479 research outputs found
Sense resolution properties of logical imaging
The evaluation of an implication by Imaging is a logical technique developed
in the framework of modal logic. Its interpretation in the context of a âpossible
worldsâ semantics is very appealing for IR. In 1994, Crestani and Van Rijsbergen
proposed an interpretation of Imaging in the context of IR based on the assumption
that âa term is a possibleworldâ. This approach enables the exploitation of termâ
term relationshipswhich are estimated using an information theoretic measure.
Recent analysis of the probability kinematics of Logical Imaging in IR have
suggested that this technique has some interesting sense resolution properties. In
this paper we will present this new line of research and we will relate it to more
classical research into word senses
Retrieval through explanation : an abductive inference approach to relevance feedback
Relevance feedback techniques are designed to automatically improve a system's representation of a query by using documents the user has marked as relevant. However, traditional relevance feedback models suffer from a number of limitations that restrict their potential in supporting information seeking. One of the major limitations of relevance feedback is that it does not incorporate behavioural aspects of information seeking - how and why users assess relevance. We propose that relevance feedback should be viewed as a process of explanation and demonstrate how this limitation of relevance feedback techniques can be overcome by a theory of relevance feedback based on abductive inference
Combining and selecting characteristics of information use
In this paper we report on a series of experiments designed to investigate the combination of term and document weighting functions in Information Retrieval. We describe a series of weighting functions, each of which is based on how information is used within documents and collections, and use these weighting functions in two types of experiments: one based on combination of evidence for ad-hoc retrieval, the other based on selective combination of evidence within a relevance feedback situation. We discuss the difficulties involved in predicting good combinations of evidence for ad-hoc retrieval, and suggest the factors that may lead to the success or failure of combination. We also demonstrate how, in a relevance feedback situation, the relevance assessments can provide a good indication of how evidence should be selected for query term weighting. The use of relevance information to guide the combination process is shown to reduce the variability inherent in combination of evidence
Topic based language models for ad hoc information retrieval
We propose a topic based approach lo language
modelling for ad-hoc Information Retrieval (IR). Many smoothed estimators used for the multinomial query model in IR rely upon the estimated background collection probabilities. In this paper, we propose a topic based language modelling approach, that uses a more informative prior based on the topical content of a document. In our experiments, the proposed model provides comparable IR performance to the standard models, but when combined in a two stage language model, it outperforms all other estimated models
Investigating the relationship between language model perplexity and IR precision-recall measures
An empirical study has been conducted investigating the relationship between the performance of an aspect based language model in terms of perplexity and the corresponding information retrieval performance obtained. It is observed, on the corpora considered, that the perplexity of the language model has a systematic relationship with the achievable precision recall performance though it is not statistically significant
The troubles with using a logical model of IR on a large collection of documents
This is a paper of two halves. First, a description of a logical model of IR known as imaging will be presented. Unfortunately due to constraints of time and computing resource this model was not implemented in time for this round of TREC. Therefore this paper's second half describes the more conventional IR model and system used to generate the Glasgow IR result set (glair1)
The troubles with using a logical model of IR on a large collection of documents
This is a paper of two halves. First, a description of a logical model of IR known as imaging will be presented.
Unfortunately due to constraints of time and computing resource this model was not implemented in time for this round
of TREC. Therefore this paperâs second half describes the more conventional IR model and system used to generate
the Glasgow IR result set (glair1)
NRT - news retrieval tool
The amounts of information that mankind produces are vast, running into billions of
documents. Traditional ways of holding this information have become impractical and so
methods of storage are being switched from paper and microfiche to magnetic and optical
discs. In the last thirty years as more information has been put onto computers, work has gone
into using the computer to get away from the restrictiveness of manual indexing and move
towards a more flexible system of information acquisition.
Many companies exist offering (for a price) the opportunity to access the information stored on
their systems. Unfortunately, most of these companies use software that was developed in the
sixties when the field of information retrieval (IR) was still very young. This means that the
services they offer are rather primitive. The Financial Timesâ IR service, Profile is typical of
such commercial systems. It has been the aim of the NRT project to investigate ways of
incorporating the new ideas in IR, that have occurred in the last ten to fifteen years, into Profile
A methodology to allow avalanche forecasting on an information retrieval system
This paper presents adaptations and tests undertaken to allow an information retrieval (IR) system to forecast the likelihood of avalanches on a particular day. The forecasting process uses historical data of the weather and avalanche conditions for a large number of days. A method for adapting these data into a form usable by a text-based IR system is first described, followed by tests showing the resulting systemâs accuracy to be equal to existing âcustom builtâ forecasting systems. From this, it is concluded that the adaptation methodology is effective at allowing such data to be used in a text-based IR system. A number of advantages in using an IR system for avalanche forecasting are also presented
Evaluating a workspace's usefulness for image retrieval
Image searching is a creative process. We have proposed a novel image retrieval system that supports creative search sessions by allowing the user to organise their search results on a workspace. The workspaceâs usefulness is evaluated in a task-oriented and user-centred comparative experiment, involving design professionals and several types of realistic search tasks. In particular, we focus on its effect on task conceptualisation and query formulation. A traditional relevance feedback system serves as a baseline. The results of this study show that the workspace is more useful in terms of both of the above aspects and that the proposed approach leads to a more effective and enjoyable search experience. This paper also highlights the influence of tasks on the usersâ search and organisation strategy
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