Hostname: page-component-669899f699-ggqkh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-30T03:37:32.086Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Survey of directly mapping SQL databases to the Semantic Web

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2011

Juan F. Sequeda ,
Syed Hamid Tirmizi ,
Oscar Corcho  and
Daniel P. Miranker
Juan F. Sequeda*
Affiliation:
Department of Computer Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA; e-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Syed Hamid Tirmizi*
Affiliation:
Department of Computer Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA; e-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Oscar Corcho*
Affiliation:
Ontology Engineering Group, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain; e-mail: [email protected]
Daniel P. Miranker*
Affiliation:
Department of Computer Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA; e-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Semantic Web anticipates integrated access to a large number of information sources on the Internet represented as Resource Description Framework (RDF). Given the large number of websites that are backed by SQL databases, methods that automate the translation of those databases to RDF are crucial. One approach, taken by a number of researchers, is to directly map the SQL schema to an equivalent Web Ontology Language (OWL) or RDF Schema representation, which in turn, implies an RDF representation for the relational data. This paper reviews this research, and derives a consolidated, overarching set of translation rules expressible as a stratified Datalog program. We present all the possible key combinations in an SQL schema and consider their implied semantic properties. We review the approaches and characterize them with respect to the scope of their coverage of SQL constructs.

Type
Articles
Information
The Knowledge Engineering Review , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , December 2011 , pp. 445 - 486
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Aho, A., Lam, M., Sethi, R., Ullman, J. 2006. Compilers: Principles, Techniques and Tools. Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
An, Y., Borgida, A., Mylopoulos, J. 2005. Inferring complex semantic mappings between relational tables and ontologies from simple correspondences. In Proceedings of On The Move to Meaninful Internet Systems (OTM'05): CoopIS, DOA, and ODBASE, Agia Napa, Cyprus. Springer Verlag.Google Scholar
An, Y., Mylopoulos, J., Borgida, A. 2006. Building semantic mappings from databases to ontologies. In Proceedings of the 21th National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-06) Nectar Track, Boston, MA, USA.Google Scholar
Arens, A., Chee, C. Y., Hsu, C., Knoblock, C. 1993. Retrieving and integrating data from multiple information sources. International Journal on Intelligent and Cooperative Information Systems 2(2), 127–158.Google Scholar
Arenas, M., Prud'hommeaux, E., Sequeda, J. (ed.) 2010. A direct mapping of relational data to RDF. Retrieved February 17, 2011, from W3C Working Draft, 18 November 2010. http://www.w3.org/TR/rdb-direct-mapping/.Google Scholar
Astrova, I. 2004. Reverse engineering of relational databases to ontologies. In Proceedings of 1st European Semantic Web Symposium (ESWS 2004), Crete, Greece. Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Astrova, I., Korda, N., Kalja, A. 2007. Rule-based transformation of SQL relational databases to OWL ontologies. In Proceedings of 2nd International Conference on Metadata & Semantic Research, Corfu Island, Greece.Google Scholar
Barrasa, J., Gomez-Perez, A. 2006. Upgrading relational legacy data to the semantic web. In Proceedings of 15th International World Wide Web Conference. ACM, 1069–1070.Google Scholar
Barrasa, J., Corcho, O., Gomez-Perez, A. 2004. R2O, an extensible and semantically based database-to-ontology mapping language. In Proceedings of 2nd Workshop on Semantic Web and Databases, Toronto, Canada.Google Scholar
Bizer, C., Seaborne, A. 2004. D2RQ—treating non-RDF databases as virtual RDF graphs. In Proceedings of 3rd International Semantic Web Conference, Hiroshima, Japan.Google Scholar
Bizer, C., Heath, T., Berners-Lee, T. 2009. Linked data – the story so far. International Journal on Semantic Web and Information Systems 5(3), 1–22.Google Scholar
Brickley, D., Guha, R. V. (ed.). 2004. RDF Vocabulary Description Language 1.0: RDF Schema. Retrieved February 17, 2011, from W3C Recommendation. http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-schema/Google Scholar
Buccella, A., Penabad, M. R., Rodríguez, F. J., Fariña, A., Cechich, A. 2004. From relational databases to OWL ontologies. In Proceedings of the 6th Russian Conference on Digital Libraries, Pushchino, Rusia.Google Scholar
