OntoMatch: A monotonically improving schema matching system for autonomous data integration

Traditional schema matchers use a set of distinct simple matchers and use a composition function to combine the individual scores using an arbitrary order of matcher application leading to non-intuitive scores, produce improper matches, and wasteful and counterproductive computation, especially when no consideration is given to the properties of the individual matchers and the context of the application. In this paper, we propose a new method for schema matching in which wasteful computation is avoided by a prudent, and objective selection and ordering of a subset of useful matchers. This method thus has the potential to improve the matching efficiency and accuracy of many popular ontology generation engines. Such efficiency and quality assurance are imperative in autonomous systems because users rarely have a chance to validate the processing accuracy until the computation is complete. Experimental results to support the claim that such an approach monotonically improves the matching score at successive application of the matchers are also provided.