Information retrievalInformation retrieval (IR) in computing and information science is the process of obtaining information system resources that are relevant to an information need from a collection of those resources. Searches can be based on full-text or other content-based indexing. Information retrieval is the science of searching for information in a document, searching for documents themselves, and also searching for the metadata that describes data, and for databases of texts, images or sounds.
Document retrievalDocument retrieval is defined as the matching of some stated user query against a set of free-text records. These records could be any type of mainly unstructured text, such as newspaper articles, real estate records or paragraphs in a manual. User queries can range from multi-sentence full descriptions of an information need to a few words. Document retrieval is sometimes referred to as, or as a branch of, text retrieval. Text retrieval is a branch of information retrieval where the information is stored primarily in the form of text.
Web queryA web query or web search query is a query that a user enters into a web search engine to satisfy their information needs. Web search queries are distinctive in that they are often plain text and boolean search directives are rarely used. They vary greatly from standard query languages, which are governed by strict syntax rules as command languages with keyword or positional parameters. There are three broad categories that cover most web search queries: informational, navigational, and transactional.
Search engineA search engine is a software system that finds web pages that match a web search. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a line of results, often referred to as search engine results pages (SERPs). The information may be a mix of hyperlinks to web pages, images, videos, infographics, articles, and other types of files. Some search engines also mine data available in databases or open directories.
Web crawlerA Web crawler, sometimes called a spider or spiderbot and often shortened to crawler, is an Internet bot that systematically browses the World Wide Web and that is typically operated by search engines for the purpose of Web indexing (web spidering). Web search engines and some other websites use Web crawling or spidering software to update their web content or indices of other sites' web content. Web crawlers copy pages for processing by a search engine, which indexes the downloaded pages so that users can search more efficiently.
Vector spaceIn mathematics and physics, a vector space (also called a linear space) is a set whose elements, often called vectors, may be added together and multiplied ("scaled") by numbers called scalars. Scalars are often real numbers, but can be complex numbers or, more generally, elements of any field. The operations of vector addition and scalar multiplication must satisfy certain requirements, called vector axioms. The terms real vector space and complex vector space are often used to specify the nature of the scalars: real coordinate space or complex coordinate space.
Topological vector spaceIn mathematics, a topological vector space (also called a linear topological space and commonly abbreviated TVS or t.v.s.) is one of the basic structures investigated in functional analysis. A topological vector space is a vector space that is also a topological space with the property that the vector space operations (vector addition and scalar multiplication) are also continuous functions. Such a topology is called a and every topological vector space has a uniform topological structure, allowing a notion of uniform convergence and completeness.
Normed vector spaceIn mathematics, a normed vector space or normed space is a vector space over the real or complex numbers on which a norm is defined. A norm is a generalization of the intuitive notion of "length" in the physical world. If is a vector space over , where is a field equal to or to , then a norm on is a map , typically denoted by , satisfying the following four axioms: Non-negativity: for every ,. Positive definiteness: for every , if and only if is the zero vector.
Deep webThe deep web, invisible web, or hidden web are parts of the World Wide Web whose contents are not indexed by standard web search-engine programs. This is in contrast to the "surface web", which is accessible to anyone using the Internet. Computer scientist Michael K. Bergman is credited with inventing the term in 2001 as a search-indexing term. Deep web sites can be accessed by a direct URL or IP address, but may require entering a password or other security information to access actual content.
Yahoo! SearchYahoo! Search is a Yahoo! internet search provider that uses Microsoft's Bing search engine to power results, since 2009, apart from four years with Google from 2015 until the end of 2018. Originally, "Yahoo! Search" referred to a Yahoo!-provided interface that sent queries to a searchable index of pages supplemented with its directory of websites. The results were presented to the user under the Yahoo! brand. Originally, none of the actual web crawling and data housing was done by Yahoo! itself.
