One of twelve projects at the Minciu Sodas virtual laboratory.

Formats for Thinking

Standards for structuring information, and ways each may be interpreted as a format for thoughts. A thinker who writes and organizes thousands of ideas using a software program is afterwards unable to export the structure of the ideas to another program. There is a lack of a standard for the transfer of sequences, hierarchies, and networks of notes. How should such a standard be variously expressed in terms of current standards such as XML, UML, HTML, and how might the current standards be understood more broadly, as organizing thoughts, rather than data? Of special interest to: Information publishers, software makers.

This project is the basis for the investigation Definitions of Sequences, Hierarchies and Networks Exist That are Most Natural for Arranging Thoughts lead by Andrius Kulikauskas.

We invite you to help collect examples for this project, especially by completing our survey What is your favorite standard? We are happy to award memberships to those who help build up our projects. Please write to us at ms@ms.lt

New Listings [8/99]

OO and Thinking | HyTime

Index

Standards

Notes

vNote is format for notes that is part of the Infrared Mobile Computing (IrMC) protocol. A Note Object is typically a self-authored memo and includes information such as a title.

vMessage is format for messages that is part of the Infrared Mobile Computing (IrMC) protocol. A Message Object is much like a Note Object, except that it is sent from one entity to another. It provides detailed information such as the sender, the subject field, and the message description.

Trees

ISO/IEC 14568:1997 is a standard for Information technology - DXL: Diagram eXchange, Language for tree-structured charts, and can be purchased for $58.

ISO/IEC 9646-3:1998 is a standard for Information technology - Open Systems Interconnection - Conformance testing methodology and framework - Part 3: The Tree and Tabular Combined Notation (TTCN), and can be purchased for $215.

Networks

Topic Maps (formerly known as Topic Navigation Maps) were developed from 1991 to 1999 to solve the problem of merging indexes. Euler, Topic Maps and Revolution by Steve Pepper is a very readable introduction, including some history, an overview of the concepts, and applications from the publishing of encyclopedias.

DocBook

Markup

XML is the eXtensible Markup Language. [http://www.w3.org/XML/, 7/99, Andrius Kulikauskas, Thanks, Roy Roebuck]
Check out this site: http://www.goxml.com/index.xsp It is an experimental XML search engine. [KK Aw, 7/99]

I saw your proposal in the discussion threads of the KM Consortium site. I was wondering if you had looked at using RDF (Resource Definition Framework) to implement UKL. It's implemented in XML and it does a lot of what you want. There are Java classes that can be used to parse the documents and schemas can be easily represented in them. You can find more information about it here: http://www.w3.org/RDF/ [Mark Fortner, 3/99]

HyTime [ISO92] is a standard that relates hyperlinking and time sequences. A Reader's Guide to the HyTime Standard helps come to terms with the 450 page standard. The standard addresses issues such as scheduling (the sequencing of object containers for hypermedia) and renditioning (creating new schedules from existing ones). [http://www.hytime.org/, 8/99, Andrius Kulikauskas]

TexInfo is used for documentation of GNU's free software. Basically, it is pure text, but has links. It is most suited for trees structures, but could be used for others as well. I don't know the exact WWW page, but one should look for it at http://www.gnu.org [Laurynas Biveinis, 7/99]

DirXML by Novell is a directory solution that will use XML to bring together information from the various directories of a business. Individual departments keep control of the data they own. The main purpose is to expand electronic business opportunities. Customers, partners, and suppliers will be access certain existing data based on security rights defined in the directory. Beta testing will start in the fourth quarter of 1999. Novell is working with other companies to develop directory XML standards. [http://www.novell.com/lead_stories/1999/jul12/index.html, 7/99, Andrius Kulikauskas, Thanks to KK Aw]

