How can controlled vocabularies or taxonomies be used to define XML element names or attribute names?

Question

I am currently writing an XML file which models some experimental issue. Unfortunately, many of the associated words come with various synonyms.
What I would like to do is to have a controlled vocabulary or taxonomy which either allows any of the synonyms to be used as the element/ attribute name or at least will easily help users/ programs to resolve this issue.

Is there a way to achieve this?

As an example:
<dnml>
<PrecursorMass />
</dnml>

Here PrecursorMass should be constrained by a controlled vocabulary or an entry in a taxonomy.
Could for instance RDF or SCOS be of help?

Answer 1

Designing an ontology using RDFS or OWL (or maybe OWL) would definitely help. For more information please see the following sites:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RDF_Schema
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Ontology_Language

The following software:

• http://protege.stanford.edu/
• http://www.topquadrant.com/products/TB_Composer.html

And the following books:

• http://workingontologist.org/
• A Developer's Guide to the Semantic Web by Liyang Yu