1st Edition

Formal Methods for Managing and Processing Ontology Alignments

By Marcin Pietranik Copyright 2025
    226 Pages 35 B/W Illustrations
    by CRC Press

    Ontologies are formal knowledge representation methods that can provide means for a shared understanding of a given domain. To enable meaningful communication and interoperability between two or more information systems that utilize independently created ontologies, a bridge between them is necessary, often referred to as an ontology alignment. This book provides complete ontology alignment lifecycle, including modelling, methods, and maintenance processes.

     

    Summarizing the author's research from the past ten years, this book consolidates findings previously published in prestigious international journals and presented at leading conferences. Each book chapter is designed to be self-contained, allowing readers to approach the material modularly. The book introduces basic mathematical concepts, and later chapters build upon these foundations, but each focusses on specific aspects of ontology alignment, making the content accessible and easy to follow.

     

    Key Features:

     

    Includes formal definitions of ontologies and ontology alignment along with a set of methods for providing semantics of attributes and relations.

    Provides application of fuzzy logic in the task of ontology alignment.

    Contains methods of managing the evolution of ontologies and their alignments.

    Proposes novel methods of assessing the quality ontology alignment.

     

    Situated in the fields of knowledge representation and semantic technologies, this book is an invaluable resource for both academic researchers and practitioners, as well as students looking to deepen their understanding.

    1 Introduction

    1.1 Understanding ontology alignment

    1.2 The subject of this book

    1.3 The contributions of this work

    1.4 The structure of this book

     

    2 A formal model of ontology and ontology alignment

    2.1 Basic notions

    2.2 Methods of providing semantics of attributes and relations

    2.3 Ontology alignment

    2.4 Conclusions

     

    3 Classification of ontology alignment techniques

    3.1 Designating ontology alignments

    3.2 Managing ontology evolution and maintaining ontology alignments over time

    3.3 Evaluating the quality of ontology alignments

    3.4 Conclusions

     

    4 Fuzzy logic framework for ontology alignment

    4.1 Introduction

    4.2 Aligning ontologies on the concept level

    4.3 Aligning ontologies on the relation level

    4.4 Aligning ontologies on the instance level

    4.5 Conclusions

     

    5 Ontology evolution and version management in ontology alignment

    5.1 Introduction

    5.2 Tracking changes in evolving ontologies

    5.3 Assessing the significance of ontology modifications

    5.4 Methods for updating ontology alignment

    5.5 Measuring the level of knowledge about ontology interoperability

    5.6 Conclusions

     

    6 Advanced methods of assessing ontology alignment

    6.1 Content based methods of assessing ontology alignment quality

    6.2 Applicability analysis

    6.3 Conclusions

     

    7 Conclusions

    Biography

    Marcin Pietranik is an assistant professor at Wrocław University of Science and Technology. He holds a deep interest in the areas of knowledge management and intelligent data processing technologies. He published more than 50 articles and participated in organizing several scientific conferences devoted to his research interests. His academic expertise is enriched by practical knowledge of modern web technologies, particularly within medical and telecommunication projects.