Compound-term processing

Compound-term processing, in <a href="/facts/Information_retrieval/MFSmpeNw">information-retrieval</a>, is search result matching on the basis of <a href="/facts/Compound_term/IbumXJgd">compound terms</a>. Compound terms are built by combining two or more simple terms; for example, "triple" is a single word term, but "triple heart bypass" is a compound term.
Compound-term processing is a new approach to an old problem: how can one improve the relevance of search results while maintaining ease of use? Using this technique, a search for survival rates following a triple heart bypass in elderly people will locate documents about this topic even if this precise phrase is not contained in any document. This can be performed by a <a href="/facts/Concept_search/LFeF21Ug">concept search</a>, which itself uses compound-term processing. This will extract the key concepts automatically (in this case "survival rates", "triple heart bypass" and "elderly people") and use these concepts to select the most relevant documents.

Compound-term processing open-in-new

Compound-term processing