Some challenging questions arise today on the relations between textual bibliography and computer... more Some challenging questions arise today on the relations between textual bibliography and computer science: can philologists and computer scientists collaborate not only for encoding variants in digital form – Critical Editions – but also for interpreting these variants from a qualitative and quantitative point of view? Which are the potentialities of a critical approach to the textual bibliography, supported by versioning categories and tools? And, in general, are the studies of text variants fated to disappear or will computer science be able to provide new methods and tools to investigate the origins and evolutions of a text? In this paper we address some of these research questions by presenting a fruitful collaboration over a qualitative analysis of the variants of the first chapter of “I Promessi Sposi” by Alessandro Manzoni. PhiloEditor, a web tool for displaying and annotating text variants, successfully supported such analysis and introduced a new methodology that has been already successfully applied to the legal domain. See the full article here: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2802612
Abstract XML has been proposed in order to bring to the web a markup language free of the shortco... more Abstract XML has been proposed in order to bring to the web a markup language free of the shortcomings of HTML, in particular the inextensibility of the set of valid elements (tags). Stylesheet languages have been proposed for XML, in order to provide precise and sophisticated typographical control over the appearance of textbased data.
Abstract The rapid developments in the eld of distributed, internetworked systems allow the desig... more Abstract The rapid developments in the eld of distributed, internetworked systems allow the design and implementation of rich environments including a wide variety of services and users. The most fashionable among these services is currently the World Wide Web (WWW), whose capabilities however are quite weak to support the necessities of its demanding users.
Abstract Semantic search engines rely on the existence of a rich set of semantic connections betw... more Abstract Semantic search engines rely on the existence of a rich set of semantic connections between the concepts associated to documents and those used for the queries. With folksonomies, this is not always guaranteed. Creating clusters of folksonomic tags around terms of controlled ontological vocabularies is a potentially sophisticated approach, but algorithms abound for this clustering and no clear cut winner exists.
Hypertext functionalities represent part of the distilled wisdom of the hypermedia community. Giv... more Hypertext functionalities represent part of the distilled wisdom of the hypermedia community. Given the peculiar nature of the World Wide Web, it is very difficult to successfully propose functionalities that can become widely accepted. Yet, standards such as XLink may provide the needed basic tools to implement most of them. In this paper we briefly discuss the issues brought forth by the hypertext functionalities and introduce XMLC.
Abstract The technical and competence requirements for writing content on the web is still one of... more Abstract The technical and competence requirements for writing content on the web is still one of the major factors that widens the gap between authors and readers. Although tools that support an easy approach to web writing, such as blogs and wikis, are becoming increasingly important and mainstream, they still lack in terms of layout and typographical sophistication, and, most importantly, only allow local editing (on the pages that are stored by the application itself).
Abstract The use of the World Wide Web as a communication medium for knowledge engineers and soft... more Abstract The use of the World Wide Web as a communication medium for knowledge engineers and software designers is limited by the lack of tools for writing, sharing, and verifying documents written with design notations. For instance, the Z language has a rich set of mathematical characters, and requires graphic-rich boxes and schemas for structuring a specification document. It is difficult to integrate Z specifications and text on WWW pages written with HTML, and traditional tools are not suited for the task.
ABSTRACT We argue that a roadmap for software engineering and the Internet currently should be ba... more ABSTRACT We argue that a roadmap for software engineering and the Internet currently should be based on standards for complex data and document structures, like the Extensible Markup Language (XML). In fact, XML and its cohort of related standards are likely to become an epochal innovation for designing Internet-based software systems. The fields of application of these new notations and related technologies are only limited by human imagination, and simply cannot be enumerated at the moment.
ABSTRACT In this paper we introduce the pattern literal reification, a modelling technique to add... more ABSTRACT In this paper we introduce the pattern literal reification, a modelling technique to address scenarios, in which we need to bless particular literals, usually when applying data properties, in order to use them as subjects and/or full-fledged objects of semantic assertions.
Abstract Meta-information provides an additional layer of abstraction on web documents that can b... more Abstract Meta-information provides an additional layer of abstraction on web documents that can be used for sophisticated applications relying on the precise semantic characterization of their content. Two leading standards, RDF and Topic Maps, compete as the model through which expressing metadata. These two models are sufficiently different as to make back and forth conversion a difficult and imprecise task.
Abstract Current World Wide Web (WWW or Web) standards provide simple support for applications wh... more Abstract Current World Wide Web (WWW or Web) standards provide simple support for applications which allow remote editing of typed data. In practice, the existing capabilities of the WWW have proven inadequate to support efficient, scalable remote editing free of overwriting conflicts.
