Managing ontology mapping change based on changing inference sets

Abstract

Dealing with ontology changes is of high importance for ontology engineers in different application domains. In some applications domain ontologies cover overlapping topics. Ontology mappings represent this overlap and allow specifying a connection between domain ontologies. Adapting the mappings when the domain ontologies are changed is a problem still lacking a thoroughly evaluated, systematic approach. This doctoral research aims at providing a new approach to this problem by comparing the inferences computed from the relevant regions of the domain ontologies and the mappings before and after changes occur. A change model can be used to categorize differences in the inferences as intentional or unintentional and propose solutions to adapt the mappings.