文档介绍：Mathematical, Logical and Formal Methods in Information Retrieval: An
Introduction to the Special Issue
Fabio Crestani
Department puter and Information Sciences, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow,
Scotland, United Kingdom. E-mail: ******@
Sandor Dominich
Department puter Science, University of Veszprem, Veszprem, Hungary. E-mail:
******@
Mounia Lalmas
Department puter Science, Queen Mary University of London, London, England,
United Kingdom. E-mail :******@
Cornelis Joost (Keith) van Rijsbergen
Department puting Science, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, United
Kingdom. E-mail: ******@
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Abstract. Research on the use of mathematical, logical, and formal methods, has been
central to Information Retrieval research for long time. Research in this area is important
not only because it helps enhancing retrieval effectiveness, but also because it helps
clarifying the underlying concepts of Information Retrieval. In this article we outline some
of the major aspects of the subject, and summarise the papers of this special issue with
respect to how they relate to these aspects. We conclude highlighting some directions of
future research, which are needed in order to better understand the formal characteristics of
Information Retrieval.
1. Introduction
It is generally recognised that Information Retrieval (IR) is plex interactive
process occurring in a manifold environment. It is inherently an uncertain process, too, due
to a number of basic reasons that, perhaps, will never pletely solved. First of all,
there is no agreement on what information in the context of IR actually is, although a
number of definitions have been proposed. Second, the concept of relevance unavoidably
has a strong subjective (., user dependent) component (Shannon, 1948; Barwise and
Devlin, 1991; Mizzaro, 1997). In addition to these, applying