A uniform framework for integrating knowledge in heterogeneous knowledge systems

Abstract

Integrating knowledge from multiple sources is an important aspect of automated reasoning systems. Wiederhold and his colleagues (1993) have proposed the concept of a mediator-a device that will express how such an integration is to be achieved. In (1994) Subrahmanian et al. presented a uniform declarative and operational framework for mediators for amalgamating multiple knowledge bases and data structures (e.g. relational, object-oriented, spatial, and temporal structures) when these knowledge bases (possibly) contain inconsistencies, uncertainties, and nonmonotonic modes of negation. We specify the programming environment for this framework and show that it can be used to extract and integrate information obtained from different sources of data and resolve conflicts. We also show that it can be extended easily to integrate new knowledge bases.<>