On the Likelihood of an Equivalence

Co-references are traditionally used when integrating data from different datasets. This approach has various benefits such as fault tolerance, ease of integration and traceability of provenance; however, it often results in the problem of entity consolidation, i.e., of objectively stating whether all the co-references do really refer to the same entity; and, when this is the case, whether they all convey the same intended meaning. Relying on the sole presence of a single equivalence (owl:sameAs) statement is often problematic and sometimes may even cause serious troubles. It has been observed that to indicate the likelihood of an equivalence one could use a numerically weighted measure, but the real hard questions of where precisely these values come from arises. We propose and discuss an answer to this question.