OWL issue: constraining members of a container in OWL:DL

Hi,

I am currently trying to define some rules to convert UML to OWL. For
property of cardinality n and for which order is important, I want to
use rdf:Seq. I would like to constraint the member of the rdf:Seq to a
specific type (such as xs:String or a particular Class).

Example: Here how an Address is expressed in ISO 19115.


<rdf:RDF
xmlns:iso19115="http://www.pcigeomatics.com/ontology/iso/19115.owl#"
          xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" > 
 <rdf:Address rdf:nodeID="urn:pcigeomatics:hull-office">
    <iso19115:deliveryPoint>
      <rdf:Seq>
        <rdf:li>PCI Geomatics Inc</rdf:li>
        <rdf:li>490, Boulevard St Joseph</rdf:li>
        <rdf:li>Suite 400</rdf:li>
      </rdf:Seq>
    </iso19115:deliveryPoint>
    <iso19115:postalCode>J8Y  3Y7</iso19115:postalCode>
    <iso19115:city>Hull</iso19115:city>
    <iso19115:administrativeArea>Quebec</iso19115:administrativeArea>
    <iso19115:country>Canada</iso19115:country>
  </rdf:Address>
</rdf:RDF>

The order of the deliveryPoint address is important in this case (think
about printing a label for the address).I would like to express in
OWL-DL that deliveryPoint property is rdf:Seq has take only xs:String or
rdfs:Literal for its member.

It seems that it is not possible to do this in OWL-DL. Correct me if I
am wrong. I think this is major flaw in OWL-DL if it is not supported
because this scenario can occur many times.

Note that this issue has been raised in RDFS discussion and has been
forwarded to the ontology WG. It seems that this issue has not been
addressed. Ref:
http://www.w3.org/2000/03/rdf-tracking/#rdfs-constraining-containers. 

Any suggestions to solve this problem are welcome.

Best regards
 
Stephane Fellah
Senior Software Engineer
 
PCI Geomatics
490, Boulevard St Joseph
Hull, Quebec
Canada J8Y 3Y7
Tel: 1 819 770 0022 Ext. 223
Fax 1 819 770 0098
Visit our web site:  www.pcigeomatics.com

Received on Tuesday, 17 February 2004 17:34:13 UTC