Objects

Open Knowledge Base Connectivity (OKBC) is an application programming interface for accessing knowledge bases stored in knowledge representation systems (KRSs), where the latter are taken broadly to include object-oriented databases. "OKBC provides a uniform model of KRSs based on a common conceptualization of classes, individuals, slots, facets, and inheritance.""The OKBC knowledge model supports an object-oriented representation of knowledge. It assumes a universe of discourse consisting of all entities about which knowledge is to be expressed." "The OKBC knowledge model is an implicit representation formalism which underlies all the operations provided by OKBC. It serves as an implicit interlingua for knowledge that is being communicated using OKBC, and systems that use OKBC translate knowledge into and out of that interlingua as needed." [http://www.ai.sri.com/~okbc/, 7/99, Andrius Kulikauskas]

"OKBC consists of a set of operations that provide a generic interface to underlying KRSs. This interface isolates an application from many of the idiosyncrasies of a specific KRS and enables the development of tools (e.g., graphical browsers, frame editors, analysis tools, inference tools) that operate on many KRSs." "OKBC is defined in a programming language independent fashion, and has existing implementations in Common Lisp, Java, and C. The protocol transparently supports networked as well as direct access to KRSs and knowledge bases." [http://www.ai.sri.com/~okbc/, 7/99, Andrius Kulikauskas]

A Programmatic Foundation for Knowledge Base Interoperability, an eight page paper by Vinay K. Chaudhri (Artificial Intelligence Center, SRI International), Adam Farquhar (Knowledge Systems Laboratory), Richard Fikes (Knowledge Systems Laboratory), Peter Karp (Pangea Systems), and James P. Rice (Knowledge Systems Laboratory) describes Open Knowledge Base Connectivity 2.0. This paper appears on the WWW as well as in the proceedings of AAAI-98. [http://www-ksl-svc.stanford.edu:5915/doc/papers/ksl-98-08/index.html, 7/99, Andrius Kulikauskas. Thanks to Saulius Maskeliunas 2/99]

The OKBC Working Group oversees the development of OKBC. Richard Fikes is the chair, and six institutions are voting members: Cycorp, Information Sciences Institute, Knowledge Systems Laboratory (Stanford), Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), SRI International, Teknowledge. The quotes above are taken from the Open Knowledge Base Connectivity Home Page, which has a helpful FAQ. [http://www.ai.sri.com/~okbc/, 7/99, Andrius Kulikauskas]

Artificial Intelligence Center of SRI International and Knowledge Systems Laboratory of Stanford University together developed the Generic Frame Protocol (GFP) for frame representation systems which was the precursor to the OKBC. [http://www.ai.sri.com/~okbc/, 7/99, Andrius Kulikauskas]

Field Structure

Infrared Mobile Computing (IrMC) is an Optional Data Protocol of the Infrared Data Association (IrDA) specifying how devices such as smart phones, handsets, pagers, and desktop computers can transfer, exchange, and synchronize information. This includes vCard for exchanging business cards between Phone Book Applications, vCalendar for calendar and todo items between Calendar Applications, vMessage for text messages such as email between Messaging Applications, and vNote for short notes between Note applications. All of these IrMC Objects are accessible through operations defined by the OBEX Data Exchange. The insecure nature of infrared transmission is not recommended for transfering PINs and passwords. The specifications can be downloaded at no charge from the IrDA website. The Working Group Convenors are Robert K. Lockhart, rob.lockhart@mot.com, of Motorola, Inc. and James Scales, james.scales@nmp.nokia.com, of Nokia Mobile Phones, Ltd., and the editor is John Stossel, jstossel@drycreek.com, of Dry Creek Software. [http://www.irda.org/ standards/ standards.asp, Andrius Kulikauskas, 4/99. Thanks, Barry Dobyns 2/99]

The IrMC focuses on atomic information exchange, which is the exchange of objects, that is, records. It supports several different levels of sophistication for information exchange. Level 1, the Minimum level, is for the transfer of a single object to an Inbox where a user can later decide whether it belongs in a phone book, a calendar, or a notebook. Level 2, the Access level, is for transfering an entire collection of objects, known as an object store, for example, all of the entries in a calendar. Level 3, the Index level, is for transfering a single object to and from an object store, making it possible to read, write, modify and delete the objects within an object store. Here there is a primary key that associates to each object a distinct and fixed whole number, starting with 0. Level 4, the Sync level, makes it possible to retrieve from an object store those obects that have changed since a given time, making it possible to synchronize data. The synchronization is done through time stamps, and preferably, change counters.

