An ontology-based data mediation framework for semantic environments

In a semantic environment data is described by ontologies and ontology mapping has become a crucial aspect in solving the heterogeneity problems of semantically described data. This means that alignments between ontologies have to be created, most probably during design-time, and used in various run-time processes. Such alignments describe a set of mappings between the source and target ontologies, where the mappings show how instance data from one ontology can be expressed in terms of another ontology. In this article we propose a formal model for creation of mappings and we explore how such a model maps onto a design-time graphical tool that can be used in creating alignments between ontologies. In the other direction, we investigate how such a model helps in expressing the mappings in a logical language, based on the semantic relationships identified using the graphical tool.