Abstract
The emergence of the Internet as the de facto Global Information Infrastructure enables the construction of decision support systems that leverage on the panoply of on-line information sources. This highly dynamic environment presents a critical need for a flexible and scalable strategy for integrating the disparate information sources while respecting their autonomy.
The Context Interchange strategy addresses above concerns with an emphasis on resolving problems arising from semantic heterogeneity, i.e. inconsistencies arising from differences in the representation and interpretation of data. This is accomplished using three elements: a shared vocabulary for the underlying application domain (in the form of a domain model), a formal object-relational data model (coin), and an object-deductive language (coinl). Semantic interoperation is accomplished by making use of declarative definitions corresponding to source and receiver contexts; i.e. constraints, choices, and preferences for representing and interpreting data. The identification and resolution of potential semantic conflicts involving multiple sources are performed automatically by the context mediator. Users and application developers can express queries in their own terms and rely on the context mediator to rewrite the query in a disambiguated form.
This work is supported in part by ARPA and USAF/Rome Laboratory under contract F30602-93-C-0160, the International Financial Services Research Center (IFSRC), the PROductivity in Information Technology (PROFIT) project at MIT, and ARF RP970628 at the National University of Singapore.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Abdennadher, S., and Schütz, H. CHRv: A flexible query language. In this volume (1998).
Bonnet, P., and Tomasic, A. Partial answers for unavailable data source. In this volume (1998).
Bressan, S., and Bonnet, P. Extraction and integration of data from semi-structured documents into business applications. In in Proceedings of the Intl. Conference on Industrial Applications of Prolog (1997).
Bressan, S., Fynn, K., Goh, C., Jakobisiak, M., Hussein, K., Kon, H., Lee, T. Madnick, S., Pena, T., Qu, J., Shum, A., and Siegel, M. The context interchange mediator prototype. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGMOD Intl. Conf. on Management of Data (1997). (see also http://context.mit.edu/demos/sigmod).
Bressan, S., Goh, C. H., Lee, T., Madnick, S., and Siegel, M. A procedure for mediation of queries to sources in disparate contexts. In Proceedings of the International Logic Programming Symposium (Port Jefferson, NY, Oct 12–17 1997).
Bressan, S., Pena, T., Fynn, K., and al. Overview of a prolog implementation of the context interchange mediator. In Proc. of the Intl. Conf. on Practical Applications of Prolog (1997).
Brisset, P., and Früwirth, T. High-level implementations of constraint handling rules. Tech. Rep. ECRC-90-20, ECRC, 1995.
Chakravarthy, U. S., Grant, J., and Minker, J. Logic-based approach to semantic query optimization. ACM Trans. on Database Sys. 15, 2 (1990).
Decker, H. An extension of SLD by abduction and integrity constraints for view updating in deductive databases. In Proc. JICSLP'96, MIT Press (1996).
Duschka, O., and Genesereth, M. Query planning in infomaster. http://infomaster.stanford.edu/, 1997.
Duschka, O., and Genesereth, M. Answering recursive queries using views. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Principles Of Database Systems (PODS) (1998).
ECRC. ECRC parallel constraint logic programming system, 1996.
Finger, J., and Genesereth, M. Residue: A deductive approach to design synthesis. Tech. Rep. TR-CS-8, Stanford University, 1985.
Goh, C. H., Madnick, S. E., and Siegel, M. D. Context interchange: overcoming the challenges of large-scale interoperable database systems in a dynamic environment. In Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (Gaithersburg, MD, Nov 29–Dec 1 1994), pp. 337–346.
Kakas, A. C., Kowalski, R. A., and Toni, F. Abductive logic programming. Journal of Logic and Computation 2, 6 (1993).
Kifer, M., Lausen, G., and Wu, J. Logical foundations of object-oriented and frame-based languages. JACM 4 (1995), 741–843.
King, J. Query Optimization by Semantic Reasonning. PhD thesis, Stanford University, 1981.
Levy, A., Rajaraman, A., and Ordille, J. Querying heterogenous information sources using source descriptions. In Proc. of the 22nd Conf. on Very Large Databases. (1996).
Sciore, E., Siegel, M., and Rosenthal, A. Using semantic values to facilitate interoperability among heterogeneous information systems. ACM Transactions on Database Systems 19,2 (June 1994), 254–290.
Sheth, A. P., and Larson, J. A. Federated database systems for managing distributed, heterogeneous, and autonomous databases. ACM Computing Surveys 22, 3 (1990), 183–236.
Tomasic, A., Amouroux, R., Bonnet, P., Kapitskaia, O., Naacke, H., and Raschid, L. The distributed information search component (disco) and the worldwide web. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGMOD Intl. Conf. on Management of Data (1997).
Wetzel, G., Kowalski, R., and Toni, F. A theorem proving approach to CLP. In Proc. of the 11th workshop on Logic Programming (1995).
Wetzel, G., Kowalski, R., and Toni, F. Procalog: Programming with constraints and abducibles in logic. JICSLP Poster session, 1996.
Wetzel, G., and Toni, F. Semantic query optimization through abduction and constraint handling. In this volume (1998).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1998 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Bressan, S., Goh, C.H. (1998). Answering queries in context. In: Andreasen, T., Christiansen, H., Larsen, H.L. (eds) Flexible Query Answering Systems. FQAS 1998. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1495. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0055992
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0055992
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-65082-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-49655-7
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive