Re: How to add third information in the right way on SKOS document ?

Hello,

Thanks, your response have been very helpful.

As we don't have an existing medical XML vocabulary, I plan to
specialise SKOS elements.

I have two last questions that remains :
1) Is it possible to add attribute to skos elements thanks to rdf
schema (or another tool) ? For instance, I would like to add a
myns:type to skos:description -> <skos:definition myns:type="blah">.
The trouble is that I have several definitions for a same language and
I don't see how to distinguish them.
2) Can someone confirm that http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core.rdf is
up to date according to last SKOS Reference revision.

Cheers,
Thomas

2009/5/25 Stephen Bounds <km@bounds.net.au>:
> Hi Thomas,
>
> (I apologise if this goes over material you already know, but you said you
> were new to using RDF and SKOS.)
>
> The starting point for designing your solution is to understand that SKOS
> merely specifies particular semantics for creating an RDF document.
>
> Any assertion that is valid in an RDF document is also valid in SKOS.
>
> Whether rdf:parseType is appropriate depends upon the context of the XML.
>  Remember that all RDF consists of a set of triples in the form:
>
>  subject, predicate, object
>
> A basic SKOS concept in RDF/XML looks something like this:
>
>  <skos:Concept rdf:about="http://ex.com/concepts#animals">
>    <skos:prefLabel>animals</skos:prefLabel>
>    <skos:altLabel>creatures</skos:altLabel>
>    <skos:altLabel>fauna</skos:altLabel>
>  </skos:Concept>
>
> which is a way of making the following assertions:
>
>  <http://ex.com/concepts#animals> rdf:type skos:Concept.
>  <http://ex.com/concepts#animals> skos:prefLabel animals.
>  <http://ex.com/concepts#animals> skos:altLabel creatures.
>  <http://ex.com/concepts#animals> skos:altLabel fauna.
>
> A good way to read these is to add the words "has" and "of", ie
> "concepts#animals has skos:altLabel of creatures".
>
> Here's the important and somewhat confusing thing about RDF/XML -- you
> cannot add XML which breaks the subject-predicate-object hierarchy unless
> you specifically denote it using rdf:parseType="Literal".
>
> For example, this is not valid RDF/XML:
>
>  <skos:Concept rdf:about="http://ex.com/professor#smithj">
>    <skos:prefLabel>Smith, John</skos:prefLabel>
>    <my:address>
>      <my:addr1>Unit 12</my:addr1>
>      <my:addr2>194 London Circuit</my:addr2>
>    </my:address>
>  </skos:Concept>
>
> The reason this breaks is that we don't have an object to point "my:address"
> at.  The two possible object targets of any predicate are a literal (string
> or XML) or another RDF resource.
>
> Instead, write the RDF/XML like this:
>
>  <skos:Concept rdf:about="http://ex.com/professor#smithj">
>    <skos:prefLabel>Smith, John</skos:prefLabel>
>    <my:address xmlns:xal="urn:oasis:names:tc:ciq:xsdschema:xAL:2.0"
>                rdf:parseType="Literal">
>      <xal:AddressDetails>
>        <xal:AddressLines>
>          <xal:AddressLine>Unit 12</xal:AddressLine>
>          <xal:AddressLine>194 London Circuit</xal:AddressLine>
>        </xal:AddressLines>
>      </xal:AddressDetails>
>    </my:address>
>  </skos:Concept>
>
> This informs any RDF parser that the object pointed to by my:address is an
> XML literal, and should be parsed as such.
>
> *If* you already have an existing medical XML vocabulary, the quickest way
> to add this to a SKOS document would be to add a single custom RDF predicate
> with rdf:parseType="Literal", and then to insert the XML fragment you need
> from the medical vocabulary here under this.
>
> On the other hand, if you are newly constructing this medical vocabulary
> now, you could simply write your vocabulary spec in a way that is RDF/XML
> compliant, for example:
>
>  <skos:Concept rdf:about="http://ex.com/professor#smithj">
>    <skos:prefLabel>Smith, John</skos:prefLabel>
>    <myns:ATCID>123</myns:ATCID>
>    <myns:attr1>abc</myns:attr1>
>    <myns:attr2>xyz</myns:attr2>
>  </skos:Concept>
>
> In the absence of more detailed information, it's hard to give more specific
> advice, but I hope this provides you with some pointers.
>
> Cheers,
>
> -- Stephen.
>
>
> Thomas Bassetto wrote:
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I want to create a Web Service for a medical database. The response
>> from the Web Service should be a valid SKOS document (inside a SOAP
>> envelope). Hopefully a lot of SKOS elements match my needs. However,
>> there are some additional information without specific SKOS element
>> available.
>>
>> According to http://www.w3.org/TR/skos-primer/#secskosspecialization ,
>> "Users can create their own properties and classes and attach them to
>> the standard SKOS vocabulary elements by using the rdfs:subPropertyOf
>> and rdfs:subClassOf properties from the RDF Schema vocabulary".
>>
>> I plan to create an element for each additional information (like
>> <myns:ATCID/>)[1] for defining a specific ID.
>>
>> But the client doesn't agree. He thinks that this solution is
>> "proprietary" since I create new elements which are not described in
>> the norm.
>>
>> He propose two alternate solutions :
>> * use rdf:parseType as attribute to existing SKOS element. To be
>> frank, I can't see how it could be a solution.
>> * create a new attribute to <skos:Concept/> ant put ALL the additional
>> information into it, separated by a coma. Example :  <skos:Concept
>> rdf:about="http://site.fake#diagnostic"
>> myns:annotation="ADDINF1=value1,ADDINF2=value2,ADDINF3=value3,...">
>>
>> What do you think ? I believe that specialising SKOS elements remains
>> the best solution.
>> Moreover, I'm wondering if it's really possible to create a new
>> attribute for <skos:Concept/>. How ? I'm have never used RDF and SKOS
>> before.
>>
>> Finally, I have another question. I want to use JENA[2] in order to
>> generate a Java file to create a SKOS document. JENA needs an ontology
>> or other vocabulary file. In the document called "SKOS RDF Schema"[3]
>> I have found this Schema : http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core.rdf. Is
>> it up to date with the last CR of SKOS Reference ?
>>
>> I hope I'm clear enough. Feel free to ask me further information.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Thomas Bassetto
>>
>> [1] This is not the best example :) For specific ID, I have understand
>> that  <skos:notation/> is better.
>> [2]http://jena.sourceforge.net
>> [3]http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/CR-skos-reference-20090317/skos.html
>>
>

Received on Tuesday, 26 May 2009 11:15:15 UTC