SIFT: An Algorithm for Extracting Structural Information From Taxonomies

Abstract

In this work we present SIFT, a 3-step algorithm for the analysis of the structural information represented by means of a taxonomy. The major advantage of this algorithm is the capability to leverage the information inherent to the hierarchical structures of taxonomies to infer correspondences which can allow to merge them in a later step. This method is particular relevant in scenarios where taxonomy alignment techniques exploiting textual information from taxonomy nodes cannot operate successfully.