Ontology matching: algorithms and experiments

The semantic web relies on the expression of formalized knowledge on the web (in languages like RDF). Like the web, the semantic web will have to be distributed and heterogeneous. As such, the integration of resources found on the semantic web is one of its main problems. For contributing solving this problem, data is expressed in the framework of ontologies (theories describing the vocabulary used for expressing data). However, ontologies themselves can be heterogeneous and have to be reconciled.

Matching aims at finding correspondences between ontologies (called alignments). With colleagues from Montréal, Exmo has designed and implemented a matching algorithm, called OLA, based on advanced graph matching techniques. This algorithms applies a homogeneous distance measure between ontology element and computes the optimum matching with regard to this measure. OLA offers an extensible framework to take into account more specific matching methods

We are looking for a researcher to further improve the OLA algorithm and its implementation. This requires experimenting with new successful techniques. In particular, techniques for automatically adapting the algorithm behaviour to the characteristics of ontology to be matched, conditional combination of techniques and exploitation of external resources will have to be considered for integration with OLA.

This work will involve evaluating the benefits of the considered solutions by confronting them with real-world applications and experiment it with various test cases provided by the Ontology Alignment Evaluation Initiative and projects with application partners (within the NeOn Integrated project and the WebContent national project).

References:

• EXMO (http://www.inrialpes.fr/exmo)
• OLA (https://exmo.inria.fr/files/publications/euzenat2004c.pdf)
• NeOn (http://www.neon-project.org)
• WebContent (http://www.webcontent.fr)
• OAEI (http://oaei.ontologymatching.org)

Qualification: PhD or equivalent in computer science. Knowledge in knowledge representation and discrete mathematics is welcome.

Researched skills:

• Interaction with other researchers.
• Design and programming skills.
• Autonomous researcher.
• Writing capabilities.
• Innovative.

Hiring date: as soon as possible.

Place of work: The position is located at INRIA Rhône-Alpes, Montbonnot (near Grenoble, France) a main computer science research lab, in a stimulating research environment. Research will be carried out in the Exmo team under the supervision of Jérôme Euzenat. It will require the involvement of the candidate in related projects.

Duration: 12 months (extendible to longer period)

Salary: 2320 EUR/month

Contact: For further information, contact Jerome:Euzenat#inrialpes:fr.
Some more administrative information is available (but do not hesitate to contact us any since we are more flexible).

INRIA Priority research themes:

• Designing and mastering the future network infrastructures and communication services platforms/Concevoir et maîtriser les futures infrastructures des réseaux et des services de communication;
• Developing multimedia data and multimedia information processing/Développer le traitement des informations et données multimédia.