Semantic translation is the process of using

semantic Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...

information to aid in the translation of data in one representation or

data model A data model is an abstract model that organizes elements of data and standardizes how they relate to one another and to the properties of real-world entities. For instance, a data model may specify that the data element representing a car be co ...

to another representation or data model. Semantic translation takes advantage of semantics that associate meaning with individual

data element In metadata, the term data element is an atomic unit of data that has precise meaning or precise semantics. A data element has: # An identification such as a data element name # A clear data element definition # One or more representation terms # ...

s in one

dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies ...

to create an equivalent meaning in a second system. An example of semantic translation is the conversion of

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable ...

data from one data model to a second data model using formal

ontologies In computer science and information science, an ontology encompasses a representation, formal naming, and definition of the categories, properties, and relations between the concepts, data, and entities that substantiate one, many, or all domains ...

for each system such as the

Web Ontology Language The Web Ontology Language (OWL) is a family of knowledge representation languages for authoring ontologies. Ontologies are a formal way to describe taxonomies and classification networks, essentially defining the structure of knowledge for variou ...

(OWL). This is frequently required by

intelligent agents In artificial intelligence, an intelligent agent (IA) is anything which perceives its environment, takes actions autonomously in order to achieve goals, and may improve its performance with learning or may use knowledge. They may be simple or c ...

that wish to perform searches on remote computer systems that use different data models to store their data elements. The process of allowing a single user to search multiple systems with a single search request is also known as

federated search Federated search retrieves information from a variety of sources via a search application built on top of one or more search engines. A user makes a single query request which is distributed to the search engines, databases or other query engines ...

. Semantic translation should be differentiated from

data mapping In computing and data management, data mapping is the process of creating data element mappings between two distinct data models. Data mapping is used as a first step for a wide variety of data integration tasks, including: * Data transformatio ...

tools that do simple one-to-one translation of data from one system to another without actually associating meaning with each data element. Semantic translation requires that data elements in the source and destination systems have "semantic mappings" to a central registry or registries of data elements. The simplest mapping is of course where there is equivalence. There are three types of

Semantic equivalence {{about, semantic equivalence of metadata, the concept in mathematical logic, Logical equivalence In computer metadata, semantic equivalence is a declaration that two data elements from different vocabularies contain data that has similar meaning. ...

: *

Class Class or The Class may refer to: Common uses not otherwise categorized * Class (biology), a taxonomic rank * Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects * Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used differentl ...

Equivalence - indicating that class or "concepts" are equivalent. For example: "Person" is the same as "Individual" *

Property Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, r ...

Equivalence - indicating that two properties are equivalent. For example: "PersonGivenName" is the same as "FirstName" * Instance Equivalence - indicating that two individual instances of objects are equivalent. For example: "Dan Smith" is the same person as "Daniel Smith" Semantic translation is very difficult if the terms in a particular data model do not have direct one-to-one mappings to data elements in a foreign data model. In that situation, an alternative approach must be used to find mappings from the original data to the foreign data elements. This problem can be alleviated by centralized metadata registries that use the ISO-11179 standards such as the

National Information Exchange Model NIEM ( ) originated as an XML-based information exchange framework from the United States. NIEM also supports NIEM JSON exchanges. NIEM is currently developinthe NIEM Metamodel and Common Model Formatwhich can be expressed in any data serializatio ...

(NIEM).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Semantic Translation Data management Enterprise application integration Semantics

See also

References