A General Matrix Framework for Modelling Information Retrieval

Content-oriented retrieval models are based on a document-term matrix, whereas link-oriented retrieval models are based on an adjacent (parentchild) matrix. Term frequency and inverse document frequency are key concepts in contentoriented retrieval, whereas pagerank, authorities and hubs are key concepts in link-oriented retrieval. We present in this paper a general matrix framework for modelling information retrieval (IR). The framework covers both content-oriented and linkoriented retrieval and, in addition, includes the structure of documents, the retrieval quality and the semantics of indexing terms. The benefit of this framework lies in its high level of reusability and abstraction. The framework improves information retrieval in the sense that system construction becomes significantly more efficient, and thus, better and more personalised systems can be build at lower costs