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On the Computational Complexity of Minimal-Change Integrity Maintenance in Relational Databases

  • Chapter
Inconsistency Tolerance

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 3300))

Abstract

We address the problem of minimal-change integrity maintenance in the context of integrity constraints in relational databases. Using the framework proposed by Arenas, Bertossi, and Chomicki [5], we focus on two basic computational issues: repair checking (is a database instance a repair of a given database?) and consistent query answers (is a tuple an answer to a given query in every repair of a given database?). We study the computational complexity of both problems, delineating the boundary between the tractable and the intractable. We review relevant semantical issues and survey different computational mechanisms proposed in this context. Our analysis sheds light on the computational feasibility of minimal-change integrity maintenance. The tractable cases should lead to practical implementations. The intractability results highlight the inherent limitations of any integrity enforcement mechanism, e.g., triggers or referential constraint actions, as a way of performing minimal-change integrity maintenance.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. IIS-0119186 and UB start-up funds.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, 14260-2000, USA

    Jan Chomicki

  2. Instytut Informatyki, Wrocław University, 51-151, Wrocław, Poland

    Jerzy Marcinkowski

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  1. Jan Chomicki
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  2. Jerzy Marcinkowski
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada

    Leopoldo Bertossi

  2. Department of Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, WC1E 6BT, London, UK

    Anthony Hunter

  3. Institut für Informatik, Universität Potsdam, August-Bebel-Str. 89, D-14482, Potsdam, Germany

    Torsten Schaub

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Chomicki, J., Marcinkowski, J. (2005). On the Computational Complexity of Minimal-Change Integrity Maintenance in Relational Databases. In: Bertossi, L., Hunter, A., Schaub, T. (eds) Inconsistency Tolerance. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3300. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30597-2_5

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