Tuning the ensemble selection process of schema matchers

Schema matching is the task of providing correspondences between concepts describing the meaning of data in various heterogeneous, distributed data sources. It is recognized to be one of the basic operations required by the process of data and schema integration and its outcome serves in many tasks such as targeted content delivery and view integration. Schema matching research has been going on for more than 25 years now. An interesting research topic, that was largely left untouched involves the automatic selection of schema matchers to an ensemble, a set of schema matchers. To the best of our knowledge, none of the existing algorithmic solutions offer such a selection feature. In this paper we provide a thorough investigation of this research topic. We introduce a new heuristic, Schema Matcher Boosting (SMB). We show that SMB has the ability to choose among schema matchers and to tune their importance. As such, SMB introduces a new promise for schema matcher designers. Instead of trying to design a perfect schema matcher, a designer can instead focus on finding better than random schema matchers. For the effective utilization of SMB, we propose a complementary approach to the design of new schema matchers. We separate schema matchers into first-line and second-line matchers. First-line schema matchers were designed by-and-large as applications of existing works in other areas (e.g., machine learning and information retrieval) to schemata. Second-line schema matchers operate on the outcome of other schema matchers to improve their original outcome. SMB selects matcher pairs, where each pair contains a first-line matcher and a second-line matcher. We run a thorough set of experiments to analyze SMB ability to effectively choose schema matchers and show that SMB performs better than other, state-of-the-art ensemble matchers.     

An evidential approach to query interface matching on the deep Web

Matching query interfaces is a crucial step in data integration across multiple Web databases. The problem is closely related to schema matching that typically exploits different features of schemas. Relying on a particular feature of schemas is not sufficient. We propose an evidential approach to combining multiple matchers using Dempster–Shafer theory of evidence. First, our approach views the match results of an individual matcher as a source of evidence that provides a level of confidence on the validity of each candidate attribute correspondence. Second, it combines multiple sources of evidence to get a combined mass function that represents the overall level of confidence, taking into account the match results of different matchers. Our combination mechanism does not require the use of weighing parameters, hence no setting and tuning of them is needed. Third, it selects the top k attribute correspondences of each source attribute from the target schema based on the combined mass function. Finally it uses some heuristics to resolve any conflicts between the attribute correspondences of different source attributes. Our experimental results show that our approach is highly accurate and effective.     

一种基于部分已验证匹配关系的模式匹配模型

模式匹配是模式集成、语义WEB及电子商务等领域的重点及难点问题. 为了有效利用专家知识提高匹配质量, 提出了一种基于部分已验证匹配关系的模式匹配模型. 在该模型中, 首先,人工验证待匹配模式元素间的少量对应关系, 进而推理出当前任务下部分已知的匹配关系及单独匹配器的缺省权重; 然后,基于上述已收集到的先验知识对多种匹配器所生成的相似度矩阵进行合并及调整, 并在全局范围内进行优化; 最后,对优化矩阵的选择性进行评估, 从而为不同匹配任务推荐最合理的候选匹配生成方案. 实验结果表明, 部分已验证匹配关系的使用有助于模式匹配质量的提高.     

A survey of approaches to automatic schema matching

Schema matching is a basic problem in many database application domains, such as data integration, E-business, data warehousing, and semantic query processing. In current implementations, schema matching is typically performed manually, which has significant limitations. On the other hand, previous research papers have proposed many techniques to achieve a partial automation of the match operation for specific application domains. We present a taxonomy that covers many of these existing approaches, and we describe the approaches in some detail. In particular, we distinguish between schema-level and instance-level, element-level and structure-level, and language-based and constraint-based matchers. Based on our classification we review some previous match implementations thereby indicating which part of the solution space they cover. We intend our taxonomy and review of past work to be useful when comparing different approaches to schema matching, when developing a new match algorithm, and when implementing a schema matching component. Received: 5 February 2001 / Accepted: 6 September 2001 Published online: 21 November 2001     

A Query Interface Matching Approach Based on Extended Evidence Theory for Deep Web

Matching query interfaces is a crucial step in data integration across multiple Web databases. Different types of information about query interface schemas have been used to match attributes between schemas. Relying on a single aspect of information is not suffcient and the matching results of individual matchers are often inaccurate and uncertain. The evidence theory is the state-of-the-art approach for combining multiple sources of uncertain information. However, traditional evidence theory has the limita...     

