Enhancing Internet Search Engines to Achieve Concept-based Retrieval

Most engines used for searching information resources via the Internet employ the Boolean Retrieval Model. Two main drawbacks of this model are that users have difficulty to precisely formulate their concept (or, topic) of interest using Boolean logic and the resulting output is not ranked. We propose to address both these problems by employing a Concept-based Retrieval Model, where a concept is defined by a set of production rules and the rule-base is represented as a rule-base tree. Features of a prototype developed at USL, referred to as the Concept-Set Structuring System (CS), which includes a graphical interface for defining and refining rule-base trees and for converting them into equivalent sets of conjunctions, called Minimal Term Sets (MTSs), are described. By submitting MTSs generated for a concept to an existing search engine and by reordering the returned results according to the importance of MTSs they satisfy, the CS prototype enhances the capabilities of the underlying search engine. Results that demonstrate the use of the prototype, coupled with DOE Information-Bridge, will be presented.