从ER模式到OWL DL本体的语义保持的翻译

Semantics-Preserving Translation from ER Schema to OWL DL Ontology

提出了一种从ER模式到OWL DL本体的语义保持的翻译方法.该方法在形式化表示ER模式的基础上,建立ER模式和OWL DL本体之间精确的概念对应,通过一个翻译算法按照一组预定义的映射规则实现模式翻译.理论分析表明,该方法是语义保持的和有效的;算法实现和案例研究进一步证实,完全自动的机器翻译是可实现的.该文方法是原创性的,为Web本体的开发以及数据库和语义Web之间语义互操作的实现开辟了一条有效途径.

The Semantic Web aims to create ontology-based and machine-processable Web content. Hence its success and proliferation depends on quickly and cheaply constructing Web ontologies that meet applications＇ needs. An Entity-Relationship （ER） schema captures the domain knowledge of the database application. Thus the translation from ER schema to OWL ontology is helpful for learning Web ontologies from databases and for developing data-intensive Semantic Web applications such as semantic annotation of database-based Web pages. In this paper, a method for semantics-preserving translation from ER schema to OWL DL ontology is presented.Based on the formalization of ER schema, the method establishes precise conceptual correspondences between an ER schema and an OWL DL ontology and realizes the schema translation via a translation algorithm which follows a set of predefined mapping rules. Theoretic analysis shows that the method is semantics-preserving and effective. Algorithmic implementation and case study demonstrates farther that the fully automated machine translation is realizable. The proposed method is original and will doubtless facilitate the development of Web ontologies and the realization of semantic interoperations between existing database applications and the Semantic Web.