MASQUERADE: Searching the full text of abstracts using automatic indexing

An interactive, in-house document storage and retrieval system named MASQUERADE is described. It employs automatic indexing techniques with word stemming. Both Boolean and natural language queries are implemented. An IDF (Inverse Document Frequency) term weighting scheme is used to rank output. Relevance feedback is accomplished with the use of a document chosen by the user as the basis for a search. Optional display formats are available. The system is user friendly both from the input and output sides. Documents are stored using an inverted file scheme employing a quadratic hash algorithm. MASQUERADE is currently being used to support several data bases.