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：我正在寻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。我还想看到列出的地方的图像，这里是我正在寻找的活动类型的示例图像。这个周末天气预报有雨，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。它还包含多模态组件：它指定在文档结构中可以找到相关信息的位置；它请求文本和非文本结果；它需要混合基于图像、文本和结构的查询。这种常见的、现实的信息需求是目前的搜索技术无法满足的。上下文敏感搜索和多模式搜索是开发新的搜索技术的两个主要挑战，这些技术将使信息访问系统真正可用和有价值，并对当今的日常生活产生完全令人满意的影响。目前的IR研究由于其传统的临时和增量性质以及缺乏统一的理论框架和机制来无缝集成上下文和多模态搜索而无法充分应对这些挑战。为了应对这些新的挑战，必须发展一种全新的IR理论，从而导致IR范式的革命性转变。上下文敏感的信息访问系统的增长以及多媒体和结构化信息源的激增，其中多模式访问对于通过结构良好的多媒体学习资源进行高效和有效的学习和教学，搜索和浏览web存储库，文化遗产馆藏和多媒体数字图书馆等至关重要，使得这一革命性转变日益紧迫。本提案旨在通过基于量子理论（QT）框架开发一种新的统一信息检索（IR）理论来解决上下文敏感和多模态搜索的新挑战，从而实现IR范式的革命性转变。提出的理论将应用，评估，验证和完善两个重要的场景：多媒体和结构化文档检索。研究表明，IR和QT的形式化方法之间存在特殊的关系，这表明基于量子理论的非经典方法可以潜在地解决上述挑战。这个项目建立的假设是QT理论提供了创新和灵感，以规避当前IR和搜索技术无法处理的新兴环境和多模态问题。它将为红外研究带来新的曙光，并迫使我们从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，可以导致真正的突破和前沿技术。该项目还具有创新性，因为我们将进行开创性的研究，不仅建立一个通用的基于qtl的IR理论，而且还将在实际环境中应用和评估所提出的理论。基于QT和IR之间的有趣联系，这是对一个很大程度上未开发领域的高度冒险的调查。本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：为开发上下文敏感和多模态搜索技术提供了一个全新的IR范式和基础理论，这是以前通过增量扩展经典IR模型无法实现的；以及量子信息处理领域的扩展。

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.