Automatic Ontology Matching Using Application Semantics

hance the process of semantic reconciliation. Application semantics involves those elements of business reasoning that affect the way concepts are presented to users: their layout, and so on. In particular, we pursue in this article the notion of precedence, in which temporal constraints determine the order in which concepts are presented to the user. Existing matching algorithms use either syntactic means (such as term matching and domain matching) or model semantic means, the use of structural information that is provided by the specific data model to enhance the matching process. The novelty of our approach lies in proposing a class of matching techniques that takes advantage of ontological structures and application semantics. As an example, the use of precedence to reflect business rules has not been applied elsewhere, to the best of our knowledge. We have tested the process for a variety of web sites in domains such as car rentals and airline reservations, and we share our experiences with precedence and its limitations.