Document Image Retrieval with Improvements in Database Quality

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Document Image Retrieval with Improvements in Database Quality DOCUMENT IMAGE HANNU RETRIEVAL WITH KAUNISKANGAS IMPROVEMENTS IN DATABASE Department of Electrical Engineering QUALITY OULU 1999 HANNU KAUNISKANGAS DOCUMENT IMAGE RETRIEVAL WITH IMPROVEMENTS IN DATABASE QUALITY Academic Dissertation to be presented with the assent of the Faculty of Technology, University of Oulu, for public discussion in Raahensali (Auditorium L 10), Linnanmaa, on August 17th, 1999, at 12 noon. OULUN YLIOPISTO, OULU 1999 Copyright © 1999 Oulu University Library, 1999 Manuscript received 21.6.1999 Accepted 23.6.1999 Communicated by Doctor Omid E. Kia Professor Pasi Koikkalainen ISBN 951-42-5313-2 (URL: http://herkules.oulu.fi/isbn9514253132/) ALSO AVAILABLE IN PRINTED FORMAT ISBN 951-42-5313-2 ISSN 0355-3213 (URL: http://herkules.oulu.fi/issn03553213/) OULU UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OULU 1999 Kauniskangas, Hannu:Document image retrieval with improvements in database quality Infotech Oulu and Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Oulu, P.O.Box 4500, FIN-90401 Oulu, Finland 1999 Oulu, Finland (Received 21 June, 1999) Abstract Modern technology has made it possible to produce, process, transmit and store digital images efficiently. Consequently, the amount of visual information is increasing at an accelerating rate in many diverse application areas. To fully exploit this new content-based image retrieval techniques are required. Document image retrieval systems can be utilized in many organizations which are using document image databases extensively. This thesis presents document image retrieval techniques and new approaches to improve database content. The goal of the thesis is to develop a functional retrieval system and to demonstrate that better retrieval results can be achieved with the proposed database generation methods. Retrieval system architecture, a document data model, and tools for querying document image databases are introduced. The retrieval framework presented allows users to interactively define, construct and combine queries using document or image properties: physical (structural), semantic, textual and visual image content. A technique for combining primitive features like color, shape and texture into composite features is presented. A novel search base reduction technique which uses structural and content properties of documents is proposed for speeding up the query process. A new model for database generation within the image retrieval system is presented. An approach for automated document image defect detection and management is presented to build high quality and retrievable database objects. In image database population, image feature profiles and their attributes are manipulated automatically to better match with query requirements determined by the available query methods, the application environment and the user. Experiments were performed with multiple image databases containing over one thousand images. They comprised a range of document and scene images from different categories, properties and condition. The results show that better recall and accuracy for retrieval is achieved with the proposed optimization techniques. The search base reduction technique results in a considerable speed-up in overall query processing. The constructed document image retrieval system performs well in different retrieval scenarios and provides a consistent basis for algorithm development. The proposed modular system structure and interfaces facilitate its usage in a wide variety of document image retrieval applications. Keywords: content-based retrieval, database population optimization, image database Acknowledgements This work was carried out in the MediaTeam Oulu and Machine Vision and Media Processing Unit at the Department of Electrical Engineering of the University of Oulu, Finland during the years 1995-1999. I would like to thank Professor Matti Pietikäinen, the head of the group, for allowing me to work in his laboratory and providing me with the excellent facilities to complete this thesis. I would also like to express my gratitude to Professor Jaakko Sauvola for his contribution and enthusiastic attitude. I am grateful to Dr. Doermann for fruitful collaboration and opportunities to visit the University of Maryland. I am grateful to all members of the MediaTeam and the Machine Vision and Media Processing Unit for creating a pleasant working environment. Professor Pasi Koikkalainen from the University of Jyväskylä and Dr. Omid Kia from the National Institute of Standards and Technology are acknowledged for reviewing and commenting on the thesis. Their constructive criticism improved the quality of the manuscript considerably. Many thanks also to Dr. Timo Ojala for reading and commenting on the thesis. The following institutions are gratefully acknowledged for their important financial support: the Graduate School in Electronics, Telecommunications and Automation, the Academy of Finland, and the Technology Development Center of Finland. I am deeply grateful to my mother Ritva and father Pentti for their love and care over the years. My brother Jukka and sister Eija deserve warm thanks for their unconditional support. Most of all, I want to thank my dear wife Jaana for her patience and understanding. Oulu, June 19, 1999 Hannu Kauniskangas Abbreviations Abbreviations CBIR content-based image retrieval DAS document analysis system DTM distributed test management FSBR functional search base reduction GUI graphical