Kevin Reilly

Review of:
Terzi, E., Hacid, M. and A. Vakali
"Modeling and querying web data: a constraint-based logic approach"
In: Information modeling for internet applications,
Idea Group Publishing, Hershey, PA, 2003.

Computing Reviews, June 2004, 368, Rev. 0406-0715.



This tract constitutes the book's lead-off chapter. It seems to have been assigned multiple purposes, among which are: 1) a general (research) review of the topic area; 2) developing the constraint-based formalism of the subtitle (for "ordering constraints" and "path constraints"); 3) discourse on queries in general and more specific to chapter applications, e.g., involving "query relaxation"; 4) a case study on queries based on XML data representations.

The chapter lists Sections 1 through 7. A problem is that no section numbers occur in the text! In fact, we could only find an approximation to one of the sections as part of another. Other editing suggestions can be made, e.g., eliminating inconsistencies with Greek and Roman lettering and resolving a proposition number glitch (an absent Proposition 1) and correcting use of "subsumes" where "is subsumed by" is intended. Perhaps, amplification of figure captions would be useful.

There are potential gaps in the discussion. The general parts are too general such that the specific (theoretical) departures are less well documented than they could be. The work is well rooted in previous publications and more specific treatment linking prior and current research would be an improvement.

Despite these criticisms, the chapter is an interesting contribution. We could ask for more. We've already commented on a potential theory improvement, which could well lengthen the discourse. Similarly, operations on role trees defined within are worked out in brief diagram-based argumentation that could also add to the coverage.