Attribute mapping as a foundation of ontology alignment

Abstract

In this paper we present preliminary results of our work on creating a mapping function between two ontologies. Careful investigation of many different approaches to this task, has brought us to the point where we were able to distinguish independent ontological levels, differing on their granularity-starting from the structural level, through concept level and attribute level. This distinction drew our attention to the necessity of precise definition of attribute's structure. In this paper we propose our ideas about developing consistent methodology of expressing attributes' complexity and in further parts possible approaches and requirements about the distance function that is able to compare these structures. A comparison with other related works and brief description of potential development directions is given as a summary. © 2011 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.