user interface IDIR intelligent document image retrieval IIR intelligent image retrieval IR information retrieval NNC neural network classifier OCR optical character recognition ORDBMS object-relational database management system SBR search base reduction SQL structured query language STORM automated document image cleaning system List of original papers I Doermann D, Sauvola J, Kauniskangas H, Shin C, Pietikäinen M & Rosenfeld A (1997) The development of a general framework for intelligent document image retrieval. A book chapter in Document Analysis Systems II, Series in Machine Perception and Artificial Intelligence, World Scientific, 433-460. II Kauniskangas H, Sauvola J, Pietikäinen M & Doermann D (1997) Content-based image retrieval using composite features. Proc. 10th Scandinavian Conference on Image Analysis, Lappeenranta, Finland, 1: 35-42. III Sauvola J, Doermann D, Kauniskangas H, Shin C, Koivusaari M & Pietikäinen M (1997) Graphical tools and techniques for querying document image databases. Proc. First Brazilian Symposium on Advances in Document Image Analysis, Curitiba, Brazil, 213-224. IV Kauniskangas H & Pietikäinen M (1996) Development support for content-based image retrieval systems. Proc. Multimedia Storage and Archiving Systems, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, SPIE Vol. 2916, 142-149. V Sauvola J & Kauniskangas H (1999) Active Multimedia Documents. To appear in Multimedia Tools and Applications. VI Kauniskangas H & Sauvola J (1998) An automated defect management for document images. Proc. 14th International Conference on Pattern Recognition, Brisbane, Australia, 1288-1294. VII Kauniskangas H, Sauvola J & Pietikäinen M (1999) Optimization techniques for document image retrieval. Proc. 11th Scandinavian Conference on Image Analysis, Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, 673-682. VIII Sauvola J, Doermann D, Kauniskangas H & Pietikäinen M (1997) Techniques for the automated testing of document analysis algorithms. Proc. First Brazilian Symposium on Advances in Document Image Analysis, Curitiba, Brazil, 201-212. Contents Abstract Acknowledgements Abbreviations List of original papers Contents 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................... 13 1.1. Background...............................................................................................13 1.2. The scope and contributions of the thesis.................................................15 1.3. Summary of the publications - the role of the author ...............................17 2. Information models for retrieval ......................................................................... 21 2.1. Modeling of scene images ........................................................................21 2.2. Modeling of document images .................................................................23 2.3. Our approach.............................................................................................30 2.4. Discussion.................................................................................................32 3. Image retrieval systems....................................................................................... 34 3.1. Content-based retrieval .............................................................................34 3.2. Scene image retrieval................................................................................35 3.2.1 Scene image database population..................................................37 3.2.2 Scene image query techniques.......................................................41 3.3. Document image retrieval.........................................................................44 3.3.1 Document image database population...........................................45 3.3.2 Document image query techniques ...............................................48 3.4. Our approach.............................................................................................50 3.4.1 Application development...............................................................50 3.4.2 Document image retrieval .............................................................50
Recommended publications
  • Evaluation of an Ontology-Based Knowledge-Management-System
    Information Services & Use 25 (2005) 181–195 181 IOS Press Evaluation of an Ontology-based Knowledge-Management-System. A Case Study of Convera RetrievalWare 8.0 1 Oliver Bayer, Stefanie Höhfeld ∗, Frauke Josbächer, Nico Kimm, Ina Kradepohl, Melanie Kwiatkowski, Cornelius Puschmann, Mathias Sabbagh, Nils Werner and Ulrike Vollmer Heinrich-Heine-University Duesseldorf, Institute of Language and Information, Department of Information Science, Universitaetsstraße 1, D-40225 Duesseldorf, Germany Abstract. With RetrievalWare 8.0TM the American company Convera offers an elaborated software in the range of Information Retrieval, Information Indexing and Knowledge Management. Convera promises the possibility of handling different file for- mats in many different languages. Regarding comparable products one innovation is to be stressed particularly: the possibility of the preparation as well as integration of an ontology. One tool of the software package is useful in order to produce ontologies manually, to process existing ontologies and to import the very. The processing of search results is also to be mentioned. By means of categorization strategies search results can be classified dynamically and presented in personalized representations. This study presents an evaluation of the functions and components of the system. Technological aspects and modes of opera- tion under the surface of Convera RetrievalWare will be analysed, with a focus on the creation of libraries and thesauri, and the problems posed by the integration of an existing thesaurus. Broader aspects such as usability and system ergonomics are integrated in the examination as well. Keywords: Categorization, Convera RetrievalWare, disambiguation, dynamic classification, information indexing, information retrieval, ISO 5964, knowledge management, ontology, user interface, taxonomy, thesaurus 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Evaluation of an Ontology-Based Knowledge- Management-System. a Case Study of Convera Retrievalware 8.0
