UPS: Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Why the definition of such schema?
A: The Universal Profiling Schema (UPS) was created in order to resolve the problem of the content negotiation and adaptation of multimedia services in heterogeneous systems; i.e. where there is a wide diversity of clients. In such situation, services and documents providers must be able to deliver a well adapted document that respects the end-user preferences and capabilities. To achieve that task properly, an efficient solution needs to know some information about the set of elements that play a role in services delivery. UPS is created to be a model that responds to such need. In UPS, elements concerned by the content negotiation and adaptation are identified and so profiles can be defined easily.

Q: Is there any implementations behind UPS?
A: The need of the definition of universal profiling framework for the content negotiation problem was encountered initially during the implementation of an architecture (NAC) that aims to deliver adapted services for heterogeneous devices: i.e. devices like PDA, phones, laptops, etc. UPS was defined to respond to NAC needs but also to be an extensible and flexible tool, indispensable for content authors, application developers, universal services providers, etc. and for those who aim to enable the universal access to their content.

Q: Is the definition of UPS is finished?
A: Not yet. Other new elements and structures will be defined.

Q: Is it realy necessary to include the element 'document profile' in UPS?
A: Yes, if we aim to provide an advanced content negotiation and adaptation strategy we must provide the document profile, which is simply the description of the characteristics and the content of the document and may also include, in some architectures, its semantic. People who work in the context of the content adaptation feel better the importance of such descriptions. In fact, to adapt a content, and to choose the appropriate method to apply according to the delivery context, we need to know the nature of the content that we will process. An example of some of the adaptation efforts, the one introduced in http://www8.org/w8-papers/2b-customizing/user/user.html where the adaptation focuses on synchronized multimedia presentations, note that the need of the document profile (or 'content descriptions', see section 4.1 ) was well identified.

Q: Why a new schema while other schemas exist such as WAG UAProf?
A: UPS is defined in the context of the content negotiation. This means simply that any content negotiation solution, whatever its own matching algorithm or strategy, can use UPS as a base that provide utile information required in the matching and the content deliverance. UPS is not dependent to any particular service or document kind such as WML. Indeed, services can be in the form of WML, XHTML, HTML, or other. Furthermore, UPS don't disregard the "document profile" concept that includes a description of the document structure and semantic; this concept is very important if we aim to ensure an advanced content negotiation solution. Finally, the UPS includes other components such as the network description, the capabilities of servers in term of adaptation and transformation methods etc.



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