Semantic Interoperability Using Multiple Ontologies

SUMMARY There are now robust technical solutions to interoperate geographic information in a syntactic and schematic sense. But, problem with different meaning of geo-data from distributed geo-information sources still exists. The use of ontologies in semantic translation is a viable approach to overcome the problem of semantic heterogeneity. Also, from the technological point of view, mediator-based systems are important for the spatial data interoperability architecture. Our solution for semantic heterogeneity in an interoperable environment (called GeoNis) is a Semantic Mediator. Semantic heterogeneity is resolved by using a hybrid ontology approach. This paper presents architecture of Semantic Mediator. Also, paper defines concepts mappings between community terminologies (local ontologies) and mappings between local ontology and top-level ontology