Record Linkage as a Multiobjective Optimizaion Problem solved by Evolutionary Computation

Record linkage is an important problem to be solved in all contexts in which data integration is to be performed under the hypothesis of data sources that can exhibit errors. In this paper we formulate the record linkage problem as a multiobjective optimization problem and we propose an algorithm for solving it based on evolutionary computation. This computational paradigm has a stochastic, adaptive and intrinsically parallel nature that makes it particularly suitable for a peer-to-peer integration context. Experiments on real datasets proved the effectiveness and efficiency of this novel approach. Copyright 2008 ACM.