Title: Evolving open and independent ontologies

Authors: Silvana Castano, Alfio Ferrara, Stefano Montanelli

Addresses: Dipartimento di Informatica e Comunicazione, Universita degli Studi di Milano, via Comelico 39, 20135 Milano, Italy. ' Dipartimento di Informatica e Comunicazione, Universita degli Studi di Milano, via Comelico 39, 20135 Milano, Italy. ' Dipartimento di Informatica e Comunicazione, Universita degli Studi di Milano, via Comelico 39, 20135 Milano, Italy

Abstract: In this paper, we address the problem of evolving open and independent ontologies, by proposing a novel ontology evolution methodology called H-CHANGE and a set of related techniques. After providing a formal definition of distributed concept, we describe; change detection techniques based on semantic matchmaking for determining the semantics of change; assimilation techniques for evolving ontology metadata according to new incoming external knowledge at different integration levels, ranging from concept merging to concept alignment. Examples of evolving OWL ontologies according to H-CHANGE are also provided.

Keywords: ontology evolution; ontology matching; knowledge discovery; open networked systems; change semantics; ontology metadata; open networks; ontologies.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMSO.2006.012949

International Journal of Metadata, Semantics and Ontologies, 2006 Vol.1 No.4, pp.235 - 249

Published online: 31 Mar 2007 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article