Merging domain ontologies based on the WordNet system and Fuzzy Formal Concept Analysis techniques

Many different contents and structures exist in constructed ontologies, including those that exist in the same domain. If extant domain ontologies can be used, time and money can be saved. However, domain knowledge changes fast. In addition, the extant domain ontologies may require updates to solve domain problems. The reuse of extant ontologies is an important topic for their application. Thus, the integration of extant domain ontologies is of considerable importance. In this paper, we propose a new method for combining the WordNet and Fuzzy Formal Concept Analysis (FFCA) techniques for merging ontologies with the same domain, called FFCA-Merge. Through the method, two extant ontologies can be converted into a fuzzy ontology. The new fuzzy ontology is more flexible than a general ontology. The experimental results indicate that our method can merge domain ontologies effectively. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.