A logic assistant for the database searcher

摘要

Most present-day operational document retrieval systems require two distinct types of behavioral response from their users. First, the user's knowledge-perception governing the search is required to be expressed semantically (i.e., as a set of search terms). Second, the user is required to link such terms together syntactically, using the apparatus of Boolean logic. Given the reasonable expectation that some system users will perform better at the first task than the second, it should be useful to provide a system enhancement that allows Boolean syntax to be imposed automatically (and invisibly to the user) on an input set of search terms. Discussion of such an enhancement is offered, along with an outline specification for it, for users of MEDLINE, based on experimental results.