Description

Information integration is the problem of combining data residing at
different sources, and providing the user with a global, unified view of
such data.  The interest in information integration has been continuously
growing in the last years in many application domains (e.g., Web
Information Systems, Data Warehousing, Data Mining, Enterprise Resource
Planning), and is characterized by a number of issues that are at the
intersection between databases and knowledge representation.

The course begins with an introduction of the information integration
problem.  Then, a logic-based formal framework for information integration
is defined. Based on such a framework, we illustrate a classification of
information integration systems (global-as-view, local-as-view, and
variants). The basic service provided by the information integration
system is to support queries posed in terms of the global view: Therefore,
we discuss the problem of processing queries in an information integration
system, which requires logical reasoning about the system specification in
order to properly access and retrieve data from the information sources.
Finally, we present a state-of-the-art, logic-based information
integration system, and allow attendees of the course to use the system.

This course is targeted at participants having some knowledge of
first-order logic. Familiarity with the basics of relational databases
will also be helpful.