Exploration of textual document archives using a fuzzy hierarchical clustering algorithm in the GAMBAL system

The Internet, together with the large amount of textual information available in document archives, has increased the relevance of information retrieval related tools. In this work we present an extension of the Gambal system for clustering and visualization of documents based on fuzzy clustering techniques. The tool allows to structure the set of documents in a hierarchical way (using a fuzzy hierarchical structure) and represent this structure in a graphical interface (a 3D sphere) over which the user can navigate. Gambal allows the analysis of the documents and the computation of their similarity not only on the basis of the syntactic similarity between words but also based on a dictionary (Wordnet 1.7) and latent semantics analysis. © 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Partial support by Generalitat de Catalunya (AGAUR, 2002XT 00111 and 2002BEAI400017) and by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (c), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science no. 13680475 are acknowledged.Peer Reviewe