A SOM-based query refinement mechanism
Huilin Ye, Hanchang Liu · Hybrid Intelligent Systems · 2003
In this study, a query refinement mechanism based on the Self-Organising Map (SOM) is proposed. SOM has been extensively in document classification. Based on the classification result, a fuzzy-related thesaurus can be derived for query refinement. In contrast with general relational thesanrus, the fuzzy-related thesaurus is more effective and efficient. The relationships between the terms are based on the classification of the document collection, and thus, the generated relationships among the terms have more power to enhance retrieval quality. The recognition of the relationships can be done automatically without human involvement. This will significantly reduces the cost associated with the effort devoted to manually identifying the relationships. An evaluation on the query refinement mechanism based on the fuzzy-related thesaurus has conducted and the preliminary result is promising. A significant improvement on retrieval performance was observed when a fuzzy-related thesaurus was used for query refinement for a software document collection.