Controlled Vocabularies in OODBs: Modeling Issues and Implementation

  • Authors:

  • Li-Min Liu;Michael Halper;James Geller;Yehoshua Perl

  • Affiliations:

  • CIS Dept., NJIT, Newark, NJ 07102. E-mail: limin@homer.njit.edu;Dept. of Mathematics and Computer Science, Kean University, Union, NJ 07083. E-mail: mhalper@turbo.kean.edu;CIS Dept., NJIT, Newark, NJ 07102. E-mail: geller@homer.njit.edu;CIS Dept., NJIT, Newark, NJ 07102. E-mail: perl@homer.njit.edu

  • Venue:
  • Distributed and Parallel Databases
  • Year:
  • 1999

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Abstract

A major problem that arises in many large application domainsis the discrepancy among terminologies of different informationsystems. The terms used by the information systems of oneorganization may not agree with the terms used by anotherorganization even when they are in the same domain. Such asituation clearly impedes communication and the sharing ofinformation, and decreases the efficiency of doing business.Problems of this nature can be overcome using a controlledvocabulary (CV), a system of concepts that consolidates andunifies the terminologies of a domain. However, CVs are largeand complex and difficult to comprehend. This paper presentsa methodology for representing a semantic network-basedCV as an object-oriented database (OODB). We call sucha representation an Object-Oriented Vocabulary Repository(OOVR). The methodology is based on a structural analysisand partitioning of the source CV. The representation ofa CV as an OOVR offers both the level of support typicalof database management systems and an abstract view whichpromotes comprehension of the CV‘s structure and content.After discussing the theoretical aspects of the methodology,we apply it to the MED and InterMED, two existing CVs fromthe medical field. A program, called the OOVR Generator,for automatically carrying out our methodology is described.Both the MED-OOVR and the InterMED-OOVR have been createdusing the OOVR Generator, and each exists on top of ONTOS, acommercial OODBMS. The OOVR derived from the InterMED ispresently available on the Web.