Keymantic: A keyword-based search engine using structural knowledge

Traditional techniques for query formulation need the knowledge of the database contents, i.e. which data are stored in the data source and how they are represented. In this paper, we discuss the development of a keyword-based search engine for structured data sources. The idea is to couple the ease of use and flexibility of keyword-based search with metadata extracted from data schemata and extensional knowledge which constitute a semantic network of knowledge. Translating keywords into SQL statements, we will develop a search engine that is effective, semantic-based, and applicable also when instance are not continuously available, such as in integrated data sources or in data sources extracted from the deep web.