The effects on retrieval of variations in term specificity are examined. Experiments with three test collections showed in particular that frequently-occurring terms are required for good overall performance. (10 references) (Author/NH)

Discusses information retrieval systems and extracting appropriate keywords from documents and proposes an effective substring search method by extending a pattern matching machine for multi-keywords called delayed keyword extraction (DKE). Also proposes a construction algorithm of the retrieval structure for speeding up the substring search.…

This brief review of the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) system is intended to make users more aware of (1) the system as a whole, (2) the process of indexing educational literature for the database, and (3) the role of the Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors in the overall information dissemination process. An overview of the ERIC…

Investigated the relative merits of searching on titles, subject headings, abstracts, free-language terms, and combinations of these elements. The combination of titles and abstracts came the closest to 100 percent retrieval. (Author/PF)

Proposes an effective term suggestion approach to interactive Web searches. Explains a log-based approach to relevant term extraction and term suggestion where relevant terms suggested for a user query are those that co-occur in similar query sessions from search engine logs rather than in the retrieved documents. (Author/LRW)

Discusses information visualization techniques and introduces a visual term discrimination value analysis method using a document density space within a distance-angle-based visual information retrieval environment. Explains that applications of these methods facilitate more effective assignment of term weights to index terms within documents and…

Discusses latent semantic indexing (LSI); considers the high cost associated with the singular value decomposition (SVD) of the large term-by-document matrix that becomes a barrier for its application to scalable information retrieval; and shows that information filtering using level search techniques can reduce the SVD computation cost for LSI.…

Focuses on several databases currently available on Bibliographic Retrieval Services (BRS) for searching international business and management research online--ABI/INFORM, MANAGEMENT CONTENTS, PREDICASTS (bibliographical and statistical)--noting scope and coverage, thesaurus and descriptors, and search strategies. Predicasts file structure and…

Demonstrates the property of inclusiveness of document retrieval systems where documents are indexed by unweighted terms and in which query search patterns are Boolean functions of descriptors and presents three methods for determining a partial ordering on a set of system responses to these queries. Eleven sources are listed. (FM)

In order to permit systematic searching of multiple data bases to satisfy requests in interdisciplinary areas, a mapping of a portion of "Medical Subject Headings" to three other controlled vocabularies has been constructed. (Author)

Describes basic strategy for cocitation searching, i.e., searching for any document citing at least two other specified documents, usually on same topic. Search terms, using combinations for retrieving cocited papers, boundary spanning, retrieving review articles, adding new cited sources to modify strategy, and cited sources/free-text terms are…

This paper discusses examples of searching vocabularies, i.e., lists of terms which have been prepared with the online searcher, rather than the indexer, in mind. These lists are categorized as: enhanced thesauri or subject heading lists, synonym listings, index term listings, and merged vocabularies. Eight references are provided. (EJS)

PRECIS, The Preserved Context Index System, is explained in detail. (AP)

A straightforward procedure for performing weighted-term searches can be programmed quickly and easily, and the same general algorithm can be used for either on-line or batch mode searching. The method can be used to do whole text searches as well as conventional searches for index terms or other descriptors. (5 references) (Author/NH)

The results of an experiment simulating a library catalog search indicated that a relation exists between the lexical content load of the text, used to define the search topic, and the number of query terms generated by a group of experimental subjects (college students). (21 references) (Author)