The level at which an object is participating can be deduced from its pathname, for example, "1.vcf" is level 1, "telecom/1.vcf" is level 2, "telecom/pb/1.vcf" is level 3, and "telecom/pb/luid/1.vcf" is level 4.

A distinction is made between connection-oriented services, which have an error-free link provided by IrLAP and IrLMP protocols, and connectionless services, which do not offer any error correction and are meant for simple devices and small amounts of data. The error-free link is required for levels 2, 3, and 4.

X-IRMC-FIELDS is the extension property for the dynamic fields mapping, which means that it provides the information needed to decode a record, especially the assumptions that can be made regarding their contents.

On March 1, 1999, Avantgo and Puma announced that they had made available on the Avantgo website the Mobile Application Link open source code for handheld-to-server connectivity. Microsoft, Sybase and Symbol were said to support Mobile Application Link as central to the growth of the corporate handheld market. The press release also gives links to investors in Avantgo. [http://www.avantgo.com/news/pr/?date=19990301, Andrius Kulikauskas, 3/99]

Logic

Knowledge Interchange Format (KIF) is "a language designed for use in the interchange of knowledge among disparate
computer systems (created by different programmers, at different times, in different languages, and so forth)." The main features of KIF are that KIF expressions can be understood without appeal to an interpreter for manipulating those expressions, KIF provides for the expression of arbitrary logical sentences, and KIF provides for the representation of knowledge about knowledge. The draft proposed American National Standard for KIF includes definition of the syntax (characters, lexemes, expressions), sentences, logic, numbers, list, strings, and metaknowledge. KIF strives to be implementable, in theory, if not in practice. It also strives to be readable by humans. Michael R. Genesereth leads a KIF mailing list. [http://logic.stanford.edu/kif/dpans.html, Andrius Kulikauskas, 6/99]

Mediation

HP e-speak is an open, standards-based platform being developed by Hewlett-Packard for the creation, composition, mediation, management, and access of Internet-based services. It is a services mediation layer much like a meta-request broker. Requests for a service or resource, for example, from a manufacturer to a supplier, are sent in the form of a name with attributes and a permission key. The mediation layer checks the permissions and passes the request to a resource handler that understands the request and can execute it without the guidance of the requestor or the use of the same naming system. Write to e-speak_partners@hp.com for information on partnering. KK Aw notes, "What we need is K' Speak." [http://www.internetsolutions.enterprise.hp.com/espeak/faq.html, 7/99, Andrius Kulikauskas, Thanks, KK Aw]

Space and Time

Christine Parent, Stefano Spaccapietra, and Esteban Zimanyi are authors of Modeling Time from a Conceptual Perspective. They have also developed the model MADS (Modeling of application Data with Spatio-temporal features) for designers, which they described in a tutorial. The structural features of MADS are object types, relationship types, attributes, generalization links, aggregation links, and associated integrity constraints.
In order to model spatial characteristics, they associate spatiality to information as well as constraints. They define the concepts of envelope, interior, and topological relationships for general composite objects. They distinguish topological relationships and spatial aggregation. They decribe continuous fields by reconciling the discrete (vector) view and the continuous (raster) view. They deal with the semantics of generalization and inheritance when objects have different kinds of spatiality.
In order to model temporal characteristics, they assign temporality to attributes (simple and complex) and to objects (yielding life cycles of objects). They deal with the semantics of generalization when one must relate temporal and non-temporal object types, and also with inheritance mechanisms that redefine and refine temporality when the temporality of the supertype refers to that of a subtype. They describe inter-object dynamics where time plays an essential role, using the following categories: transition relationship, generation relationship, timing relationship, and snapshot aggregation. Christophe Claramunt, Christine Parent, Marius Thériault have written a paper: An Entity-relationship Model for Spatio-Temporal Processes, DS-7 1997. [http://www.csee.umbc.edu/cikm/1999/tutorials.html, 11/99, Andrius Kulikauskas]

