Automatic construction of networks of concepts characterizing document databases

Two East-bloc computing knowledge bases, both based on a semantic network structure, were created automatically from large, operational textual databases using two statistical algorithms. The knowledge bases were evaluated in detail in a concept-association experiment based on recall and recognition tests. In the experiment, one of the knowledge bases, which exhibited the asymmetric link property, outperformed four experts in recalling relevant concepts in East-bloc computing. The knowledge base, which contained 20000 concepts (nodes) and 280000 weighted relationships (links), was incorporated as a thesaurus-like component in an intelligent retrieval system. The system allowed users to perform semantics-based information management and information retrieval via interactive, conceptual relevance feedback