Re: [EMOXG] xml spec subgroup: links to rest of world

Hi all,

since I might not be able to attend the meeting tomorrow, here's my 
first thoughts reading this report (typed in replyed-to text).
Thanks for your work!

Christian

Burkhardt, Felix schrieb:
> Hi all,
> this is our report about possible specification for "links to the rest
> of the world" as recorded in [7]
> 
> General remarks:
> The main question for things that are not directly related to
> emotion/affect is: shall we specify them ourself or advise the use of
> similar xml specifications (make or buy)? 
> 
> arguments to use existing specifications:
>   a. It is not core to Emotion, so not worth us inventing something new
>   b. Many specifications exist
>   c. Using a format from one of our "neighbors" will help foster closer
> integration of our groups / standards
> 
> arguments for own specification:
>   a. other specifications have different focus: more "workaround" than
>   real fit.
>   b. uncomplete specification might be cumbersome to use
>   b. other specifications (EMMA, SMIL) also deliver "complete service"

     d. using existing specification requires the user to become 
familiar with at least parts of that other spec as well (learning 2 
specs at the same time). - I personally wouldn't like this.


> In this report we try to show both approaches for consideration.
> 
> Nearby specifications used in this report (other suggestions WELCOME):
> A) HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)
> html is a ML to format docs in browsers [2].
> B) SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language)
> smil is a markup to format streaming media shows [3].
> C) EMMA (Extensible MultiModal Annotation Markup Language)
> emma is a markup describe multimodal interaction [4]. 
> D) MIME types
> content types defined by the MIME group include "text/html",
> "image/png", "image/gif", "video/mpeg", "text/css", and
> "audio/basic" [6] 
> 
> 
> Now we go through the three requirements of "links to the rest of the
> world": 
> 1. "links to media", 2. "position on a timeline / emotion timing" and 3.
> "semantics of links".
>  
> Links 1. Links to media
>   cite requirements [1];
>   "The emotion markup must be able to refer to external media of various
>   kinds, including videos, pictures, audio files, and nodes in an XML
>   document."
>   
>   SUGGESTION a) recommend use of other spec:
>     i) with HTML
>      Link comes in two flavours, "a" and "link", the difference between
> <a>
>      tag and <link> tag is that links may only appear in the header of a
>      html doc, will not be displayed and is not allowed to have an
> end-tag.
>      EXAMPLE
>      <emotion> <category name="pleasure"/>
>      <html:a href="file:///mySound.pcm" type="audio/basic"/></emotion>
>     ii) with SMIL
>      One could use the SMIL <ref> tag and its synonyms
>     "animation", "audio", "img", "text", "textstream" and "video". 
>      EXAMPLE
>      <emotion> <category name="pleasure"/>
>      <smil:audio src="file:///mySound.pcm"/> </emotion>
>     iii) with EMMA
>      There is no own tag for source-signals, only an attribute to the
> "interpretation"-tag
>      EXAMPLE
>      <emotion> <category name="pleasure" />
>       <emma:interpretation
> emma:signal="http://EXAMPLE.com/signals/audio.wav"
>         emma:medium="acoustic" emma:mode="voice"/> </emotion>
>   
>   SUGGESTION b) define an own tag for links to media:
>     Because the application of the other MLs differs from that of the
> EmotionML,
>     we might define our own link and baptize it, perhaps, "media". 
>     Of course we still can use URIs [5] and MIME types [6].
>     EXAMPLE
>     <emotion> <category name="pleasure"/>
>     <media src="file:///mySound.pcm"/ type="audio/basic"> </emotion>

I feel more inclined towards the b) version.
We might consider using tag or attribute names identical to SMIL or 
EMMA, to make it easier for those familiar with these.


> Links 2. Position on a time line in externally linked objects and
>   cite requirements [1]:
>   "The emotion markup must provide a mechanism for complementing a link
>   to media with timing information, in order to further specify the
>   scope of the link."
>   Together with
>   Core 8. Emotion timing: "The emotion markup must provide a generic
> mechanism for temporal scope."
>   
>   Generally spoken we could use for durations the clock value
> description for
>   time description, as specified in [8]. 
>   An example is 
>    02:30:03 = 2 hours, 30 minutes and 3 seconds or 30s = 30 seconds. 
>   For absolute values we might use, like EMMA, the number of
> milliseconds since 1
>   January 1970.
> 
>   SUGGESTION a) recommend use of other spec:
>     i) with EMMA
>      As Emma deals with multiple input events, its time support is
>      specialized on events starting relative to other events.
>      EXAMPLE
>      <emma:interpretation id="int1" emma:start="1087995961542"
> emma:end="1087995963542"/>
>      <emma:interpretation
>        emma:time-ref-uri="#int1"
>        emma:time-ref-anchor-point="start"
>        emma:offset-to-start="5000"
>        emma:duration="2300"
>      />
>   
>     ii) with SMIL
>      Because SMIL is about displaying streams of multimedia objects, it
>      has support for very complex timed events running in parallel or
>      sequential. A very simple example is this:
>      EXAMPLE
>      <span smil:timeAction="visibility" smil:begin="3s" smil:dur="5s">
>        Show this text for a short period.
>      </span>
>   
>   SUGGESTION b) define own attributes for timing information
>     We than have to decide whether timing shall be expressed by 
>        i) an explicit own element:
>           EXAMPLE
>           <emotion> 
>            <category name="pleasure"/>
>            <media src="file:///mySound.pcm" type="audio/basic"/>
>            <timeSpec start="2s" duration="5s"/> 
>           </emotion>
>          or, 
>        ii) implicitely, as a set of timing attributes that are valid for
>           specific elements, like EMMA and SMIL do,
>           EXAMPLE
>           <emotion start="2s"  end="7s" duration="5s"> 
>            <category name="pleasure"/>
>            <media src="file:///mySound.pcm" type="audio/basic"/>
>           </emotion>