    See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/228969390 Evaluation of an ontology-based knowledge- management-system. A case study of Convera RetrievalWare 8.0 ARTICLE in INFORMATION SERVICES & USE · JANUARY 2005 CITATIONS DOWNLOADS VIEWS 2 11 210 10 AUTHORS, INCLUDING: Cornelius Puschmann Mathias Sabbagh Zeppelin University Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf 30 PUBLICATIONS 62 CITATIONS 1 PUBLICATION 2 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE Available from: Mathias Sabbagh Retrieved on: 22 June 2015 Information Services & Use 25 (2005) 181–195 181 IOS Press Evaluation of an Ontology-based Knowledge-Management-System. A Case Study of Convera RetrievalWare 8.0 1 Oliver Bayer, Stefanie Höhfeld ∗, Frauke Josbächer, Nico Kimm, Ina Kradepohl, Melanie Kwiatkowski, Cornelius Puschmann, Mathias Sabbagh, Nils Werner and Ulrike Vollmer Heinrich-Heine-University Duesseldorf, Institute of Language and Information, Department of Information Science, Universitaetsstraße 1, D-40225 Duesseldorf, Germany Abstract. With RetrievalWare 8.0TM the American company Convera offers an elaborated software in the range of Information Retrieval, Information Indexing and Knowledge Management. Convera promises the possibility of handling different file for- mats in many different languages. Regarding comparable products one innovation is to be stressed particularly: the possibility of the preparation as well as integration of an ontology. One tool of the software package is useful in order to produce ontologies manually, to process existing ontologies and to import the very. The processing of search results is also to be mentioned. By means of categorization strategies search results can be classified dynamically and presented in personalized representations. This study presents an evaluation of the functions and components of the system.
    [Show full text]
  • Geethanjali College of Engineering and Technology Cheeryal(V), Keesara(M), R.R.Dist-501 301
    Geethanjali College of Engineering and Technology Cheeryal(V), Keesara(M), R.R.Dist-501 301 DEPARTMENT OF CSE QC Format No.: Name of the Subject/Lab Course: Information Retrieval Systems Programme: UG ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Branch: CSE Version No: 1.0 Year: 4 Updated On: Semester: 1 No.of Pages: 100 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Classification Status: (Unrestricted/Restricted) Distribution List: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prepared By: 1.Name: M . Raja Krishna Kumar 2.Sign: 3.Design: Associate Professor 4.Date: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Verified By: * For Q.C Only: 1.Name: 1.Name: 2.Sign: 2.Sign: 3.Design: 3.Design: 4.Date 4.Date ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Approved By:(HOD) 1.Name: Prof. Dr. P. V. S. Srinivas 2.Sign: 3.Date: Department of CSE Information Retrieval Systems Subject File By M. Raja Krishna Kumar AMIETE(IT), M.TECH(IP), (Ph.D.(CSE)) Associate Professor Page 2 of 100 Contents S.No. Name of the Topic Page No 1. Detailed Lecture Notes on all Units 2. 3. 4. 5. Page 3 of 100 JNTU Syllabus UNIT-I Introduction: Definition, Objectives, Functional Overview, Relationship to DBMS, Digital libraries and Data Warehouses. Information Retrieval System
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction to FAST Search Server 2010 for Sharepoint
    www.it-ebooks.info www.it-ebooks.info Working with Microsoft ® FAST™ Search Server 2010 for SharePoint ® Mikael Svenson Marcus Johansson Robert Piddocke www.it-ebooks.info Published with the authorization of Microsoft Corporation by: O’Reilly Media, Inc. 1005 Gravenstein Highway North Sebastopol, California 95472 Copyright © 2012 by Mikael Svenson, Marcus Johansson, Robert Piddocke All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher. ISBN: 978-0-7356-6222-3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 LSI 7 6 5 4 3 2 Printed and bound in the United States of America. Microsoft Press books are available through booksellers and distributors worldwide. If you need support related to this book, email Microsoft Press Book Support at [email protected]. Please tell us what you think of this book at http://www.microsoft.com/learning/booksurvey. Microsoft and the trademarks listed at http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/en/us/IntellectualProperty/ Trademarks/EN-US.aspx are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies. All other marks are property of their respective owners. The example companies, organizations, products, domain names, email addresses, logos, people, places, and events depicted herein are fictitious. No association with any real company, organization, product, domain name, email address, logo, person, place, or event is intended or should be inferred. This book expresses the author’s views and opinions. The information contained in this book is provided without any express, statutory, or implied warranties.
