This paper proposes XML Equivalent Transformation (XET) as an XML-based rule langauge for the Web, which seamlessly integrates human-readable documents and computer-interpretable programs by considering XML documents and XML expressions---an extension of ordinary XML elements with variables---as its first class programming entities. With XET, arbitrary XML documents, representing application data, information or knowledge on the Web possibly encoded in certain XML applications, become immediately a program's input data. Manipulation and computation of such an input document (data) is performed by semantically-equivalently transforming the document successively until a desirable one is obtained. The input document could be, for example, an XML database query, and thus the output or the desirable document is a set of XML elements yielding the answer to the query. The paper presents the syntax and the computation mechanism of XET and also demonstrates its application to e-business systems.

We define Semantic eBusiness as “an approach to managing knowledge for coordination of eBusiness processes through the systematic application of Semantic Web technologies.” Advances in Semantic Web-based technologies offer the means to integrate heterogeneous systems across organizations in a meaningful way by incorporating ontology—a common, standard, and shareable vocabulary used to represent the meaning of system entities; knowledge representation, with structured collections of information and sets of inference rules that can be used to conduct automated reasoning; and intelligent agents that collect content from diverse sources and exchange semantically enriched information. These primary components of the Semantic Web vision form the foundation technology for semantic eBusiness. The challenge for research in information systems and eBusiness is to provide insight into the design of business models and technical architecture that demonstrate the potential of technical advancements in the computer and engineering sciences to be beneficial to business and consumers. Semantic eBusiness seeks to apply fundamental work done in Semantic Web technologies to support the transparent flow of semantically enriched information and knowledge—including content and know-how—to enable, enhance, and coordinate collaborative eBusiness processes within and across organizational boundaries. Semantic eBusiness processes are characterized by the seamless and transparent flow of semantically enriched information and knowledge. We present a holistic view of semantic eBusiness that integrates emergent and well-grounded Semantic Web technologies to improve the current state of the art in the transparency of eBusiness processes.