XML-hoo!: a prototype application for intelligent query of XML documents using domain-specific ontologies

Use of XML holds great promise for standardizing data models for realizing benefits such as lowered development costs and tune for integrating inter-organizational business processes and inter-organizational knowledge management. Further benefits can be realized by formally defining common semantics in ontologies using the standardized models. Automation of business processes that require sharing knowledge represented in XML-based ontologies can then be supported. In this paper a proof-of-concept application for using ontologies to support deduction of knowledge implicit in existing XML documents is presented. This system, called XML-hoo!, employs a customized portal user interface to answer queries about Shakespearian plays. Queries are answered by applying inference rules about these plays represented as axioms that comprise a Shakespearian ontology, composed of terminology corresponding to existing XML DTD\´s. These rules are applied to plays represented in XML that are in the public domain. Hence, answers to queries such as, "Who is Romeo\´s father?" can be automatically deduced even though facts required for such answers are hot explicitly structured in XML documents. This application demonstrates use of re-usable and sharable ontology representations to further leverage the expected proliferation of XML documents.