Information Retrieval through Query Clustering and Query
Classification – A Review
Mrs. Sridevi K N [1RN17PEA02]
Research Scholar, VTU-RC,
RNSIT, Bengaluru
Sridevi.kn23@gmail.com
Abstract: Information retrieval is
extracting important pattern, features,
knowledge from data. As requested by
users, information retrieval system
facilitates the search of data and
documents. The process includes
identifying specific pieces of information
in semi-structured and unstructured
text documents and converting them to
a structured database. The IR
techniques can be applied to newspaper
articles, web pages, scientific articles,
medical notes etc. Now a days, the IR
systems are used daily by various types
of users. There is an enormous growth
in information. To access information in
an effective manner, IR systems are
required. In the field of information
access, Information retrieval is the
emerging concept and is overtaking
other traditional methods of searching.
Various techniques are in use for
building IR systems. Clustering and
Classification are some among them.
These two techniques are the main
divisions of data mining processes. To
manage algorithms, these are essential
in the world of data analysis. These two
techniques divide data into sets. This
task is relevant in the current
information age as there is a need of
data coupling with development. In this
work, an overview of developments in
the Information Retrieval field is
presented with a special focus on
classification and clustering techniques.
Dr. Prakasha S
Research Guide, VTU-RC,
RNSIT, Bengaluru
prakashasphd@gmail.com
Keywords: Information Retrieval [IR],
classification, clustering, algorithm
1. Introduction
Clustering and classification is widely
used in the field of information retrieval
field. Clustering is the unsupervised
learning and classification is the
supervised learning. The performance of
the IR is linked to accessibility of data,
selection and managing techniques of huge
amounts of information on web that is
usually expressed as textual data.
A basic model of IR systems is as shown
in figure 1. Huge amount of information is
queried on specific criterion and
information is fetched that matches the
selection criterion.
Improvement in search relevance can be
achieved by classifying web queries into
predefined categories. The process is also
known as web query classification.
Classifying the user’s general queries into
topical categories can improve
effectiveness and efficiency of web search.
An unsupervised technique, Clustering
deals with the partition of data structure in
the unknown area. For further learning,
this is the basis. The process of Clustering
consist of carious steps such as feature
extraction, selection for retrieval and most
representative feature selection from the
original data set. The algorithm design step
includes series of steps as per the problem
characteristics. The validation of algorithm
is done at clustering result evaluation step.
This step also provides practical
explanation for the result of clustering.
This paper reviews some of the
classification and clustering techniques for
information retrieval and identifies the
research gap in the area.
2. Information Retrieval Techniques
Minjuan Zhong et al. [1] proposed new
information retrieval algorithm that
reduces complexity of time and improves
accuracy. The algorithm uses classification
and key phrase extraction. The traditional
methods of evaluation of performance
cannot evaluate ranking results of the
documents retrieved effectively.
In the work done by Anastasios Tombros
[2] state that if hierarchical clustering is
applied to query-specific clustering, the
effectiveness of the retrieval is
comparatively better than the static
clustering and of conventional IFS.
S. K. Bhatia et al. [3] developed clusters
and cluster characterizations by employing
viewpoint of the user. Based on a
knowledge attainment technique, the user
viewpoint is produced through a structured
interview which is known as personal
construct theory. It is proved that the
outcome of the personal construct theory is
a cluster representation which can be used
for query and also for assignment of new
documents to the suitable clusters.
Incremental clustering is proposed by
Charikar et al [4] which is based on a
careful analysis of the requirements of the
IR application. The main objective is to
maintain clusters of small diameter
efficiently with the addition of new points.
In this work, the researchers have done the
analysis of natural greedy algorithms and
proved that they poorly perform. The
proposed algorithms which are
deterministic and randomized are
incremental and shown good performance.
Anton Leuski et al [5] experimentally
tested a set of clustering algorithms and
prove that compared to ranked list
approach, a clustering of the documents
retrieved can be significantly more
effective. The researchers also proved that
the clustering approach has similar
effectiveness as the interactive relevance
feedback based on query expansion.
Furnas et al [6] worked on automatic
indexing and retrieval methods. The
modeling is done to improve the term-
document association improvement
leading to detection of relevant documents
on the basis of terms used in the queries.
Formed from weighted combination of
terms, queries are characterized as pseudo-
documents vectors.
Michael Steinbach et al [7] conducted an
experimental study and presented the
results of agglomerative hierarchical
clustering and clustering techniques K-
means. In this research work, the
researchers have used both a ‘standard’ K-
means algorithm and ‘bisecting’ K-means
algorithm. The results proved that the
bisecting K-means method performed
better than the other hierarchical
approaches.

