Netcentric Semantic Linking: An Approach for Enterprise Semantic Interoperability
November 2004
Mary K. Pulvermacher, The MITRE Corporation
Suzette Stoutenburg, The MITRE Corporation
Salim Semy, The MITRE Corporation
ABSTRACT
As threats around around the world become ever more complex, the DoD must seek ways to minimize the lag time required for synthesizing information and providing the resultant intelligence to the Warfighter. Key to this goal is providing a Command and Control (C2) machine to machine (M2M) environment where rapid and flexible exchange of information with new, and often unanticipated, trading partners is possible.
To enable M2M semantic interoperability in dynamic environments, semantics must be expressed in a manner precise enough for humans and machines to understand them. This entails capturing data and application semantics using a standard language and making implied semantics explicit. Extending the Web to give Web-based information well-defined meaning in a standard way is the vision of the Semantic Web. Key to the vision of the Semantic Web is the ability to capture semantics in ontologies across multiple domains and link these ontologies to interconnect related concepts. One approach for facilitating system interoperability and data integration in a network centric environment is to harness the power of linked ontologies to promote semantic interoperability across the enterprise.
Therefore, our purpose was to explore Network Centric Semantic Linking as a potential solution for integration across the U.S. Military C2 Enterprise. Our one staff-year research effort accomplished three goals. First, we investigated approaches for semantically linking ontologies across military domains using the proposed international standard Web Ontology Language (OWL). Second, we formed opinions on the applicability of semantic linking to the military domain by using this technology to develop a semantic linking test case that addressed an existing mission problem. Finally, we assessed the value of using standard upper ontologies in a military environment. This paper presents the results of our research and gives details on the mission test case we implemented.
Additional Search Keywords
Semantic Web, semantic linking, semantic mapping, ontology, ontology mapping, standard upper ontology, target validation, interoperability, Netcentric, OWL
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