1. Enabling Better Decisions
Providing insight, embracing complexity and integrating business

2. Agenda R1 Overview Contract Scope BCR1 Issues Dispositions from BCR1
Issues Arising from BCR2
Main Proposal for next publication
AOB

3. R1 Overview Task DEX (D003) balloted 11 March 2008
PLCS DEXs Version R1
Public Review Draft 01 (no Committee Draft published)
Contained Task DEX, Aviation Maintenance DEX & DEXlib publication
R1 Release at:
Ballot Closed with 312 Comments (BCR1-001 – BCR1-312)
Numerous resolution teleconferences have taken place
Plus Painswick Face-Face Meeting
Resolution Spreadsheet on OASIS site at:

4. Contract Scope
LSC resourced to provide Support to OASIS to focus on DEX D003 Task Set DEX issues
Av DEX specifically not included
Sponsor; UK MoD DE&S (Phil Rutland).
Began late Dec 2009
Under contract until end Feb 2010
TC vote to approve as takes 15 days.
Hence work must be complete by Feb 11th 2010 or before to allow for publication process
No handover process – just spreadsheet of issues.
OASIS Publication Process is documented at:

5. BCR1 Issues
312 Comments + 42 Generated during resolution telecons/meetings (e.g. Painswick).
93 Issues were specifically against DEX D011
70 Issues were specifically against DEX D003
55 Issues were specifically against infrastructure/xslt
37 Issues were specifically against RDL
32 Issues were specifically against templates
26 Issues were rejected (10 D003, 16 Other)
19 Issues were specifically against help/info pages
11 Issues were deferred
9 Issues were closed
2 Issues were specifically against checklists
354 – ( ) = 233 Possibly in scope

6. Dispositions from BCR1 Out of 233 Issues
Worked thru 205 but 28 not worked;
Rejected 6 & deferred a further 22

7. R2 Overview
Task DEX (D003) made available Feb 11th 2010 for 15 day review.
PLCS DEXs Version R2 Committee Draft 01
See
Contains:
Task DEX
See
DEXlib Pages
See
Ballot Closed Feb25th: 46 Comments (BCR2-001 – BCR2-46)
Resolution Spreadsheet on OASIS site at:

8. BCR2 Issues 46 Issues - 37 ESL & 9 Jotne
See spreadsheet on OASIS site; Task Set DEX Ballot Issues BCR2_25Feb2010.xls
Resolved Jotne issues (some deferred, some actionable)
Discussed & agreed with Jotne
Need to discuss some ESL issues, but these should be TC decisions

9. Dispositions from BCR2 Working through issues in spreadsheet
Of 46 issues;
9 Resolved - Actionable: to be done
11 Resolved - Actionable: done
9 Resolved - Rejected
6 Resolved - Defered
11 Un-resolved; Needs discussion
Need resolution/discussion on above issues before next publication
Given effort to publish a draft,

10. Main Issues Arising from BCR2
P28 xsd schema not valid (BCR2-024)
Deprecated Templates (BCR2-012)
Broken Help/Info Pages (BCR BCR2-023)
Reference Data - status incorrect (BCR2-031)
Individuals for Units (BCR2-030)

11. Main Issues Arising from BCR2
P28 xsd schema not valid (BCR2-024)
Applies to both dex3 xsd file & ap239 xsd file
DEXlib-wide problem;
Tool under development but not yet available:
Proposal from ESL to create correct xsd files.
Deprecated Templates (BCR2-012)
Broken Help/Info Pages (BCR BCR2-023)
Reference Data - status incorrect (BCR2-031)
Individuals for Units (BCR2-030)
Note 4
Should OASIS be publishing an ISO schema and issues as part of the Standard (e.g. Task DEX) being balloted? The Task DEX schemas (exp, xsd etc) are part of the DEX being published & should be stand alone without the need for any other schemas. Is it really necessary to have another 'Schemas' section (within an associated DEXlib publication) that describes a set of other ISO & development schemas?  Should this actually be just another informative item in the non-normative section of the cover page? Proposal: add an informative link to the AP239 schemas in the non-normative section of the cover page.

12. Main Issues Arising from BCR2
P28 xsd schema not valid (BCR2-024)
Deprecated Templates (BCR2-012)
No deprecated templates in DEX3.
Facilities for managing what gets published are v.limited, requires lots of manual intervention.
If we are to develop facilities for such publication management (e.g. filtering Templates with a certain status), then a full set of requirements should be agreed upon, developed & tested before use.
No effort/resource/lic to change s/w
Since DEXLIB is a development environment it is not clear whether all Templates on DEXLIB should be published as part of a publication release.
Broken Help/Info Pages (BCR BCR2-023)
Reference Data - status incorrect (BCR2-031)
Individuals for Units (BCR2-030)
Note 1
Deprecated templates are not specific to the Task DEX or an addition from the previous ballot. Since DEXLIB is a development environment it is not clear whether all Templates on DEXLIB should be published as part of a publication release. If we are to develop facilities for such publication management (e.g. filtering Templates with a certain status), then a full set of requirements should be agreed upon, developed & tested before use.

