A more canonical form of content MathML to facilitate math search

Moody E. Altamimi, Abdou S. Youssef

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

Math search is a new area of research with many enabling technologies but also many challenges. Some of the enabling technologies include XML [Extensible Markup Language], XPath [XML Path Language], XQuery [XML Query], and MathML [Mathematical Markup Language] (in particular, the content part of MathML). Some of the challenges involve enabling search systems to recognize mathematical symbols and structures. Several math search projects have made considerable progress in meeting those challenges. One of the remaining challenges is handling notational equivalences. Even though Content MathML has a great impact on the area of math search since it enables a consistent and less ambiguous representation of mathematical expressions, different yet equivalent encodings for the same expression can still be used. In addition, author-defined functions and symbols, an important feature of Content MathML, proves to be a challenge to the area of math search. Authors can associate types with variables and also define functions that can be referenced later throughout the document. One attempt to handle these issues is through the implementation of techniques to transform mathematical documents into a normalized form. The definition of what constitutes a normalized form of a math document is important in that it sets the path for the creation of a more canonical version of Content MathML that is less ambiguous and thus enables better math search capabilities. This paper will discuss these challenges and describe the proposed canonical form of Content MathML in detail.

Original languageEnglish
StatePublished - 2007
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • MathML
  • Querying

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'A more canonical form of content MathML to facilitate math search'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this