4. The computer-based method of claim 1 , wherein said outputted merged instance T 1 T 2 comprise a concise and complete temporal history of all data records such that a history of an entity associated with the data records is retrievable via a standard XML manipulation language.
1. A computer based method comprising: receiving an input schema S; receiving two instances, T 1 and T 2 , each of which conforms to said input schema, S; computing a merged instance of T 1 and T 2 , T 1 T 2 , as an instance that also conforms to S such that every path in T 1 or T 2 can be found in T 1 T 2 , every path in T 1 T 2 can be found in T 1 or T 2 , and a temporal context associated with an element in any path in T 1 T 2 is a result of adjusting temporal contexts of corresponding elements in T 1 and/or T 2 under the same path according to a given adjustment policy, said given adjustment policy designed to resolve time conflicts between data records having time conflicts, where said merged instance T 1 T 2 provides an integrated view of instances T 1 and T 2 by fusing identical elements in instances T 1 and/or T 2 together and providing an interpretation of their corresponding temporal contexts according to said given adjust policy; storing said merged instance T 1 T 2 as a time-consistent integrated profile; and evaluating a timeslice query based on the time-consistent integrated profile.