Deductive Information Retrieval Based on Classifications

Modern fact databases contain abundant data classified through several classifications. Typically users must consult these classifications in separate manuals or files thus making their effective use difficult. Contemporary database systems do little to support deductive use of classifications. In this paper we show how deductive data management techniques can be applied to the utilization of data value classifications. Computation of transitive class relationships is here of primary importance. We define a representation of classifications which supports transitive computation and present an operation-oriented deductive query language tailored for classification-based deductive information retrieval. The operations of this language are on the same abstraction level as relational algebra operations and can be integrated with these to form a powerful and flexible query language for deductive information retrieval. We define the integration of the operations and demonstrate the usefulness of the language in terms of several sample queries. Key-words : fact databases, information retrieval, classifications, deduction.