SQL

06.18.10

In order for the Semantic Web to become a reality and success, there needs to be data on the web published as Linked Data. However, data on the web is not a new thing. People have been publishing raw data for a long time as XML, CSV or even spreadsheets. Data can also be accessed through APIs.  But where does most of the data on the web come from? Relational Databases!

04.13.09
Executive Summary   

XML Keyword Search is still a popular academic subject. It has not reached or been recognized by XML and Internet commercial products yet. The concepts involved are also very important to the semantic web. The semantics industry today with its work on higher level semantics like ontologies and taxonomies has overlooked the importance of utilizing the semantics of hierarchical structured data like XML. When working with hierarchically structured data, the first level of handling semantic understanding must be recognizing the hierarchical structure and its (lower level) hierarchical semantics. This is then used to eliminate false keyword search results that can show up as matches in hierarchical structures; otherwise they will go undetected to the higher level semantic processing which will also not detect them since they are not concerned with the structure of the data. This will cause unmeaningful results to be returned. 

04.01.09
Executive Summary

Today the data structure transformation terminology of Restructuring and Reshaping are used interchangeably for XML structure transformation processes. There are two basic types of XML hierarchical data structure transformations that need to be distinguished because they are different in meaning, results, and use. These are restructuring controlled by existing relationships in the data, and reshaping controlled by the semantics of the current data structure. Restructuring is performed by using new and unused relationships to restructure the data. On the other hand, reshaping uses the semantics of the current structure to mold the structure into any other shape without requiring or relying on any data relationships in the data. The processing follows correct hierarchical semantics principles to derive correct hierarchical results.

01.14.09

The Semantic Web vision of the World Wide Web Consortium is to extend the current Web, so that “information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation.”1  This is important, as the mix of content on the web and in applications built using web architectures is shifting from exclusively human-oriented content to computer-mediated content.

01.14.09
Executive Summary

The non-obvious ‘second use’ of Excel is that of a universal data recycling bin for Organisational ‘reports’ and ‘data dumps’. Examples exist everywhere; the main reason is that it is just so convenient to do – everyone is an Excel expert when it comes to tidying up, sorting and generally asking questions that can be answered from within any one single spreadsheet. But asking questions that can only be answered by connecting many spreadsheets together is harder to achieve technically and yet the payoff can be large.

01.03.08

The problem of business-IT alignment is of widespread economic concern, and is largely caused by a semantic disconnect between business people and technologists. The business people speak English, and the techies have to translate that English into something a computer can understand — often a low-level, step-by-step way to complete a task. The margin for error is great. The situation is a bit like the childhood game called Telephone — by the time the message gets to the last person, it has changed dramatically from the original. The problem is made worse by the fact that the business requirements often change during a project.