Semantic Association of Faceted Taxonomies

This book addresses semantic interoperability, a common fundamental problem for research into database, semantic web, and information integration. A novel taxonomy-based information model is proposed for managing faceted domain knowledge (semantics) and thus extends its utility for a wide range of applications (interoperability). This approach was inspired by the building construction domain, where complementary taxonomies (or standards) are used to classify sets of related specifications and materials that then serve as reference models to enhance communication among stakeholders. The new approach is based on the hypothesis that faceted taxonomies (classification) and cross-referencing can be extended and formalized to create a functional generic model that addresses the semantic interoperability problem within a domain. Working examples of such an information model are defined and systematic approaches proposed for its application to the management of project requirements in the software engineering domain.