Intelligent Information Integration for the Semantic Web (Lecture Notes in Computer Science / Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence) : 9783540229933

The Semantic Web offers new options for information processes. Dr. Visser is
dealing with two core issues in this area: the integration of data on the semantic
level and the problem of spatio-temporal representation and reasoning. He
tackles existing research problems within the field of geographic information
systems (GIS), the solutions of which are essential for an improved functionality
of applications that make use of the Semantic Web (e.g., for heterogeneous
digital maps). In addition, they are of fundamental significance for information
sciences as such.

In an introductory overview of this field of research, he motivates the necessity
for formal metadata for unstructured information in the World Wide
Web. Without metadata, an efficient search on a semantic level will turn out
to be impossible, above all if it is not only applied to a terminological level
but also to spatial-temporal knowledge. In this context, the task of information
integration is divided into syntactic, structural, and semantic integration,
the last class by far the most difficult, above all with respect to contextual
semantic heterogeneities.

A current overview of the state of the art in the field of information integration
follows. Emphasis is put particularly on the representation of spatial
and temporal aspects including the corresponding inference mechanisms, and
also the special requirements on the Open GIS Consortium.