Discussion of electronic mail messages processing focuses on threads, which are conversations among two or more people carried out by exchange of messages. Suggests that effective threading systems should rely on conventions in human communication rather than on software communication, and shows that information retrieval techniques can be used…

The grammars of natural languages may be learned by using genetic algorithm systems such as LUST (Linguistics Using Sexual Techniques) that reproduce and mutate grammatical rules and parts-of-speech tags. In document retrieval or filtering systems, applying tags to the list of terms representing a document provides additional information about…

Presents an overview of the second Text Retrieval Conference (TREC-2), an opinion paper about the program, and nine papers by participants that show a range of techniques used in TREC. Topics include traditional text retrieval and information technology, efficiency, the use of language processing techniques, unusual approaches to text retrieval,…