Document management systems from current capabilities towards intelligent information retrieval: an overview

Documents circulating in paper form are increasingly being substituted by its electronic equivalent in the modern office today so that any stored document can be retrieved whenever needed later on. The office worker is already burdened with information overload, so effective and efficient retrieval facilities become an important factor affecting worker productivity. This paper first reviews the features of current document management systems with varying facilities to manage, store and retrieve either reference to documents or whole documents. Information retrieval databases, groupware products and workflow management systems are presented as developments to handle different needs, together with the underlying concepts of knowledge management. The two problems of worker finiteness and worker ignorance remain outstanding, as they are only partially addressed by the above-mentioned systems. The solution lies in a shift away from pull technology where the user has to actively initiate the request for information towards push technology, where available information is automatically delivered without user intervention. Intelligent information retrieval agents are presented as a solution together with a marketing scenario of how they can be introduced.     

CLAIRE: A combinatorial visual analytics system for information retrieval evaluation

Information Retrieval (IR) develops complex systems, constituted of several components, which aim at returning and optimally ranking the most relevant documents in response to user queries. In this context, experimental evaluation plays a central role, since it allows for measuring IR systems effectiveness, increasing the understanding of their functioning, and better directing the efforts for improving them. Current evaluation methodologies are limited by two major factors: (i) IR systems are evaluated as “black boxes”, since it is not possible to decompose the contributions of the different components, e.g., stop lists, stemmers, and IR models; (ii) given that it is not possible to predict the effectiveness of an IR system, both academia and industry need to explore huge numbers of systems, originated by large combinatorial compositions of their components, to understand how they perform and how these components interact together.We propose a Combinatorial visuaL Analytics system for Information Retrieval Evaluation (CLAIRE) which allows for exploring and making sense of the performances of a large amount of IR systems, in order to quickly and intuitively grasp which system configurations are preferred, what are the contributions of the different components and how these components interact together.The CLAIRE system is then validated against use cases based on several test collections using a wide set of systems, generated by a combinatorial composition of several off-the-shelf components, representing the most common denominator almost always present in English IR systems. In particular, we validate the findings enabled by CLAIRE with respect to consolidated deep statistical analyses and we show that the CLAIRE system allows the generation of new insights, which were not detectable with traditional approaches.     

Intelligent information retrieval: diagnosing information need. : Part I. The theoretical framework for developing an intelligent IR tool

The research examines the notion that the principles underlying the procedure used by doctors to diagnose a patient's disease are useful in the design of “intelligent” IR systems because the task of the doctor is conceptually similar to the computer (or human) intermediary's task in “intelligent information retrieval”: to draw out, through interaction with the IR system, the user's query/information need. The research is reported in two parts. In Part II, an information retrieval tool is described which is based on “intelligent information retrieval” assumptions about the information user. In Part I, presented here, the theoretical framework for the tool is set out. This framework is borrowed from the diagnostic procedure currently used in medicine, called “differential diagnosis”. Because of the severe consequences that attend misdiagnosis, the operating principle in differential diagnosis is (1) to expand the uncertainty in the diagnosis situation so that all possible hypotheses and evidence are considered, then (2) to contract the uncertainty in a step by step fashion (from an examination of the patient's symptoms, through the patient's history and a physical (signs), to laboratory tests). The IR theories of Taylor, Kuhlthau and Belkin are used to demonstrate that these medical diagnosis procedures are already present in IR and that it is a viable model with which to design “intelligent” IR tools and systems.     

Reflink: A microcomputer information retrieval and evaluation system

Reflink is a system based on sophisticated information retrieval techniques which is housed in a small, inexpensive microcomputer. The paper describes the system, along with its predecessor, REFLES. Such systems are then placed in a conceptual framework involving stable and dynamic information, and several illustrations of multiple uses are presented.     

A rough-fuzzy document grading system for customized text information retrieval

Due to the large repository of documents available on the web, users are usually inundated by a large volume of information, most of which is found to be irrelevant. Since user perspectives vary, a client-side text filtering system that learns the user's perspective can reduce the problem of irrelevant retrieval. In this paper, we have provided the design of a customized text information filtering system which learns user preferences and modifies the initial query to fetch better documents. It uses a rough-fuzzy reasoning scheme. The rough-set based reasoning takes care of natural language nuances, like synonym handling, very elegantly. The fuzzy decider provides qualitative grading to the documents for the user's perusal. We have provided the detailed design of the various modules and some results related to the performance analysis of the system.     

