Querying structured information sources on the Web. (7th July 2010)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Mergen, Sergio; Freire, Juliana; Heuser, Carlos A.
• Is Part Of: International journal of metadata, semantics and ontologies. Volume 5:Number 3(2010)
• Page Start: 208
• Page End: 221
• Publication Date: 2010-07-07
• Subjects: search engines -- dataspaces -- information integration -- query rewriting -- structured information -- internet -- structured queries -- web sources; Metadata -- Periodicals; Semantic Web -- Periodicals; Ontologies (Information retrieval) -- Periodicals; Data structures (Computer science) -- Periodicals; Information theory -- Periodicals; 005.74
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1744-2621

Abstract

To provide access to heterogeneous data distributed over the Web, we propose a solution that merges the expressiveness of information integration systems with the flexibility found in dataspace-aware search engines. Our approach requires neither a mediated schema nor source mappings. In the absence of a mediated schema, the user formulates structured queries based on what she expects to find. We demonstrate the feasibility of this approach by providing a query interface for integrating hundreds of (real) structured Web information sources. We also discuss experimental results which indicate that our query rewriting algorithm is both effective and scalable.