A model for the representation and focussed retrieval of structured documents based on fuzzy aggregation

Abstract

Effective retrieval of structured documents should exploit the content and structural knowledge associated with the documents. This knowledge can be used to focus retrieval to the best entry points: document components that contain relevant information, and from which users can browse to retrieve further relevant components. To enable this, suitable representation methods must be developed. This paper presents a model for representing structured documents to allow for their focussed retrieval. The model is founded on fuzzy aggregation, an approach based on the fuzzy representation of linguistic quantifiers and ordered weighted averaging operators. By defining the representation of a document component as the fuzzy aggregation of its related components, we arrive at a document representation that supports the selection of best entry points.