III: Small: Enhancing Ontology Matching with Visual Analytics

本体是一个领域的表示，无论是生物医学，商业，环境，或其他。在数据主要是异构的世界中，本体匹配在两个本体的概念之间建立对应关系，从而有效地桥接两个不同的域或同一域的两个不同表示。因此，本体匹配是数据集成的基本工具，也就是说，用于创建到不同数据的同构网关。 本体匹配系统是由几个匹配算法组成的，称为匹配器。不同的匹配任务需要不同的匹配器，因此需要进行各种配置和参数选择，从而导致多维问题，其中参数调整需要相当大的努力和专业知识。然而，大多数本体匹配系统作为一个黑箱运行，无法提供关于如何生成输出（一组本体概念之间的映射（称为对齐））的见解。这些系统通常不向领域专家提供验证自动生成的映射的机会，以获得对匹配过程的控制。在这个项目中，可视化分析--可视化和分析的结合，以促进本体匹配--被用来帮助本体匹配的过程。用户与匹配过程的可视化表示进行交互，并验证由底层分析方法排名的映射。该项目探索新颖的视觉分析方法，并研究其潜在的好处。 研究小组正在与生物领域的伙伴合作，以确保研究的实际相关性。从教育的角度来看，PI正在率先在计算机科学中开设新的数据科学课程，该课程可以结合拟议研究的主要方面，并将在这个多学科领域培养研究生和博士后。在广泛领域数据集成需求的推动下，本体匹配领域得到了迅速发展。然而，可视化分析的使用在很大程度上仍未被探索。拟议的研究将结合联合收割机的可视化分析与本体匹配的权力：（1）开放的本体匹配过程，以方便其配置领域的专家;（2）减少映射的数量，以实现高质量的结果，以最小的努力;（3）调查的方法来评估本体匹配与可视化分析相结合的好处。对于可视化设计，将遵循一种原则性的方法，为确定适当的评价方法提供规范性指导，而对于可视化数据的操作，将使用交互操作的分类。此外，设计和分析的工作流程，描述了整个过程的交互性，将有助于研究数据处理和可视化组件之间的复杂的相互依赖关系。项目网站（https：//www.cs.uic.edu/Cruz/OntologyMatchingVisualAnalytics）将提供研究结果，软件将通过GitHub传播。

An ontology is a representation of a domain, be it biomedical, business, environmental, or others. In a world where data are predominantly heterogeneous, ontology matching establishes correspondences between the concepts of two ontologies, thus effectively bridging across two distinct domains or two different representations of the same domain. Ontology matching is therefore a fundamental tool for data integration, that is, for the creation of a homogeneous gateway to disparate data. Ontology matching systems are made up of several matching algorithms, called matchers. Different matching tasks require different matchers, thus there are various configuration and parameter choices to be made, resulting in a multi-dimensional problem where parameter tuning requires considerable effort and expertise. However, most ontology matching systems operate as a black box offering no insight as to how the output -- a set of mappings among ontology concepts (called alignment) -- is generated. These systems do not usually offer the opportunity to the domain experts to validate automatically generated mappings, in order to gain control over the matching process. In this project, visual analytics -- a combination of visualization and analytics to facilitate ontology matching -- is used to aid in the process of ontology matching. Users interact with a visual representation of the matching process and validate mappings that are ranked by underlying analytical methods. This project explores novel visual analytics methods and studies their potential benefits. The research team is collaborating with partners in the biological domain in order to ensure the practical relevance of the research. From an educational viewpoint, the PI is spearheading a new Data Science curriculum in Computer Science, which can incorporate the main aspects of the proposed research and will train a graduate student and postdoc in this multidisciplinary field. Driven by data integration needs in a wide range of domains, the field of ontology matching has been prospering. However, the use of visual analytics remains largely unexplored. The proposed research will combine the power of visual analytics with ontology matching to: (1) open up the ontology matching process so as to facilitate its configuration by domain experts; (2) reduce the number of mappings to be validated by the experts so as to achieve high quality results with minimum effort; and (3) investigate a methodology to evaluate the benefits of combining ontology matching with visual analytics. For the visualization design, a principled approach will be followed that provides prescriptive guidance for determining appropriate evaluation approaches, while for the manipulation of visualized data a taxonomy of interactive operations will be used. Further, the design and analysis of the workflow that describes the interactive nature of the overall process will facilitate the study of the complex interdependencies between the data manipulation and the visualization components. The project web site (https://www.cs.uic.edu/Cruz/OntologyMatchingVisualAnalytics) will provide access to research results and software will be disseminated via GitHub.