Ontology-based data integration

About: Ontology-based data integration is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 11065 publications have been published within this topic receiving 216888 citations.

An infrastructure for searching, reusing and evolving distributed ontologies

Abstract: The vision of the Semantic Web can only be realized through proliferation of well-known ontologies describing different domains. To enable interoperability in the Semantic Web, it will be necessary to break these ontologies down into smaller, well-focused units that may be reused. Currently, three problems arise in that scenario. Firstly, it is difficult to locate ontologies to be reused, thus leading to many ontologies modeling the same thing. Secondly, current tools do not provide means for reusing existing ontologies while building new ontologies. Finally, ontologies are rarely static, but are being adapted to changing requirements. Hence, an infrastructure for management of ontology changes, taking into account dependencies between ontologies is needed. In this paper we present such an infrastructure addressing the aforementioned problems.

Ontology library systems: the key to successful ontology re-use

Abstract: Increasingly, effort has been devoted to surveying ontology-related research studies from various aspects. However, no survey is available for the ontology library system. For this reason, we decided to examine existing library systems in this paper. First, we identified the main criteria (management, adaptation, and standardization) for evaluating the functionality of the library systems. Then, based on the further enriched criteria, we surveyed most existing ontology library systems. Finally, we summarized the comparison and proposed various important requirements for structuring ontology library systems. The ontology library systems surveyed include: WebOnto, Ontolingua, DAML Ontology Library System, SHOE, Ontology Server, IEEE Standard Upper Ontology, OntoServer and ONIONS.

A theoretical framework for ontology evaluation and validation.

Abstract: The need for evaluation-methodologies emerged very early in the field of ontology development and reuse and it has grown steadily. Yet, no comprehensive and global approach to this problem has been proposed to date. This situation may become a serious obstacle for the success of ontology-based Knowledge Technology, especially in the industrial and commercial sectors. In this paper we look at existing ontology-evaluation methods from the perspective of their integration in one single framework. Based on a catalogue of qualitative and quantitative measures for ontologies, we set up a formal model for ontology. The proposed formal model consists of a meta-ontology Othat characterizes ontologies as semiotic objects. The meta-ontology is complemented with an ontology of ontology evaluation and validation oQual. Based on O and oQual, we identify three main types of measures for ontology evaluation: structural measures, that are typical of ontologies represented as graphs; functional measures, that are related to the intended use of an ontology and of its components, i.e. their function; usability-related measures, that depend on the level of annotation of the considered ontology.