Map-Based Filters for Fuzzy Entities in Geographical Information Retrieval

摘要

Many users employ vague geographical expressions to query Information Retrieval systems. These fuzzy entities do not appear neither in gazetteers nor in geographical databases. Searches such as "Ski resorts in north-central Spain" or "Restaurants near the Teatro Real of Madrid" often do not get the expected results, mainly due to the difficulty of disambiguating expressions like "north of" or "near". This paper presents a first approach to deal with this kind of fuzzy expressions, with the aim of improving the coverage and accuracy of traditional Information Retrieval systems. Our approach is based on the use of raster images as geographic filters to determine the relevance of the documents depending on the location of places referenced in them.