Lifting XML Schemas to RDF/OWL
Greetings,
Anthony Petosa, a colleague of mine, would like to request
feedback on these questions.
While the XML Schema language has a formal syntax and grammar that is
consumable by a machine, it cannot express the meaning of domain terms
in a way that is machine-understandable. For example, an XML Schema
"complexType" element may include multiple nested elements. Yet, the
relations of these elements to their containing element are
indeterminate.
A second challenge is to codify the context of domain terms, which is
not always possible in an XML Schema definition. For example, an XML
Schema definition may include a sequence compositor with a number of
optional elements. Yet, the language does not allow us to determine if
one, some, all, or none of these elements must occur in a given XML
message. Instead a domain subject matter expert must convey the context
required for this determination, and XML Schema definitions must be
developed accordingly.
There is benefit in translating XML Schema language constructs to
RDF/OWL-DL, above all the ability to utilize RDF/OWL to check for
semantic consistency in XML messages and to reason over these messages.
The references below discuss "lifting" XML Schemas to RDF/OWL-DL. They
approach lifting XML Schema to RDF/OWL-DL differently, but they seem to
define mappings from XML Schema to RDF/OWL-DL constructs the same way.
For example, both [1] & [2] map <xsd:element> to <owl:ObjectProperty> if
it is a complexType element or to <owl:DatatypeProperty> if it is a
simpleType property.
1. Is there consensus in the Semantic Web community on how XML Schema
language constructs map to RDF/OWL-DL language constructs?
2. Is there consensus in mapping to/from XML instance data and
RDF/OWL-DL instance data (i.e., OWL individuals)?
3. Assuming consensus for either 1 or 2, what tools exist that implement
these concepts?
5. If the tools are still formative, do any effective XML<-->RDF
algorithms exist that can be implemented code?
References:
1.
http://vsis-www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/getDoc.php/publications/204/fz
t-lxs-04.pdf
2. http://www.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/~auer/publication/xml2owl.pdf
=======================================
James R. Schoening
U.S. Army Net-Centric Data Strategy Center of Excellence
Voice: DSN 992-6820 or (732) 532-6820
Cell: 732-996-0018
Email: James.Schoening@us.army.mil