Principles, procedures and rules in an expert system for information retrieval

An expert system was developed in the area of information retrieval, with the objective of performing the job of an information specialist, who assists users in selecting the right vocabulary terms for a database search.The system is composed of two components: One is the knowledge base, represented as a semantic network, in which the nodes are words, concepts, phrases, comprising a vocabulary of the application area and the links express semantic relationships between those nodes. The second component is the rules, or procedures, which operate upon the knowledge-base, analogous to the decision rules or work patterns of the information specialist.Two major stages comprise the consulting process of the system: During the “search” stage relevant knowledge in the semantic network is activated, and search and evaluation rules are applied in order to find appropriate vocabulary terms to represent the user's problem. During the “suggest” stage those terms are further evaluated, dynamically rank-ordered according to relevancy, and suggested to the user. Explanations to the findings can be provided by the system and backtracking is possible in order to find alternatives in case some suggested term is rejected by the user.This article presents the principle, procedures and rules which are utilized in the expert system.     

A logic basis for information retrieval

This paper examines the potential of recent work in artificial intelligence for the development of more effective information retrieval systems. The primary task in this research has been to examine and define the role of an expert system in the domain of bibliographic retrieval. Once such a goal can be described the available knowledge representations and techniques can be evaluated. This paper examines the role of an expert bibliographic retrieval system, examines an artificial intelligence view of information retrieval, and then describes a prototype expert information retrieval system that has been designed and implemented.     

Query expansion techniques for information retrieval: A survey

With the ever increasing size of the web, relevant information extraction on the Internet with a query formed by a few keywords has become a big challenge. Query Expansion (QE) plays a crucial role in improving searches on the Internet. Here, the user’s initial query is reformulated by adding additional meaningful terms with similar significance. QE – as part of information retrieval (IR) – has long attracted researchers’ attention. It has become very influential in the field of personalized social document, question answering, cross-language IR, information filtering and multimedia IR. Research in QE has gained further prominence because of IR dedicated conferences such as TREC (Text Information Retrieval Conference) and CLEF (Conference and Labs of the Evaluation Forum). This paper surveys QE techniques in IR from 1960 to 2017 with respect to core techniques, data sources used, weighting and ranking methodologies, user participation and applications – bringing out similarities and differences.     

Specifics of information retrieval for young users: A survey

In this paper, we present the state of the art in the field of information retrieval that is relevant for understanding how to design information retrieval systems for children. We describe basic theories of human development to explain the specifics of young users, i.e., their cognitive skills, fine motor skills, knowledge, memory and emotional states in so far as they differ from those of adults. We derive the implications these differences have on the design of information retrieval systems for children. Furthermore, we summarize the main findings about children’s search behavior from multiple user studies. These findings are important to understand children’s information needs, their search strategies and usage of information retrieval systems. We also identify several weaknesses of previous user studies about children’s information-seeking behavior. Guided by the findings of these user studies, we describe challenges for the design of information retrieval systems for young users. We give an overview of algorithms and user interface concepts. We also describe existing information retrieval systems for children, in specific web search engines and digital libraries. We conclude with a discussion of open issues and directions for further research. The survey provided in this paper is important both for designers of information retrieval systems for young users as well as for researchers who start working in this field.     

A risk minimization framework for information retrieval

This paper presents a probabilistic information retrieval framework in which the retrieval problem is formally treated as a statistical decision problem. In this framework, queries and documents are modeled using statistical language models, user preferences are modeled through loss functions, and retrieval is cast as a risk minimization problem. We discuss how this framework can unify existing retrieval models and accommodate systematic development of new retrieval models. As an example of using the framework to model non-traditional retrieval problems, we derive retrieval models for subtopic retrieval, which is concerned with retrieving documents to cover many different subtopics of a general query topic. These new models differ from traditional retrieval models in that they relax the traditional assumption of independent relevance of documents.     

CIRLab: A groupware framework for collaborative information retrieval research

In this paper we describe the design of a groupware framework, CIRLab, for experimenting with collaborative information retrieval (CIR) techniques in different search scenarios. This framework has been designed applying design patterns and an object-oriented middleware platform to maximize its reusability and adaptability in new contexts with a minimum of programming efforts. Our collaborative search application comprises three main modules: the Core, which supports various modern state-of-the-art CIR techniques that can be reused or extended in a distributed collaborative environment; the Facades Mediator, an event-driven notification service which allows easy integration between the Core and front-end applications; and finally, the Actions Tracker, which allows researchers to perform experiments on the different elements involved in the collaborative search sessions. The applying of this framework is illustrated through the analysis of the collaborative search-driven development case study.     

Local search: A guide for the information retrieval practitioner

There are a number of combinatorial optimisation problems in information retrieval in which the use of local search methods are worthwhile. The purpose of this paper is to show how local search can be used to solve some well known tasks in information retrieval (IR), how previous research in the field is piecemeal, bereft of a structure and methodologically flawed, and to suggest more rigorous ways of applying local search methods to solve IR problems. We provide a query based taxonomy for analysing the use of local search in IR tasks and an overview of issues such as fitness functions, statistical significance and test collections when conducting experiments on combinatorial optimisation problems. The paper gives a guide on the pitfalls and problems for IR practitioners who wish to use local search to solve their research issues, and gives practical advice on the use of such methods. The query based taxonomy is a novel structure which can be used by the IR practitioner in order to examine the use of local search in IR.     

