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Abstract. In this paper, we argue that implementing the grand vision of the Semantic Web would greatly benefit from a service which can enable the reuse of globally unique URIs across semantic datasets produced in a fully decentralized and open environment. Such a service, which we call Entity Name System (ENS), stores pre-existing URIs and makes them available for reuse mainly -but not only -in Semantic Web contents and applications. The ENS will make the integration of semantic datasets much easier and faster, and will foster the development of a whole family of applications which will exploit the data level integration through global URIs for implementing smart semantic-based solutions.

Entity matching or resolution is at the heart of many integration tasks in modern information systems. As with any core functionality, good quality of results is vital to ensure that upper-level tasks perform as desired. In this paper we introduce the FBEM algorithm and illustrate its usefulness for general-purpose use cases. We analyze its result quality with a range of experiments on heterogeneous data sources, and show that the approach provides good results for entities of different types, such as persons, organizations or publications, while posing minimal requirements to input data formats and requiring no training.

Abstract. In recent years, there is an increasing interest in the Semantic Web and the relevant technologies, which can have a significant impact in the context of information and knowledge management. An important observation is that the entity identification problem lies at the core of many semantic web applications and the intrinsic difficulties of this problem have hindered progress in this area. In this paper, we argue for an infrastructure responsible for assigning and managing unique identifiers for entities in the semantic web, and we propose a conceptual model for the storage and management of these entities. The proposed model is generic and flexible and it allows for efficient and effective retrieval and analysis of the stored entities. We discuss the requirements with respect to creating and modifying these entities, as well as to managing their evolution over time. Finally, we study some enhancements of the entity representation, and we discuss the beneficial impact they can have on the performance of the system.

Abstract. The problem of identity and reference is receiving increasing attention in the (semantic) web community and is emerging as one of the key features which distinguish traditional knowledge representation from knowledge representation on the web with respect to data interlinking and knowledge integration on a large scale. As part of this debate, the OKKAM project proposed the creation of an Entity Name System which provides rigid identifiers, named OKKAMids, for any type of concrete and particular entities, and links OKKAMids to existing identifiers which have been created elsewhere for the same entity. The introduction of these identifiers raises some practical and conceptual concerns. In this paper we address them by extending two proposed ontologies (IRE and IRW) to accomodate the notion of OKKAMid, describe their formal properties, illustrate why they may play an important role in the construction of the Semantic Web and discuss how they can be integrated with other approaches for mapping URIs onto each others.