The Information-Flow Approach to Ontology-Based Semantic Integration

In this article we argue for the lack of formal foundations for ontology-based semantic alignment. We analyse and formalise the basic notions of semantic matching and alignment and we situate them in the context of ontology-based alignment in open-ended and distributed environments, like the Web. We then use the mathematical notion of information flow in a distributed system to ground three hypotheses that enable semantic alignment. We draw our exemplar applications of this work from a variety of interoperability scenarios including ontology mapping, theory of semantic interoperability, progressive ontology alignment, and situated semantic alignment

Survey on Techniques for Ontology Interoperability in Semantic Web

Ontology is a shared conceptualization of knowledge representation of particular domain. These are used for the enhancement of semantic information explicitly. It is considered as a key element in semantic web development. Creation of global web data sources is impossible because of the dynamic nature of the web. Ontology Interoperability provides the reusability of ontologies. Different domain experts and ontology engineers create different ontologies for the same or similar domain depending on their data modeling requirements. These cause ontology heterogeneity and inconsistency problems. For more better and precise results ontology mapping is the solution. As their use has increased, providing means of resolving semantic differences has also become very important. Papers on ontology interoperability report the results on different frameworks and this makes their comparison almost impossible. Therefore, the main focus of this paper will be on providing some basics of ontology interoperability and briefly introducing its different approaches. In this paper we survey the approaches that have been proposed for providing interoperability among domain ontologies and its related techniques and tools

Ontology mapping: a logic-based approach with applications in selected domains

In advent of the Semantic Web and recent standardization efforts, Ontology has quickly become a popular and core semantic technology. Ontology is seen as a solution provider to knowledge based systems. It facilitates tasks such as knowledge sharing, reuse and intelligent processing by computer agents. A key problem addressed by Ontology is the semantic interoperability problem. Interoperability in general is a common problem in different domain applications and semantic interoperability is the hardest and an ongoing research problem. It is required for systems to exchange knowledge and having the meaning of the knowledge accurately and automatically interpreted by the receiving systems. The innovation is to allow knowledge to be consumed and used accurately in a way that is not foreseen by the original creator. While Ontology promotes semantic interoperability across systems by unifying their knowledge bases through consensual understanding, common engineering and processing practices, it does not solve the semantic interoperability problem at the global level. As individuals are increasingly empowered with tools, ontologies will eventually be created more easily and rapidly at a near individual scale. Global semantic interoperability between heterogeneous ontologies created by small groups of individuals will then be required. Ontology mapping is a mechanism for providing semantic bridges between ontologies. While ontology mapping promotes semantic interoperability across ontologies, it is seen as the solution provider to the global semantic interoperability problem. However, there is no single ontology mapping solution that caters for all problem scenarios. Different applications would require different mapping techniques. In this thesis, we analyze the relations between ontology, semantic interoperability and ontology mapping, and promote an ontology-based semantic interoperability solution. We propose a novel ontology mapping approach namely, OntoMogic. It is based on first order logic and model theory. OntoMogic supports approximate mapping and produces structures (approximate entity correspondence) that represent alignment results between concepts. OntoMogic has been implemented as a coherent system and is applied in different application scenarios. We present case studies in the network configuration, security intrusion detection and IT governance & compliance management domain. The full process of ontology engineering to mapping has been demonstrated to promote ontology-based semantic interoperability

Issues with Evaluating and Using Publicly Available Ontologies

The proliferation of ontologies in the public domain and the ease of accessing them offers new opportunities for knowledge sharing and interoperability in an open, distributed environment, but it also poses interesting challenges for knowledge and Web engineers alike. In this paper we discuss and analyse those challenges with emphasis on the need to evaluate publicly available ontologies prior to use. We elaborate on a number of issues ranging from technological concerns to strategic and political issues. We drawn our experiences from the field of ontology mapping on the Semantic Web, a necessity that enables many of Semantic Web's proclaimed features

