A Framework for Classifying and Resolving Semantic Heterogeneity in Object-Oriented Databases

During the past three decades, many organizations have seen a dramatic proliferation of a variety of information systems. Organizations soon discovered the need to access and share data across these different information systems. Under current technology, this integration is usually not possible due to the heterogeneity of information systems. One level of heterogeneity is that of semantics. The objective of this thesis is to build a framework for enumerating, classifying, and resolving the types of semantic heterogeneity that could exist in an object-oriented database model. The framework covers both schema and data content conflicts. The schema conflicts are classified broadly by the level at which they occur. The primary data conflicts covered include inconsistencies and different representations for the same data.