Abstract—In this paper, we are interested in aggregated search in structured XML documents. We present a structured information retrieval model based on possibilistic networks. Relations terms-elements and elements-document are modeled through possibility and necessity. In this model, the user’s query starts a process of propagation to recover the elements. Thus, instead of retrieving a list of elements that are likely to answer partially the user’s query, our objective is to build a virtual elements that contain relevant and non-redundant elements, that are likely to answer better the query that elements taken separately. Indeed, the possibilistic network structure provides a natural representation of links between a document, its elements and its content, and allows an automatic selection of relevant and non-redundant elements. We evaluated our approach using a sub-collection of INEX (INitiative for the Evaluation of XML retrieval) and presented some results for evaluating the impact of the aggregation approach.

Index Terms—XML information retrieval, possibilistic networks, aggregated search, redundancy

Cite: Fatma Zohra Bessai-Mechmache and Zaia Alimazighi, "Aggregated Search in XML Documents," Journal of Emerging Technologies in Web Intelligence, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 181-188, May 2012. doi:10.4304/jetwi.4.2.181-188