Spatio-temporal Schema Integration with Validation: A Practical Approach

We propose to enhance a schema integration process with a validation phase employing logic-based data models. In our methodology, we validate the source schemas against the data model; the inter-schema mappings are validated against the semantics of the data model and the syntax of the correspondence language. In this paper, we focus on how to employ a reasoning engine to validate spatio-temporal schemas and describe where the reasoning engine is plugged into our integration methodology. The validation phase distinguishes our integration methodology from other approaches. We shift the emphasis on automation from the a priori discovery to the a posteriori checking of the inter-schema mappings. By doing so, we take advantage of the expressive power of the common data model in the source schema description and inter-schema mapping definition.