Abstract Ted Nelson's Xanadu remains an influential example of the way a world wide hypertext sys... more Abstract Ted Nelson's Xanadu remains an influential example of the way a world wide hypertext system should have been, allowing free access to hypertext pages for content customization and editing. This is still impossible or unacceptably difficult on the World Wide Web. Yet, the Web cannot be replaced, given the amount of data and tools that rely on its basic protocols and languages.
ABSTRACT H yper text functionalities r epr es ent a for m of the distilled wisdom of the hyper m ... more ABSTRACT H yper text functionalities r epr es ent a for m of the distilled wisdom of the hyper m edia comm unity. G iven the peculiar natur e of the W or ld W ide W eb, it is very difficult to s ucces s fully propos e functionalities that becom e widely accepted. XM LC is a pr ototype of an XML br ows er that, given its m odular ar chitectur e and gener al s cope, can be pr oposed as the bas is for im plem enting s ophis ticated hyper text functionalities on the W eb. K EYW OR DS: X ML, dis plets, hyper text f unctionalities
Abstract In this paper we introduce some extensions of the anchor concept as a means to better in... more Abstract In this paper we introduce some extensions of the anchor concept as a means to better integrate hypertext documents and allow inclusions, authoring and versioning. Many applications of the anchor concept are listed, as well as a first sketch of their use in a modification session of a document. Paths are improved as well, as a means to integrate browsers and other features like guided tours or the well-known history path; other extensions of the path concept are listed.
Le directory di siti nascono insieme al Web. Già dai primi mesi di esistenza del prototipo WWW di... more Le directory di siti nascono insieme al Web. Già dai primi mesi di esistenza del prototipo WWW di BL, esistevano pagine di link ai server Web esistenti. I motori di ricerca esistevano come prodotto locale (sui documenti contenuti in un unico server), specialmente con WAIS e il protocollo Z39-50. L'ingrandirsi del Web ha reso di estremo successo i motori di ricerca come meccanismo principale di scoperta di risorse su Web.
Abstract: Collaboratively creating documents is a complex task that requires sophisticated tools.... more Abstract: Collaboratively creating documents is a complex task that requires sophisticated tools. CoEd is a system providing overview and versioning support for the creation of complex and hierarchically structured text documents. Its limitations in the efficient management of disk usage and in providing a few sophisticated collaboration functionalities led us to consider the VTML change tracking language for improving the feature set of CoEd.
Abstract The Web 2.0 fosters the creation of communities by offering users a wide array of social... more Abstract The Web 2.0 fosters the creation of communities by offering users a wide array of social software tools. While the success of these tools is based on their ability to support different interaction patterns among users by imposing as few limitations as possible, the communities they support are not free of rules (just think about the posting rules in a community forum or the editing rules in a thematic wiki).
Abstract XML is an extremely promising approach to the standardization of most data structures, b... more Abstract XML is an extremely promising approach to the standardization of most data structures, but the rendering semantics proposed with XSL is not sufficiently general, lacking support for arbitrary graphic objects and sophisticated notations. In this paper we introduce XMLC, a generic, modular XML browser that can display any kind of notation required for XML documents, and we also discuss the use of XMLC for active documents.
Il sistema (chiamato Memex) era basato su un meccanismo di fotografia e microfilmazione automatic... more Il sistema (chiamato Memex) era basato su un meccanismo di fotografia e microfilmazione automatica di fogli, sulla possibilità di punzonare secondo codici prestabiliti i microfilm, e su un meccanismo di ricerca rapida di microfilm sulla base di queste punzonature. Esso era ovviamente troppo lento per un'utilizzo pratico, e l'elettronica rese obsoleta la tecnologia meccanica. Tuttavia, erano presenti tutte le idee degli ipertesti.
Three years ago, when two of us guest edited a special section on hyperme-dia design for this mag... more Three years ago, when two of us guest edited a special section on hyperme-dia design for this magazine [1], the Web was a relatively nascent field. At that time, our focus was on the general principles for designing hypermedia applications.