13. Main Issues Arising from BCR2
P28 xsd schema not valid (BCR2-024)
Deprecated Templates (BCR2-012)
Broken Help/Info Pages (BCR BCR2-023)
Links to other OASIS DEXs, Business DEXs, Templates & Reference Data on DEXlib that are not part of the Task DEX being standardised.
help/dex/dexlib_overview.htm -> AvDEX
help/dex/techdes_bus_concept.htm -> NIOSC Business DEXs
help/dex/techdes_bus_concept.htm -> Business Templates & others
help/dex/techdes_bus_concept.htm -> plcs-rdl-uk_defence.rdf-xml.owl
also Links to AP239 Issues docs/Issues -> ap239_issues.htm
DEXlib also duplicates everything in the standard DEX elsewhere in the publication -> ambiguity!
All this is Informative info & should not be part of the “standard” being published. Should just have a non-normative link to Development area which maintains a clear separation between normative & informative.
Reference Data - status incorrect (BCR2-031)
Individuals for Units (BCR2-030)
Note 2
These are not specific to the Task DEX or an addition from the previous ballot. There appear to be many help files which reference examples & information from both OASIS DEXs, Business DEXs and other Templates on DEXLIB. This is fine for informative purposes, but when publishing a Standard, it is impossible to maintain such links to items that are not part of the Standard being published. It raises the question whether it is practical to publish the DEXlib help & infomation pages as part of the Standard, rather than as an informative (non-normative) link where people can go for such information. Since much of DEXlib is still in a development state (of evolution) it is possible that we will never publish a DEX if this is to be included in its present form. Proposal: Only publish the DEX & Templates used in that DEX. Add an informative link to DEXlib help/info pages in the non-normative section of the cover page.
Note 3
This is not specific to the Task DEX or an addition from the previous ballot. Example reference data that is not part of the DEX being published is refered to in various parts of DEXlib, which manifests itself as broken links in the publication. The question that gets raised here is why is it necessary to publish all the reference data being developed within DEXlib? Should only the reference data (& any relevant subclasses) that form part of the Standard being balloted be published? Is it necessary to duplicate the classes balloted within the DEX and the DEXlib published? Much reference data is still under development and reflected by the various annotated stages on DEXLIB. The reference data used is provided within the Task DEX itself, so additional classes are likely to be confusing for s/w developers etc.. Proposal: Only publish the reference data applicable. Add an informative link (non-normative) to DEXlib ref data section in the non-normative section of the cover page.

14. Main Issues Arising from BCR2
P28 xsd schema not valid (BCR2-024)
Deprecated Templates (BCR2-012)
Broken Help/Info Pages (BCR BCR2-023)
Reference Data - status incorrect (BCR2-031)
Ref data stage needs to be set to Committee Draft
But only the Task Set DEX reference data is part of what is being standardised, so what stage does remaining ref data get set to?
What is the purpose of publishing other classes that are still under development?
DEX has sections for everything being standardised, separate area duplicates these and adds ++ -> ambiguity
Should only include Task Set DEX ref data; add non-normative link to development area for the rest?
Individuals for Units (BCR2-030)

