A new publishing paradigm: STM articles as part of the semantic web

An argument is presented for replacing the traditional published scientific technical or medical article, where heavy reliance is placed on human perception of a printed or a printable medium, by a more data-centric model with well-defined structures expressed using XML languages. Stich articles can be regarded as self-defining or 'intelligent': they can be scaled down to fine-level details such as, for example, atoms in molecules, up into journals or higher-order collections, and can he used by software agents as well as humans. Our vision is that this higher-order concept, often referred to as the semantic web, would lay the foundation for the creation of an open and global knowledge base.