Development of an intelligent information system for financial analysis depend on supervised machine learning algorithms

The development of Management Information Systems (MIS) is impossible without the use of machine learning (ML). It's a type of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that makes predictions using statistical models. When it comes to financial analysis, there are numerous risk-related concerns to contend with today (FI). In the financial sector, machine learning algorithms are used to detect fraud, automate trading, and provide financial advice to investors. To better serve its customers, the financial sector can now save borrower data according to specific criteria thanks to MIS. In fact, there is a large amount of data about debtors, making load management a difficult task. ML can examine millions of data sets in a short period of time without being explicitly programmed to improve the results. This type of algorithm can aid financial institutions in making grant selections for their clients. For the objective of classifying FI in terms of fraud or not, the Intelligent Information System for Financial Institutions (IISFI) relying on Supervised ML (SML) Algorithms has been created in this work. Bayesian Belief Network, Neural Network, Decision trees, Naïve Bayes, and Nearest Neighbor has been compared for the purpose of classifying FI risks using the performance measures asfalse positive rate, true positive rate, true negative rate, false negative rate, accuracy, F-Measure, Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Mean Squared Error (MSE), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Med AE, Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) area,Precision Recall Characteristic (PRC) area, and measures of PC.     

Intelligent information retrieval: diagnosing information need. Part II. Uncertainty expansion in a prototype of a diagnostic IR tool

This article is part II of a three part series. In part I we described the theoretical framework for developing an “intelligent information retrieval” tool, based on three principles from medical diagnosis theory. In part II, the present article, we outline a prototype of an “intelligent” IR tool, whose purpose is to facilitate information access for an undergraduate seeking information for a history term paper. Our objective is to create a tool that will (i) draw-out the undergraduate's query to the information system by taking the student through the task of doing the term paper and (ii) diagnose the student's information need by measuring his or her degree of topic integration. The degree of integration indicates a class of information need. The classes of information need are based on Kuhlthau's six stage information search process (ISP) model (each stage is a separate information need, demanding different information to satisfy it). The measurement instrument is based on (i) principles from Shannon's mathematical theory of communication and (ii) principles of uncertainty expansion and reduction from differential diagnosis theory.     

智能燃气管理信息系统的开发与设计

燃气调压器用于降压与稳压,是燃气供应系统中的重要设备。建立基于VB.net和SQL Server的管理信息系统,对燃气数据进行管理、显示,并通过分析调压器出口压力的变化趋势,实现对调压器故障的初步诊断。实际应用证明,该系统运行稳定,较好地实现了燃气信息管理以及故障诊断。     

Uncertainty in information seeking and retrieval: A study in an academic environment

This research focuses specifically on uncertainty and information seeking in a digital environment. In this research we argue that different types of uncertainty are associated with the information seeking process and that, with the proliferation of new and different search tools, sources and channels, uncertainty, positive/desirable or negative/undesirable, continues to be a significant factor in the search process. Users may feel uncertain at any stage of the information search and retrieval process and uncertainty may remain even after completion of the process resulting in what may be called persistent uncertainty. An online questionnaire was used to collect data from users in the higher education sector. There were three parts to the questionnaire focusing on: information seeking activities, information seeking problems, and access to specific information channels or sources. Quantitative analysis was carried out on the data collected through the online questionnaire. A total of 668 responses were returned from the chosen user categories of academic staff, research staff and research students. This research has shown that there are some information seeking activities and information seeking problems that are the most common causes of uncertainty among significant number of users from different disciplines, age, gender, ICT skills, etc. This is also the case with respect to access to and use of specific information sources/channels, although the degrees of uncertainty in relation are relatively small. Possible implications of this study and further research issues are indicated.     

Probabilistic information retrieval model for a dependency structured indexing system

Most previous information retrieval (IR) models assume that terms of queries and documents are statistically independent from each other. However, conditional independence assumption is obviously and openly understood to be wrong, so we present a new method of incorporating term dependence into a probabilistic retrieval model by adapting a dependency structured indexing system using a dependency parse tree and Chow Expansion to compensate the weakness of the assumption. In this paper, we describe a theoretic process to apply the Chow Expansion to the general probabilistic models and the state-of-the-art 2-Poisson model. Through experiments on document collections in English and Korean, we demonstrate that the incorporation of term dependences using Chow Expansion contributes to the improvement of performance in probabilistic IR systems.     

Multilevel information system— Towards more flexible information retrieval systems

The Multilevel Information System (MLIS), extension of typical Information Retrieval System towards more complete data processing, is discussed. MLIS integrates functions typical for data base management systems and retrieval-oriented systems. Several levels of data accessing are provided, each level developed for a different class of users. End-user level is based on simple query language, trained user level on a relational model, and application programmer level on a Data Manipulation Language nested in high level programming language. The last two levels are discussed in detail.