Bayes-ReCCE: A Bayesian Model for Detecting Restriction Class Correspondences in Linked Open Data Knowledge Bases

Linked Open Data consists of a large set of structured data knowledge bases which have been linked together, typically using equivalence statements. These equivalences usually take the form of owl:sameAs statements linking individuals, but links between classes are far less common Often, the lack of linking between classes is because the relationships cannot be described as elementary one to one equivalences. Instead, complex correspondences referencing multiple entities in logical combinations are often necessary if we want to describe how the classes in one ontology are related to classes in a second ontology. In this paper we introduce a novel Bayesian Restriction Class Correspondence Estimation (Bayes-ReCCE) algorithm, an extensional approach to detecting complex correspondences between classes. Bayes-ReCCE operates by analysing features of matched individuals in the knowledge bases, and uses Bayesian inference to search for complex correspondences between the classes these individuals belong to. Bayes-ReCCE is designed to be capable of providing meaningful results even when only small amounts of matched instances are available. We demonstrate this capability empirically, showing that the complex correspondences generated by Bayes-ReCCE have a median F1 score of over 0.75 when compared against a gold standard set of complex correspondences between Linked Open Data knowledge bases covering the geographical and cinema domains. In addition we discuss how metadata produced by Bayes-ReCCE can be included in the correspondences to encourage reuse by allowing users to make more informed decisions on the meaning of the relationship described in the correspondences.