Semantic integration

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In Enterprise Application Integration, semantic integration is the process of using business semantics to automate the communication between computer systems. Semantics focuses on the meaning of data.

Semantic integration relies on metadata publishing to allow ontologies to be linked or mapped. One approach to (semi-)automated ontology mapping requires the definition of a semantic distance or its inverse, semantic similarity and appropriate rules. Other approaches include so-called lexical methods, as well as methodologies that rely on exploiting the structures of the ontologies. For explicitly stating similarity/equality, there exist special properties or relationships in most ontology languages. OWL, for example has “sameIndividualAs” or “same-ClassAs”.

Semantic integration can also rely on semantics to facilitate design-time activities of interface design and mapping. In this model, semantics are only explicitly applied to design and the run-time systems work at the syntax level. This "early semantic binding" approach can improve overall system performance while retaining the benefits of semantic driven design.

Eventually systems design may see the advent of composable architectures where published semantic-based interfaces are joined together in new and meaningful capabilities. These will be predominately described through design-time declarative specifications, that could ultimately be rendered and executed at run-time.

The Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing has been a venue for the popularization of the ontology mapping task in the biomedical domain, and a number of papers on the subject can be found in its proceedings.

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