OKKAM - Enabling Entity-centric Information Integration in the Semantic Web

Like the way the WWW provided a global space for the seamless integration of small hypertexts into a global, open, decentralized and scalable publication space, the Semantic Web has the vision to provide a global space for the seamless integration of knowledge bases into a global, open, decentralized and scalable knowledge space, whose domain is extended beyond the realm of digital objects, and relations are extended beyond hyperlinks. But unlike the WWW, where reference to documents through hyperlinks is provided in an unambiguous and architectural way, the Semantic Web in its current state suffers from an identity and reference problem for the entities it describes, a problem which hinders significantly the integration of Semantic Web knowledge on the data level. The cause for this problem is that to date there exists no suitable infrastructure which would enable the systematic re-use of global identifiers for entities, which could solve the mentioned issues by making some of the assumptions that the Semantic Web bases on a reality. The objective of this work is thus to provide such an infrastructure. We will describe the notion of an Entity Name System (ENS) as a global approach for providing re-usable identifiers for entities. A prototype implementation of such an ENS -- called OKKAM -- has been developed, is operational, and is part of the novel contributions of this work. Additionally, a set of new applications that make use of the ENS will be illustrated, as well as analyses and experimentation results which base on the ENS. The main contribution of this work is the provision of an ENS, an infrastructural component for the Semantic Web which enables a-priori information integration in a novel way, and enables the development of novel applications and information management paradigms.