The maximum entropy principle in information retrieval

Applications, assumptions and properties of the maximum entropy principle are discussed. The maximum entropy principle integrates prior estimates of relevance with the observed distribution of term combinations. The result may be a reordering of the segments of a database, compared to a naive estimate. Numerical examples obtained by solution of the non-linear equations for the dual variables are presented and discussed. * Supported in part by the National Science Foundation under grant IST-8318630.