MERGING LISTS OF DOCUMENTS RETRIEVED FROM MULTIPLE WEB SOURCES

摘要

Here we are concerned with the problem of providing a single ordered list of documents retrieved from multiple web sources in response to a query. First an algorithm is presented for fusing multiple ordered lists of documents into a single ordered list of documents in the case where the sources provide lists with no redundant elements. Secondly we provide an algorithm for fusing multiple ordered lists of documents into a single ordered list in the case where documents can appear in multiple lists. In dealing the possibility of redundant elements the use of bags or multi-sets becomes beneficial.