Query log anonymization has become an important challenge nowadays. A query log contains the search history of the users, as well as the selected results and their position in the ranking. These data are used to provide a personalized re-ranking of results and trend studies. However, query logs can disclose sensitive information of the users. Hence, query logs must be submitted to an anonymizat...

Users of search engines express their needs as queries, typically consisting of a small number of terms. The resulting search engine query logs are valuable resources that can be used to predict how people interact with the search system. In this paper, we introduce two novel applications of query logs, in the context of distributed information retrieval. First, we use query log terms to guide ...

For a simple polygon P of size n, we define weak visibility counting problem (WVCP) as finding the number of visible segments of P from a query line segment pq. We present different algorithms to compute WVCP in sub-linear time. In our first algorithm, we spend O(n) time to preprocess the polygon and build a data structure of size O(n), so that we can optimally answer WVCP in O(log n) time. The...

Understanding query ambiguity in web search remains an important open problem. In this paper we reexamine query ambiguity by analyzing the result clickthrough data. Previously proposed clickthrough-based metrics of query ambiguity tend to conflate informational and ambiguous queries. To distinguish between these query classes, we introduce novel metrics based on the entropy of the click distrib...

Here we propose an efficient algorithm for computing the smallest enclosing circle whose center is constrained to lie on a query line segment. Our algorithm preprocesses a given set of n points P = {p1, p2, . . . , pn} such that for any query line or line segment L, it efficiently locates a point c′ on L that minimizes the maximum distance among the points in P from c′. Roy et al. [11] has prop...

In this paper we propose a method that, given a query submitted to a search engine, suggests a list of related queries. The related queries are based in previously issued queries, and can be issued by the user to the search engine to tune or redirect the search process. The method proposed is based on a query clustering process in which groups of semantically similar queries are identified. The...

We propose a new approach for implementing P-log using XASP, the interface of XSB with Smodels. By using the tabling mechanism of XSB, our system is most of the times faster than P-log. In addition, our implementation has query features not supported by P-log, as well as new set operations for domain definition.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------ABSTRACT---------------------------------------------------------In this paper we suggest a method that, given a query presented to a search engine, proposes a list of concerned queries. The concerned queries are founded in antecedently published queries, and can be published by the user to the search engine to tune or redir...