基于语言和约束匹配器融合的元素匹配研究

在模式匹配方面已经出现了许多使用于特定应用领域的部分自动匹配方法,这种匹配方法结合了多种匹配技术以便能够在大规模的多样匹配环境中得到高的匹配率。提出了一种基于模式的元素匹配方法,它融合了语言和约束匹配器,使用了复合元素名称匹配器和神经网络匹配器,结合基于语言的匹配算法和最大优先策略的原则,以多重标准条件下复合名称匹配器的结果作为约束对模式元素进行归类。通过组合使用复合名称匹配器和神经网络匹配器,使得本方法可以应用于更复杂的匹配环境。     

基于证据理论的不确定模式匹配方法

由于数据源数据模式的自治性、异构性，不确定性是模式匹配过程固有的本质特性。提出了一种基于证据理论的不确定性匹配方法，首先根据属性类型把模式空间分成若干模式子空间；然后将不同的匹配器结果看作不同的证据源，利用不同的匹配器的结果生成了多个基本概率分配函数，采用改进的Dempster组合规则把多个匹配器结果自动组合，减少人工干预，并解决了不同的匹配器结果组合时证据间冲突的问题；最后利用Kuhn Munkres算法获取模式映射。实验结果表明了方法的可行性和有效性。     

MDSM: Microarray database schema matching using the Hungarian method

Current microarray databases use different terminologies and structures and thereby limit the sharing of data and collating of results between laboratories. Consequently, an effective integrated microarray data model is required. One important process to develop such an integrated database is schema matching. In this paper, we propose an effective schema matching approach called MDSM, to syntactically and semantically map attributes of different microarray schemas. The contribution from this work will be used later to create microarray global schemas. Since microarray data is complex, we use microarray ontology to improve the measuring accuracy of the similarity between attributes. The similarity relations can be represented as weighted bipartite graphs. We determine the best schema matching by computing the optimal matching in a bipartite graph using the Hungarian optimisation method. Experimental results show that our schema matching approach is effective and flexible to use in different kinds of database models such as; database schema, XML schema, and web site map. Finally, a case study on an existing public microarray schema is carried out using the proposed method.     

eTuner: tuning schema matching software using synthetic scenarios

Most recent schema matching systems assemble multiple components, each employing a particular matching technique. The domain user mustthen tune the system: select the right component to be executed and correctly adjust their numerous “knobs” (e.g., thresholds, formula coefficients). Tuning is skill and time intensive, but (as we show) without it the matching accuracy is significantly inferior. We describe eTuner, an approach to automatically tune schema matching systems. Given a schema S, we match S against synthetic schemas, for which the ground truth mapping is known, and find a tuning that demonstrably improves the performance of matching S against real schemas. To efficiently search the huge space of tuning configurations, eTuner works sequentially, starting with tuning the lowest level components. To increase the applicability of eTuner, we develop methods to tune a broad range of matching components. While the tuning process is completely automatic, eTuner can also exploit user assistance (whenever available) to further improve the tuning quality. We employed eTuner to tune four recently developed matching systems on several real-world domains. The results show that eTuner produced tuned matching systems that achieve higher accuracy than using the systems with currently possible tuning methods.     

