Abstract
Much data is published on the Web in XML format satisfying schemas, and to make the Semantic Web a reality, such data needs to be interpreted with respect to ontologies. Interpretation is achieved through a semantic mapping between the XML schema and the ontology. We present work on the heuristic construction of complex such semantic mappings, when given an initial set of simple correspondences from XML schema attributes to datatype properties in the ontology. To accomplish this, we first offer a mapping formalism to capture the semantics of XML schemas. Second, we present our heuristic mapping construction algorithm. Finally, we show through an empirical study that considerable effort can be saved when constructing complex mappings by using our prototype tool.