An object-based information retrieval model: toward the structural construction of thesauri

We propose an information retrieval model, where the object-oriented paradigm is applied to the construction of thesauri and the interpretation of user queries. This model provides a mechanism to assist domain experts in constructing thesauri; it determines a considerable part of the relationship degrees between term objects by inheritance, and supplies domain experts with information available from a thesaurus being constructed. It enables domain experts to incrementally construct a thesaurus as well, since the automatically determined degree of relationships can be refined whenever a more sophisticated thesaurus is needed. It may minimize the domain expert´s burden caused from exhaustive specification of individual relationships. All the relationships between term objects of our thesaurus (called object-based thesaurus) are represented in terms of two levels: concept level and instance level. The former defines the relationships between concepts, whereas the latter specifies the relationships between instances. We also propose a new query evaluation mechanism to exploit the thesaurus when interpreting the intent of user queries