Algebraic Modeling of Information Retrieval in XML Documents

Abstract

This paper presents an information retrieval approach in XML documents using tools, based on the linear algebra. The well-known transformation languages as XSLT (XPath) are grounded on the features of higher-order logic for manipulating hierarchical trees. The presented conception is compared to existing higherorder logic formalisms, where the queries are realized by both languages XSLT and XPath. The possibilities of the proposed linear algebraic model combined with hierarchy data models permit more efficient solutions for searching, extracting and manipulating semi-structured data with hierarchical structures avoiding the global navigation over the XML tree components. The main purpose of this algebraic model representation, applied to the hierarchical relationships in the XML data structures, is to make the implementation of linear algebra tools possible for XML data manipulations and to eliminate existing problems, related to regular grammars theory and also to avoid the difficulties, connected with higher -order logic (first-order logic, monadic second-order logic etc.).