Scalar Aggregation in Inconsistent Databases

Author(s):

Theoretical Computer Science, volume 296, number 3, pages 405-434, 2003.

Abstract

We consider here scalar aggregation queries in databases that may violate a given set of functional dependencies. We define consistent answers to such queries to be greatest-lowest/least-upper bounds on the value of the scalar function across all (minimal) repairs of the database. We show how to compute such answers. We provide a complete characterization of the computational complexity of this problem. We also show how tractability can be improved in several special cases (one involves a novel application of Boyce–Codd Normal Form) and present a practical hybrid query evaluation method.

Download

This publication is available in PDF (downloaded 26 times).

BibTeX

@article{ABCHRS03, author = {Marcelo Arenas and Leopoldo E. Bertossi and Jan Chomicki and Xin He and Vijay Raghavan and Jeremy Spinrad}, title = {Scalar aggregation in inconsistent databases}, journal = {Theoretical Computer Science}, volume = {3}, number = {296}, year = {2003}, pages = {405-434} }