TY - JOUR
T1 - Alleviating search uncertainty through concept associations
T2 - automatic indexing, co-occurrence analysis, and parallel computing
AU - Chen, Hsinchun
AU - Martinez, Joanne
AU - Kirchhoff, Amy
AU - Ng, Tobun D.
AU - Schatz, Bruce R.
PY - 1998/3
Y1 - 1998/3
N2 - In this article, we report research on an algorithmic approach to alleviating search uncertainty in a large information space. Grounded on object filtering, automatic indexing, and co-occurrence analysis, we performed a large-scale experiment using a parallel supercomputer (SGI Power Challenge) to analyze 400,000+ abstracts in an INSPEC computer engineering collection. Two system-generated thesauri, one based on a combined object filtering and automatic indexing method, and the other based on automatic indexing only, were compared with the human-generated INSPEC subject thesaurus. Our user evaluation revealed that the system-generated thesauri were better than the INSPEC thesaurus in concept recall, but in concept precision the 3 thesauri were comparable. Our analysis also revealed that the terms suggested by the 3 thesauri were complementary and could be used to significantly increase 'variety' in search terms and thereby reduce search uncertainty.
AB - In this article, we report research on an algorithmic approach to alleviating search uncertainty in a large information space. Grounded on object filtering, automatic indexing, and co-occurrence analysis, we performed a large-scale experiment using a parallel supercomputer (SGI Power Challenge) to analyze 400,000+ abstracts in an INSPEC computer engineering collection. Two system-generated thesauri, one based on a combined object filtering and automatic indexing method, and the other based on automatic indexing only, were compared with the human-generated INSPEC subject thesaurus. Our user evaluation revealed that the system-generated thesauri were better than the INSPEC thesaurus in concept recall, but in concept precision the 3 thesauri were comparable. Our analysis also revealed that the terms suggested by the 3 thesauri were complementary and could be used to significantly increase 'variety' in search terms and thereby reduce search uncertainty.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0032028271&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=0032028271&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(1998)49:3<206::AID-ASI3>3.0.CO;2-2
DO - 10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(1998)49:3<206::AID-ASI3>3.0.CO;2-2
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0032028271
SN - 0002-8231
VL - 49
SP - 206
EP - 216
JO - Journal of the American Society for Information Science
JF - Journal of the American Society for Information Science
IS - 3
ER -