Yih-Jen Horng et al [8] extended the work
of previous researchers and presented a
new approach for fuzzy information
retrieval on the basis of fuzzy inference
techniques and fuzzy hierarchical
clustering. In the first step, a fuzzy
agglomerative hierarchical clustering is
used to form documents cluster and thus
get cluster centers. In the next step, the
authors presented a technique for
construction of fuzzy logic rules based on
the clusters of the document and cluster
centers. Later, the fuzzy logic rules
constructed are applied to modify the
user’s query for documents retrieval as per
the request of user. The proposed method
proved more flexible and more intelligent
than the existing techniques. The proposed
method can expend user’s queries for
fuzzy information retrieval in an effective
way.
Table 1. Comparison of works
3. Architecture used in Information
Retrieval
Information Retrieval Agents: Craig A
Knoblock [9] presented an architecture
that has information retrieval agents. Such
agents address the issue of representation,
communication, problem solving and
learning. Each information agent is
specialized to a particular area of
expertise. This enables organization of
enormous number of sources of
information and provides clarity in the
queries that each agent handles.
Peer-to-Peer Information Retrieval: Karl
Aberer et al [10] proposed architecture for
peer-to-peer information retrieval. These
systems are decentralized and client server
architecture is followed. These are large-
scale computer networks where peers can
join and leave the system at any time.
Figure 2. Architecture of peer-to-peer IR
systems. Source [24]
TIRA: Yunlu Ai et al [11] proposed a
model called TIRA (Text based
Information Retrieval Architecture). This
model contains four major components
viz. client, server, data modules and
processor modules. UML-activity diagram
represents customized IR process and this
is achieved by the client. The defined IR
processes are executed by the server. The
server also provides available processor
and data modules information. Text-based
Information retrieval framework that is
flexible is offered by TIRA. It also
provides technologies to visually define
Information retrieval components. TIRA
achieves this by connecting different IR
components as well as to execute them.
Models used in Information Retrieval
Vector Space Model: This is an algebraic
model that has two steps. The first
represents the text documents into vector
of words and the in the second step these
are transformed to numerical format
enabling the user to apply any text mining
techniques like extraction, filtering and
information retrieval.
Boolean: This is the most widely used
exact-match model. In this model, queries
are represented ass logic expressions and
documents features are operands. Boolean
model uses Boolean queries. Here, the
retrieved documents are not ranked.
Inference Network (Probabilitic): The
probability of user finding a relevant
document is estimated by probabilistic
models. Ranking for the retrieved
documents is by their likelihoods of
relevance which is probability ratio that
the document is relevant to the not relevant
probability.
N-Gram Model: The N-gram model uses
conditional probability to model a
document. A term’s probability of
occurrence in a document is conditioned
on the preceding N-1 words. For example,
the probability of seeing the tri-gram
“american presidential election” is:
P(“american”)P(“presidential | american”)
P(election | american presidential). For
example in a document, the words “of”
and “times” would be counted as occuring
twice; yet, their functionality as a bi-gram
gives a different meaning. N-grams such
as “stock exchange”,“ labour party” and
“french open championship” reveal a
different meaning than from each word on
its own.
Hidden Markov Model: A model is a
stochastic and finite state automaton.
HMM have strong statistical foundations
and well suited to natural language
domains. These models can handle new
data robustly and are computationally
efficient to develop.
4. Challenges in Information Retrieval
Requisites needed for IR system:
Information retrieval system’s basic
requirements include potential users group
and a vast collection of documents. These
documents should satisfy some or all
information requirements of the user.
Essential Operations to be carried out:
The essential operations to be carried out
include document’s concept indexing,
converting the concept indexing into
descriptor language, Concept analysis of
the query and extracting the information.
Performance of the system: The
performance of the Information retrieval
systems can be measured from various
aspects. In regard to recall and relevance,
there is an efficiency measure. Its
performance in these parameters is
reduced by indexing, search criteria
formulation and the simplicity of the
request.
Other issues: Unlike traditional search
engines, IR systems have to function
without an explicit query. Users’ needs are
to be understood depending on
personalization and context. Compared to
traditional recommender systems, the IR
systems must be open domain and should
be capable of making suggestion and
collect information from various sources
that involve multiple people, actions and
objects. With respect to indexing system
and lack of needs of users and their
behavior, there exist some major problems
with retrieval methods. The main problem
is uncertainty. The users consent is a major
problem. Going through the consent of the
user leads to the search behavior analysis
and this this in turn leads to uncertainty.

The classification of query throws a 6. Benefits of clustering and

challenging problem because web queries
are short and provide fewer features. This
feature lack, combined with dynamic
nature of the query stream and also
changing terms of the average user hinders
the traditional text classification methods.
In understanding the current sense of the
user’s queries, there exists a problem. In
order to bring efficiency to web search, it
is necessary to map the queries of the users
to topical categories for which the search
engine has domain-specific knowledge.
Today’s search engines, both for enterprise
and web, often incorporate the use of topic
wise databases and this provides an
opportunity to bring improvements.
5. Open Issues in IR Systems
Many IR problems provide scope for
improvement as listed in Table 2.
Table 2. Open Issues in Information
Retrieval
classification
Classification and Clustering appear to be
similar but differ in the context of data
mining. Classification is used in
supervised learning technique in which
labels that are pre-defined are assigned to
instances by properties. Clustering is an
unsupervised learning technique that
groups similar instances. This grouping is
done based on their features or properties.
The benefits of the classification include
browsing, specifically for inexperienced
users or the users who are not familiar
with certain content. The classification
also broadens and narrows searches by
using hierarchical structure of
classification, searching terms,
provisioning multilingual access to
resources. Clustering helps in information
retrieval to organize documents to topic-
specific groups. Clustering is also in use as
an organization of retrieved documents
thus helping the users better understand
the documents retrieved and therefore be
better able to focus their search.
7. Conclusion
From the literature, it can be observed that
IR related works suffer from the difficulty
of comparing retrieval results. Huge
documents collection has been used and in
most of the research works, these
documents are different. Hence, the
comparison of works has become difficult.
The existing research in this area is
diverse; some of the works use
classification and key phrase extraction
that reduces complexity and improves
accuracy. With the explosion of
information in recent years, there is a
necessity of better performing information
retrieval techniques in terms of speed of
the extraction and relevance of the
document extracted. This is a promising
research area that provides plenty of
opportunities for researchers to contribute.
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