Towards Data Abstraction in Networked Information Retrieval Systems

Networked information retrieval aims at the interoperability of heterogeneous information retrieval (IR) systems. In this paper, we show how differences concerning search operators and database schemas can be handled by applying data abstraction concepts in combination with uncertain inference. Different data types with vague predicates are required to allow for queries referring to arbitrary attributes of documents. Physical data independence separates search operators from access paths, thus solving text search problems related to noun phrases, compound words and proper nouns. Projection and inheritance on attributes support the creation of unified views on a set of IR databases. Uncertain inference allows for query processing even on incompatible database schemas.

[1]  Gerda Ruge,et al.  Effectiveness and Efficiency in Natural Language Processing for Large Amounts of Text. , 1991 .

[2]  Norbert Fuhr,et al.  Integration of probabilistic fact and text retrieval , 1992, SIGIR '92.

[3]  Norbert Fuhr,et al.  Information Retrieval with Probabilistic Datalog , 1998 .

[4]  Gerda Ruge,et al.  Effectiveness and efficiency in natural language processing for large amounts of text , 1991, J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci..

[5]  W. Bruce Croft,et al.  Integrating IR and RDBMS using cooperative indexing , 1995, SIGIR '95.

[6]  Hans-Peter Frei,et al.  Design of reusable IR framework , 1995, SIGIR '95.

[7]  Kevin Chen-Chuan Chang,et al.  Boolean Query Mapping Across Heterogeneous Information Sources , 1996, IEEE Trans. Knowl. Data Eng..

[8]  Renée J. Miller,et al.  The Use of Information Capacity in Schema Integration and Translation , 1993, VLDB.

[9]  Richard S. Marcus.  User Assistance in Bibliographic Retrieval Networks through a Computer Intermediary , 1982, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics.

[10]  Norbert Fuhr,et al.  Probabilistic Datalog—a logic for powerful retrieval methods , 1995, SIGIR '95.

[11]  Dietrich Boles,et al.  The MeDoc System - A Digital Publication and Reference Service for Computer Science , 1998, The MeDoc Approach.

[12]  Thomas Erickson,et al.  Interfaces for Distributed Systems of Information Servers , 1993, J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci..

[13]  Norbert Fuhr,et al.  Searching Structured Documents with the Enhanced Retrieval Functionality of freeWAIS-sf and SFgate , 1995, Comput. Networks ISDN Syst..

[14]  C. J. van Rijsbergen,et al.  Proceedings of the 10th annual international ACM SIGIR conference on Research and development in information retrieval , 1987, SIGIR 1987.

[15]  Ricardo Baeza-Yates,et al.  Information Retrieval: Data Structures and Algorithms , 1992 .

[16]  David J. Harper,et al.  ECLAIR: An Extensible Class Library for Information Retrieval , 1992, Comput. J..

[17]  Joel L. Fagan,et al.  The effectiveness of a nonsyntactic approach to automatic phrase indexing for document retrieval , 1989, JASIS.

[18]  Michael Breu,et al.  Digital Libraries in Computer Science: The MeDoc Approach , 1998, Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

[19]  Ophir Frieder,et al.  Integrating structured data and text: a relational approach , 1997 .

[20]  Norbert Fuhr,et al.  Retrieval Effectiveness of Proper Name Search Methods , 1996, Inf. Process. Manag..

[21]  Yiyu Yao,et al.  On modeling information retrieval with probabilistic inference , 1995, TOIS.

[22]  C. J. van Rijsbergen,et al.  A formal treatment of missing & imprecise information , 1987, SIGIR '87.

[23]  Dennis Tsichritzis,et al.  The ANSI/X3/SPARC DBMS Framework Report of the Study Group on Dabatase Management Systems , 1978, Inf. Syst..

[24]  Norbert Fuhr,et al.  A Probabilistic Framework for Vague Queries and Imprecise Information in Databases , 1990, VLDB.

[25]  Kerry Rodden,et al.  Cobra: A new approach to IR System design , 1997, RIAO.

[26]  Ronald J. Brachman,et al.  An Overview of the KL-ONE Knowledge Representation System , 1985, Cogn. Sci..

[27]  Fabio Crestani,et al.  Logic and Uncertainty in Information Retrieval , 2001, ESSIR.

[28]  Stuart Weibel.  Metadata: the foundations of resource description , 1995, D Lib Mag..

[29]  Venkata Subramaniam,et al.  Information Retrieval: Data Structures & Algorithms , 1992 .

[30]  Douglas Keislar,et al.  Content-Based Classification, Search, and Retrieval of Audio , 1996, IEEE Multim..

[31]  Norbert Fuhr,et al.  DOLORES: a system for logic-based retrieval of multimedia objects , 1998, SIGIR '98.

[32]  Dragutin Petkovic,et al.  Query by Image and Video Content: The QBIC System , 1995, Computer.

[33]  W. Bruce Croft,et al.  Searching distributed collections with inference networks , 1995, SIGIR '95.

[34]  Ellen M. Voorhees,et al.  Learning collection fusion strategies , 1995, SIGIR '95.

[35]  Ophir Frieder,et al.  Integrating Structured Data and Text: A Relational Approach , 1997, J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci..

[36]  Norbert Gövert.  Information Retrieval in vernetzten heterogenen Datenbanken , 1996, ISI.