Example Diagrams

The following diagrams provide examples of OWL and RDF diagrams that show the use of classes and relationships, including the Owl and RDF classes and owlIndividuals and the rdfsSubClassOf and rdfsSubPropertyOf relationships.

OWL Definition Diagram

The following is an example of an OWL Definition diagram that shows a basic OWL statement or triple.

Based on the RDF, the ODM uses element triples equivalent to entity relationships; rather than Entity-Attribute-Value it uses Subject-Predicate-Object. The Subject and Object are defined with OWLClass and the Predicate is defined with an objectProperty.

An Animal modeled as an OWL Class has an property of Has Father modeled as an object property and the Object Male is modeled with another OWL Class.

OWL Facts Diagram

The following is an example of an OWL Fact diagram that shows a number of OWL facts.

The Fact model is used to define specific facts about certain objects that are instances of Classes. The diagram shows a number of individuals defined based on specific classes for example: Tim is a Man and Leanne is a Women.

The model is extended to show facts about two other individuals shows facts about Paulene, an instance of Woman, concerning her relationship to her parents. Specifically, it shows the fact that she has a male parent Tim and a female parent Leanne.  Another individual Benjamin has a male parent of Tim and a female parent of Jane.

RDF Definition Diagram

The following is an example of an RDF diagram that describes a contacts location defining a rdfProperty of Address with rdfsDomain connections to a number of granular rdfProperty that fully describe the address including poastalCode, street, city, country and more.

OWL Restriction Usage

An OWL restriction is used to define a restricted set similar to an SQL Where clause. It defines a rule using the onProperty tag, and a Value Constraint such as allValuesFrom or someValuesFrom. The Restriction element is typically used in conjunction with one of the other OWL relationships relations, such as subClassOf. For example, continuing the theme of pizza toppings, for the Artichoke Topping Class:

<rdfs:subClassOf>

  <owl:Restriction>

    <owl:onProperty rdf:resource="#hasSpiciness"/>

    <owl:someValuesFrom rdf:resource="#Mild"/>

  </owl:Restriction>

</rdfs:subClassOf>

This is equivalent to the English natural language statement: 'An artichoke topping is a vegetable topping with the hasSpiciness property mild'.