On indexing evidential data

Abstract

Querying imperfect data received increasing attention in the area of database management. The complexity and the volume of imperfect data requires advanced techniques for efficient access, and satisfying user-queries in a reasonable response time. In this paper, we are particularly interested in evidential databases, i.e., databases where imperfection is represented through Dempster-Shafer theory. To answer userqueries in such databases, we propose a new index system based on a tree data structure (e-Tree) that is adapted to the complexity of the evidential data. The experiments done on our solution showed encouraging results.