Conflict Handling Strategies in an Integrated Information System

Abstract

Integrated information systems provide users and applications with a unified view of heterogeneous data sources. To provide a single consistent result for every object represented in these data sources, data fusion is concerned with resolving data inconsistencies present in and among the sources. We present a classification of conflict resolution strategies and show how these are realized using conflict handling functions. A catalog of such functions is given, together with a description of some of their properties. We further show how the functions are used within an integrated information system, the Humboldt-Merger (HumMer).