A framework for combining ontology and schema matchers with Dempster-Shafer

Abstract

Ontologies, at least in the form of taxonomies, have proved rather successful, and are employed in many fields, as far apart as biology and finance. Reaching an agreement over a single ontology has proved difficult, and to obtain actual interoperability it is necessary to map the different ontologies. Mapping one entity between a source ontology and one in a target ontology means to compare the first entity with all the entities in the second ontology: matchers analyse different aspects of the entities to identify the similarities. A single matcher can analyse only some aspects, and often has to rely on uncertain information. Therefore combining the outcomes of different matchers can yield better results. In this paper I present a framework that uses Dempster-Shafer as a model for interpreting and combining results computed by the matchers.