An ontology-based approach for semantic conflict resolution in database integration

An important task in database integration is to resolve data conflicts, on both schema-level and semantic-level. Especially difficult the latter is. Some existing ontology-based approaches have been criticized for their lack of domain generality and semantic richness. With the aim to overcome these limitations, this paper introduces a systematic approach for detecting and resolving various semantic conflicts in heterogeneous databases, which includes two important parts: a semantic conflict representation model based on our classification framework of semantic conflicts, and a methodology for detecting and resolving semantic conflicts based on this model. The system has been developed, experimental evaluations on which indicate that this approach can resolve much of the semantic conflicts effectively, and keep independent of domains and integration patterns.