Background InformationRetrieval (IR) has become, mainly as aresultofthe huge impact of the World Wide Web (WWW) and CD-ROM industry, one of the most important theoretical and practical research topics in Information and Computer Science. Since the inception ofits first theoretical roots about 40 years ago, IR has made avariety ofpractical, experimental and technological advances. It is usually defined as being concerned with the organisation, storage, retrieval and evaluation of information (stored in computer databases) that is likely to be relevant to users' informationneeds (expressed in...

This book takes a unique approach to information retrieval by laying down the foundations for a modern algebra of information retrieval based on lattice theory. All major retrieval methods developed so far are described in detail, along with Web retrieval algorithms, and the author shows that they all can be treated elegantly in a unified formal way, using lattice theory as the one basic concept. The book s presentation is characterized by an engineering-like approach.

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