Conceptual schemas and ontologies for database access: Myths and challenges

First, I will argue that well-founded conceptual modelling and ontology design is required to support intelligent information access. Then, I will show which are the technical consequences of such choices, and how the foundational and computational problems to be faced are non-trivial. The arguments are based on the use of classical logics and description logics as a formal tools for the framework, and I will make use of languages and examples taken from the Entity-Relationship arena.