[tdwg-tapir] Output model definition and mixed name spaces.

[Donald Hobern]

Roger,

I'm only just catching up with some of this myself, but I believe that you
really need RDF Schema or OWL to define the constraints on semantically
acceptable documents.  Plain RDF and XML Schema will only allow you to
constrain this kind of document to what is syntactically valid for RDF.

Donald
 
---------------------------------------------------------------
Donald Hobern (dhobern at gbif.org)
Programme Officer for Data Access and Database Interoperability 
Global Biodiversity Information Facility Secretariat 
Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
Tel: +45-35321483   Mobile: +45-28751483   Fax: +45-35321480
---------------------------------------------------------------


-----Original Message-----
From: tdwg-tapir-bounces at lists.tdwg.org
[mailto:tdwg-tapir-bounces at lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of Roger Hyam
Sent: 30 December 2005 11:52
To: tdwg-tapir at lists.tdwg.org
Subject: [tdwg-tapir] Output model definition and mixed name spaces.

Hi Everyone,

In the few days between Christmas and New Year I am doing some thinking 
about architecture and the general problem of validating (controlling) 
data alongside using a more RDF based approach. This is an open world / 
closed world problem really but relates to Tapir as follows. Suppose I 
want to specify an output model like this:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf = "http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
         xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
         xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#"
         xmlns:vCard = "http://www.w3.org/2001/vcard-rdf/3.0#">
<rdf:Description> 
<dc:creator>              
 <rdf:Description rdf:about = "http://qqqfoo.com/staff/corky" >
  <rdfs:label> Corky Crystal </rdfs:label>
  <vCard:FN> Corky Crystal </vCard:FN>
  <vCard:N rdf:parseType="Resource">
    <vCard:Family> Crystal </vCard:Family>
    <vCard:Given>  Corky </vCard:Given>
    <vCard:Other>  Jacky </vCard:Other>
    <vCard:Prefix> Dr </vCard:Prefix>
  </vCard:N>
  <vCard:BDAY> 1980-01-01 </vCard:BDAY>
 </rdf:Description>
</dc:creator>
</rdf:Description> 
</rdf:RDF>

This is taken from: http://dublincore.org/documents/dcq-rdf-xml/#sec3 
and is a good example or using a mix of 'other' vocabularies to describe 
something. DublinCore and vCard are pretty standard and should really 
not be re-invented.

I can't see how to define this structure in a simple XML Schema. It only 
allows a single target namespace so one needs to have at least 4 XSD 
documents (1 + 3 imported) to define this tightly. Here is an example of 
how to do this kind of thing:

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-tipschnm.html

We have the additional problem that there aren't actual public XML 
Schema definitions of these things so one would have to make up schemas 
defining the elements used. It all gets quite horrible.

Does the subset of XML Schema in Tapir support imports?

Tapir has the intention of combining separate 'concepts' (which implies 
different namespaces) into a single output model but do the concepts all 
have to be mapped into a single namespace to make the thing workable?

I may be missing something obvious with XML Schema or Tapir (or both) in 
which case I would be grateful if some one could set me right. I will 
blame it all on an excess of rich food and red wine over the past few days.

Many thanks for your thoughts.

Happy New Year,

Roger

-- 

-------------------------------------
 Roger Hyam
 Technical Architect
 Taxonomic Databases Working Group
-------------------------------------
 http://www.tdwg.org
 roger at tdwg.org
 +44 1578 722782
-------------------------------------


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