Retrieving and Integrating Data from Multiple Information Sources

Abstract

With the current explosion of data, retrieving and integrating information from various sources is a critical problem. Work in multidatabase systems has begun to address this problem, but it has primarily focused on methods for communicating between databases and requires significant effort for each new database added to the system. This paper describes a more general approach that exploits a semantic model of a problem domain to integrate the information from various information sources. The information sources handled include both databases and knowledge bases, and other information sources could potentially be incorporated into the system. This paper describes how the domain and the information sources are modeled, shows how a query at the domain level is mapped into a set of queries to individual information sources, and presents algorithms for automatically improving the efficiency of queries using knowledge about both the domain and the information sources. This work is implemented in a system called SIMS and has been tested in a transportation planning domain using nine Oracle databases and a LOOM knowledge base.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 30, 1993
Accession Number
ADA269588

Entities

People

  • Chin Y. Chee
  • Chun-Nan Hsu
  • Craig Knoblock
  • Yigal Arens

Organizations

  • University of Southern California

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Algorithms
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Classification
  • Cost Models
  • Costs
  • Database Management Systems
  • Databases
  • Graphs
  • Information Science
  • Information Systems
  • Language
  • Lisp Programming Language
  • Models
  • Relational Database Management Systems
  • Security
  • Transportation
  • User Interface

Fields of Study

  • Computer science
  • Engineering

Readers

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Database Systems and Applications