Some challenging questions arise today on the relations between textual bibliography and computer... more Some challenging questions arise today on the relations between textual bibliography and computer science: can philologists and computer scientists collaborate not only for encoding variants in digital form – Critical Editions – but also for interpreting these variants from a qualitative and quantitative point of view? Which are the potentialities of a critical approach to the textual bibliography, supported by versioning categories and tools? And, in general, are the studies of text variants fated to disappear or will computer science be able to provide new methods and tools to investigate the origins and evolutions of a text? In this paper we address some of these research questions by presenting a fruitful collaboration over a qualitative analysis of the variants of the first chapter of “I Promessi Sposi” by Alessandro Manzoni. PhiloEditor, a web tool for displaying and annotating text variants, successfully supported such analysis and introduced a new methodology that has been already successfully applied to the legal domain. See the full article here: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2802612
Abstract XML has been proposed in order to bring to the web a markup language free of the shortco... more Abstract XML has been proposed in order to bring to the web a markup language free of the shortcomings of HTML, in particular the inextensibility of the set of valid elements (tags). Stylesheet languages have been proposed for XML, in order to provide precise and sophisticated typographical control over the appearance of textbased data.
Abstract The rapid developments in the eld of distributed, internetworked systems allow the desig... more Abstract The rapid developments in the eld of distributed, internetworked systems allow the design and implementation of rich environments including a wide variety of services and users. The most fashionable among these services is currently the World Wide Web (WWW), whose capabilities however are quite weak to support the necessities of its demanding users.
Abstract Semantic search engines rely on the existence of a rich set of semantic connections betw... more Abstract Semantic search engines rely on the existence of a rich set of semantic connections between the concepts associated to documents and those used for the queries. With folksonomies, this is not always guaranteed. Creating clusters of folksonomic tags around terms of controlled ontological vocabularies is a potentially sophisticated approach, but algorithms abound for this clustering and no clear cut winner exists.
Hypertext functionalities represent part of the distilled wisdom of the hypermedia community. Giv... more Hypertext functionalities represent part of the distilled wisdom of the hypermedia community. Given the peculiar nature of the World Wide Web, it is very difficult to successfully propose functionalities that can become widely accepted. Yet, standards such as XLink may provide the needed basic tools to implement most of them. In this paper we briefly discuss the issues brought forth by the hypertext functionalities and introduce XMLC.
Abstract The technical and competence requirements for writing content on the web is still one of... more Abstract The technical and competence requirements for writing content on the web is still one of the major factors that widens the gap between authors and readers. Although tools that support an easy approach to web writing, such as blogs and wikis, are becoming increasingly important and mainstream, they still lack in terms of layout and typographical sophistication, and, most importantly, only allow local editing (on the pages that are stored by the application itself).
Abstract The use of the World Wide Web as a communication medium for knowledge engineers and soft... more Abstract The use of the World Wide Web as a communication medium for knowledge engineers and software designers is limited by the lack of tools for writing, sharing, and verifying documents written with design notations. For instance, the Z language has a rich set of mathematical characters, and requires graphic-rich boxes and schemas for structuring a specification document. It is difficult to integrate Z specifications and text on WWW pages written with HTML, and traditional tools are not suited for the task.
ABSTRACT We argue that a roadmap for software engineering and the Internet currently should be ba... more ABSTRACT We argue that a roadmap for software engineering and the Internet currently should be based on standards for complex data and document structures, like the Extensible Markup Language (XML). In fact, XML and its cohort of related standards are likely to become an epochal innovation for designing Internet-based software systems. The fields of application of these new notations and related technologies are only limited by human imagination, and simply cannot be enumerated at the moment.
ABSTRACT In this paper we introduce the pattern literal reification, a modelling technique to add... more ABSTRACT In this paper we introduce the pattern literal reification, a modelling technique to address scenarios, in which we need to bless particular literals, usually when applying data properties, in order to use them as subjects and/or full-fledged objects of semantic assertions.
Abstract Meta-information provides an additional layer of abstraction on web documents that can b... more Abstract Meta-information provides an additional layer of abstraction on web documents that can be used for sophisticated applications relying on the precise semantic characterization of their content. Two leading standards, RDF and Topic Maps, compete as the model through which expressing metadata. These two models are sufficiently different as to make back and forth conversion a difficult and imprecise task.
Abstract Current World Wide Web (WWW or Web) standards provide simple support for applications wh... more Abstract Current World Wide Web (WWW or Web) standards provide simple support for applications which allow remote editing of typed data. In practice, the existing capabilities of the WWW have proven inadequate to support efficient, scalable remote editing free of overwriting conflicts.
Abstract Ted Nelson's Xanadu remains an influential example of the way a world wide hypertext sys... more Abstract Ted Nelson's Xanadu remains an influential example of the way a world wide hypertext system should have been, allowing free access to hypertext pages for content customization and editing. This is still impossible or unacceptably difficult on the World Wide Web. Yet, the Web cannot be replaced, given the amount of data and tools that rely on its basic protocols and languages.
