Abstract
We present a formal framework for the combination of schemas. A main problem addressed is that of determining when two schemas can be meaningfully integrated. Another problem is how to merge two schemas into an integrated schema that has the same information capacity as the original ones, i.e., that the resulting schema can represent as much information as the original schemas. We show that both these problems can be solved by placing a restriction on the schemas to be integrated. The restriction, called conflictfreeness, states that the rules of one schema together with a set of correspondence assertions may not restrict the models of the other schema. We also give decidability and complexity results for the problem of determining conflictfreeness.
This work was partly performed within the project SDeLphi at Telia Research AB. It was also partly supported by the NUTEK project SISI.
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Ekenberg, L., Johannesson, P. (1995). Conflictfreeness as a basis for schema integration. In: Bhalla, S. (eds) Information Systems and Data Management. CISMOD 1995. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1006. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-60584-3_21
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-60584-3_21
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