    [Show full text]
  • User Requirements and Functional Specification of The
    User Requirements and Functional Specification of the EuroWordNet project Version 5, Final October, 1996 Laura Bloksma£ Pedro Luis Díez-Orzas$ Piek Vossen£ Deliverable D001, WP1, EuroWordNet, LE2-4003 £ Computer Centrum Letteren, University of Amsterdam $ Novell Linguistic Development, Antwerp Identification number LE-4003-D-001 Type Document Title User requirements and functional specification of EuroWordNet Status Final Deliverable D001 Work Package WP1 Task T1 Period covered March - June 1996 Date October, 1996 Version 5 Number of pages 66 Authors Laura Bloksma, Pedro Díez-Orzas, Piek Vossen, WP/Task responsible Novell Project contact point Piek Vossen Computer Centrum Letteren University of Amsterdam Spuistraat 134 1012 VB Amsterdam The Netherlands tel. +31 20 525 4624 fax. +31 20 525 4429 e-mail: [email protected] http://www.let.uva.nl/CCL/EuroWordNet.html EC project officer Jose Soler Status Public Actual distribution Project Consortium The EuroWordNet User-Group The EuroWordNet WWW page Suplementary notes Key words Lexical semantic databases, Information Retrieval, Language Engineering Abstract In this document the general design of the EuroWordNet database is described based on the user-requirements and the technical state of the art for building multilingual semantic resources. The user- requirements are discussed from two different perspectives: the actual use of the resource in a multilingual information retrieval system developed by Novell Linguistic Development and the potential use of the resource by a diverse group of institutes and companies in Europe, constituted by the EuroWordNet user-group. The purpose of the latter group is to create a wider awareness of the use of this type of resources and to establish cooperation with other groups that build such resources to develop standards and make resources compatible.
    [Show full text]
  • Document and Records Management
    Technology Evaluation and Comparison Report www.butlergroup.com DocumentDocument andand RecordsRecords ManagementManagement Managing Information for Compliance, Efficiency, and Value February 2005 For more information on Butler Group’s Products and Services or to register FREE to receive TECHwatch, written by Martin Butler and Tim Jennings, together with a monthly guide to our Research and Events, visit www.butlergroup.com Founder and President Important Notice Martin Butler We have relied on data and information which we reasonably believe to be up-to-date and correct when preparing this Report, but because it comes Research from a variety of sources outside of our direct control, we cannot guarantee Susan Clarke that all of it is entirely accurate or up-to-date. Mike Davis This Report is of a general nature and not intended to be specific, Richard Edwards customised, or relevant to the requirements of any particular set of circumstances. The interpretations contained in the Report are non-unique and you are responsible for carrying out your own interpretation of the data and information upon which this Report was based. Accordingly, Butler Direct Limited is not responsible for your use of this Report in any specific circumstances, or for your interpretation of this Report. Published by Butler Direct Limited The interpretation of the data and information in this Report is based on Published February 2005 generalised assumptions and by its very nature is not intended to produce © Butler Direct Limited accurate or specific results. Accordingly, it is your responsibility to use your own relevant professional skill and judgement to interpret the data and All rights reserved.