I prefer b i)
     b) prefered to avoid the (for me) irritating other spec's
        name in there (and required knowledge on this)
     i) because it reflects the time information being not an 
essential but optional characteristic of an emotion. For my taste, 
only attributes that are indispensable to describe an emotion should 
be attributes of <emotion>. Time does not belong to this category I 
think.


>     In order to fulfil requirement 8 iii), the referential description
> of
>     timing (see [1]), we could use the Emma syntax: and define two
>     elements: <start> and <end> that can have timing attributes.
>     
>     This would be an example for "start 2 seconds before utterance
> starts and
>     ends with the second noun-phrase..." (with namespaces)
>     EXAMPLE
>     <utterance id="utt1" emma:start="1231314123"/>
>     <nounPhrase id="np1" emma:start="1231316123" emma:duration="3s"/>
>     <emoml:emotion emma:start="2s" emma:duration="5s"> 
>       <emoml:category set="everyday" name="pleasure"/>
>       <emoml:start emma:time-ref-uri="#utt1"
>         emma:time-ref-anchor-point="start"
>         emma:offset-to-start="2s" />
>       <emoml:end   emma:time-ref-uri="#np1"
>         emma:time-ref-anchor-point="end"
>         emma:offset-to-start="0" />
>      </emoml:emotion>

... or similar/identical own (avoiding the "emma:" part).


>    Requirement 8 iv) 
>    "a sampling mechanism providing values for variables at evenly
>    spaced time intervals." 
>    needs clarification, but perhaps should not be a MUST-HAVE
> requirement?

Think so, too (no must-have from my point of view).


> Links 3. The semantics of links to the "rest of the world"
>   cite requirements [1];
>   "The emotion markup must provide a mechanism for assigning meaning to
>   those links. The following initial types of meaning are envisaged:
>       * The experiencer (who "has" the emotion);
>       * The observable behaviour "expressing" the emotion;
>       * The trigger/cause/emotion-eliciting event of the emotion;
>       * The object/target of the emotion (the thing that the emotion is
> about)...."
>   
>   SUGGESTION:  
>   This reminds a bit of our category discussion [9], where we also
>   have the problem to allow users to define an own set but also want to
>   suggest some pre-defined.
>   We suggest to solve it in a similar fashion by defining an element,
> perhaps
>   called "link", that takes as attributes
>   - a role, to declare the "semantic role" of the link
>   - a src, similar to audio src: the target url
>   - a set, similar to the category set attribute, in order to point to
>     the set of pssible semantic roles.
>   Here's an example of Jane Doe who is pleased about a concert performed
>   by the Beatles, described by the roles suggested in the requirements:
>   EXAMPLE
>   <emotion> 
>     <category set="everyday" name="pleasure"/>
>     <link set="myEmotionRoles" role="experiencer"
>       src="http://example.org/persons/janeDoe"/>
>     <link set="myEmotionRoles" role="behaviour"
>       src="http://example.org/behaviours/throwArmsUp"/>
>     <link set="myEmotionRoles" role="trigger"
>       src="http://gigs.org/events/1967/gig1234"/>
>     <link set="myEmotionRoles" role="target"
>       src="http://www.beatles.com"/>
>   </emotion>

seems okay for me.


> 
> [1] http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/emotion/XGR-requirements-20080513/
> [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/links.html
> [3]
> http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/CR-SMIL3-20080115/smil-extended-media-object.h
> tml#edef-ref
> [4] http://www.w3.org/TR/emma/
> [5] http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986
> [6] http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2387
> [7] http://www.w3.org/2008/07/03-emotion-minutes.html#action01
> [8] http://www.w3.org/TR/SMIL3/smil-timing.html#Timing-ClockValueSyntax
> [9]
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-xg-emotion/2008Jul/0000.html
> 

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Christian Peter
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Usability and Assistive Technologies
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Received on Wednesday, 30 July 2008 10:16:47 UTC