Webb,
Thanks for the clarification - this is the first time that I have heard that there was an open world assumption on NIEM XML messages. I understand the need for message id/idref pairs being local, but without the OW assumption, this has always seemed problematic to me.
So, let me ask you a modeling question. You have a weak (i.e., has the potentially to be not immediately dereferenceable) association to an entity that does have a global identifier. Would it be legal to model an explicit named object (such as <ChildRef> for <Child>), with the assumptions that 1) <ChildRef> is a proxy, 2) rdf:about is a valid construct, and 3) child: has a prefix attribute or some other mechanism for resolving the CURIE?
<Person>
<Name>...</Name>
<ChildRef rdf:about="child:JaneDoe"/>
</Person>
I know some people have been working on a NIEM RDF, but the documentation on the ground for it is sparse.
