Missing values compensation in duplicates detection using hot deck method

Abstract Duplicate record is a common problem within data sets especially in huge volume databases. The accuracy of duplicate detection determines the efficiency of duplicate removal process. However, duplicate detection has become more challenging due to the presence of missing values within the records where during the clustering and matching process, missing values can cause records deemed similar to be inserted into the wrong group, hence, leading to undetected duplicates. In this paper, duplicate detection improvement was proposed despite the presence of missing values within a data set through Duplicate Detection within the Incomplete Data set (DDID) method. The missing values were hypothetically added to the key attributes of three data sets under study, using an arbitrary pattern to simulate both complete and incomplete data sets. The results were analyzed, then, the performance of duplicate detection was evaluated by using the Hot Deck method to compensate for the missing values in the key attributes. It was hypothesized that by using Hot Deck, duplicate detection performance would be improved. Furthermore, the DDID performance was compared to an early duplicate detection method namely DuDe, in terms of its accuracy and speed. The findings yielded that even though the data sets were incomplete, DDID was able to offer a better accuracy and faster duplicate detection as compared to DuDe. The results of this study offer insights into constraints of duplicate detection within incomplete data sets.