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Data quality issues have taken on increasing importance in recent years. In our research, we have discovered that many “data quality” problems are actually “data misinterpretation” problems – that is, problems with data semantics. In this paper, we first illustrate some examples of these problems and then introduce a particular semantic problem that we call “corporate householding.” We stress the importance of “context” to get the appropriate answer for each task. Then we propose an approach to handle these tasks using extensions to the COntext INterchange (COIN) technology for knowledge storage and knowledge processing. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

The main objective of this thesis is to provide the management of a company with a self- contained view on problems associated with the Contact Management as one component of the implementation of Customer Relationship Management (CRM). The thesis is primarily drawn from internet sources in order to obtain the most realistic and accurate view of given problems. The introductory part of this thesis focuses on an analysis of the areas that affect the success of the implementation of Contact Management. It highlights problems with the quality of data in companies, introduces the contributions of business architecture, and the concept of a single customer view within a company. The following part of the thesis focuses on problems involving the integration of data within a company and analyzes the problem areas concerned with the implementation of a uniform integration platform. The main part of the thesis focuses primarily on the return of investment from an application operating Contact Management and also from an active data warehouse as one of the possible solutions for the implementation of Contact Management. The thesis provides a detailed view of the classification of costs and benefits, which is necessary for relevant analysis. Together with a view on the return of investment, the thesis also analyses the design of systems for the management of the active data warehouse. The final part of the thesis focuses on problems with the implementation of householding as one part of Contact Management. This explains a possible way to implement householding within a company. The main contribution of this thesis is, firstly, to develop an overall view of the problems of Contact Management and, secondly, to provide the management of a company with information which is necessary for appropriate decisions about the solution that will radically affect the success of the entire company.

Historical archaeologists are turning more and more attention to the study of capitalism in post-Industrialist nations. Rhoda Halperin's concept of householding considers networks of families or other groups that operate outside of the mainstream capitalist economy. The concept is most often applied in anthropological contexts, but may be a useful tool in the study of homesteading in the American West. At Benmore, a small homesteading community in southern Rush Valley, Tooele County, Utah, 20 families sought to survive by dry farming in a marginal environment. The enthusiasm of such residents as Israel Bennion, whose journal provides deep insight into the town's short existence, may have united the community under the ideology of self-sufficiency and resulted in an example of householding in early twentieth century Utah. This thesis utilizes surface data from Benmore, compared to surface and excavation data from Tintic Junction—a railroading town approximately 20 miles away from Benmore—to consider whether Benmore fits Halperin's concept of householding and the extent to which the community operated outside of the mainstream economy. The data is considered both in order to better define the community of Benmore and to determine whether Halperin's concept may be applicable to future homesteading studies throughout the American West. I argue that the specific questions considered in identifying householding are useful but that a broader theoretical approach is necessary to fully consider the dynamics of homesteading towns in Utah and the West.

Advances in Corporate Householding are needed to address certain categories of data quality problems caused by data misinterpretation. In this paper, we first summarize some of these data quality problems and our more recent results from studying corporate householding applications and knowledge exploration. Then we outline a technical approach to a Corporate Householding Knowledge Processor (CHKP) to solve a particularly important type of corporate householding problem - entity aggregation. We illustrate the operation of the CHKP by using a motivational example in account consolidation. Our CHKP design and implementation uses and expands on the COntext INterchange (COIN) technology to manage and process corporate householding knowled