New Retrieval Approaches Using SMART: TREC 4.

Abstract

The Smart information retrieval project emphasizes completely automatic approaches to the understanding and retrieval of large quantities of text. We continue our work in TREC 4, performing runs in the routing, ad-hoc, confused text, interactive, and foreign language environments. Introduction For over 30 years, the Smart project at Cornell University has been interested in the analysis, search, and retrieval of heterogeneous text databases, where the vocabulary is allowed to vary widely, and the subject matter is unrestricted. Such databases may include newspaper articles, newswire dispatches, textbooks, dictionaries, encyclopedias, manuals, magazine articles, and so on. The usual text analysis and text indexing approaches that are based on the use of thesauruses and other vocabulary control devices are difficult to apply in unrestricted text environments, because the word meanings are not stable in such circumstances and the interpretation varies depending on context. The applicabil...