Describes an approximate document ranking process that uses a compact array of in-memory, low-precision approximations for document length. Combined with another rule for reducing the memory required by partial similarity accumulators, the approximation heuristic allows the ranking of large document collections using less than one byte of memory…

Applies a prefix trie index, or trie hashing, to the problem of providing fast search times, fast load times, and fast update properties in a bibliographic or full-text retrieval system with inverted files. Statistics are given for a test database consisting of an online catalog at the University of Western Ontario. (Author/LRW)

Discusses similarities between newspapers and hypertext databases; describes VOIR (Visualization of Information Retrieval), a software prototype used as an electronic newspaper workbench; presents results of empirical evaluation; and suggests implications for hypertext and information retrieval. (Author/LRW)

Using a newspaper article database, this study analyzed the effects of ellipsis and anaphor resolution on proximity searching in a full-text database; 154 keyword pairs in different categories were created. Findings indicate that some resolution method might be developed only for proper name phrases to support keyword-based full-text information…

Presents a probabilistic technique to retrieve passages from texts having a large size or heterogeneous semantic content. Results of experiments comparing the probabilistic technique to one based on a text segmentation algorithm revealed that the passage size affects passage retrieval performance; text organization and query generality may have an…

Provides an overview of HYTREM (Hybrid Text-Retrieval Machine), a high-performance, cost-effective text-retrieval machine that handles information in large textual databases. Describes HYTREM's software and hardware design principles and presents an evaluation of system performance in relation to user demand and access versus system capacity. (JMV)

Discusses the nature of term groupings, phrases, and text windows in full-text documents and computes the statistical significance of windows. Topics include classifying documents within disciplines or on a theory versus practice spectrum; and grammatical characteristics for automatic classification of documents, for information retrieval, and for…

Reports on the performance of the vector space model in the presence of OCR (optical character recognition) errors in information retrieval. Highlights include precision and recall, a full-text test collection, smart vector representation, impact of weighting parameters, ranking variability, and the effect of relevance feedback. (Author/LRW)

Reviews the literature on the development of full-text electronic libraries in the academic setting. Organizational factors can have impact on electronic library development and ultimate usability. Topics include strategic management, planning and implementation; system specification and design; document provision; user support and training; and…