use standard XML + technology, and in particular XSL Transformations or + stylesheets [XSLT], to pass from + one language to the other.

+ + Architecture + +

The fact of encoding also the microscopic, logical level of mathematics + opens the possibility to have completely formalised subsystems of the + library, which could be checked automatically by standard tools for the + automation of formal reasoning and the mechanisation of mathematics + (proof assistants and logical frameworks, see + others/cup_hp91 and + others/cup_hp93). At + the same time, any of these tools could be used as an authoring system for + documents of the library, by simply exporting their internal libraries + into XML, and using stylesheets to transform the output into a standard, + machine-understandable representation, such as MathML content markup or + OpenMath.

+

The precise formal content can still be preserved by the machinery of + Xlinks. Moreover, stylesheets + can be also used to solve the annoying notational problem that usually + afflicts formal mathematics, providing a simple way for adding + user-defined styles and notations.

+ +

So, our approach leads to a natural integration of proof assistant tools + and the Web. In this integration, the emphasis is just on ``content'': + we do not try to link directly the specific applications to the Web, + that would be a major mistake, for obvious modularity reasons. On the + contrary, we adopt XML as a neutral specification language, and then we + merely work on XML-documents, forgetting the underlying application. In + this way, similar software tools can be applied to different logical + dialects, regardless of their concrete nature. Moreover, if having a + common representation layer is not the ultimate solution to all + inter-operability problems between different applications, it is + however a first and essential step in this direction. Finally, this + ``standardisation'' process should naturally lead to a substantial + simplification and re-organisation of the current, ``monolithic'' + architecture of logical frameworks. All the many different and often + loosely connected functionalities of these complex programs (proof + checking, editing, search and consulting, program extraction, and so on) + could be clearly split in more or less autonomous tasks, and could be + developed by different teams, in totally different languages. This is + the new, ``content-based'' architectural design of future systems.

+ + diff --git a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/proposal/project-summary.xml b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/proposal/project-summary.xml new file mode 100644 index 000000000..df880ff95 --- /dev/null +++ b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/proposal/project-summary.xml @@ -0,0 +1,87 @@ + + + + + + + Project Summary + + +

Project Summary

+ +

Objectives

+

The World Wide Web is already the largest resource of mathematical + knowledge, and its importance will be exponentiated by emerging display + technologies like MathML. However, almost all mathematical documents + available on the Web are marked up only for presentation, severely + crippling the potentialities for automation, interoperability, + sophisticated searching mechanisms, intelligent applications, + transformation and processing. The goal of the project is to overcome + these limitations, passing form a machine-readable to a + machine-understandable representation of the information, and developing + the technological infrastructure for its exploitation. MOWGLI builds on + previous ``standards'' for the management and publishing of mathematical + documents (MathML, OpenMath, OMDoc), integrating them with different XML + technology (XSLT, RDF, ...).

+ +

Description of Work

+

The goal of the project is to provide a comprehensive description, from + content to metadata, of a given field of knowledge (in our case + mathematics), in order to enhance its accessibility, exchange and + elaboration via the World Wide Web. MOWGLI will make an essential use of + standard XML technology and aspires to become an example of ``best + practice'' in its use, and a leading project in the new area of the + Semantic Web.

+

In particular, we shall deeply explore the potentialities of XML in the + following directions:

+ +
+
Publishing
+
XML offers sophisticated publishing technologies (Stylesheets, MathML, + SVG, ...) which can be profitably used to solve, in a standard way, the + annoying notational problems that traditionally afflict + content based and machine-understandable encodings of the + information.
+ +
Searching and Retrieving
+
Metadata will play a major role in MOWGLI. New W3C languages such as + the Resource Description Framework or XML Query are likely to produce + major innovative solutions in this field.
+ +
Interoperability
+
Disposing of a common, machine understandable layer is a major and + essential step in this direction.
+ +
Distribution
+
All XML technology is finally aimed to the access of the Web as a + single, distributed resource, with no central authority and few, + simple rules.
+
+ +

MOWGLI builds on the solid ground already provided by previous European + projects (Such as OpenMAth and Euler) and several XML dialects for the + management of mathematical documents (MathML, OpenMath, OMDoc, ...). + All these languages cover different and orthogonal aspects of the + information; our aim is not to propose a new standard, but to study and + to develop the technological infrastructure required for taking advantage + of the potentialities of all of them.

+ +

Milestones and Expected Results

+
+
First MOWGLI prototype (month 18)
+
Supporting browsing, rendering and on-line consultation of large + repositories of (content-based) mathematical knowledge. The translation + from content to presentation will be done via suitable notational + stylesheets.
+ +
Advanced MOWGLI prototype (month 24)
+
Supporting distribution, indexing, searching and retrieval (based on a + sophisticated metadata model).
+ +
Final MOWGLI prototype (month 30)
+
Result of validation.
+
+ + + + diff --git a/helm/mowgli/home/xml/proposal/proposal-index.xml b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/proposal/proposal-index.xml new file mode 100644 index 000000000..a979260a2 --- /dev/null +++ b/helm/mowgli/home/xml/proposal/proposal-index.xml @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ + + + + + + + MoWGLI Proposal + + + +

MoWGLI Proposal

+ + + + +