Flexible Repairs for Improving the Integrity of Databases

Semantic properties of stored data can be represented by integrity constraints. Repairing violated constraints thus contributes to maintain the correctness of data. Repairing all inconsistencies in databases often is inconvenient and sometimes not feasible. We show that it is possible to conceive partial repairs that reduce the amount of extant inconsistency but do not necessarily eliminate it totally. Thus, such repairs are able to improve the integrity of the stored data, while providing more flexibility than traditional repairs that are required to be total.