Port Authority Governance — Ontology Crosswalk

Schema: schemas/port-authority/v1.0.md Target standards: DCAT-US v3.0 (primary) · schema.org/GovernmentAction (secondary) · OGC Simple Features (terminal geometry) · FMC tariff conventions (rate schedules) Authority: U.S. Department of Commerce · Schema.org · OGC · Federal Maritime Commission Status: FAIR-aligned, Level 3 DCAT-US conformance (per §5) Dataset SPDX license: CC-BY-4.0 (research tier — JAXPORT + Oakland) · proprietary commercial license for paid tiers (see LICENSE.md)

1. Why these standards

DCAT-US v3.0 — The OPEN Government Data Act (Pub. L. 115-435) requires federal data to be published in DCAT-US as of FY2026. Any federal, state, or enterprise buyer evaluating Codex will need to confirm DCAT-US conformance before ingestion. Codex publishes Port Authority Governance with both a structured Parquet dump and a DCAT-US v3.0 catalog.jsonld sidecar so the dataset is discoverable by data.gov-compatible crawlers.

schema.org/GovernmentAction — Board votes are governmental actions in the strict schema.org sense. Mapping to GovernmentAction makes per-vote records discoverable by general-purpose web crawlers and the broader knowledge-graph ecosystem. The companion LegislativeBuilding and GovernmentOrganization types ground the surrounding meeting and board-body context.

OGC Simple Features — Terminal locations are physical spatial features whose geometry consumers want as polygons or points. We emit per-terminal GeoJSON via the OGC gml:Feature profile; the H3 cell on each row is an additional spatial key, not a replacement.

FMC tariff conventions — Federal Maritime Commission Schedule PA-style nomenclature is the de facto vocabulary for U.S. terminal tariff line items (item codes, rate units, effective-date semantics). Codex preserves source-native item codes verbatim and aligns rate-unit terminology where ambiguous.

2. Dataset-level crosswalk (DCAT-US v3.0 dcat:Dataset)

3. Distribution crosswalk (dcat:Distribution)

4. Field-level crosswalk

Every Port Authority Governance field maps to a target-standard equivalent where one exists. Fields with no direct equivalent are flagged as Codex extensions and documented in §6.

4.1 Identity & provenance → DCAT-US + PROV-DM

4.2 Port and jurisdiction → schema.org + DCAT-US

4.3 Meetings, agenda items, votes → schema.org/GovernmentAction

A board meeting is a schema.org/Event whose attendee is a LegislativeBuilding (the board) and whose agenda is an ordered set of GovernmentAction items.

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Event",
  "name": "Board of Port Commissioners — Regular Meeting",
  "startDate": "2025-09-12T17:00:00Z",
  "location": {
    "@type": "LegislativeBuilding",
    "name": "Port Headquarters, 530 Water St, Oakland, CA"
  },
  "organizer": {
    "@type": "GovernmentOrganization",
    "name": "Port of Oakland",
    "identifier": "USOAK"
  },
  "workPerformed": [
    {
      "@type": "GovernmentAction",
      "name": "Resolution authorizing terminal lease renewal",
      "actionStatus": "CompletedActionStatus",
      "result": {"@type": "DigitalDocument", "url": "https://.../resolution-2025-09-12-3a.pdf"}
    }
  ]
}

4.4 Tariffs → FMC + Codex extensions

The Federal Maritime Commission publishes tariff schedules under naming conventions (Schedule PA-NN with versioned amendments) that have become the de facto vocabulary for U.S. port tariff documents. Codex preserves source-native item codes and rate strings verbatim, then layers the bitemporal envelope on top.

The bitemporal supersession chain is the centerpiece — it's what enables "what rate was in effect on date X" point-in-time queries. Computation methodology and matcher heuristics are documented in the commercial schema spec.

4.5 Spatial → OGC + H3 extension

4.6 Codex extensions (no target equivalent)

DCAT-US, schema.org, and OGC standards have no slots for several Codex-native concepts. These are published under the axiom: namespace as typed JSON-LD properties:

• axiom:governanceModel (xsd:string) — Enumerates how the authority is constituted (independent, bi-state compact, joint managing, county department, municipal department). See the schema spec for full enum values.
• axiom:claimVsFactKind (xsd:string) — Distinguishes pre-vote staff recommendations (claim) from post-vote board outcomes (fact). The split prevents collapsing intent and result into a single record. See NORMALIZATION_STANDARD §6.
• axiom:tariffItemCode — Source-native item identifier preserved verbatim across format transformations.
• axiom:portSlug — Stable lowercase port identifier used as a join key across the Codex catalog.

The axiom: namespace resolves at https://axiomcodex.io/ns/v1/ (planned, see AXC-3).