On the Foundations of Data Interoperability and Semantic Search on the Web

This dissertation studies the problem of facilitating semantic search across disparate ontologies that are developed by different organizations. There is tremendous potential in enabling users to search independent ontologies and discover knowledge in a serendipitous fashion, i.e., often completely unintended by the developers of the ontologies. The main difficulty with such search is that users generally do not have any control over the naming conventions and content of the ontologies. Thus terms must be appropriately mapped across ontologies based on their meaning. The meaning-based search of data is referred to as semantic search, and its facilitation (aka semantic interoperability) then requires mapping between ontologies. In relational databases, searching across organizational boundaries currently involves the difficult task of setting up a rigid information integration system. Linked Data representations more flexibly tackle the problem of searching across organizational boundaries on the Web. However, there exists no consensus on how ontology mapping should be performed for this scenario, and the problem is open. We lay out the foundations of semantic search on the Web of Data by comparing it to keyword search in the relational model and by providing effective mechanisms to facilitate data interoperability across organizational boundaries. We identify two sharply distinct goals for ontology mapping based on real-world use cases. These goals are: (i) ontology development, and (ii) facilitating interoperability. We systematically analyze these goals, side-by-side, and contrast them. Our analysis demonstrates the implications of the goals on how to perform ontology mapping and how to represent the mappings. We rigorously compare facilitating interoperability between ontologies to information integration in databases. Based on the comparison, class matching is emphasized as a critical part of facilitating interoperability. For class matching, various class similarity metrics are formalized and an algorithm that utilizes these metrics is designed. We also experimentally evaluate the effectiveness of the class similarity metrics on real-world ontologies. In order to encode the correspondences between ontologies for interoperability, we develop a novel W3C-compliant representation, named skeleton

Two-fold Semantic Web service matchmaking – applying ontology mapping for service discovery

Semantic Web Services (SWS) aim at the automated discovery and orchestration of Web services on the basis of comprehensive, machine-interpretable semantic descriptions. Since SWS annotations usually are created by distinct SWS providers, semantic-level mediation, i.e. mediation between concurrent semantic representations, is a key requirement for SWS discovery. Since semantic-level mediation aims at enabling interoperability across heterogeneous semantic representations, it can be perceived as a particular instantiation of the ontology mapping problem. While recent SWS matchmakers usually rely on manual alignments or subscription to a common ontology, we propose a two-fold SWS matchmaking approach, consisting of (a) a general-purpose semantic-level mediator and (b) comparison and matchmaking of SWS capabilities. Our semantic-level mediation approach enables the implicit representation of similarities across distinct SWS by grounding service descriptions in so-called Mediation Spaces (MS). Given a set of SWS and their respective grounding, a SWS matchmaker automatically computes instance similarities across distinct SWS ontologies and matches the request to the most suitable SWS. A prototypical application illustrates our approach

Survey on Techniques for Ontology Interoperability in Semantic Web

Ontology is a shared conceptualization of knowledge representation of particular domain. These are used for the enhancement of semantic information explicitly. It is considered as a key element in semantic web development. Creation of global web data sources is impossible because of the dynamic nature of the web. Ontology Interoperability provides the reusability of ontologies. Different domain experts and ontology engineers create different ontologies for the same or similar domain depending on their data modeling requirements. These cause ontology heterogeneity and inconsistency problems. For more better and precise results ontology mapping is the solution. As their use has increased, providing means of resolving semantic differences has also become very important. Papers on ontology interoperability report the results on different frameworks and this makes their comparison almost impossible. Therefore, the main focus of this paper will be on providing some basics of ontology interoperability and briefly introducing its different approaches. In this paper we survey the approaches that have been proposed for providing interoperability among domain ontologies and its related techniques and tools

Ontology-based semantic web services framework for knowledge management system

The latest Semantic Web developments and insights in knowledge management challenge the new era of semantic-based knowledge-management systems, where lies the new possibilities that Semantic Web affords for improved knowledge management. Connectivity and interoperability of knowledge management systems is the key to the vision of the future. We need a comprehensive framework that addresses main issues related to distributed Knowledge Management. Semantic Web Services (SWS) is the next major generation of the Web in which e-services and business communication become more knowledge-based. It proposes to extend the traditional Web Services technologies with its key enabling technologies of ontologies and semantics; to solve the problem of heterogeneity and interoperability of data across applications. This makes it possible to select, integrate and invocate services dynamically, which enable services to adapt themselves to changes without human intervention. The main purpose of this paper is to present the relevance of SWS technologies to KMS. Further, we discuss about the two major initiatives in SWS research. Later, we will propose ontology based semantic web services framework for KMS. Our focus is in the web service provider layer where we will introduce the three main components; knowledge manager, web service manager and ontology mapping manager