Skip to main content

A Unified Framework for Wrapping, Mediating and Restructuring Information from the Web

  • Conference paper
Advances in Conceptual Modeling (ER 1999)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 1727))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

The goal of information extraction from the Web is to provide an integrated view on heterogeneous information sources via a common data model and query language. A main problem with current approaches is that they rely on very different formalisms and tools for wrappers and mediators, thus leading to an “impedance mismatch” between the wrapper and mediator level. In contrast, our approach integrates wrapping and mediation in a unified framework based on an object-oriented data model which represents both the Web structure and the data of the application domain. Wrappers and mediators are written in a rule-based object-oriented language which is augmented with features for Web access and structured document analysis, i.e., pattern matching by regular expressions and SGML parsing. In this paper, we develop generic, reusable rule patterns for typical extraction, integration, and restructuring tasks using this framework. We show the practicability of our approach by using the Florid system [10].

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. B. Adelberg. NoDoSE — A Tool for Semi-Automatically Extracting Semi-Structured Data from Text Documents. ACM Intl. Conference on Management of Data (SIGMOD), pp. 283–294, 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  2. N. Ashish and C. A. Knoblock. Wrapper Generation for Semi-structured Internet Sources. SIGMOD Record, 26(4):8–15, 1997.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. P. Atzeni, G. Mecca, and P. Merialdo. To Weave the Web. Intl. Conference on Very Large Data Bases (VLDB), 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  4. CIA World Factbook. http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/nsolo/.

  5. D.W. Embley, D.M. Campbell, Y.S. Jiang, S.W. Liddle, Y.-K. Ng, D.W. Quass, R.D. Smith. A Conceptual-Modeling Approach to Extracting Data from the Web. Intl. Conf. on the Entity Relationship Approach (ER). Springer LNCS 1507, 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  6. D. Florescu, A. Levy, and A. Mendelzon. Database Techniques for the World-Wide Web: A Survey. SIGMOD Record, 27(3), 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  7. http://home.worldonline.nl/quark/index.html.

  8. H. Garcia-Molina, Y. Papakonstantinou, D. Quass, A. Rajaraman, Y. Sagiv, J. Ullman, V. Vassalos, and J. Widom. The TSIMMIS Approach to Mediation: Data Models and Languages. Journal of Intelligent Information Systems, 8(2), 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  9. J. Hammer, H. Garcia-Molina, J. Cho, R. Aranha, and A. Crespo. Extracting Semistructured Information from the Web. WebDB’ 97: International Workshop on the Web and Databases., pp. 18–25, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  10. R. Himmeröder, P.-T. Kandzia, B. Ludäscher, W. May, and G. Lausen. Search, Analysis, and Integration of Web Documents: A Case Study with FLORID. Intl. Workshop on Deductive Databases and Logic Programming (DDLP’98), pp. 47–57, 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  11. G. Huck, P. Fankhauser, K. Aberer, E. J. Neuhold. Jedi: Extracting and Synthesizing Information from the Web. Intl. Conference on Cooperative Information Systems (CoopIS’98), pp. 32–43, 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  12. M. Kifer, G. Lausen, and J. Wu. Logical Foundations of Object-Oriented and Frame-Based Languages. Journal of the ACM, 42(4):741–843, 1995.

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  13. N. Kushmerick, D. Weld, and R. Doorenbos. Wrapper Induction for Information Extraction. In IJCAI, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  14. B. Ludäscher, R. Himmeröder, G. Lausen, W. May, and C. Schlepphorst. Managing Semistructured Data with FLORID: A Deductive Object-Oriented Perspective. Information Systems, 23(8):589–612, 1998.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. W. May. Information Extraction and Integration with FLORID: The Mondial Case Study. http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/may/Mondial/, 1999.

  16. W. May. Modeling and Querying Structure and Contents of the Web. To appear in Workshop on Internet Data Modeling (IDM’99), Proc. DEXA’ 99; IEEE Computer Science Press, 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  17. A. Sahuguet, F. Azavant. Looking at the Web through XML glasses. To appear in CoopIS’99, IEEE Computer Science Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 1999 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

May, W., Himmeröder, R., Lausen, G., Ludäscher, B. (1999). A Unified Framework for Wrapping, Mediating and Restructuring Information from the Web. In: Chen, P.P., Embley, D.W., Kouloumdjian, J., Liddle, S.W., Roddick, J.F. (eds) Advances in Conceptual Modeling. ER 1999. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1727. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48054-4_25

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48054-4_25

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-66653-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-48054-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics