Automatic derivation of terminological properties from database schemes.

Many organizations nowadays own several information systems which represent a mine of possible information resources whose effective exploitation is becoming a key issue in many application contexts. A major problem to be faced within such contexts is the semantic normalization of scheme objects used in heterogeneous, independent and pre-existing databases as to single out differences and similitudes among data whereby a consistent, integrated view of available information can be obtained. To solve large instances of this problem, the development of automatic support tools appears to be mandatory. This paper gives a contribution in this framework by presenting algorithms for extracting useful properties holding among objects belonging to sets of pre-existing database schemes. The algorithms are capable of deriving both nominal and structural properties of scheme objects starting from database scheme descriptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]