A Robust and Computational Characterisation of Peer-to-Peer Database Systems

TL;DR

This paper provides a formal logical and computational framework for peer-to-peer database systems, addressing local inconsistencies, query answering, and complexity bounds in a distributed setting.

Contribution

It introduces a precise model-theoretic semantics for peer-to-peer systems and characterizes their computational properties and complexity bounds.

Findings

Defined a semantics allowing local inconsistency handling

Characterized computational properties for query answering

Established tight complexity bounds and distributed procedures

Abstract

In this paper we give a robust logical and computational characterisation of peer-to-peer database systems. We first define a pre- cise model-theoretic semantics of a peer-to-peer system, which allows for local inconsistency handling. We then characterise the general computa- tional properties for the problem of answering queries to such a peer-to- peer system. Finally, we devise tight complexity bounds and distributed procedures for the problem of answering queries in few relevant special cases.