Representing and retrieving structured documents using the Dempster‐Shafer theory of evidence: modelling and evaluation

In this paper we report on a theoretical model of structured document indexing and retrieval based on the Dempster‐Shafer Theory of Evidence. This includes a description of our model of structured document retrieval, the representation of structured documents, the representation of individual components, how components are combined, details of the combination process, and how relevance is captured within the model. We also present a detailed account of an implementation of the model, and an evaluation scheme designed to test the effectiveness of our model. Finally we report on the details and results of a series of experiments performed to investigate the characteristics of the model.