Patent ID: 8577857

Claim:
A method for matching elements in two schemas for two associated databases using automatic schema matching (ASM), wherein there is one schema for each database, wherein the elements define objects in the databases, and wherein the matching is performed on pairs of the elements by a combined matcher including a set of matchers, comprising the steps of: constructing a Bayesian network (BN) for the set of matchers, wherein parameters of the BN are estimated from fully labeled data, and wherein each Boolean variable has been labeled as True or False, and the parameter are estimated by means of frequency counting, and for each pair of elements performing the steps of: obtaining an individual similarity value for each pair of the elements and each matcher; determining a likelihood ratio for each individual similarity value; performing belief updating on the BN using the likelihood ratios to obtain a final similarity value and corresponding probability; and outputting the final similarity value and the probability to indicate whether the pair of the elements match, or not.