Dimension (vector space)In mathematics, the dimension of a vector space V is the cardinality (i.e., the number of vectors) of a basis of V over its base field. It is sometimes called Hamel dimension (after Georg Hamel) or algebraic dimension to distinguish it from other types of dimension. For every vector space there exists a basis, and all bases of a vector space have equal cardinality; as a result, the dimension of a vector space is uniquely defined. We say is if the dimension of is finite, and if its dimension is infinite.
Web directoryA web directory or link directory is an online list or catalog of websites. That is, it is a directory on the World Wide Web of (all or part of) the World Wide Web. Historically, directories typically listed entries on people or businesses, and their contact information; such directories are still in use today. A web directory includes entries about websites, including links to those websites, organized into categories and subcategories. Besides a link, each entry may include the title of the website, and a description of its contents.
Relevance (information retrieval)In information science and information retrieval, relevance denotes how well a retrieved document or set of documents meets the information need of the user. Relevance may include concerns such as timeliness, authority or novelty of the result. The concern with the problem of finding relevant information dates back at least to the first publication of scientific journals in the 17th century. The formal study of relevance began in the 20th Century with the study of what would later be called bibliometrics.
Graded vector spaceIn mathematics, a graded vector space is a vector space that has the extra structure of a grading or gradation, which is a decomposition of the vector space into a direct sum of vector subspaces, generally indexed by the integers. For "pure" vector spaces, the concept has been introduced in homological algebra, and it is widely used for graded algebras, which are graded vector spaces with additional structures. Let be the set of non-negative integers.
Complete topological vector spaceIn functional analysis and related areas of mathematics, a complete topological vector space is a topological vector space (TVS) with the property that whenever points get progressively closer to each other, then there exists some point towards which they all get closer. The notion of "points that get progressively closer" is made rigorous by or , which are generalizations of , while "point towards which they all get closer" means that this Cauchy net or filter converges to The notion of completeness for TVSs uses the theory of uniform spaces as a framework to generalize the notion of completeness for metric spaces.
Ordered vector spaceIn mathematics, an ordered vector space or partially ordered vector space is a vector space equipped with a partial order that is compatible with the vector space operations. Given a vector space over the real numbers and a preorder on the set the pair is called a preordered vector space and we say that the preorder is compatible with the vector space structure of and call a vector preorder on if for all and with the following two axioms are satisfied implies implies If is a partial order compatible with the vector space structure of then is called an ordered vector space and is called a vector partial order on The two axioms imply that translations and positive homotheties are automorphisms of the order structure and the mapping is an isomorphism to the dual order structure.
Metrizable topological vector spaceIn functional analysis and related areas of mathematics, a metrizable (resp. pseudometrizable) topological vector space (TVS) is a TVS whose topology is induced by a metric (resp. pseudometric). An LM-space is an inductive limit of a sequence of locally convex metrizable TVS.
ComputationA computation is any type of arithmetic or non-arithmetic calculation that is well-defined. Common examples of computations are mathematical equations and computer algorithms. Mechanical or electronic devices (or, historically, people) that perform computations are known as computers. The study of computation is the field of computability, itself a sub-field of computer science. The notion that mathematical statements should be ‘well-defined’ had been argued by mathematicians since at least the 1600s, but agreement on a suitable definition proved elusive.
Full-text searchIn text retrieval, full-text search refers to techniques for searching a single computer-stored document or a collection in a full-text database. Full-text search is distinguished from searches based on metadata or on parts of the original texts represented in databases (such as titles, abstracts, selected sections, or bibliographical references). In a full-text search, a search engine examines all of the words in every stored document as it tries to match search criteria (for example, text specified by a user).
Theory of computationIn theoretical computer science and mathematics, the theory of computation is the branch that deals with what problems can be solved on a model of computation, using an algorithm, how efficiently they can be solved or to what degree (e.g., approximate solutions versus precise ones). The field is divided into three major branches: automata theory and formal languages, computability theory, and computational complexity theory, which are linked by the question: "What are the fundamental capabilities and limitations of computers?".
