Debugging Ontology Mappings: A Static Approach

Abstract

Ontology mapping is the bottleneck in solving interoperation between Semantic Web applications using heterogeneous ontologies. Many mapping methods have been proposed in recent years, but in practice, it is still difficult to obtain satisfactory mapping results having high precision and recall. Different from existing methods, which focus on finding efficient and effective solutions for the ontology mapping problem, we place emphasis on analyzing the mapping result to detect/diagnose the mapping defects. In this paper, a novel technique called debugging ontology mappings is presented. During debugging, some types of mapping errors, such as redundant and inconsistent mappings, can be detected. Some warnings, including imprecise mappings or abnormal mappings, are also locked by analyzing the features of mapping result. More importantly, some errors and warnings can be repaired automatically or can be presented to users with revising suggestions. The experimental results reveal that the ontology debugging technique is promising, and it can improve the quality of mapping result.