Category-Based Query Modeling for Entity Search

Abstract. Users often search for entities instead of documents and in this setting are willing to provide extra input, in addition to a query, such as category information and example entities. We propose a general probabilistic framework for entity search to evaluate and provide insight in the many ways of using these types of input for query modeling. We focus on the use of category information and show the advantage of a category-based representation over a term-based representation, and also demonstrate the effectiveness of category-based expansion using example entities. Our best performing model shows very competitive performance on the INEX-XER entity ranking and list completion tasks.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2010
• Where: ECIR
• Authors: Krisztian Balog, Marc Bron, Maarten de Rijke
• Keywords: Category Information, ECIR 2010, Example Entities, General Probabilistic Framework, Information Technology