Showing papers on "Ontology-based data integration published in 1997"
01 Jan 1997
TL;DR: The relation between ontologies and the process of developing a system is discussed, arguing that to be useful, an ontology needs to be created as a "living document", whose development is tightly integrated with the system’s.
Abstract: Large scale knowledge bases systems are difficult and expensive to construct. If we could share knowledge across systems, costs would be reduced. However, because knowledge bases are typically constructed from scratch, each with their own idiosyncratic structure, sharing is difficult. Recent research has focused on the use of ontologies to promote sharing. An ontology is a hierarchically structured set of terms for describing a domain that can be used as a skeletal foundation for a knowledge base. If two knowledge bases are built on a common ontology, knowledge can be more readily shared, since they share a common underlying structure. This paper outlines a set of desiderata for ontologies, and then describes how we have used a large-scale (50,000+ concept) ontology develop a specialized, domain-specific ontology semiautomatically. We then discuss the relation between ontologies and the process of developing a system, arguing that to be useful, an ontology needs to be created as a "living document", whose development is tightly integrated with the system’s. We conclude with a discussion of Web-based ontology tools we are developing to support this approach.
555 citations
TL;DR: A framework for comparing ontologies is developed and a number of the more prominent ontologies are placed into it and clarified the range of alternatives in creating a standard framework for ontology design is clarified.
Abstract: In this article, we develop a framework for comparing ontologies and place a number of the more prominent ontologies into it. We have selected 10 specific projects for this study, including general ontologies, domain-specific ones, and one knowledge representation system. The comparison framework includes general characteristics, such as the purpose of an ontology, its coverage (general or domain specific), its size, and the formalism used. It also includes the design process used in creating an ontology and the methods used to evaluate it. Characteristics that describe the content of an ontology include taxonomic organization, types of concept covered, top-level divisions, internal structure of concepts, representation of part-whole relations, and the presence and nature of additional axioms. Finally, we consider what experiments or applications have used the ontologies. Knowledge sharing and reuse will require a common framework to support interoperability of independently created ontologies. Our study shows there is great diversity in the way ontologies are designed and the way they represent the world. By identifying the similarities and differences among existing ontologies, we clarify the range of alternatives in creating a standard framework for ontology design.
423 citations
TL;DR: The subject of Formal Ontology is introduced, showing how the notions of parthood, integrity, identity, and dependence can be of help in understanding, organizing and formalizing fundamental ontological distinctions.
Abstract: The task of information extraction can be seen as a problem of semantic matching between a user-defined template and a piece of information written in natural language. To this purpose, the ontological assumptions of the template need to be suitably specified, and compared with the ontological implications of the text. So-called “ontologies”, consisting of theories of various kinds expressing the meaning of shared vocabularies, begin to be used for this task. This paper addresses the theoretical issues related to the design and use of such ontologies for purposes of information retrieval and extraction. After a discussion on the nature of semantic matching within a model-theoretical framework, we introduce the subject of Formal Ontology, showing how the notions of parthood, integrity, identity, and dependence can be of help in understanding, organizing and formalizing fundamental ontological distinctions. We present then some basic principles for ontology design, and we illustrate a preliminary proposal for a top-level ontology developed according to such principles. As a concrete example of ontology-based information retrieval, we finally report an ongoing experience of use of a large linguistic ontology for the retrieval of object-oriented software components.
366 citations
Proceedings Article•
01 Jan 1997
117 citations
01 Jan 1997
TL;DR: A framework for comparing ontologies is developed, and a number of the more prominent ontologies are placed into it, to clarify the range of alternatives in creating a standard framework for ontology design.
Abstract: In this paper we develop a framework for comparing ontologies, and place a number of the more prominent ontologies into it. We have selected 10 specific projects for this study, including general ontologies, domain specific ones, and one knowledge representation system. The framework includes general characteristics such as the purpose of an ontology, its coverage (general or domain-specific), its size, and the formalism used. It also includes the design process used in creating an ontology and the methods used to evaluate it. Characteristics that describe the content of an ontology include taxonomic organization, types of concepts covered, top-level divisions, internal structure of concepts, representation of part-whole relations, and the presence and nature of additional axioms. Finally we consider what experiments or applications have used the ontologies. Knowledge sharing and reuse will require a common framework to support interoperability of independently created ontologies. Our study shows there is great diversity in the way ontologies are designed and the way they represent the world. By identifying the similarities and differences among existing ontolo~ies, we clarify the range of alternatives in creating a standard framework for ontology design.
34 citations
01 Jan 1997
TL;DR: A new environment that supports distributed ontology development for multi-agent systems called Donden is proposed, which consists of ontology browser which is provided for each user and ontology server which is provide for a group of users which want to share ontologies.
Abstract: In this paper, we propose a new environment that supports distributed ontology development for multi-agent systems. In our distributed ontology development environment (Donden), users program agents can build ontologies locally which can be associated to each other. Donden consists ontology browser which is provided for each user and ontology server which is provided for a group of users which want to share ontologies. Ontology browser helps user to edit ontology and to make links to other user’s ontology by graphical user interface. Ontology server helps users to synthesize ontologies by computing similarity between concepts of ontologies. We also show another application of distributed ontology development which supports distributed engineering information base.
13 citations
01 Jan 1997
TL;DR: A framework combining several formalisms for the Requirements Engineering of discrete manufacturing systems by relying upon a set of concepts that together form an ontology is proposed.
Abstract: We propose a framework combining several formalisms for the Requirements Engineering (RE) of discrete manufacturing systems. Each formalism relies upon a set of concepts that together form an ontology.
