Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 2.7
Screenshot of AlViz plugin while matching two tourism ontologies [
Lanzenberger and
Sampson 2006
]
These are just a few of the visual and interactive tools available for ontology
matching. In the next section, we discuss similar tools that have been developed to
support the related problem of schema matching.
4
Schema Matching
Typically in schema matching the goal is to map entities from relational database
schemas, XML schemas, Web catalogs, or directories rather than entities of an
ontology. While the process of schema matching is very similar to the process of
ontology matching, there are some significant differences. For example, there are
fundamental differences in terms of the representational semantics of a database
schema versus an ontology. An ontology is a representation of the concepts for a
domain of discourse, which is often developed independent from an application.
A database or XML schema is usually modeled to represent data with a particu-
lar application in mind. Moreover, ontologies are often constructed and published
