Reconciling Implicit and Evolving Ontologies for Semantic Interoperability

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the current partial solutions to the goal of semantic interoperability on the web. It is obvious that a general solution to the problem on a global level has not yet been achieved. We critically discuss the existing approaches, including technologies such as RDF, SHOE, PROMPT, Chimaera and others, trying to identify the most effective elements of each and noting that since they are mainly closed solutions their ability to succeed on a global web scale is limited. We then review and contrast our own research experiments AReXS and CASA and suggest that as yet unaddressed issues should be considered, such as reconciling implicit ontologies and evolving ontologies. While these ideas may not directly solve the problems of semantic interoperability, exploring them will contribute significantly to the effort.