EMOXG: "links to the rest of the world" XML spec ideas

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"



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 

     tag and  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

      

     

    ii) with SMIL

     One could use the SMIL  tag and its synonyms

    "animation", "audio", "img", "text", "textstream" and "video". 

     EXAMPLE

      

      

    iii) with EMMA

     There is no own tag for source-signals, only an attribute to the "interpretation"-tag

     EXAMPLE

      

      

        emma:medium="acoustic" emma:mode="voice"/> 

  

  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

     

     

    

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: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

     

       Show this text for a short period.

     


  

  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

           

           

           

            

          

         or, 

       ii) implicitely, as a set of timing attributes that are valid for

          specific elements, like EMMA and SMIL do,

          EXAMPLE

           

           

           

          



    In order to fulfil requirement 8 iii), the referential description of

    timing (see [1]), we could use the Emma syntax: and define two

    elements:  and  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

    

    

     

      

      

        emma:time-ref-anchor-point="start"

        emma:offset-to-start="2s" />

      

        emma:time-ref-anchor-point="end"

        emma:offset-to-start="0" />

     

  

   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?

  

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

   

    

    

      src="http://example.org/persons/janeDoe"/>

    

      src="http://example.org/behaviours/throwArmsUp"/>

    

      src="http://gigs.org/events/1967/gig1234"/>

    

      src="http://www.beatles.com"/>

  



added....



This requirement seems to really be in 2 parts, a. the link and b. the semantics.

In this case we could mix this specification and use one of the link examples 

above but specify a new emotion tag for the semantics, which are emotion specific.



 

    

    

        

    







[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.html#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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