"Reasonable" support to knowledge sharing through schema analysis and articulation

We propose a disciplined approach to domain schema sharing which enhances the role and the extent of semantic reasoning in the semi-automated support to knowledge sharing. We introduce a formal, class-centred, entity-relationship knowledge model based on a description logic (DL). In this way, we benefit from the specialised reasoning services available in DL-based inferential engines. This approach combines logic deductions with heuristic and linguistic inferences to propose a semantic articulation of overlapping components in conceptual schemas. This approach to knowledge sharing has been implemented as a support functionality in our intelligent knowledge management environment EER-CONCEPTOOL.