How Do Named Entities Contribute to Retrieval Effectiveness?

Named entities in topics are a major factor contributing to the quality of retrieval results. In this paper, we report on an analysis on the correlation between the number of named entities present in a topic and the retrieval quality achieved for these topics by retrieval systems within CLEF. We found that a medium positive correlation exists for German, English and Spanish topics. Furthermore, we analyze the effect of the document or target language on the retrieval quality.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: CLEF
• Authors: Thomas Mandl, Christa Womser-Hacker
• Keywords: CLEF 2004, Medium Positive Correlation, Retrieval Quality, Retrieval Systems