Conceptual Ontology Intersection for Mapping and Alignment of Ontologies

Abstract

Combining ontologies can enrich knowledge within a domain and support the development and use of advanced services. This requires matching and combining the relevant ontologies for specific services, which can be supported by mapping and alignment of several ontologies. However, these techniques are not enough since the ontologies are often heterogeneous and difficult to combine. To overcome these problems, a conceptual ontology intersection is provided to map and align contents of the ontologies. This intersection is a conceptual ontology bridge between ontologies and contains parts from the involved ontologies. The contents are extracted by syntactic mapping and synonym alignment using an ontology repository, a rule base and a synonym lexicon using agents. The result is a set of concepts that together constitute the intersection, which is used for combining new incoming ontologies and, thereby, providing complex services.