Frame-based ontological view for semantic integration

Semantic integration is crucial for successful collaboration between heterogeneous information systems. Traditional ontology-driven approaches rely on the availability of explicit ontologies. However, in most application domains, this prerequisite cannot be met. In order to address this issue, this paper investigates the theoretical foundation of ontologies and extends the traditional ontology concept to an ontological view concept. To explicitly and formally specify the ontological views, a Frame-based Ontological view Specification Language (FOSL) is proposed. This language is based on the frame knowledge representation paradigm and uses XML as the encoding. The ontological view driven semantic integration can be achieved based on the specifications. A proof-of-concept prototype environment has been implemented to achieve semantic integration based on ontological views specified with FOSL.