Manufacturing System Integration Division – MSID XML Testbed (NIST)
From the website:
NIST’s efforts to define methods and tools for developing XML Schemas to support systems integraton will help you effectively build and deploy XML Schemas amongst partners in integration projects. Through the Manufacturing Interoperability Program (MIP) XML Testbed, NIST provides guidance on how to build XML Schemas as well as a collection of tools that will help with the process allowing projects to more quickly and efficiently meet their goals.
The NIST XML Schema development and testing process is documented as the Model Development Life Cycle, which is an activity model for the creation, use, and maintenance of shared semantic models, and has been used to frame our research and development tools. We have worked with a number of industries on refining and automating the specification process and provide a wealth of information on how to use XML to address your integration needs.
On this site you will find a collection of tools and ideas to help you in developing high quality XML schemas. The tools available on this site are offered to the general public free of charge. They have been developed by the United States Government and as such are not subject to copyright or other restrictions.
If you are interested in seeing the tools extended or having some of your work included in the service please contact us.
The thought did occur to me that you could write an XML schema that governs the documentation of the subjects, their properties and merging conditions in your information systems. Perhaps even to the point of using XSLT to run against the resulting documentation to create SQL statements for the integration of information resources held in your database (or accessible therefrom).