General Information

Literature

Towards a Web Object Model, February 2, 1998, by Frank Manola, fmanola@objs.com, of Object Services and Consulting, is a very helpful paper for understanding how various standards are positioned with regard to the merging of object models and the World Wide Web. It discusses: Structured Data Representations and "Lightweight Object Models" (SOIF, OEM, KIF, XML), Higher-Level Models and Metadata (Dublin Core, Warwick Framework, PICS and PICS-NG, XML-Data, MCF, RDF), Adding Behavior to Web Pages (DOM, Embedded Objects, Web Interface Definition Language), Related OMG Technologies (OMG Property Service, Tagged Data Facility) before suggesting principles for a Web Object Model (Logic Basis, Representation of Higher Level Semantics, Object Logics) [http://www.objs.com/OSA/wom.htm, 7/99, Andrius Kulikauskas]

Uta Priss has a syllabus for her Spring 2000 class Information Representation at the Cognitive Science Program/School of Informatics at Indiana University. [http://php.indiana.edu/~upriss/q200/q200syllabus.html, 2/00, Andrius Kulikauskas]

Technical Committee H7 Object Model Features Matrix, May 25, 1997, is intended for analyzing object model interoperability issues. It compares about twenty object models, identifying key variations in important object model characteristics. The features considered include: intended use, basic concepts, objects, binding, polymorphism, encapsulation, identity/equality/copy, types and classes, inheritance and delegation, noteworthy objects, extensibility, object languages, and semantics of base classes (+ type constructors). The object models, and their submitters, are: OODBTG Reference Model (Craig Thompson), OMG Core Object Model (Bill Kent, updated by Frank Manola), OMG CORBA IDL (Don Belisle), ODMG (Gail Mitchell), EXPRESS (Steve Clark and Elizabeth Fong), Open Distributed Processing (Ed Stull, updated by Haim Kilov), Management Information Model (Laura Redmann), SQL3 (H2) (Frank Manola and Jeff Sutherland), Matisse (Jeff Sutherland), C++ (J16) (Frank Manola), OO COBOL (J4) (Frank Manola), Smalltalk (J20) (Glenn Hollowell), Eiffel (NICE (Eiffel Consortium)), Emerald (Frank Manola), Cecil (Frank Manola), SELF (Frank Manola), System Object Model (SOM) (Don Belisle), OLE Component Object Model (Frank Manola), Analysis and Design Methods (Joaquin Miller). Of special interest is the Analysis and Design study by Joaquin Miller, which compares how the concepts are used by eighteen or so methodologies. The editor, Frank Manola, fmanola@objs.com, invites comments. Frank Manola, Object Services and Consulting, Inc.151 Tremont Street #22R, Boston, MA 02111 USA, (617) 426-9287 [http://www.objs.com/x3h7/fmindex.htm, 7/99, Andrius Kulikauskas]

In the journal "Informatica" Volume 10 Issue 2 there is an article: Sten Carlsson, Beneth Christiansson The Concept of Object and its Relation to Human Thinking: Some Misunderstandings Concerning the Connection between Object-Orientation and Human Thinking, pp.147-160. [http://neris.mii.lt/mii/mii_engl/bndr_an/informat/intic_tr.htm, 8/99, Saulius Maskeliunas]

Glossary

Knowledge representation

"What is a Knowledge Representation?" R. Davis, H. Shrobe, and P. Szolovits. What is a Knowledge Representation? AI Magazine, 14(1):17-33, 1993. The entire text of this lengthy article is posted on the Internet. [http:// www.medg.lcs.mit.edu /ftp /psz /k-rep.html, http:// medg.lcs.mit.edu/ ftp/ psz/ k-rep.html, Saulius Maskeliunas, 5/99]

"The term k n o w l e d g e r e p r e s e n t a t i o n l a n g u a g e (KRL) is used to refer to the language used by a particular system to encode the knowledge. The collection of knowledge used by the system is referred to as a k n o w l e d g e b a s e (KB).'' The NLP Dictionary, Copyright Bill Wilson, 1998 [http:// www.cse.unsw.edu.au /~billw /nlpdict.html #knowledgeR, Saulius Maskeliunas, 5/99]

