A Component-Based Framework for the Integration and Exploration of XML Sources

Handling the interoperability issues in multiple, heterogeneous XML sources is central in XML data management and mining. In this chapter, we present a framework for the intensional integration and exploration of XML sources. Specifically, we propose a three-layer framework aimed at extracting interschema knowledge from the available sources, constructing a hierarchy based on the extracted knowledge to represent the sources at different abstraction levels, and finally organizing and exploring the sources through the constructed hierarchy. We also describe possible implementations of each of the three layers, focusing on the extraction of intensional interschema properties, the intensional integration of XML sources, and the clustering of XML schemas. In order to better handle the complexity of its activities, the proposed framework has been designed by means of the layers architecture patterns and the component-based development paradigm.