Re: rdf inclusion

Drew,

My original impression is that by using a property or a class defined 
in some ontology, I am agreeing to use that ontology.  I believe this 
corresponds with Frank's answer to:

>    Does using a term defined by some ontology O in some
>    RDF graph G mean that G is using O?

Then Jeff came along and explains daml:imports is required, and 
presents an example.  He also indicates the correct way to use 
daml:imports for instance data is inside an rdf:description tag. 
This corresponds with what's in the language reference description 
document [1], though it doesn't describe how to use daml:imports with 
instance data.

I'm willing to add daml:imports statements to the SONAT data files 
since this seems to be the proper usage of DAML+OIL.

Since I had never seen daml:imports used in this way, I checked a few 
random  DAML+OIL instance files from homework 3 and the crawler.  I 
didn't see any that use daml:imports as Jeff described.  I did find:

a) daml:imports used in daml:Ontology header in the instance file, 
even though there are no ontology definitions in the file.

b) daml:imports used in a header tag describing the file:
<rdf:description rdf:about="">
     <daml:imports>...</daml:imports>
</rdf:description>

c) No use of daml:imports


Does someone want to define the scope of the daml:imports statement. 
When applied to a resource (instance), does it only apply to the 
statements within the same rdf:description tag?  or the resource in 
general?

If it is applied to a document as in b) do all DAML+OIL resources 
referenced within that document also use the imported ontology?  Or 
just to statements about the document itself?

-Dave



[1] http://www.daml.org/2001/03/reference#Imports

Received on Monday, 22 April 2002 18:51:38 UTC