Dealing with Data Inconsistencies in Mobile Distributed Environments

This paper is a work in progress report on the information inconsistency problem inherent to hybrid networks. Hybrid networks consist of ad hoc or wireless sensor networks supported by a backbone network. We introduce the concept of consistency degree as a measure of information consistency in such a network. By using this measure backbone links can potentially be managed and self-organized to equilibrate a network's information state locally and globally. Additionally, application scenarios are studied in the context of the introduced concept. Here, the focus is on iRide, a mobile transportation information system that is currently under development.