Michael Lawrence
I am a PhD candidate in the Data Management and Mining Lab in the Department of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia (expected graduation: Fall 2012). I am supervised by Rachel Pottinger. My thesis work is in the area of data integration, specifically focusing on the problem of data coordination: where two autonomous, heterogeneous data sources are related so that the contents of a contingent source (C) depend on the contents of an external and autonomous base source (B). An example is the cost estimate (C) and architectural design (B) in a large building project.
We propose a system which can monitor B for changes, and determine the corresponding updates to C. Our system uses query constraints for expressing the mapping between sources, and techniques for reasoning with incomplete information to determine the set of all feasible, minimal updates to C. If you want to know the details, see my publications page.