Ceri, S., Widom, J. 1993. Managing semantic heterogeneity with production rules and persistent queues. In Proceedings of 19th Very Large Databases Conference, Dublin, Ireland.Google Scholar
Chiang, R. H. L., Barron, T. M., Storey, V. C. 1994. Extracting domain semantics for knowledge discovery in relational databases. In Knowledge Discovery in Databases: Papers from the 1994 AAAI Workshop, Seattle, Washington, July 1994. Technical Report WS-94-03, AAAI Press, ISBN 0-929280-73-3, 473.Google Scholar
Chen, H., Wang, Y., Wang, H., Mao, Y., Tang, J., Zhou, C. , et al. 2006. Towards a semantic web of relational databases: a practical semantic toolkit and an in-use case from traditional chinese medicine. In Proceedings of the 5th International Semantic Web Conference, Athens, GA, USA.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collet, C., Huhns, M. N., Hsu, C., Shen, W. 1991. Resource integration using a large knowledge base in Carnot. Computer 12(24), 55–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Das, S., Sundara, S., Cyganiak, R. (ed.) 2010. R2RML: RDB to RDF Mapping Language. Retrieved February 17, 2011, from W3C Working Draft, 28 October 2010. http://www.w3.org/TR/r2rml/Google Scholar
Dean, M., Schreiber, G. (ed.) 2004. OWL Web Ontological Language Reference. Retrieved February 5, 2009, from W3C Recommendation. http://www.w3.org/TR/owl-ref/Google Scholar
de Laborda, C. P., Conrad, S. 2005. Relational. OWL: a data and schema representation format based on OWL. In Proceedings of the 2nd Asia-Pacific Conference on Conceptual Modelling, Newcastle, Australia.Google Scholar
Drummond, N., Shearer, R. 2006. The Open World Assumption. eSI Workshop: The Closed World of Databases meets the Open World of the Semantic Web.Google Scholar
Du, H., Wery, L. 1999. Micro: a normalization tool for relational database engineers. Journal of Network and Computer Applications 22(4), 215–232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duo, D., Pan, J., Qin, H., LePendu, P. 2006. Towards populating and querying the Semantic Web. In Proceedings of the 2nd International workshop on Scalable Semantic Web Knowledge Base Systems (SSWS 2006), Athens, GA, USA.Google Scholar
Garcia-Molina, H., Ullman, J., Widom, J. 2009. Database Systems: The Complete Book. Pearson Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Hartig, O., Bizer, C., Freytag, J. C. 2009. Executing SPARQL queries over the web of Linked Data. In Proceedings of the 8th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC2009), Chantilly, VA, USA.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayes, P. (ed.) 2004. RDF Semantics. Retrieved February 5, 2009, from W3C Recommendation. http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-mt/Google Scholar
He, B., Patel, M., Zhang, Z., Chang, K. 2007. Accessing the deep web. Communications of the ACM 50(5), 94–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klyne, G., Carroll, J. J. (ed.) 2004. Resource Description Framework (RDF): concepts and abstract syntact. Retrieved February 17, 2011, from W3C Recommendation. http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-concepts/Google Scholar
Korotkiy, M., Top, J. 2004. From Relational Data to RDFS models. In Proceedings of the 2004 International Conference on Web Engineering, Munich, Germany.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kogut, P., Cranefield, S., Hart, L., Dutra, M., Baclawski, K., Kokar, M., Smith, J. 2002. UML for ontology development. Knowledge Engineering Review 12(1), 61–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laclavik, M. 2006. RDB2Onto: Relational Database Data to Ontology Individual Mapping. In Proceedings of Tools for Acquisition, Organisation and Presenting of Information and Knowledge, Nízke Tatry, Slovaki.Google Scholar
Li, M., Du, X., Wang, S. 2005. Learning ontology from relational database. In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Machine Learning and Cybernetics, Guangzhou, China.Google Scholar
Lubyte, L., Tessaris, S. 2009. Automatic extraction of ontologies wrapping relational data sources. In Proceedings of the 20th Database and Expert Systems Applications (DEXA2009), Linz, Austria.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lutz, C., Areces, C., Horricks, I., Satler, U. 2004. Keys, nominals, and concrete domains. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research 23, 667–726.Google Scholar
Meier, D. 1983. The Theory of Relational Databases. Computer Science Press.Google Scholar
Miller, R., Haas, L., Hernandez, M. 2000. Schema mapping as query discovery. In Proceedings of the 26th International Conference on Very Large Database, Cairo, Egypt.Google Scholar
Motik, B., Horrocks, I., Sattler, U. 2007. Bridging the gap between OWL and relational databases. In Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on World Wide Web, Banff, Canada.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Noy, N., Rector, A. (ed.) 2006. Defining N-ary Relations on the Semantic Web. W3C Working Group Note. http://www.w3.org/TR/swbp-n-aryRelations/Google Scholar
