Semantic flow networks: Semantic interoperability in networks of ontologies

In an open context such as the Semantic Web, information providers usually rely on different ontologies to semantically characterize contents. In order to enable interoperability at a semantic level, ontologies underlying information sources must be linked by discovering alignments, that is, set of correspondences or mappings. The aim of this paper is to provide a formal model (i.e., Semantic Flow Networks) to represent networks of ontologies and alignments with the aim to investigate the problem of composite mapping discovery. Semantic Flow Networks (SFN) differ from other models of networks of ontologies for two main aspects. SFN consider constraints over mappings that are necessary to take into account their dependencies. Moreover, a different notion of mapping, that is, compound mapping is considered. Complexity results and a CSP formulation for composite mapping discovery are provided. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.