5. FAIR compliance

DCAT-US v3.0 conformance level: 3 (all mandatory fields + all recommended fields populated; extensions documented). Level 4 requires publishing as part of a federated catalog; currently out of scope.

6. Catalog sidecar example

Abbreviated catalog.jsonld emitted alongside the Parquet distribution:

{
  "@context": [
    "https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld",
    "https://www.w3.org/ns/prov.jsonld",
    "https://schema.org/",
    {"axiom": "https://axiomcodex.io/ns/v1/"}
  ],
  "@type": "dcat:Catalog",
  "conformsTo": "https://resources.data.gov/resources/dcat-us/",
  "dataset": [{
    "@type": "dcat:Dataset",
    "identifier": "urn:axiom:codex:dataset:port-authority:v1.0.0",
    "title": "Axiom Port Authority Governance Dataset",
    "description": "Normalized governance events across U.S. port authorities — board meetings, agenda actions, adopted resolutions, terminal tariffs, leases, and capital plans, with native joins to AIS vessel calls and civic jurisdiction data.",
    "publisher": {"@type": "Organization", "name": "Axiomancer Labs LLC"},
    "issued": "2026-04-18",
    "modified": "2026-04-18",
    "keyword": ["port-authority", "tariff", "harbor-commission", "lease", "capital-projects"],
    "accessLevel": "public",
    "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
    "spatial": {
      "@type": "Place",
      "geo": {
        "@type": "GeoShape",
        "polygon": "/* GeoJSON union bbox of USOAK + USLGB + USLAX + USNYC + USJAX */"
      }
    },
    "temporal": "2021-01-01/2026-04-18",
    "distribution": [
      {
        "@type": "dcat:Distribution",
        "title": "Tariff items Parquet snapshot",
        "mediaType": "application/vnd.apache.parquet",
        "accessURL": "https://codex.axiomlayer.io/datasets/port-authority/v1.0.0/tariff-items.parquet"
      },
      {
        "@type": "dcat:Distribution",
        "title": "Meetings + agenda Markdown-KV LLM text view",
        "mediaType": "text/markdown",
        "accessURL": "https://codex.axiomlayer.io/datasets/port-authority/v1.0.0/llm_text.tar.gz"
      },
      {
        "@type": "dcat:Distribution",
        "title": "Terminal geometries (GeoJSON sidecar)",
        "mediaType": "application/geo+json",
        "accessURL": "https://codex.axiomlayer.io/datasets/port-authority/v1.0.0/terminals.geojson"
      }
    ]
  }]
}

7. Cross-dataset joins

The dataset's value is in its joins, not its silo. Three first-class join paths:

• Port Authority × AIS Maritime Positions — port_authorities.unlocode + port_authority_terminals.h3_r9. Buyers ask: "for every container vessel that called at a JAXPORT terminal between two lease effective dates, which lessee was operating that terminal?"
• Port Authority × Civic Intelligence — port_authority_meetings.jurisdiction_slug ↔ civic_records.jurisdiction_slug. Cross-pollinates municipal council actions with port-board actions in the same jurisdiction (e.g., port-municipal joint approvals for waterfront capital projects).
• Port Authority × Events Timeline — every adopted-resolution and fact-kind agenda-item record projects into the unified Events Timeline schema, with effective_from becoming the timeline's occurred_at.

8. Deviations from standards

• DCAT-US has no governance_model or claim_vs_fact_kind slot. Codex publishes both as axiom: extensions. The governance model is critical — flattening "bi-state compact" (PANYNJ) into a generic municipal entity loses the authority's actual legal posture and obscures join semantics.
• schema.org/GovernmentAction status enum is binary (CompletedActionStatus / FailedActionStatus). Codex preserves the source's verbatim passed_flag (adopted, approved, rejected, withdrawn, etc.) for finer-grained outcome analysis.
• FMC tariff schedules use "Effective Date" but not always with a parseable date stamp. Codex carries effective_date as nullable; undated historical tariff releases retain path_year + path_month from the source CDN as a fallback ingestion-time anchor.
• OGC Simple Features Polygon vs H3 cell. OGC has no native H3 type. We emit both — the OGC Polygon for buyers who want strict OGC conformance, and the H3 string for spatial-join consumers (Uber H3 spec).

9. Changelog

• v1.0 (2026-04-18) — Initial crosswalk. Level 3 DCAT-US v3.0 conformance. v1.0 covers 5 ports (Oakland, Long Beach, Los Angeles, PANYNJ, Jacksonville). Tariff line items in v1.0 are JAXPORT-only; PANYNJ FMC PA-style schedules ship in v1.1.