What can DartGrid do?

DartGrid is used to integrate data in a specific VO(virtual organazation). The data sources may be of different logical structures or physical properties. But the user of DartGrid can query data without knowledge of any specific data source. All they need to be aware of is the ontology schema (or standard glossary) defined by domain experts or VO administrator.

How DartGrid works?

The information needed by Semantic Query in DartGrid includes:

1. Ontology schema defined by domain experts which describes the standard glossary of the domain.
2. Data Resource Registry which describes the data sources provided by members in the domain.
3. Semantic Registry which describes the mapping information between data sources and ontology schema.

DartGrid will parse and hold these informations when it has been initialized. When user runs a query, serveral things DartGrid will do is:

1. Parse the semantic query request.
2. Translate the semantic query into a sql query plan using the information from ontology schema and semantic regsitry.
3. Get the data resources' information and dispatch the query plan to different data resources.
4. Collection the results return, form a new semantic query result.
5. (Optional) Wrap the result into a user defined way.

Theory support

We have a group of talented researchers. See publications.