15. Main Issues Arising from BCR2
P28 xsd schema not valid (BCR2-024)
Deprecated Templates (BCR2-012)
Broken Help/Info Pages (BCR BCR2-023)
Reference Data - status incorrect (BCR2-031)
Individuals for Units (BCR2-030)
See Individuals Discussion in Note 5 of BCR2 spreadsheet & original disposition in BCR1
Proposing to move forward with Individuals having found an external project that appears to deliver what we need in the format we’re using.
We could re-invent the wheel if people have spare cash…!
The QUDT - Quantities, Units, Dimensions and Data Types project (developed by NASA under the Constellation Program at the AMES Research Center) is available from  and was only published last month in Feb 2010.
However, need time to evaluate & integrate fully, but provides for multiple systems of units, not just SI. Also caters for financial units (as Individuals) too. SI representation uses has constraints & rules on valid combinations of (inc. prefixes, dimensions etc.)
Note - adoption likely to expose further problems in DEXlib for managing individuals, both within a DEX specification & for viewing/collating & publishing.
Propose - this ontology needs to be worked into the current rdl at the level of Unit, Conversion_based_unit, Derived_unit etc.. which are already present thereby extending the stubs of the SI system currently in place. So we could move this issue forward by cutting out the extended classes currently provided & developing the stubs for an external ontology to be imported/harmonised when the TC has had time to evaluate & accept it.
Summary;
A Units Ontology using the OWL RDF/XML format (using constrained Individuals) has recently been published by NASA & appears suitable & rigorous enough for inclusion/reference by this TC. The QUDT - Quantities, Units, Dimensions and Data Types project (developed by NASA under the Constellation Program at the AMES Research Center) is available from was last published in Feb 2010. There is not the time to fully incorporate and test this - and to do the other updates/corrections and produce a publication for the agreed ballot date. It is proposed that the TC agree to evaluate this separately with a view to adopting this ontology instead of (re-)inventing our own. Thus, we move the debate forward to how it should be included. It is thus, suggested that the main Unit Classes in our ontology be pruned back to the point where this new ontology might be harmonised & integrated. This would leave stubs in our ontology that correspond with Unit, Base_unit, Conversion-based unit, derived unit, context_dependent_unit etc.. Since the Task DEX refers to Unit or a sublasses of Unit as being acceptable for the use in specifying the relevant unit within a template, any Unit ontology that integrates below that point can be used if/when adopted by the TC, without changing the DEX. The only required change to the current DEX would be to add a note to state that it may be a member of the Class or SubClass, rather than another Class. Any specific context_dependent Class units used (e.g. man-days, man-hours etc..) would need to either be located in the QUDT onotology or created in the new ontology (extending it).
Individuals Discussion;
There was some disquiet about the representation of Units as OWL Individuals rather than distinct OWL rdf:description classes. The disposition of the issue from the previous ballot was provided in the spreadsheets provided with the R2 ballot & resulted in the re-instatement of the old Unit classes as part of the reference data library. The reason for this was that there appears to be both an infrastructure impact in adopting "Individuals" (e.g. none of the tools in DEXlib explicitly provide for presenting Individuals, or using them) as well as a ref data configuration management impact (how should the set of Units be managed for release?) and lastly a DEX impact (i.e. the template tables refer to a ref data Class or 'SubClass' thereof; not 'Members' of a Class; and also how should they be handled in the DEX rdl.xml file which currently collects ref data used by a DEX, without further impact to the infrastructure to build facilities to identify, collate & present them?) - which meant that this issue was potentially out of scope for the contract we had. However, Units are clearly required & with no resource to research the matter further left only one course of action open.
In addition to this, all the years of effort in developing the SI base units, conversion units, derived units, dimensionless units and the rules for their use with prefixes etc., or how they should relate to other systems of units were not provided for in any of the minutes from the resolution meetings. Furthermore, Units are only one type of possible Individuals that are needed. Others include Currencies and Country codes/individuals. The impact of this is that we need to ensure that the solution works for each of these, not one. Currently, for Units, they are proposed to all be handled as strings, ignoring prefixes and any established rules for the way base units and others can be combined. Instead - it must be presumed that these constraints & rules need to be built into the ontology such that the Individuals are validated either upon creation or by inference using a specific set of axioms to do so. This was also beyond the effort we had to fix the problems with the Task DEX.
It has been asserted that as (strings) these Individuals can be adopted without any change to the two main templates that would be used (e.g. assigning_reference_data, assigning_codes) - by agreeing to abuse the normal use of the External_class.name (i.e a Class) to store the identifier of the individual (until AP239ed2 is complete & worked into another version of the templates in the future which will use the (currently blank) External_class.id attribute). This may be true, but the infrastructure is only geared to filtering, collecting, checking & rendering Class names not Individuals for a DEX.
If the templates can be used as-is, then it could be a useful addition (but knowing there are still infrastructure issues to live with), assuming that the addition of such Individuals in an OWL file will not break any of the current DEXlib infrastructure scripts. One action from these resolution meetings was that it should be investigated whether there is already a usable 'Units' ontology that could be used/imported. This would make much more sense since there are plenty of projects and initiatives who are better positioned to manage and maintain such an ontology. The action was never fulfilled from what I could find out from the person and/or company involved. During the last call I did mention that I had not succeeded in finding a usable RDF OWL ontology that provides units as Individuals in a suitable form.
However, I have located a resource which in addition to the SI & other unit systems, it also provides for financial units (USDollars etc..). The resource is the result of the QUDT - Quantities, Units, Dimensions and Data Types project developed by NASA under the Constellation Program at the AMES Research Center and available from published in Feb This ontology needs to be worked into the current rdl at the level of Unit, Conversion_based_unit, Derived_unit etc.. which are already present thereby extending the stubs of the SI system currently in place. So we could move this issue forward by cutting out the extended classes currently provided & developing the stubs for an external ontology to be imported/harmonised when the TC has had time to evaluate & accept it.

16. Main Proposal Arising from BCR2
The DEXlib development environment is a useful, informative resource.
Latest developmental versions of the templates, Dexs & reference data can be found, along with descriptions about how the methodology & architecture work.
Few people want all the dev. history, issues, help, technology etc., in the actual standard
Issues on all these items detract from the resources available to fix the Standard being balloted.
Furthermore, the title of the publication should probably reflect the content - i.e. an OASIS (PLCS) Task Set DEX - not a set of PLCS DEXs.
Proposal for published Standard
This OASIS (PLCS) DEX publication should standardize only the following components:
The Task Set DEX
Templates used by the DEX
EXPRESS and XML Schemas of the DEX
DEX Reference Data
Other informative information should be links in the non-normative section of the Standard.
Benefits:
Separates development environment from publication(s)
Dexlib remains coherent resource
Standard becomes more maintainable – easier to see changes etc.
Should then also allow easier PDF generation.

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