I am pulling data from an XML file that I don't control the format of. I want to place its data in a list of associations, with the end goal of producing a dataset. I was delighted to discover that this works...

xmlData = 
  XMLElement[
   "Configuration", {"ActionPotentialBase" -> "0", 
    "FiringWeight" -> "1", "FiringThreshold" -> "5", 
    "GroupsPerModel" -> "5", "NeuronsPerGroup" -> "50", 
    "IntraGroupConnectionsPerNeuron" -> "5", 
    "ExtraGroupConnectionsPerGroup" -> "50", 
    "NeuralNetModelRunMethod" -> "Recursive"}, {}];
Apply[Association, xmlData[[2]]]

...returning an association in pretty much a single line of code.

The problem is, the XML file defines most of these values as strings, and I am going to use them downstream as integers. Is there some elegant way of casting them to integers quickly and easily, or am I forced to resort to something long-winded like...

<| "ActionPotentialBase" -> 
  ToExpression["ActionPotentialBase" /. xmlData[[2]]],
 ... and so on ..,
  |>

Thanks in advance.

Brad