Mathematical Foundations of Information Retrieval

This book offers a comprehensive and consistent mathematical approach to information retrieval (IR) without which no implementation is possible, and sheds an entirely new light upon the structure of IR models. It contains the descriptions of all IR models in a unified formal style and language, along with examples for each, thus offering a comprehensive overview of them. The book also creates mathematical foundations and a consistent mathematical theory (including all mathematical results achieved so far) of IR as a stand-alone mathematical discipline, which thus can be read and taught independently. Also, the book contains all necessary mathematical knowledge on which IR relies, to help the reader avoid searching different sources. Audience: The book will be of interest to computer or information scientists, librarians, mathematicians, undergraduate students and researchers whose work involves information retrieval.