    [Show full text]
  • Automatic Document Analyzer and Classifier
    ADAC Automatic Document Analyzer and Classifier A. Guitouni A.-C. Boury-Brisset DRDC Valcartier L. Belfares K. Tiliki Université Laval C. Poirier Intellaxiom Inc. Defence R&D Canada – Valcartier Technical Report DRDC Valcartier TR 2004-265 October 2006 ADAC Automatic Document Analyzer and Classifier A. Guitouni A.-C. Boury-Brisset DRDC Valcartier L. Belfares K. Tiliki Université Laval C. Poirier Intellaxiom Inc. Defence R&D Canada - Valcartier Technical Report DRDC Valcartier TR 2004-265 October 2006 Author A. Guitouni, A.-C. Boury-Brisset, L. Belfares, K. Tiliki and C. Poirier Approved by Dr. E. Bossé Section Head / Decision Support System Section Approved for release by G. Bérubé Chief Scientist © Her Majesty the Queen as represented by the Minister of National Defence, 2006 © Sa majesté la reine, représentée par le ministre de la Défense nationale, 2006 Abstract Military organizations have to deal with an increasing number of documents coming from different sources and in various formats (paper, fax, e-mails, electronic documents, etc.) The documents have to be screened, analyzed and categorized in order to interpret their contents and gain situation awareness. These documents should be categorized according to their contents to enable efficient storage and retrieval. In this context, intelligent techniques and tools should be provided to support this information management process that is currently partially manual. Integrating the recently acquired knowledge in different fields in a system for analyzing, diagnosing, filtering, classifying and clustering documents with a limited human intervention would improve efficiently the quality of information management with reduced human resources. A better categorization and management of information would facilitate correlation of information from different sources, avoid information redundancy, improve access to relevant information, and thus better support decision-making processes.
    [Show full text]
  • Search Insights 2020
    Search Insights 2020 The Search Network February 2020 Contents Introduction 1 The Cambrian explosion (of search), Paul Cleverley 4 Benchmarking enterprise search – a perspective from Denmark, 8 Kurt Kragh Sørensen The advent of natural language information retrieval, Max Irwin 12 Microsoft Search in Office 365, Agnes Molnar 15 Content integration, Valentin Richter 20 Skills for effective relevance engineering, Charlie Hull 23 The importance of informed query log analysis, Martin White 26 Good practice in taxonomy project management, Helen Lippell 31 Changes in open source search, Elizabeth Haubert 35 Searching for expertise and experts, Martin White 39 Search resources: books and blogs 45 Enterprise search chronology 47 Search vendors 50 Search integrators 52 Glossary 54 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/uk/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA. Editorial services provided by Val Skelton ([email protected]) Design & Production by Simon Flegg - Hub Graphics Ltd (www.hubgraphics.co.uk) Search Insights 2020 Introduction The Search Network is a community of expertise. It was set up in October 2017 by a group of eight search implementation specialists working in Europe and North Amer- ica. We have known each other for at least a decade and share a common passion for search that delivers business value through providing employees with access to infor- mation and knowledge that enables them to make decisions that benefit the organisa- tion and their personal career objectives.
    [Show full text]
  • Digital Notes on Information Retrieval Systems (R17a1209) B.Tech Iv Year
    DIGITAL NOTES ON INFORMATION RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS (R17A1209) B.TECH IV YEAR - I SEM (2020-2021) DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY MALLA REDDY COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY (Autonomous Institution – UGC, Govt. of India) (Affiliated to JNTUH, Hyderabad, Approved by AICTE - Accredited by NBA & NAAC – ‘A’ Grade - ISO 9001:2015 Certified) Maisammaguda, Dhulapally (Post Via. Hakimpet), Secunderabad – 500100, Telangana State, INDIA. MRCET-IT Page 1 MALLA REDDY COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IV Year B.Tech IT –I Sem L T /P/D C 3 -/-/- 3 (R17A1209)INFORMATION RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS (Core Elective IV) OBJECTIVES Study fundamentals of DBMS, Data warehouse and Digital libraries Learn various preprocessing techniques and indexing approaches in text mining Know various clustering approaches and study different similarity measures Study various search techniques in information retrieval systems Know different cognitive approaches used in text retrieval systems and evaluation approaches Study retrieval in multimedia systems and know various evaluation measures Know about query languages and online IRsystem UNIT-I Introduction: Definition, Objectives, Functional Overview, Relationship to DBMS, Digital libraries and Data Warehouses. Information Retrieval System Capabilities: Search, Browse, Miscellaneous UNIT-II Cataloging and Indexing: Objectives, Indexing Process, Automatic Indexing, Information Extraction. Data Structures: Introduction, Stemming Algorithms, Inverted file structures, N-gram data structure,
    [Show full text]
