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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
http://hdl.handle.net/2451/14343
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| Title: | On the Use of the Dempster Shafer Model in Information Indexing and
Retrieval Applications |
| Authors: | Schocken, Shimon
Hummel, Robert A. |
| Keywords: | Theory of evidence
Dempster Shafer model
relevance measures
information indexing and retrieval |
| Issue Date: | 12-Oct-1992 |
| Publisher: | Stern School of Business, New York University |
| Series/Report no.: | IS-92-27 |
| Abstract: | The Dempster Shafer theory of evidence concerns the elicitation and
manipulation of degrees of belief rendered by multiple sources of
evidence to a common set of propositions. Information indexing and
retrieval applications use a variety of quantitative means - both
probabilistic and quasi-probabilistic - to represent and manipulate
relevance numbers and index vectors. Recently, several proposals were
made to use the Dempster Shafer model as a relevance calculus in such
applications. The paper provides a critical review of these proposals,
pointing at several theoretical caveats and suggesting ways to resolve
them. The methodology is based on expounding a canonical indexing model
whose relevance measures and combination mechanisms are shown to be
isomorphic to Shafer 's belief functions and to Dempster's rule,
respectively. Hence, the paper has two objectives: (i) to describe and
resolve some caveats in the way the Dempster Shafer theory is applied to
information indexing and retrieval, and (ii) to provide an intuitive
interpretation of the Dempster Shafer theory, as it unfolds in the
simple context of a canonical indexing model. |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/2451/14343 |
| Appears in Collections: | IOMS: Information Systems Working Papers
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