Pratt, P. J. 1990. A Guide to SQL. Boyd & Fraser Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Pratt, P. J. 1995. A Guide to SQL, 3rd edn. Boyd & Fraser Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Prud'hommeaux, E., Seaborne, E. (eds) 2008. SPARQL Query Language for RDF. Retrieved February 17, 2011 from W3C Recommendation. http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-query/Google Scholar
Sequeda, J. F., Tirmizi, S. H., Miranker, D. P. 2007. SQL databases are a moving target. Position Paper for W3C Workshop on RDF Access to Relational Databases, Cambridge, MA, USA.Google Scholar
Sequeda, J. F., Tirmizi, S. H., Miranker, D. P. 2008. A bootstrapping architecture for integration of relational databases to the Semantic Web. In Proceedings of the Poster and Demonstration Session at the 7th International Semantic Web Conference, Karlsruhe, Germany.Google Scholar
Sequeda, J. F., Garcia-Castro, A., Corcho, O., Tirmizi, S. H., Miranker, D. P. 2009. Overcoming database heterogeneity to facilitate social networks: the Colombian displaced population as a case study. In Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on World Wide Web Ibero-America Track, Madrid, Spain.Google Scholar
Shen, G., Huang, Z., Zhu, X., Zhao, X. 2006. Research on the rules of mapping from relational model to OWL. In Proceedings of the Workshop on OWL: Experiences and Directions, Athens, GA, USA.Google Scholar
Smith, M. K., Welty, C., McGuinness, D. L. (ed.) 2004. OWL web ontology language guide. Retrieved February 5, 2009, from W3C Recommendation. http://www.w3.org/TR/owl-guide/Google Scholar
SQL3 (ISO-ANSI Working Draft). (n.d.). Retrieved February 5, 2009, from http://www.inf.fu-berlin.de/lehre/SS94/einfdb/SQL3/sqlindex.htmlGoogle Scholar
Stonebraker, M. 1986. Triggers and inference in database systems. In On Knowledge Base Management Systems: Integrating Artificial Intelligence and Database Technologies, Brodie, M. L. & Mylopoulos, J. (eds). Springer Topics in Information Systems. Springer-Verlag, 297–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stojanovic, L., Stojanovic, N., Volz, R. 2002a. Migrating data-intensive web sites into the Semantic Web. In Proceedings of the 2002 ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, SAC'02, Madrid, Spain, March 11–14, 2002, ACM, 1100–1107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stojanovic, L., Stojanovic, N., Volz, R. 2002b. A reverse engineering approach for migrating data-intensive web sites to the Semantic Web. In Proceedings of the IFIP 17th World Computer Congress—Tc12 Stream on Intelligent Information Processing, August 25–30, 2002, Musen, M. A., Neumann, B., & Studer, R. (eds). IFIP Conference Proceedings, Kluwer B. V., Deventer, the Netherlands, 221, 141–154.Google Scholar
Svihla, M., Jelinek, I. 2004. Two Layer Mapping from Database to RDF. In Proceedings of Electronic Computers and Informatics (ECI). Slovakia, Kosice.Google Scholar
Tirmizi, S. H., Sequeda, J. F., Miranker, D. P. 2008. Translating SQL applications to the semantic web. In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Database and Expert Systems Applications, September 01–05, 2008, Turin, Italy, Bhowmick, S. S., Küng, J. & Wagner, R. (eds). Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer-Verlag, 5181, 450–464.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tirmizi, S. H., Aitken, S., Moreira, D., Mungall, C., Sequeda, J. F., Shah, N. H., Miranker, D. P. 2011. Mapping between the OBO and OWL ontology languages. Journal of Biomedical Semantics 2(Suppl 1), S3.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vrandecic, D., Sure, Y. 2008. How to design better ontology metrics. In Proceedings of the 4th European Conference on Semantic Web: Research and Applications, Innsbruck, Austria, June 03–07, 2007, Franconi, E., Kifer, M. & May, W. (eds), Lecture Notes In Computer Science. Springer-Verlag, 4519, 311–325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, S., Shen, J., Hong, T. 2000. Mining fuzzy functional dependencies from quantitative data. IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics 5, 3600–3606.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biron, P. V., Permanente, K., Malhotra, A. (ed.). 2004. XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes, 2nd edn. Retrieved February 5, 2009, from W3C Recommendation. http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2/Google Scholar
Xu, Z., Zhang, S., Dong, Y. 2006. Mapping between Relational Database Schema and OWL Ontology for Deep Annotation. In Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Web intelligence. IEEE Computer Society, 548–552.Google Scholar