Approximate querying between heterogeneous ontologies based on association matrix

Abstract

An approximate approach of querying between heterogeneous ontology-based information systems based on an association matrix is proposed. First, the association matrix is defined to describe relations between concepts in two ontologies. Then, a method of rewriting queries based on the association matrix is presented to solve the ontology heterogeneity problem. It rewrites the queries in one ontology to approximate queries in another ontology based on the subsumption relations between concepts. The method also uses vectors to represent queries, and then computes the vectors with the association matrix; the disjoint relations between concepts can be considered by the results. It can get better approximations than the methods currently in use, which do not consider disjoint relations. The method can be processed by machines automatically. It is simple to implement and expected to run quite fast.