An extensible argument-based ontology matching negotiation approach

Abstract

Computational systems operating in open, dynamic and decentralized environments are required to share data with previously unknown computational systems. Due to this ill specification and emergent operation the systems are required to share the data's respective schemas and semantics so that the systems can correctly manipulate, understand and reason upon the shared data. The schemas and semantics are typically provided by ontologies using specific semantics provided by the ontology language. Because computational systems adopt different ontologies to describe their domain of discourse, a consistent and compatible communication relies on the ability to reconcile (in run-time) the vocabulary used in their ontologies. Since each computational system might have its own perspective about what are the best correspondences between the adopted ontologies, conflicts can arise. To address such conflicts, computational systems may engage in any kind of negotiation process that is able to lead them to a common and acceptable agreement.This paper proposes an argumentation-based approach where the computational entities describe their own arguments according to a commonly agreed argumentation meta-model. In order to support autonomy and conceptual differences, the community argumentation model can be individually extended yet maintaining computational effectiveness. Based on the formal specification, a software development framework is proposed.