Attribute Entropy as a Signal in Object Normalization

Abstract

A system and method determines whether two objects are duplicate objects. The system and method matches common facts of the two objects based on a match measure, combines the entropies of the matching common facts, and determines whether the two objects are duplicate objects based on the sum of entropies.

1 . A computer-implemented method of determining if a first object and a second object represent a same entity, the method comprising:
 identifying one or more common attributes between the first object and the second object;   determining an entropy for each of the one or more common attributes, wherein a respective entropy is a numeric value measuring an amount of information carried by the respective attribute;   identifying a subset of the one or more common attributes whose respective values are equivalent;   determining whether the first object and the second object represent the same entity by comparing a sum of entropies for the subset of the one or more common attributes to an entropy threshold measure; and   in response to determining that the first object and the second object represent the same entity, merging the first object and the second object.