Towards Context-sensitive Information Retrieval Based on Quantum Theory: With Applications to Cross-media Search and Structured Document Access

考虑以下搜索场景：我正在查找有关剑桥附近儿童活动的信息；这些信息通常列在文档的顶部。我也想看到列出的地方的图像，这里是一个例子图像，我正在寻找什么样的活动。这个周末的天气预计会下雨，所以我更喜欢室内活动。此信息需求包含上下文组件：本地搜索、天气。它还包含多模式组件：它指定在文档结构中的哪里可以找到相关信息；它请求文本和非文本结果；它需要基于图像、文本和结构的混合查询。这种常见和现实的信息需求不能用今天的搜索技术来满足。背景敏感搜索和多模式搜索是开发新的搜索技术的两大挑战，这些技术将使信息访问系统真正有用和有价值，并对当今的日常生活产生完全令人满意的影响。目前的信息检索研究无法充分应对这些挑战，因为它传统上是即席的和渐进式的，并且缺乏一个统一的理论框架和机制来无缝结合上下文和多模式搜索。为了应对这些新的挑战，必须发展一种全新的国际关系理论，导致国际关系范式的革命性转变。对环境敏感的信息访问系统的发展以及多媒体和结构化信息源的激增，使得这种革命性的转变变得越来越迫切。这一提议旨在通过发展一种基于量子理论(Qt)框架的新的、统一的信息检索(IR)理论来实现信息检索范式的革命性转变，以应对上下文敏感和多模式搜索的新挑战。所提出的理论将在两个重要的场景中得到应用、评估、验证和改进：多媒体和结构化文档检索。结果表明，红外光谱中的形式方法与量子理论中的形式方法之间存在着特殊的关系，这表明基于量子理论的非经典方法有可能解决上述挑战。这个项目的假设是，Qt理论提供了创新和灵感，可以绕过当前的信息检索和搜索技术无法处理的新兴背景和多模式问题。这将为国际关系研究带来新的曙光，迫使我们以一种不同但更具革命性的方式来思考这个问题。这提供了诱人的可能性和不同寻常的影响，其中一些如果实现，可以带来真正的突破和前沿技术。这个项目也是创新的，我们将进行开创性的研究，不仅建立一个基于Qt的通用IR理论，而且还在实际环境中应用和评估所提出的理论。这是一个基于Qt和IR之间有趣的联系的高度冒险的研究领域。这项研究的成功将对信息检索和量子信息处理产生重大而深远的影响：一种全新的IR范式和基本理论，用于开发上下文敏感和多模式搜索技术，而这是以前无法通过增量扩展经典IR模型来实现的；以及量子信息处理领域的扩大。

Consider the following search scenario: I am looking for information about children activities around Cambridge; this information is usually listed at the top of documents. I also want to see images of the listed places, and here is an example image of what sort of activities I am looking for. The weather for this weekend is predicted to be rain, so I prefer indoor activities . This information need contains contextual components: local search, weather. It also contains multimodal components: it specifies where the relevant information can be found in the document structure; it requests text and non-text results; and it requires a mixture of image-, text- and structure-based querying. This type of common and realistic information needs cannot be satisfied with today's search technologies. Context-sensitive search and multimodal search are two major challenges to developing new search technologies that will allow information access systems to be truly usable and valuable and make a fully satisfying impact on today's everyday life. Current IR research cannot deal with these challenges sufficiently because of its traditionally ad-hoc and incremental nature and the lack of a unified theoretical framework and mechanisms to seamlessly integrate context and multimodal search. To address these new challenges, it is essential that a radically new IR theory is developed, leading to a revolutionary shift of the IR paradigm. The growth of context-sensitive information access systems and the proliferation of multimedia and structured information sources, where multimodal access is essential for the efficient and effective e.g. learning and teaching through well-structured multimedia learning resources, searching and browsing of web repositories, cultural heritage collections and multimedia digital libraries, etc., make this revolutionary shift increasingly urgent. This proposal aims to make such a revolutionary shift of the IR paradigm by developing a novel and unified information retrieval (IR) theory based on the Quantum Theory (QT) framework to address the emerging challenges of context-sensitive and multimodal search. The proposed theory will be applied, evaluated, validated and refined in two important scenarios: multimedia and structured document retrieval. It has been shown that there exist peculiar relationships between formal methods in IR and QT, suggesting that a non-classical approach based on quantum theory can potentially resolve the aforesaid challenges. The hypothesis that this project builds on is that the QT theory provides innovation and inspiration into circumventing the emerging context and multimodality issues that current IR and search technologies cannot deal with. It will bring new light into IR research and force us to think about the problem from a different but more revolutionary way. This offers tantalizing possibilities and out of the ordinary implications, some of which, if realized, can lead to genuine breakthroughs and frontier technologies. The project is also innovative in the sense that we will conduct pioneering research in not simply building a generic QT-based IR theory but also applying and evaluating the proposed theory in the practical settings.This is a highly adventurous investigation into a largely unexplored area based on the intriguing connections between QT and IR. The success of this research will make significant and far-reaching impact on both information retrieval and quantum information processing: a completely new paradigm and underlying theory of IR for developing context-sensitive and multimodal search technologies that previously could not be brought about by incrementally extending classical IR models; and an expansion of the territory of quantum information processing.