12 citations
Book•
01 Oct 1997
8 citations
08 Apr 1997
TL;DR: This paper uses an operational model based on information structures to formally describe tool integration devices and shows how this approach facilitates the comparison of the features concerned and thus informs a discussion on the styles of integration which can be expressed in the two integration devices.
Abstract: Tool integration frameworks provide the devices needed to define and refine customised integrated software engineering environments. The customisation that they provide relates both to the specific tools populating the environment and the nature of the interaction between tools (i.e. the style of integration). A number of such tool integration frameworks are available, either as the results of research projects or as commercial products. Unfortunately for potential users or purchasers of these frameworks, it is unclear to what extent the provided integration devices can adequately describe the integration required in a particular situation. This paper presents progress towards an approach to the precise description of tool integration devices, this approach uses an operational model based on information structures to formally describe tool integration devices. The approach is illustrated by describing selected features of the integration devices of two control-centred tool integration frameworks-a research prototype framework, FIELD, and a commercial framework, Hewlett-Packard's SoftBench. The paper shows how this approach facilitates the comparison of the features concerned and thus informs a discussion on the styles of integration which can be expressed in the two integration devices.
6 citations
11 Jan 1997
TL;DR: The constituent techniques and the implementation of a semantic integrity subsystem for a distributed database (SICSDD) provides complete functionality and an efficient strategy for constraint enforcement.
Abstract: This paper presents the constituent techniques and the implementation of a semantic integrity subsystem for a distributed database (SICSDD). The subsystem provides complete functionality and an efficient strategy for constraint enforcement. Complete functionality is attained through a modular and extensible architecture in which several techniques are incorporated. These are either modifications/extensions of techniques developed by other researchers or new techniques proposed by us. The integration of these techniques is necessary to achieve efficient constraint enforcement, particularly in a distributed database.
01 Jan 1997
TL;DR: This work proposes a mechanism for adapting general linguistic knowledge to applications in order to obtain automatically application-restricted NL interfaces and has been applied to provide NL interaction to SIREDOJ, an already existing expert system in the legal domain.
Abstract: This work, supported by the project ITEM 1 and the project BASURDE 2 and the GRUPS DE RECERCA CONSOLIDATS 3 proposes a mechanism for adapting general linguistic knowledge to applications in order to obtain automatically application-restricted NL interfaces. The knowledge involved in the process is represented in separate data structures: a conceptual ontology, a linguistic ontology, a general lexicon and a set of control rules. The general and application-dependent knowledge relevant to the communication tasks is represented in a conceptual ontology. The general linguistic information is represented in a linguistic ontology. The core of our approach consists of describing the application elements (both entities and operations) relevant to the communicative tasks in terms of the existing conceptual ontology. Lexical coverage of these elements has to be provided as well. A general basic set of control rules will then relate the application specifications to the linguistic ontology in order to obtain application-restricted NL interfaces. The system has been applied to provide NL interaction to SIREDOJ, an already existing expert system in the legal domain.
01 Jan 1997
TL;DR: An ontological description of the medical knowledge and of the organizational context is proposed in order to produce clinical guidelines which can be widely shared between different institutions and can be efficiently tailored to consider the peculiarities of each clinical context.
Abstract: This paper describes a general framework for clinical practice guidelines development, dissemination and use. We propose an ontological description of the medical knowledge and of the organizational context, in order to produce clinical guidelines which, on one hand, can be widely shared between different institutions and, on the other, can be efficiently tailored to consider the peculiarities of each clinical context.
01 Jan 1997
TL;DR: This research proposes a framework for acquiring the appropriate domain semantics and various types of knowledge needed to detect and reconcile heterogeneities among local databases by (semi-)automating the acquisition and maintenance of these semantics and knowledge.
Abstract: Traditionally, data integration research has focused primarily on understanding integration issues from the data instance and schema perspectives. However, when the integration of heterogeneous databases is performed without considering the semantics of local databases, an incorrectly integrated database may result. Moreover, most integration tasks must be performed manually. In this research, we propose a framework for acquiring the appropriate domain semantics and various types of knowledge needed to detect and reconcile heterogeneities among local databases. By (semi-)automating the acquisition and maintenance of these semantics and knowledge, coupled with an expert system that performs reasoning over these knowledge, database integration processes can be performed at a higher level of automation. This research introduces a database integration framework. The proposed framework provides a foundation to: 1) analyze database integration issues from a broad scope, 2) discuss the impact of database reverse engineering on database integration, 3) distinguish the data warehousing approach from the federated database approach for global query processing and instance integration, and 4) identify various types of knowledge that are required for proper data integration. A systematic classification of these knowledge will facilitate the design of appropriate techniques to acquire and utilize them.
01 Jan 1997
TL;DR: The DEE uses an Extensible Reference Model (ERM) that gives a global and unifying view of the manipulated data, and the MO-MER Model is an object oriented model, facilitating the extendibility of the ERM.
Abstract: The DEE (Data Exchange Environment) is a platform for the integration of isolated applications. It co-ordinates and controls the data exchanges between the different applications. The DEE uses an Extensible Reference Model (ERM) that gives a global and unifying view of the manipulated data. The MO-MER Model is an object oriented model, facilitating the extendibility of the ERM, because its Meta-level allows the addition and the modification of the manipulated concepts. The extendibility of the ERM is ensured by schema evolution methods that go with the MO-MER model. These methods allow the update of the ERM during its life cycle.