Semantic Integration

The challenge of semantic integration is therefore equivalent to the problem of generating such mappings, determining that they are correct, and providing a vehicle for executing the mappings, thus translating terms from one ontology into another.

Current approaches to semantic integration do not fully exploit the model-theoretic structures underlying ontologies; however, automated and correct approaches to semantic integration will require ontologies with a deeper formal grounding so that decisions may be made by autonomous software when comparing ontologies for integration. The research in Semantic Integration through Invariants presents an approach toward this goal using techniques based on the development of first-order ontologies with terminologies grounded in properties of the underlying possibles models. In particular, properties of the models that are preserved by isomorphism are used to automatically generate correct semantic mappings that have been defined with respect to the PSL Ontology.

The next step in this direction is to generalize this approach to other ontologies, with the emphasis on specifying algorithms for generating semantic mappings that are correct.

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