885 Definition of Knowledge Representation: "K n o w l e d g e R e p r e s e n t a t i o n refers to the formalism, both syntax and semantics, used to store knowledge in the architecture. There are various ways of doing this, all of which will be explained
below." Definitions are given for the following: (1) Declarative kn. (2) Procedural kn. (3) Symbolic kn. (4) SubSymbolic kn. (5) Uniform Representation (6) Non-Uniform Representation [http:// krusty.eecs.umich.edu /cogarch5 /menu /props /kr, Saulius Maskeliunas, 5/99]

"2.7 Knowledge Representation A k n o w l e d g e r e p r e s e n t a t i o n is a way of expressing knowledge for communication (possibly human-to-human, human-to-machine, or machine-to-machine). Refinements include computer knowledge representation. A knowledge representation can be general (e.g., the web-page representation of concepts under
discussion in and illustrated by this document) or, more commonly, specific to a subject area (e.g., providing special alphabets and notation for expressing mathematical knowledge). Specific subject area knowledge representations might be developed as refinements of a general knowledge representation."
"2.7.1 Computer Representation of Knowledge Computer representation of knowledge (a.k.a. machine representation
of knowledge) is a knowledge representation that is implemented or implementable in a computer medium, including operations for storing and examining units or collections of represented knowledge, and for searching among them to select certain units or collections. Not all of these operations are necessarily automated in the computer medium."
A Generic Programming Concept Web (Incomplete Draft, June 09, 1998), David R. Musser [http:// www-ca.informatik.uni-tuebingen.de/ people/ musser/ gpseminar/ concepts.html, Saulius Maskeliunas, 5/99]

Standards Bodies

The Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) has a website for standards that includes information about the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC), the Document Management Alliance (DMA), and the Open Document Management API (ODMA). It also contains a link for searching the ANSI, ISO, and IEC standards. [http://www.aiim.org/industry/standards/index.html Andrius Kulikauskas 3/99 Thanks to Harlan Hugh 3/99].

ISO standards search page [http://www.iso.ch/infoe/catinfo.html, Saulius Maskeliunas, 2/99]

ANSI standards search page [http://www.ansi.org/catalog/search.html, Saulius Maskeliunas, 2/99]

National Committee for IT Standards [http://www.ncits.org, Saulius Maskeliunas, 2/99]

The Internet Engineering Task Force is devoted to the evolution and smooth operation of the Internet. It is large international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers that is open to all interested individuals. The Tao of IETF is a guide for new attendees of the IETF. Work is done through about one hundred working groups. There is a working group for calendaring and scheduling. [http://www.ietf.org/, Andrius Kulikauskas, 1/00]

The Internet Research Task Force is devoted to the long term evolution of the Internet and through small research groups promotes research related to Internet protocols, applications, architecture and technology. There was, but no longer exists, a research group for Information Infrastructure Architecture. [http://www.irtf.org, 1/00, Andrius Kulikauskas]

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has a Technical Standards Committee. Its website contains link to various standards groups including the Object Management Group (OMG). [http://www.acm.org/tsc/ Andrius Kulikauskas 3/99, Thanks to Saulius Maskeliunas, Harlan Hugh 3/99].

The National Industrial Information Infrastructure Protocols (NIIIP) Consortium is a group of eighteen organizations lead by IBM that are cooperating with the United States government, including the military, to develop open industry software protocols as the infrastracture for virtual enterprises. The idea is that enterprises should be able to work in an integrated fashion regardless of size or location. NIIIP builds on four standards: Internet-IETF for connectivity, OMG-CORBA for application interoperability, ISO-STEP for representing and passing product data, and WfMC for managing processes across the Virtual Enterprise. Related projects are dedicated to integrating manufacturing (SMART), and also shipbuilding (SHIIP and SPARS).
[http://www.niiip.org/, 7/99, Andrius Kulikauskas]