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Property-Based Semantic Reconciliation of Heterogeneous Information Sources

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Conceptual Modeling — ER 2002 (ER 2002)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 2503))

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Abstract

Integrating information from diverse sources is of great importance in the database area. The main difficulty in information integration is reconciling data semantics. Common approaches to semantic reconciliation are based on first identifying similar entity types in various sources, and then reconciling entity type properties (attributes and relationships). Such approaches assume all instances to be reconciled belong to well-defined types. We suggest an alternative approach based on two fundamental principles. First, reconciliation does not require that instances be assigned to specific types. Instead, sources can be reconciled by analyzing similarities of properties. Second, properties that appear different may be manifestations of a higher-level property that has the same meaning across sources. We present the fundamental ideas underlying our approach, analyze its potential advantages, suggest how the approach can be formalized, demonstrate with examples the feasibility of using it for semantic reconciliation, and suggest directions for further research.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Business Administration, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, NF, A1B 3X5, Canada

    Jeffrey Parsons

  2. Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z2, Canada

    Yair Wand

Authors
  1. Jeffrey Parsons
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  2. Yair Wand
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Database Laboratory, School of Computer and Communication Sciences, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale Lausanne (EPFL), 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Stefano Spaccapietra

  2. Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 37203, USA

    Salvatore T. March

  3. Graduate School of Informatics, Department of Social Informatics, Kyoto University, Yoshida Sakyo, Kyoto, 606-8501, Japan

    Yahiko Kambayashi

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© 2002 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Parsons, J., Wand, Y. (2002). Property-Based Semantic Reconciliation of Heterogeneous Information Sources. In: Spaccapietra, S., March, S.T., Kambayashi, Y. (eds) Conceptual Modeling — ER 2002. ER 2002. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2503. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45816-6_34

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45816-6_34

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-44277-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-45816-6

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