Efficient Word Retrieval Using a Multiple Ranking Combination Scheme

Word retrieval is an important task in the area of document analysis and recognition. The selection of appropriate features is a crucial step in the word matching and retrieval process. Several efficient techniques have been proposed which use a wide range of features. This paper proposes a methodology for the efficient fusion of multiple ranking results produced by different word matching techniques. Specifically, a Minimum Ranking method is proposed for the combination of two or more ranking results. The method is compared with two state-of-the-art ranking fusion methods. The experimental results show that the fusion of the ranked results outperforms the ranking efficiency of the individual systems. Moreover, the proposed Minimum Ranking method outperforms the other two state-of-the-art fusion methods.