"FOA is a comprehensive resource for teaching a programming-based information retrieval class. The text
provides an integrated introduction to many topics in information retrieval with a strong emphasis on mathematical
and machine learning models, as well as giving a clear account of implementation details for the programming assignments."
-- Information Retrieval
Submitted By Publisher, April, 2003
Summary
The World Wide Web is rapidly filling with more text than anyone could have imagined a short time ago. However,
the task of determining which data is relevant has become appreciably harder. In this original new work Richard
Belew brings a cognitive science perspective to the study of information as a computer science discipline. He introduces
the idea of Finding Out About (FOA), the process of actively seeking out information relevant to a topic of interest.
Belew describes all facets of FOA, ranging from creating a good characterization of what the user seeks to evaluating
the successful performance of search engines. His volume clearly shows how to build many of the tools that are
useful for searching collections of text and other media. While computer scientists make up the book's primary
audience, Belew skillfully presents technical details in a manner that makes important themes accessible to readers
more comfortable with words than equations.
Table of Contents
1. Overview
2. Extracting lexical features
3. Weighting and matching against indices
4. Assessing the retrieval
5. Mathematical foundations
6. Inference beyond the index
7. Adaptive information retrieval
8. Conclusions and future directions
Bibliography
Index.