  • Information Storage and Retrieval Systems: Theory and Implementation
    INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS Theory and Implementation Second Edition THE KLUWER INTERNATIONAL SERIES ON INFORMATION RETRIEVAL Series Editor W. Brace Croft University of Massachusetts, Amherst Also in the Series: MULTIMEDIA INFORMATION RETRIEVAL: Content-Based Information Retrieval from Large Text and Audio Databases, by Peter Schäuble; ISBN: 0-7923-9899-8 INFORMATION RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS: Theory and Implementation, by Gerald Kowalski; ISBN: 0-7923-9926-9 CROSS-LANGUAGE INFORMATION RETRIEVAL, edited by Gregory Grefenstette; ISBN: 0-7923-8122-X TEXT RETRIEVAL AND FILTERING: Analytic Models of Performance, by Robert M. Losee; ISBN: 0-7923-8177-7 INFORMATION RETRIEVAL: UNCERTAINTY AND LOGICS: Advanced Models for the Representation and Retrieval of Information, by Fabio Crestani, Mounia Lalmas, and Cornelis Joost van Rijsbergen; ISBN: 0- 7923-8302-8 DOCUMENT COMPUTING: Technologies for Managing Electronic Document Collections, by Ross Wilkinson, Timothy Arnold-Moore, Michael Fuller, Ron Sacks-Davis, James Thom, and Justin Zobel; ISBN: 0-7923-8357-5 AUTOMATIC INDEXING AND ABSTRACTING OF DOCUMENT TEXTS, by Marie-Francine Moens; ISBN 0-7923-7793-1 ADVANCES IN INFORMATIONAL RETRIEVAL: Recent Research from the Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval, by W. Bruce Croft; ISBN 0- 7923-7812-1 INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS Theory and Implementation Second Edition by Gerald J. Kowalski Central Intelligence Agency Mark T. Maybury The MITRE Corporation KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS NEW YORK, BOSTON, DORDRECHT, LONDON, MOSCOW eBook
    [Show full text]
  • Convera 10 8 Final.Fm
    Convera (Offline) © 2013 by Stephen E. Arnold, www.arnoldit.com Convera positions itself as a knowledge discovery platform, a marketing angle that vendors have fol- lowed. Convera faces challenges delivering its vision to licensees. Sizzle is not the steak in search. Author’s note: This is an unpublished, preliminary draft of a description originally destined for a client report. The information is provided as part of ArnoldIT’s archiving project. The information in this draft may not be used without prior writ- ten permission. The information in this document was written before Convera went out of business with the sale of its remaining assets to Vertical Search Works. Convera ushered in the era of selling “everything plus the kitchen sink” search. The firm was among the first to package search as “concept searching,” “knowl- edge management” and “text analytics”, thus kicking off an era of calling search something to capture more revenue. The company’s contribution to search was to lay out a road map of where information retrieval would go in the next decade. Convera narrowed it focus to vertical search or eCommerce search. Upon its dis- solution, Convera professionals moved to consulting, engineering services, or other search vendors. This information is a rough draft and is frozen. 1 Introduction Excalibur Technologies, backed by the low-profile investment firm Allen & Company, was the precursor of Convera. Based in the Washington, DC area, Convera was formed by Excalibur Technologies combined with Intel’s Inter- active Media Services division. It is a leading provider of content manage- ment solutions that unlock the value of digital content.
    [Show full text]
  • Going Beyond Simple Keyword Search in the Next Generation of Information Search Tools
    Going beyond simple keyword search in the next generation of Information Search Tools Anastasio Molano Denodo Technologies Inc. Almirante Francisco Moreno, 5 28040 Madrid - Spain [email protected] Index NLP technologies go beyond traditional Information 1. Introduction Retrieval techniques enabling a system to accomplish a 2. Language Engineering Techniques and human-like understanding of text, and thus, permitting to Resources extract useful meaning from unstructured text. Lexical Resources NLP Techniques Search companies such as Ask Jeeves, Convera, Northern 3. Market situation and Prospects Light, Verity, SmartLogik, Q-Go, and Cognit among European initiatives and market prospects others, have incorporated NLP techniques in their search Research in Spain and market prospects solutions. Iberoamerican initiatives Expectations are high, as these tools are having a great 4. Conclusions impact on the industry, especially on large companies corporate Intranet searchers, and generally, in those Introduction applications in which searching efficiently over large document repositories is crucial (e.g. Digital Libraries, Medicine databases, Legal databases, Competitive Wouldn’t be nice if you could receive an exact answer Intelligence tools, etc.). The current relevance of when you query a search engine, instead of a list of multilingual, cross language and interactive retrieval will URL’s? Questions such as “What is an iceberg” or “What further increase demand on this kind of technologies. is the distance between Rome and Paris?” would receive a precise answer, rather than a list of related documents. This Given the size of digital information universally available will be possible in the short future, thanks to the evolution today, along searching itself, other complementary of Natural Language Processing techniques (NLP in short).
    [Show full text]