Financial Information Integration in the Presence of Equational Ontological Conflicts
7 Pages Posted: 6 Feb 2003
Date Written: October 2002
Abstract
While there are efforts to establish a single international accounting standard, there are strong current and future needs to handle heterogeneous accounting methods and systems. We advocate a context-based approach to dealing with multiple accounting standards and equational ontological conflicts. In this paper we first define what we mean by equational ontological conflicts and then describe a new approach, using Constraint Logic Programming and abductive reasoning, to reconcile such conflicts among disparate information systems. In particular, we focus on the use of Constraint Handling Rules as a simultaneous symbolic equation solver, which is a powerful way to combine, invert and simplify multiple conversion functions that translate between different contexts. Finally, we demonstrate a sample application using our prototype implementation that demonstrates the viability of our approach.
Keywords: Financial Information Integration, Equational Ontological Conflicts, Multiple Accounting Standards, Constraint Handling Rules
JEL Classification: M41, M44, M47, L22
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation