Title
Stochastic Query Covering for Fast Approximate Document Retrieval
Abstract
We design algorithms that, given a collection of documents and a distribution over user queries, return a small subset of the document collection in such a way that we can efficiently provide high-quality answers to user queries using only the selected subset. This approach has applications when space is a constraint or when the query-processing time increases significantly with the size of the collection. We study our algorithms through the lens of stochastic analysis and prove that even though they use only a small fraction of the entire collection, they can provide answers to most user queries, achieving a performance close to the optimal. To complement our theoretical findings, we experimentally show the versatility of our approach by considering two important cases in the context of Web search. In the first case, we favor the retrieval of documents that are relevant to the query, whereas in the second case we aim for document diversification. Both the theoretical and the experimental analysis provide strong evidence of the potential value of query covering in diverse application scenarios.
Year
DOI
Venue
2015
10.1145/2699671
ACM Trans. Inf. Syst.
Keywords
Field
DocType
algorithms,query covering,measurement,search process,caching,stochastic analysis
Data mining,Query expansion,Information retrieval,Computer science,Web query classification,Stochastic process,Ranking (information retrieval),Through-the-lens metering,Diversification (marketing strategy),Document retrieval
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
33
3
1046-8188
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
5
0.41
47
Authors
6
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Aris Anagnostopoulos1105467.08
Luca Becchetti294555.75
Ilaria Bordino362928.81
Stefano Leonardi441128.87
Ida Mele57310.95
Piotr Sankowski659647.95