One of the primary challenges in putting together a good content management system is building a decent permissions model. Whether a particular user or process is able to perform some kind of an action upon a resource or not can be remarkably difficult to establish, especially when there are multiple constraints involved. For an XML-based CMS, this can be even more of a challenge, because the n-dimensional nature of such a constraint model is often difficult to model in hierarchical structures.

However, RDF is far more ideally suited for this particular role. A permissions system is, at its core, a set of assertions about who can do what to what, which fits nicely with the “subject predicate object” model that RDF exemplifies. Moreover, because such models are sparse — the number of assertions is likely to be very small compared to the total potential assertions that are possible — this fits nicely into models where sparseness of data is a common characteristic (again, RDF), as compared to storing this information (expensively) in tabular fields as with a relational database.

I’m working on building an XML-based CMS (specifically on a MarkLogic platform, though I would like to keep it portable), and realized as I was working on it that while the user permissions system that MarkLogic employs is powerful, it’s not portable and there are facets that don’t fit nicely into that particular model. Thus, I decided to chase the RDF triples approach to see if that would work better for this. (The end product may very well be a hybrid approach to take advantage of fast queries, but that’s beyond the scope of this particular article).

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Semantic Tech & Business Conference Returns to San Francisco

Semantic Tech & Business Conference returns to San Francisco in June! Join us from June 3-7 for complete coverage of Big Data, Linked Data, Extreme Information Management, and Semantic Web. From breakthrough approaches to solving business problems to the big data implications of fast–evolving technologies, SemTechBiz provides you with an unparalleled interactive experience and delivers tangible business value. We're offering a special early rate when you register by February 17. Sign up now!

There were a lot of articles and blog postings written about the Semantic Technology Conference. Below is a list of those we are aware of.  If you know of others, feel free to send them to us at info (at) semanticuniverse.com so we can add them to this list.

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"Bella was such a Mary Sue!" my teenager said in disgust after she got home from seeing the movie Twilight.
"Mary Sue?"
"Yeah, you know, she was like this little too perfect girl. Talk about epic fail!" she replied heading upstairs. "I promised my cosplay group I’d IM them when I got back and talk more about it."

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I was a bit … weird … as a teenager. As part of an Air Force family we moved frequently, and like most teenagers trying to distinguish themselves from their peers, I tried to use my strengths – an active intellect and an ease at working with abstractions – as a way of establishing myself in the new schools I constantly found myself in. I was the "smart kid", the one who took to carrying around large books with titles such as "Principia Mathematica" by Bertrand Russell and Whitehead Alfred North in order to impress people with my intelligence (okay, so perhaps my social intelligence was not quite as well developed at that stage).

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