Adapting a generic match algorithm to align ontologies of human anatomy

The difficulty inherent in schema matching has led to the development of several generic match algorithms. We describe how we adapted general approaches to the specific task of aligning two ontologies of human anatomy, the Foundational Model of Anatomy and the GALEN Common Reference Model. Our approach consists of three phases: lexical, structural and hierarchical, which leverage different aspects of the ontologies as they are represented in a generic meta-model. Lexical matching identifies concepts with similar names. Structural matching identifies concepts whose neighbors are similar. Finally, hierarchical matching identifies concepts with similar descendants. We conclude by reporting on the lessons we learned.