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7 <title>Innovation</title>
11 <p>The main technical novelty of the project is in its synergy of different
12 scientific communities and research topics: digital libraries, Web
13 publishing, logical environments.</p>
15 <img border="0" alt="Architecture" src="./../../images/logo.png" />
17 <p>From the point of view of Web publishing, our project is the first attempt
18 to provide a comprehensive description, from content to metadata, of a
19 given field of knowledge (in our case mathematics), in order to enhance
20 its accessibility, exchange and elaboration via the World Wide Web. To
21 this aim, we shall put to use most of the technologies recently introduced
22 by the W3C: XML, DOM, XSL, XLL, Namespaces, MathML, RDF, etc. From this
23 respect, the project is first of all a complex test for all these
24 technologies, and should hopefully become an example of ``best practice''
25 in their use. Note that the final architecture is likely to be extendible
26 to other fields of structured information: the emphasis on mathematics is
27 motivated by the fact that, due to its complex interplay between content,
28 structure and notation, it provides a major case study for Web-based
29 information systems (it is not a case that MathML has been one of few
30 instances of XML completely developed under the aegis of the World Wide
32 <p>From the point of view of digital libraries, our work is aimed at
33 exploiting all the potential functionalities offered by the Web, and in
34 particular a more integrated use of its browsing and searching facilities.
35 The library is not merely seen as a more or less structured collection of
36 texts, but as a virtual structure inside which we can freely navigate,
37 jumping for instance from an entity to its definition, or peeping inside
38 some information at deeper and deeper levels of details (such as different
39 levels of detail of a proof). This is similar to what we currently do
40 with HTML texts, but in order to enhance the effectiveness of the
41 consultation, we clearly need a good metadata model of the information.
42 Moreover, in such an integrated view, it is hardly conceivable to just
43 apply some ``general purpose'' metadata model (like the Dublin Core
44 system, say): the metadata model must be eventually specialised to the
45 actual structure of the information it is supposed to model (and more
46 structure we have on the information, more relevant metadata we can
47 usually infer on the document). For instance, metadata could contain the
48 whole signature of a given module of mathematical knowledge. The usual
49 motivation for keeping metadata simple and general is that it is usually
50 difficult to add this information by hand; but in our case a large part of
51 the metadata is supposed to be extracted automatically by the (structured)
52 text itself, allowing for pretty complex metadata models.</p>
53 <p>Finally, a main aspect of our project is the integration with current
54 tools for the automation of formal reasoning and mechanisation of
55 mathematics (proof assistants and logical frameworks). This integration
56 has a mutual benefit. From the point of view of the mathematical library,
57 the first and fundamental role of these systems is that of providing
58 friendly authoring tools (for instance, our ``core'' library will be
59 automatically extracted from existing libraries of these systems). The
60 relevance of this point should not be underestimated: as a matter of fact,
61 the main reason for the failure of complex markup modellings is usually
62 the lack of suitable authoring tools (it is often painful to add the
63 markup by hand). Of course, they can also provide other functionalities
64 (like automatic proof checking) on fragments of the library (typically,
65 the fragments generated by the tool itself, in its specific logical
66 dialect). These additional functionalities may be especially relevant for
67 industrial applications, e.g. in the context of IT security evaluation
68 standards like the Common Criteria standard (see
69 <a href="./../publications/others/cc.html">others/cc</a>). In its highest
70 assurance level, this standard requires the development of formal models
71 of the IT product under evaluation, as well as mechanized proofs that it
72 meets its security objectives. Such models and proofs must be published in
73 a format that can be easily readable and understood by security
74 evaluators. Hence, there is a strong need from software industry to be
75 able to produce such documentation directly from the models introduced in
76 the proof assistant, and to link it with documents describing the IT
78 <p>On the other side, there is a compelling need of integration between the
79 current tools for automation of formal reasoning and mechanisation of
80 mathematics and the most recent technologies for the development of Web
81 applications and electronic publishing. XML, which is rapidly imposing as
82 a pivotal technology in the future development of all Internet
83 applications, and the main tool for representation, manipulation, and
84 exchange of structured information in the networked age, looks as a
85 natural, almost mandatory, choice for modelling the information.</p>
86 <p>In this way, we just obey to the very primitive commandment of the Web:
87 make your information available. Currently, libraries in logical
88 frameworks are usually saved in two formats: a textual one, in the
89 specific tactical language of the proof assistant, and a compiled (proof
90 checked) one in some internal, concrete representation language. Both
91 representations are obviously unsatisfactory, since they are too oriented
92 to the specific application: they restrict the access of the libraries to
93 the users of the given application, and at the same time they are too
94 sensible to the evolution and the maintenance of the application itself.
95 On the other side, as soon as the information is put in a standard format
96 on the Web, <i>any</i> kind of research becomes virtually possible, and
97 <i>anybody</i> could start developing his own <i>spider</i> for
98 implementing his own searching requirements. This is clearly a major
99 improvement w.r.t. the present situation. Currently, you must not only
100 rely on the searching facilities offered by the specific applications, but
101 even if you would wish to implement your own searching algorithm, you
102 would be prevented by the simple reason that the information is not
103 accessible (in any reasonable sense of the word).</p>
104 <p>The project builds on the solid ground provided by several existing
105 XML-based languages for the management of mathematical documents such as
106 MathML, OpenMath and OMDoc. Each of these markup languages covers a
107 different aspect of the information. Our aim is not to propose a new
108 language, but to study and to develop the technological infrastructure
109 required to integrate all these languages together, in order to take
110 advantage of the specific features of each of them.</p>