Project Proposals for William Flynn Scholarship:
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Project Number: 6
Project Title: XML and databases: optimum solutions for web-based
document management systems
Project Supervisors: Professor Paul Mc Kevitt, Mrs Maeve Paris
As a platform- and software- independent language, XML could be
considered an ideal technology around which to construct a publishing
process, and examples of web-based XML document management systems
are emerging (e.g. XML Europe 2001 conference). A publishing process
based on XML and its associated technologies (including XSLT, XPath,
and XQuery among others) has many advantages, but also raises many
questions, which form the basis of this proposed study:
1. Which database should be used for an XML web-based document management
system?
2. What is the optimum presentation technology with supporting tools
for such a project?
1. XML and relational databases
The question of where XML sits in relation to hierarchical, relational
and object-oriented data modelling paradigms is a matter of debate.
RDBMSs continue to be the dominant data storage technique for large-scale
systems, with hierarchical and object databases satisfying specialised
requirements, but in recent years many popular DBMSs have been hybrid
object-relational, which would tend to suggest a blurring between
data model paradigms. At the same time, RDBMS producers support
object-relational and XML features in recent releases. XML databases,
on the other hand, can be divided into native XML and XML-adapted
databases, depending on whether they deal with data-centric or document-centric
documents. Detractors have dismissed XML databases as 'snake oil'
or 'just a comeback of the hierarchical model', while proponents
have argued for their suitability in exploiting semi-structured
data and their portability. This study seeks to discover whether
there is a middle ground between the mathematical rigour of the
relational database model and the flexibility and inherent usability
of XML (perhaps through XMLQuery).
2. XSLT, CSS and programming languages
In relation to the second question of choosing the best presentation
technology with supporting tools for an XML web-based document management
system, there have been recent debates on XSL versus CSS, as well
as questions about the selection of XSLT over programming languages
such as PHP in order to generate presentation content. There are
many benefits of using XML/XSLT in the presentation layer, but there
have been criticisms of XSLT's declarative syntax, and the fact
that it offers a template-driven rather than a procedural approach.
XPath's evolution, combined with the potential XQuery offers may
strengthen XSLT in the longer term.
If you are interested in being considered for a studentship please
contact
the Group Director, Professor T.M. McGinnity by email:
tm.mcginnity@ulst.ac.uk
or telephone: +44-(0)28-71375417.
See the current research section of this website
for details on research projects pursued by existing PhD students
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