Query formulation in linear retrieval models
S. K. M. Wong, Yiyu Y. Yao · Journal of the American Society for Information Science · 1990
The subject of query formulation is analyzed within the framework of adaptive linear models. Our study is based on the notions of user preference and an acceptable ranking strategy. Such an approach enables us to adopt a gradient descent algorithm to formulate the query vector by an inductive process. We also present a critical analysis of the existing relevance feedback and the probabilistic approaches. It is shown that Rocchio's method is a special case of our linear model and the independence assumption may be stronger than required for a linear system. Our method has the added advantages that it is applicable to both nonbinary document representation and a user preference relation inducing more than two classes. © 1990 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.