[ISSUE-36 related] Linking a ConceptScheme and a Concept subclass using OWL

Hello all

We're having again at home (Mondeca) this permathread about Concept 
Scheme vs subclass of Concept.
We had this discussion six months ago and the final (?) conclusion at 
the time was by Antoine
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-esw-thes/2007Jun/0046.html

To sum up Antoine's point, Concept Schemes and subclasses of Concept 
have in general different purposes, and different semantics. Point well 
made, and I agree with the conclusions.

Nevertheless, in quite a number of cases, we need to assert the 
equivalence between attachment to a Concept Scheme and belonging to a 
Concept subclass, if only when we want to specify that some property 
range has values from a given Concept Scheme. For example in a Tourism 
ontology you have a Class "Accomodation", with a property 
"environmentalDescription" for which you want to use values from GEMET, 
or maybe even a specific "Theme" or "Group" from GEMET, e.g., 
"ENVIRONMENT". ... assuming a GEMET Group or Theme is a ConceptScheme, 
(which seems to be declared nowhere).

gemet:group10111  a  skos:ConceptScheme
ex:environmentDescription  rdfs:range   ex:_b

How do you express that instances of ex:_b  are concepts having 
skos:inScheme value gemet:group10111 ?
You can't do that in RDFS AFAIK, you can do it in OWL.

ex:_b      a   owl:Restriction
ex:_b     owl:onProperty      skos:inScheme
ex:_b     owl:allValuesFrom    gemet:group10111

This way, using SKOS in a OWL environment, one can express the 
equivalence between a Concept Scheme an a Concept subclass.

A side order of such declarations is the possibility to indirectly 
infer, and use, a hierarchy of Concept Schemes from the corresponding 
classes hierarchy, since there is no way in SKOS itself to assert a 
hierarchical relationship (partOf, whatever) between Concept Schemes (or 
is there?)

BTW Is it in the scope of the recommandation, or some informative annex, 
to show such examples of SKOS integration with OWL?.

Bernard

-- 

*Bernard Vatant
*Knowledge Engineering
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*Mondeca**
*3, cité Nollez 75018 Paris France
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Mail:     bernard.vatant@mondeca.com <mailto:bernard.vatant@mondeca.com>
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Received on Friday, 30 November 2007 13:26:49 UTC