RESUMO
Biomedical Record Linkage is especially designed for linking data of patients in different data repositories. An important question in this context is whether singling-out is sufficient for identifying a patient, and if not, what is in general required for identification. To provide hints for an answer, we will extend previous works on the concept of identity and extend the sortal concept, stemming from analytical philosophy and upper-level ontologies. A sortal is a concept that is associated with an identity criterion. For example, the concept "set" has the identity criterion "having the same members". Based on a description of a record linkage setting, we operationalize the sortal concept by providing a distinction between the digital representation of a person (d-sortal) and the person in flesh (b-sortal).
RESUMO
Record linkage refers to a range of methods for merging and consolidating data in a manner such that duplicates are detected and false links are avoided. It is crucial for such a task to discern between similarity and identity of entities. This paper explores the implications of the ontological concepts of identity for record linkage (RL) on biomedical data sets. In order to draw substantial conclusions, we use the differentiation between numerical identity, qualitative identity and relational identity. We will discuss the problems of using similarity measures for record pairs and quality identity for ascertaining the real status of these pairs. We conclude that relational identity should be operationalized for RL.