基于本体的Deep Web查询接口集成

Deep Web中的海量信息只能通过查询接口访问获得,为了能够同时访问同一领域多个Web数据库,需要对多个Web数据库的查询接口进行集成.因此,引入本体技术,提出基于本体的Deep Web查询接口集成方法.Deep Web查询接口集成主要完成两个方面的工作:模式匹配与模式融合.模式匹配采用本体的“Bridge(桥接)”效应建立不同接口模式间的属性映射关系,以准确发现不同接口属性间的语义关联.模式融合根据模式匹配的结果,合并Deep Web数据库查询接口集合中表示同一语义的属性,并尽可能地保持该领域查询接口的结构特征和属性顺序,以获得集成查询接口.通过实验分析,基于本体的Deep Web查询接口集成方法不仅简化了模式匹配的复杂过程,而且很大程度上提高了模式集成的精度.因此,基于本体的Deep Web查询接口集成方法是高效可行的.     

基于源模式分裂的模式匹配算法

模式匹配就是在作为输入的模式中有对应语义关系的元素间产生一个映射.为了提高模式匹配的效率,提出了一种新型的模式匹配方法--源模式分裂模式匹配算法.它可以解决标准模式匹配难以解决的问题:1)源模式的某一个属性和多个目标模式的多个属性之间建立匹配关系;2)表格中的不同元组对应其他表格同一元组的不同属性值的匹配.在匹配过程中,该方法先搜索种类型属性,然后根据种类型属性建立选择条件,最后把源模式进行分裂形成视图,再重新生成候选匹配集合,从而提高模式匹配的质量.     

不确定模式匹配研究综述

模式匹配是数据集成、语义Web等研究领域的重要研究内容,需要依据一定的启发式信息发现模式元素之间的对应关系。鉴于启发式信息处理方法的不同,对模式匹配方法进行了分类,并从模式匹配结果集结方法的角度,介绍了综合模式匹配方法。不确定性是模式匹配过程固有的特性,介绍了建模模式匹配过程中不确定性的数据模型,在此基础上介绍了处理模式匹配过程中不确定性的模式匹配方法。最后对模式匹配研究进行了展望。     

SMGM：一种基于模式结构和已有匹配知识的模式匹配模型

模式匹配是确定模式间语义匹配关系的技术，它在许多应用中起着重要的作用，如数据集成中异构模式信息整合、本体知识映射、电子商务中消息映射等。针对已有模式匹配方法的局限性，本着最大限度地减少人工干预使模式匹配自动化的原则，本文提出一种利用模式结构信息和已有匹配知识的模式匹配模型SMGM。它借鉴神经网络元间影响作用过程实现语义匹配推理；通过重用已有匹配知识，补充、精化匹配知识，自动缩减不确定阈值区间；并给出一种自适应式迭代挖掘求精已有匹配知识的自学习型模式匹配模型。实验表明：SMGM模型切实可行。     

面向智慧民生领域的增量交互式数据集成方法

智慧民生作为智慧城市的重点领域,包含众多应用系统,积累了大量层次结构数据.为了形成城市范围完整数据集,需要集成并统一异构的数据模式,向用户提供统一的数据视图.针对智慧民生领域的领域知识宽泛、缺乏中文语义匹配支持、模式数量众多、元素标签缺失但实例数据丰富等几方面特点,提出了一种增量交互式模式集成方法.该方法采用增量迭代的方式逐步完成多模式集成任务,大幅降低集成计算量;在模式匹配阶段,综合利用模式信息和实例数据构造了多种适用于中文且能力互补的匹配器,并通过相似度熵来度量机器的决策置信度,适度引入人工干预;在中介模式生成阶段,处理模式间可能出现的各种冲突,最终输出全局统一的中介模式.利用从互联网爬取的多源二手房数据设计并完成实验,实验结果表明:此方法在人工干预程度足够小的前提下,具有较好的模式匹配准确性.     

