Combining Global and Local Merges in Logic-based Entity Resolution

TL;DR

This paper extends the Lace framework for entity resolution by integrating local value merges with global logical rules, enhancing flexibility in resolving entity references across databases.

Contribution

It introduces a novel extension to Lace that combines global and local merging strategies and analyzes the computational implications of this integration.

Findings

Enhanced entity resolution flexibility

Formal analysis of computational properties

Potential for improved accuracy in data merging

Abstract

In the recently proposed Lace framework for collective entity resolution, logical rules and constraints are used to identify pairs of entity references (e.g. author or paper ids) that denote the same entity. This identification is global: all occurrences of those entity references (possibly across multiple database tuples) are deemed equal and can be merged. By contrast, a local form of merge is often more natural when identifying pairs of data values, e.g. some occurrences of 'J. Smith' may be equated with 'Joe Smith', while others should merge with 'Jane Smith'. This motivates us to extend Lace with local merges of values and explore the computational properties of the resulting formalism.