A Fuzzy Ontology-Based Semantic Data Integration System
Cristiane A. Yaguinuma, Gustavo F. Afonso, Vinícius Ramos Toledo Ferraz, Sérgio Henrique Borges, Marilde Terezinha Prado Santos · Journal of Information & Knowledge Management · 2011
Data integration becomes even more necessary given the increasing availability of data from distributed and heterogeneous sources. To address such heterogeneity, crisp ontologies have been employed in order to represent the semantics of integrated data. However, it is interesting to use fuzzy logic concepts in these ontologies for a more expressive representation of vague information relevant to some domains. In this context, this paper presents DISFOQuE system for data integration based on fuzzy ontology, which provides a homogeneous view of data sources and also performs query expansions in order to retrieve more comprehensive answers for the user. We have executed a real experiment in the domain of watershed analysis, which provided a homogeneous view of the watershed data sources and more effective answers to researchers.