Multi-agent ontology mapping with uncertainty on the semantic web

Abstract

The increasing number of ontologies of the Semantic Web poses new challenges for ontology mapping. Ontology mapping in the context of Question Answering can provide more correct results if the mapping process can deal with uncertainty effectively that is caused by the incomplete and inconsistent information used and produced by the mapping process. We present a novel approach of how Dempster-Shafer belief functions can be used to represent uncertain similarities created by both syntactic and semantic similarity algorithms. For ontology mapping in the context of Question Answering on the Semantic Web we propose a multi agent framework where agents create dynamic ontology mappings in order to integrate information and provide precise answers for the users query. We also discuss the problems which can be encountered if we have conflicting beliefs between agents in a particular mapping. ©2007 IEEE.