I probably didn't do the best job of phrasing the question when I said
to consider a query that contains both ranking and Boolean operators.
What I meant was a query that combines the vector space and Boolean
models. For example, try entering a query in the form of the following
(term11 term12 ... term1n) AND (term21 term22 ... term2m)
to a commercial WAIS search engine that will give you a query report
back so you can see how it evaluates the query.
For example, do ALL the terms specified in the query necessarily
all appear in the documents that are returned. If not, why not?
Shirley
>I guess since the wais demo found on the wais home page is returning a query report then I can deduce
>that this is wais version 2.0. So any wais system that uses boolean operators and returns a ranked list
>of documents is implementing boolean searching and ranking. I just want to make sure I'm looking at
>the right stuff. So I'm not sure how to go about answering the question. How can a query contain ranking?
>The question asks how dow these wais systems evaluate a query that contains both boolean operators
>and ranking. It seems more like the query will contain boolean operators and the results are returned in
>ranked order. Unless there is some way for the user to assign a ranking to each query term? Exactly
>what is the idea we're shooting for? Just to see how the boolean query is interpreted and then how
>that interpretation is turned into a ranked list of documents or document data bases? It seems
>like the best approach is to make assumptions based on that query report and the ranked list you get back.
>
>Aaagh...am I confused enough for you?
>
>Thanks,
>Melanie
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------
>Melanie Hughey <hughey@cs.utk.edu>
>Labstaffer in Training, Computer Science Department
>The University of Tennessee, Knoxville"