ABSTRACT H yper text functionalities r epr es ent a for m of the distilled wisdom of the hyper m ... more ABSTRACT H yper text functionalities r epr es ent a for m of the distilled wisdom of the hyper m edia comm unity. G iven the peculiar natur e of the W or ld W ide W eb, it is very difficult to s ucces s fully propos e functionalities that becom e widely accepted. XM LC is a pr ototype of an XML br ows er that, given its m odular ar chitectur e and gener al s cope, can be pr oposed as the bas is for im plem enting s ophis ticated hyper text functionalities on the W eb. K EYW OR DS: X ML, dis plets, hyper text f unctionalities
Abstract In this paper we introduce some extensions of the anchor concept as a means to better in... more Abstract In this paper we introduce some extensions of the anchor concept as a means to better integrate hypertext documents and allow inclusions, authoring and versioning. Many applications of the anchor concept are listed, as well as a first sketch of their use in a modification session of a document. Paths are improved as well, as a means to integrate browsers and other features like guided tours or the well-known history path; other extensions of the path concept are listed.
Le directory di siti nascono insieme al Web. Già dai primi mesi di esistenza del prototipo WWW di... more Le directory di siti nascono insieme al Web. Già dai primi mesi di esistenza del prototipo WWW di BL, esistevano pagine di link ai server Web esistenti. I motori di ricerca esistevano come prodotto locale (sui documenti contenuti in un unico server), specialmente con WAIS e il protocollo Z39-50. L'ingrandirsi del Web ha reso di estremo successo i motori di ricerca come meccanismo principale di scoperta di risorse su Web.
Abstract: Collaboratively creating documents is a complex task that requires sophisticated tools.... more Abstract: Collaboratively creating documents is a complex task that requires sophisticated tools. CoEd is a system providing overview and versioning support for the creation of complex and hierarchically structured text documents. Its limitations in the efficient management of disk usage and in providing a few sophisticated collaboration functionalities led us to consider the VTML change tracking language for improving the feature set of CoEd.
Abstract The Web 2.0 fosters the creation of communities by offering users a wide array of social... more Abstract The Web 2.0 fosters the creation of communities by offering users a wide array of social software tools. While the success of these tools is based on their ability to support different interaction patterns among users by imposing as few limitations as possible, the communities they support are not free of rules (just think about the posting rules in a community forum or the editing rules in a thematic wiki).
Abstract XML is an extremely promising approach to the standardization of most data structures, b... more Abstract XML is an extremely promising approach to the standardization of most data structures, but the rendering semantics proposed with XSL is not sufficiently general, lacking support for arbitrary graphic objects and sophisticated notations. In this paper we introduce XMLC, a generic, modular XML browser that can display any kind of notation required for XML documents, and we also discuss the use of XMLC for active documents.
Il sistema (chiamato Memex) era basato su un meccanismo di fotografia e microfilmazione automatic... more Il sistema (chiamato Memex) era basato su un meccanismo di fotografia e microfilmazione automatica di fogli, sulla possibilità di punzonare secondo codici prestabiliti i microfilm, e su un meccanismo di ricerca rapida di microfilm sulla base di queste punzonature. Esso era ovviamente troppo lento per un'utilizzo pratico, e l'elettronica rese obsoleta la tecnologia meccanica. Tuttavia, erano presenti tutte le idee degli ipertesti.
Three years ago, when two of us guest edited a special section on hyperme-dia design for this mag... more Three years ago, when two of us guest edited a special section on hyperme-dia design for this magazine [1], the Web was a relatively nascent field. At that time, our focus was on the general principles for designing hypermedia applications.
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Papers by Fabio Vitali
In this paper we address some of these research questions by presenting a fruitful collaboration over a qualitative analysis of
the variants of the first chapter of “I Promessi Sposi” by Alessandro Manzoni. PhiloEditor, a web tool for displaying and
annotating text variants, successfully supported such analysis and introduced a new methodology that has been already successfully applied to the legal domain.
See the full article here:
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2802612
In this paper we address some of these research questions by presenting a fruitful collaboration over a qualitative analysis of
the variants of the first chapter of “I Promessi Sposi” by Alessandro Manzoni. PhiloEditor, a web tool for displaying and
annotating text variants, successfully supported such analysis and introduced a new methodology that has been already successfully applied to the legal domain.
See the full article here:
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2802612