Characterising through erasing: a theoretical framework for representing documents inspired by quantum theory

Huertas-Rosero, A., Azzopardi, L. and Van Rijsbergen, C. (2008) Characterising through erasing: a theoretical framework for representing documents inspired by quantum theory. In: Quantum Interaction Symposium 2008, Oxford, UK, 26-28 Mar 2008,

Abstract

The problem of representing text documents within an Information Retrieval system is formulated as an analogy to the problem of representing the quantum states of a physical system. Lexical measurements of text are proposed as a way of representing documents which are akin to physical measurements on quantum states. Consequently, the representation of the text is only known after measurements have been made, and because the process of measuring may destroy parts of the text, the document is characterised through erasure. The mathematical foundations of such a quantum representation of text are provided in this position paper as a starting point for indexing and retrieval within a "quantum like" Information Retrieval system.

• Item Type: Conference Proceedings
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Azzopardi, Dr Leif and Van Rijsbergen, Professor Cornelis
• Authors: Huertas-Rosero, A., Azzopardi, L., 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