A semantic distance measure for matching web services

Abstract

A key issue in web services is matching that involves comparing user requests with advertised services and finding the best available ones. In semantic web services, an ontology is used by the matching system to determine the semantic relationship between the requests and the registered services. In this paper, we propose that the semantic relationship can be measured quantitatively in order to provide a more precise similarity measures between the requested and advertised services and to produce a better ranking of relevant services. We proposes and develops a Semantic Distance Measure that is tailored to provide a quantitative measure that indicates similarity between advertised and requested services. We establish that such a measure is an effective means of discriminating services at a level of granularity that is able to enhance the matching process in semantic web services. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.