On an Interpretation of Keywords Weights in Information Retrieval: Some Fuzzy Logic Based Approaches

Relevant contributions of fuzzy logic to the logical models in information retrieval is studied. It makes it possible to grasp the graduality of some relevant concepts and to model both imprecision and uncertainty inherent to the retrieval process, still in the framework of the broadly meant logical approach. In this perspective we discuss various extensions to the basic Boolean model which are needed to attain such a greater expressivity. In particular, we show how the well-known semantics of keywords weights may be recovered in various fuzzy logic based information retrieval models.