A Probabilistic Retrieval Model for Semistructured Data

Abstract. Retrieving semistructured (XML) data typically requires either a structured query such as XPath, or a keyword query that does not take structure into account. In this paper, we infer structural information automatically from keyword queries and incorporate this into a retrieval model. More specifically, we propose the concept of a mapping probability, which maps each query word into a related field (or XML element). This mapping probability is used as a weight to combine the language models estimated from each field. Experiments on two test collections show that our retrieval model based on mapping probabilities outperforms baseline techniques significantly.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: ECIR
• Authors: Jinyoung Kim, Xiaobing Xue, W. Bruce Croft
• Keywords: Computer Science, ECIR 2009, Keyword Query, Mapping Probability, Probabilities Outperforms Baseline