多源模式匹配技术

模式匹配技术是数据集成领域中的关键技术。为了快速、准确地完成模式匹配工作,已经提出了大量的基于各种模式类型的模式匹配方法。本文介绍了现存的模式匹配技术和两种多源模式匹配技术;并且为满足大规模匹配的需要提出了一种改进的多源模式匹配算法。     

异构数据源集成中的模式映射技术

模式映射是异构数据源集成中实现查询重形成（Reformulation）的关键技术,本文首先介绍了模式映射的集中式和非集中式集成体系,总结了定义模式映射的3种基本形式：GAV、LAV和GLAV,重点探讨了模式映射中的核心技术：模式匹配和映射生成,最后讨论了模式映射技术新的研究议题。     

Double-layered schema integration of heterogeneous XML sources

Schema integration aims to create a mediated schema as a unified representation of existing heterogeneous sources sharing a common application domain. These sources have been increasingly written in XML due to its versatility and expressive power. Unfortunately, these sources often use different elements and structures to express the same concepts and relations, thus causing substantial semantic and structural conflicts. Such a challenge impedes the creation of high-quality mediated schemas and has not been adequately addressed by existing integration methods. In this paper, we propose a novel method, named XINTOR, for automating the integration of heterogeneous schemas. Given a set of XML sources and a set of correspondences between the source schemas, our method aims to create a complete and minimal mediated schema: it completely captures all of the concepts and relations in the sources without duplication, provided that the concepts do not overlap. Our contributions are fourfold. First, we resolve structural conflicts inherent in the source schemas. Second, we introduce a new statistics-based measure, called path cohesion, for selecting concepts and relations to be a part of the mediated schema. The path cohesion is statistically computed based on multiple path quality dimensions such as average path length and path frequency. Third, we resolve semantic conflicts by augmenting the semantics of similar concepts with context-dependent information. Finally, we propose a novel double-layered mediated schema to retain a wider range of concepts and relations than existing mediated schemas, which are at best either complete or minimal, but not both. Performed on both real and synthetic datasets, our experimental results show that XINTOR outperforms existing methods with respect to (i) the mediated-schema quality using precision, recall, F-measure, and schema minimality; and (ii) the execution performance based on execution time and scale-up performance.     

A composite approach to automating direct and indirect schema mappings

Automating schema mapping is challenging. Previous approaches to automating schema mapping focus mainly on computing direct matches between two schemas. Schemas, however, rarely match directly. Thus, to complete the task of schema mapping, we must also compute indirect matches. In this paper, we present a composite approach for generating a source-to-target mapping that contains both direct and many indirect matches between a source schema and a target schema. Recognizing expected-data values associated with schema elements and applying schema-structure heuristics are the key ideas needed to compute indirect matches. Experiments we have conducted over several real-world application domains show encouraging results, yielding about 90% precision and recall measures for both direct and indirect matches.     

SKM:一种基于模式结构和已有匹配知识的模式匹配模型

针对已有基于模式结构的模式匹配方法的局限性,提出了一种利用模式结构信息和已有匹配知识的模式匹配模型——SKM(schema and reused knowledge based matching model).在该模型中,借鉴神经网络元之间的影响过程实现语义匹配推理;通过重用已有匹配知识深入挖掘模式元素之间的深层语义关系;基于已有匹配知识自动缩减不确定阈值区之间来确定匹配阈值,有效减少人工干涉;给出了简单的确定模式元素之间匹配关系的方法;同时通过自适应式迭代模型,进一步挖掘求精已有匹配知识.实验结果表明,SKM模型切实可行.     

发掘数据库模式间的复杂语义匹配

模式匹配是数据集成和数据转换中的重要问题.现有的模式匹配方法大多集中于发掘模式间的1:1匹配,然而,现实世界模式之间除了1:1匹配还包括许多的复杂匹配.本文提出一种新的发掘数据库模式问复杂匹配的方法--CSM(Complex Schema Matching),它在全面发掘模式问1:1和复杂匹配的同时,还可进一步找到不透明列间的匹配关系.实验表明,CSM不仅能全面的发掘模式间匹配,与其它模式匹配方法相比,还具有较高的查全率、查准率和效率.