Discussion of spell checking for Chinese words proposes a Block-of-Combinations (BOC) text-segmentation method based on frequency of word usage to reduce the word combinations from exponential growth to linear growth. Suggests user interaction to make the segmentation more suitable for spell checking. (Author/LRW)

A statistical measure is developed for predicting the terms from a restricted vocabulary that will be used to index a document, given that one of the index terms is known. (Author)

Describes a method of selecting index terms directly from a word frequency list, an idea originally suggested by Goffman. Results of the analysis of word frequencies of two articles seem to indicate that the automated selection of index terms from a frequency list holds some promise for automatic indexing. (Author/MBR)

A common functional relationship among Lotka's law, Bradford's law, and Zipf's law is derived. The proof takes explicit account of the sequences of observed values of the variables by means of an index. This approach results in a more realistic and precise formulation of each law. (Author/EM)

The question is asked: Of index terms assigned to documents, which function most effectively in retrieval, the most used or popular terms, or those which are used relatively infrequently? The experiment is a retrieval experiment and uses the Cranfield-Salton data. (14 references) (Author)

Discusses models for the distribution of words in text and proposes a new model based on clustering that can be used to estimate the probability that a document contains a particular word as well as the number of distinct words in a document. Zipf's law and the Poisson approximation are also discussed. (18 references) (LRW)

Reports the results of experiments with MEDLINE that used lexical statistics such as word-frequency counts to discover hidden connections in medical literature. Discusses problems with relying on bibliographic citations or standard indexing methods to establish a relationship between topics that might profitably be explored by scientific research.…

Reviews major term-weighting theories, presents methods for estimating the relevance properties of terms based on their frequency characteristics in a document collection, and compares weighting systems using term relevance properties with more conventional frequency-based methodologies. Eighteen references are cited. (Author/FM)

Proposes split model for index term distribution in document set that uses rank function for high frequency terms and size function for low frequency terms; the point of transition is determined either empirically or by rule. Distributions to describe index term exhaustivity and term co-occurrence are considered briefly. (36 references) (EJS)

Proposes a model, based on a "maximum ranking method," for more simply estimating the frequency of any same-frequency words and identifying the boundary point between high-frequency and low-frequency words in a text. This model was used successfully with English and Chinese texts, demonstrating that the frequency of words and number of…

Introduces methods designed to reduce role of search intermediaries by generating Boolean search formulations automatically using term frequency considerations from natural language statements provided by system patrons. Experimental results are supplied and methods are described for applying automatic query formulation process in practice.…

Presents a method for identifying indexing terms from word stems, using discriminant analysis to distinguish terms which refer to topics from terms which do not refer to topics. A test of the method on the Harris Survey Question database is discussed. Included are 11 data tables and a reference list. (Author/JL)

Examines and compares the theoretical and empirical bases for the use of the relative frequency of descriptor use in the design and maintenance of thesauri for information retrieval in the social and natural sciences. Data are presented in two tables and a reference list is included. (JL)

Discusses ways to improve quality of retrieval systems that depend on use of truncated words or quasi-word stems as indexing vocabulary. Problems of generalizability and stability of discriminant function analysis for selecting good topical terms in database drawn from abstracts of Harris Survey press releases are addressed. References are cited.…

Derives the underlying structure of the Zipf distribution, with emphasis on its application to word frequencies in the inverted files of automatic bibliographic systems, and applies the Zipfian model to the National Library of Medicine's MEDLINE database. An appendix on the Zipfian mean and 12 references are included. (Author/JL)