Dept. of
Computer Science and AI FACULTY OF SCIENCE University of Malta TEL: (+356) 2340 2519 FAX: (+356) 21320539 |
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Intelligent Information Retrieval Research and Development GroupScopeWe investigate new ways of indexing documents in a collection to improve the quality of documents retrieved in response to a user query.Research Group MembersDr. Christopher StaffMs. Melodie Grima Past Members Mr. Walter Vassallo
(2002-03) Research ActivitiesPublicationsVassallo, Walter. 2003. SearchQuest:
Enterprise-Wide On-line Library System. Final Year
Project Report. University of Malta.
Mifsud, Melissa Anne. 2002. HIR: A new model of information based on interpretations of information. Final Year Project Report. University of Malta. Aquilina, Antoine. 2001. A Personal Web Agent to Assist with Query Formulation. Final Year Project Report. University of Malta. Overview of the Research GroupInspired mainly by research into adaptive hypertext systems, our basic premise is that the same information can mean different things to different users, and therefore each meaning supported by a document can be separately represented by an interpretation. We investigate this premise in the domain of information retrieval in two different ways. We always assume that information may be represented using different index terms to support different meanings. However, in one project we assume that the meaning of a document depends on the juxtaposition of related documents in a user's private collection (e.g., a bookmark file), whereas in the other project we assume that the different interpretations of a document are available to all users.The first project
has already produced a prototype application called Pawaq,
a Personal Web Agent which assists with Query Formulation. Pawaq
assists users by automatically constructing queries based on the
descriptions of bookmarked documents. Obviously, if Pawaq has not
already seen documents that are of interest to a user, it is unable to
provide assistance with query formulation, unless collaborating users
agree to share their own personal descriptions of interests. The second
project investigates ways of automatically creating multiple meaningful
interpretations of information, without requiring user intervention. We
assume, however, that documents exist in a structured document
collection, such as a document hierarchy or the Web. Pawaq is being
extended to learn how to cluster information based on bookmark files. HIR
is a method of information indexing motivated by HyperContext (see our
research into Adaptive Hypertext Systems). We
create multiple index entries for each document based on its multiple
access paths (ways in which it can be reached). Initial results, which
need to be confirmed, show an improvement over Google in quality of
retrieved results. SearchQuest is an initial attempt to learn
synonyms by observing document distributions in response to user
queries. Related CoursesBSc IT (Hons) degree:CSA3080: Adaptive
Hypertext Systems I PublicationsProjectsA new model for Information Retrieval based on interpretations of information.Extending Pawaq to
provide adaptive browsing support. Template-based
Fact-finding on the WWW. Question-Answering
Subsystems for Just-in-Time Systems. Links to
information about these projects will be added as soon as possible.
Related Research and Development GroupsAdaptive Hypertext SystemsHow to Collaborate on research and development in this groupFor more information about this research and development group, please contact Chris Staff at cstaff@cs.um.edu.mt or phone him on +356-23402506. For general information about collaborating in research and development groups, please visit this page.If you are
interested in reading a postgraduate degree in this area, please e-mail
Chris Staff at cstaff@cs.um.edu.mt,
after reading the Postgraduate
Enquiries information. Contact detailsChris Staff, Department of Computer Science and AI, University of Malta, Tal-Qroqq, Msida MSD 06, Malta E-mail: cstaff@cs.um.edu.mtWeb: http://www.cs.um.edu.mt/~cstaff Phone: 00-356-23402506 Fax: 00-356-21320539 |
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