This book introduces the quantum mechanical framework to information retrieval scientists seeking a new perspective on foundational problems. As such, it concentrates on the main notions of the quantum mechanical framework and describes an innovative range of concepts and tools for modeling information representation and retrieval processes.

The book is divided into four chapters. Chapter 1 illustrates the main modeling concepts for information retrieval (including Boolean logic, vector spaces, probabilistic models, and machine-learning based approaches), which will be examined...

Information Retrieval has become a very active research field in the 21st century. Many from academia and industry present their innovations in the field in a wide variety of conferences and journals. Companies transfer this new knowledge directly to the general public via services such as web search engines in order to improve their information seeking experience.

In parallel, teaching IR is turning into an important aspect of IR generally, not only because it is necessary to impart effective search techniques to make the most of the IR tools available, but also because we must...

This second edition provides a systematic introduction to the work and views of the emerging patent-search research and innovation communities as well as an overview of what has been achieved and, perhaps even more importantly, of what remains to be achieved. It revises many of the contributions of the first edition and adds a significant number of new ones.

The first part -Introduction to Patent Searching- includes two overview chapters on the peculiarities of patent searching and on contemporary search technology respectively, and thus sets the scene for the subsequent parts. The...