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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: jsequeda@cs.utexas.edu, hamid@cs.utexas.edu, miranker@cs.utexas.edu
Syed Hamid Tirmizi*
Affiliation:
Department of Computer Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA; e-mail: jsequeda@cs.utexas.edu, hamid@cs.utexas.edu, miranker@cs.utexas.edu
Oscar Corcho*
Affiliation:
Ontology Engineering Group, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain; e-mail: ocorcho@fi.upm.es
Daniel P. Miranker*
Affiliation:
Department of Computer Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA; e-mail: jsequeda@cs.utexas.edu, hamid@cs.utexas.edu, miranker@cs.utexas.edu
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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.

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

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