Semantic interoperability in the securities industry: context interchange mediation of semantic differences in enumerated data types

Using securities industry examples, the context interchange mediation knowledge architecture is applied to interoperability problems for enumerated data types, such as codes and other symbols used to represent conceptual distinctions. Ongoing efforts in the securities industry to develop new XML-based standards for information interchange are examined. Using components representing similar securities information, drawn from different but complementary securities standards and sources, example problems of information interoperability are examined. We show that transforming data representation into an autonomously specified context model and thence into a general domain ontology allows successful interoperability in several ways depending on how each context is explained to the mediator.