Resolving attribute incompatibility in database integration: an evidential reasoning approach

Resolving domain incompatibility among independently developed databases often involves uncertain information. DeMichiel [5] showed that uncertain information can be generated by the mapping of conflicting attributes to a common domain, based on some domain knowledge. In this paper, we show that uncertain information can also arise when the database integration process requires information not directly represented in the component databases, but can be obtained through some summary of data. We therefore propose an extended relational model based on Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence [14] to incorporate such uncertain knowledge about the source databases. We also develop a full set of extended relational operations over the extended relations. In particular, an extended union operation has been formalized to combine two extended relations using Dempster's rule of combination. The closure and boundedness properties of our proposed extended operations are formulated.