A Provenance Tracking Model for Data Updates

Gabriel Ciobanu
(Romanian Academy, Institute of Computer Science)
Ross Horne
(Romanian Academy, Institute of Computer Science)

For data-centric systems, provenance tracking is particularly important when the system is open and decentralised, such as the Web of Linked Data. In this paper, a concise but expressive calculus which models data updates is presented. The calculus is used to provide an operational semantics for a system where data and updates interact concurrently. The operational semantics of the calculus also tracks the provenance of data with respect to updates. This provides a new formal semantics extending provenance diagrams which takes into account the execution of processes in a concurrent setting. Moreover, a sound and complete model for the calculus based on ideals of series-parallel DAGs is provided. The notion of provenance introduced can be used as a subjective indicator of the quality of data in concurrent interacting systems.

In Natallia Kokash and António Ravara: Proceedings 11th International Workshop on Foundations of Coordination Languages and Self Adaptation (FOCLASA 2012), Newcastle, U.K., September 8, 2012, Electronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science 91, pp. 31–44.
Published: 15th August 2012.

ArXived at: https://dx.doi.org/10.4204/EPTCS.91.3 bibtex PDF
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