Data Fusion

Synonyms

Conflict resolution; Truth discovery

Definition

Consider a set of data sources$\mathcal {S}$ and a set of data items$\mathcal {D}$. A data item represents a particular aspect of a real-world entity, such as the authors of a book or the headquarters of a company; in a relational database, a data item corresponds to a cell in a table. For each data item $D \in \mathcal {D}$, each source $S \in \mathcal {S}$ can (but not necessarily) provide a value; the value can be atomic (e.g., scheduled departure time), a set (e.g., a set of phone numbers), or a list (e.g., a list of book authors). Different sources may provide various values for a data item. A value is considered truein the following three cases: if there is a single atomic value that captures the real world, that value is considered true; if there are multiple atomic values that are consistent with the real world, the set of all such values is considered true; if there is an ordering of the atomic values that...