Extending dependencies for improving data quality

This doctoral thesis presents the results of my work on extending dependencies for improving data quality, both in a centralized environment with a single database and in a data exchange and integration environment with multiple databases. The first part of the thesis proposes five classes of data dependencies, referred to as CINDs, eCFDs, CFDcs, CFDps and CINDps, to capture data inconsistencies commonly found in practice in a centralized environment. For each class of these dependencies, we investigate two central problems: the satisfiability problem and the implication problem. The satisfiability problem is to determine given a set Σ of dependencies defined on a database schema R, whether or not there exists a nonempty database D of R that satisfies Σ. And the implication problem is to determine whether or not a set Σ of dependencies defined on a database schema R entails another dependency φ on R. That is, for each database D ofRthat satisfies Σ, the D must satisfy φ as well. These are important for the validation and optimization of data-cleaning processes. We establish complexity results of the satisfiability problem and the implication problem for all these five classes of dependencies, both in the absence of finite-domain attributes and in the general setting with finite-domain attributes. Moreover, SQL-based techniques are developed to detect data inconsistencies for each class of the proposed dependencies, which can be easily implemented on the top of current database management systems. The second part of the thesis studies three important topics for data cleaning in a data exchange and integration environment with multiple databases. One is the dependency propagation problem, which is to determine, given a view defined on data sources and a set of dependencies on the sources, whether another dependency is guaranteed to hold on the view. We investigate dependency propagation for views defined in various fragments of relational algebra, conditional functional dependencies (CFDs) [FGJK08] as view dependencies, and for source dependencies given as either CFDs or traditional functional dependencies (FDs). And we establish lower and upper bounds, all matching, ranging from PTIME to undecidable. These not only provide the first results for CFD propagation, but also extend the classical work of FD propagation by giving new complexity bounds in the presence of a setting with finite domains. We finally provide the first algorithm for computing a minimal cover of all CFDs propagated via SPC views. The algorithm has the same complexity as one of the most efficient algorithms for computing a cover of FDs propagated via a projection view, despite the increased expressive power of CFDs and SPC views. Another one is matching records from unreliable data sources. A class of matching dependencies (MDs) is introduced for specifying the semantics of unreliable data. As opposed to static constraints for schema design such as FDs, MDs are developed for record matching, and are defined in terms of similarity metrics and a dynamic semantics. We identify a special case of MDs, referred to as relative candidate keys (RCKs), to determine what attributes to compare and how to compare them when matching records across possibly different relations. We also propose a mechanism for inferring MDs with a sound and complete system, a departure from traditional implication analysis, such that when we cannot match records by comparing attributes that contain errors, we may still find matches by using other, more reliable attributes. We finally provide a quadratic time algorithm for inferring MDs, and an effective algorithm for deducing quality RCKs from a given set of MDs. The last one is finding certain fixes for data monitoring [CGGM03, SMO07], which is to find and correct errors in a tuple when it is created, either entered manually or generated by some process. That is, we want to ensure that a tuple t is clean before it is used, to prevent errors introduced by adding t. As noted by [SMO07], it is far less costly to correct a tuple at the point of entry than fixing it afterward. Data repairing based on integrity constraints may not find certain fixes that are absolutely correct, and worse, may introduce new errors when repairing the data. We propose a method for finding certain fixes, based on master data, a notion of certain regions, and a class of editing rules. A certain region is a set of attributes that are assured correct by the users. Given a certain region and master data, editing rules tell us what attributes to fix and how to update them. We show how the method can be used in data monitoring and enrichment. We develop techniques for reasoning about editing rules, to decide whether they lead to a unique fix and whether they are able to fix all the attributes in a tuple, relative to master data and a certain region. We also provide an algorithm to identify minimal certain regions, such that a certain fix is warranted by editing rules and master data as long as one of the regions is correct

A revival of integrity constraints for data cleaning

Integrity constraints, a.k.a . data dependencies, are being widely used for improving the quality of schema . Recently constraints have enjoyed a revival for improving the quality of data . The tutorial aims to provide an overview of recent advances in constraint-based data cleaning. </jats:p

Determinants Of Healthy Ageing For Older People In European Countries – A Spatio-Temporal Approach

The article aims to investigate the relationship between the length of the further life in healthy for men and women aged 65 years and selected factors in European countries in the period 2005-2012. For this purpose, following methods were used: 1/ spatial distribution of characteristics - rates of change in selected periods: 2005 and 2012, 2/ tests for dependencies using correlograms and Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients, 3/ cluster analysis: on the basis of Ward’s methods spatial similarities (among countries) were indicated. As the source of data the Eurostat database were used

A Product Line Systems Engineering Process for Variability Identification and Reduction

Software Product Line Engineering has attracted attention in the last two decades due to its promising capabilities to reduce costs and time to market through reuse of requirements and components. In practice, developing system level product lines in a large-scale company is not an easy task as there may be thousands of variants and multiple disciplines involved. The manual reuse of legacy system models at domain engineering to build reusable system libraries and configurations of variants to derive target products can be infeasible. To tackle this challenge, a Product Line Systems Engineering process is proposed. Specifically, the process extends research in the System Orthogonal Variability Model to support hierarchical variability modeling with formal definitions; utilizes Systems Engineering concepts and legacy system models to build the hierarchy for the variability model and to identify essential relations between variants; and finally, analyzes the identified relations to reduce the number of variation points. The process, which is automated by computational algorithms, is demonstrated through an illustrative example on generalized Rolls-Royce aircraft engine control systems. To evaluate the effectiveness of the process in the reduction of variation points, it is further applied to case studies in different engineering domains at different levels of complexity. Subject to system model availability, reduction of 14% to 40% in the number of variation points are demonstrated in the case studies.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables; submitted to the IEEE Systems Journal on 3rd June 201