[seek-kr-sms] semantic annotations for WSDL

[Matthew Jones]

Semantic Annotations for WSDL and XML Schema
The attached article describes a new specification that appears to me 
closely related to our approach of annotating ports and components in 
Kepler workflows.  Thought you might be interested, especially Shawn as 
you are working on the annotation language.

Matt

http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/CR-sawsdl-20070126/

Joel Farrell and Holger Lausen (eds.), W3C Technical Report

W3C has announced the advancement of of the "Semantic Annotations for
WSDL and XML Schema" specification to the level of Candidate
Recommendation. The document was produced by members of the SAWSDL
Working Group as part of the W3C Web Services Activity. SAWSDL defines
how to add semantic annotations to various parts of a WSDL document such
as input and output message structures, interfaces and operations. The
extension attributes defined in this specification fit within the WSDL
2.0 extensibility framework. For example, it defines a way to annotate
WSDL interfaces and operations with categorization information that can
be used to publish a Web service in a registry. The annotations on
schema types can be used during Web service discovery and composition.
In addition, SAWSDL defines an annotation mechanism for specifying the
structural mapping of XML Schema types to and from an ontology such
mappings could be used during invocation, particularly when mediation
is required. To accomplish semantic annotation, SAWSDL defines extension
attributes that can be applied both to WSDL elements and to XML Schema
elements. Semantic annotations are references from an element within a
WSDL or XML Schema document to a concept in an ontology or to a mapping.
This specification defines annotation mechanisms for relating the
constituent structures of WSDL input and output messages to concepts
defined in an outside ontology. Similarly, it defines how to annotate
WSDL operations and interfaces. Further, it defines an annotation
mechanism for specifying the structural mapping of XML Schema types to
and from an ontology by means of a reference to a mapping definition.
The annotation mechanism is independent of the ontology expression
language and this specification requires no particular ontology language.
It is also independent of mapping languages and does not restrict the
possible choices of such languages. The SAWSDL Working Group plans to
submit this specification for consideration as a W3C Proposed
Recommendation if the following exit criteria have been met: (1) At
least two parsers and at least one generator tool that implements
SAWSDL over WSDL 2.0. (2) At least one parser that implements SAWSDL
over WSDL 1.1. (3) At least one parser that implements the
'attrExtensions' element. (4) At least one implementation of the RDF
mapping. (5) For every SAWSDL feature, at least one specification
that uses it for Semantic Web Services automation.


-- 
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Matthew B. Jones
jones at nceas.ucsb.edu                Ph: 541-888-2581 ext. 287
National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS)
UC Santa Barbara
http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/ecoinformatics
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