Data Quality Maintenance by Integrity-Preserving Repairs that Tolerate Inconsistency

Abstract

To maintain the quality of stored data, their integrity should be enforced. Repairing violations of integrity constraints contributes to integrity enforcement and thus to quality maintenance. Inconsistencies in databases are unavoidable, and repairing all of them often is unfeasible. We show that it is possible to get by with partial repairs that tolerate extant inconsistencies, while preserving the consistent parts of the database. Such repairs also integrity-preserving. Such repairs reduce the amount of integrity constraint violations and hence improve the quality of the stored data.