declaring a variable of an imported schema type

[Nuno Lopes]

Hello all, 

I'm trying to declare a variable to be of a type that is imported from an XML schema definition. 

So far what I've been doing is something like:

let $var := validate { element {$type} { $value } } ...

and it works although is a bit cumbersome. 
Is there an easier way to do this, ie, without using the validate {} ?

Thanks,
--
Nuno Lopes