Explicit federal relationship management to support semantic integration

Integration of disparate information resources has long been a significant research topic. Semantic approaches can help by allowing expression of concepts divorced from syntax and allowing rich, structured meta-data to be published in a form that is amenable to machine processing, reasoning and inter-domain concept mapping. However the creation of mappings, especially in a dynamic federations of autonomous entities, is time-consuming and vulnerable to brittleness and high maintenance costs due to change at many levels in the system. In this paper we propose an approach to managing change and maximizing mapping reuse by building explicit models of the federal relationship context of mapping deployment. These descriptions enable automated support for mapping reuse suggestions and ease discovery of relevant mappings due to changes at the federation, peer domain, shared capability or local model levels.