Topic based language models for ad hoc information retrieval

Azzopardi, L., Girolami, M. and Van Rijsbergen, C. (2004) Topic based language models for ad hoc information retrieval. In: IEEE International Joint Conference on Neural Networks., Budapest, 25-29 July 2004, pp. 3281-3286. ISBN 0780383591 (doi: 10.1109/IJCNN.2004.1381205)

Abstract

We propose a topic based approach lo language modelling for ad-hoc Information Retrieval (IR). Many smoothed estimators used for the multinomial query model in IR rely upon the estimated background collection probabilities. In this paper, we propose a topic based language modelling approach, that uses a more informative prior based on the topical content of a document. In our experiments, the proposed model provides comparable IR performance to the standard models, but when combined in a two stage language model, it outperforms all other estimated models.

• Item Type: Conference Proceedings
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Van Rijsbergen, Professor Cornelis and Azzopardi, Dr Leif and Girolami, Prof Mark
• Authors: Azzopardi, L., Girolami, M., and Van Rijsbergen, C.
• Subjects: Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Computing Science
• Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• ISBN: 0780383591
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2004 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• First Published: First published in Proceedings IEEE International Joint Conference on Neural Networks
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher