concept Searching Limited
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| Concept Searching Limited | |
|---|---|
| Type | Private company |
| Founded | 2003 |
| Headquarters | UK |
| Key people | John Challis, CEO Martin Garland, President International Operations Paul Billingham, General Manager Europe |
| Industry | Information retrieval |
| Products | concept search and auto-classification engine |
| Website | www.conceptsearching.com |
Concept Searching Limited is a software company which specializes in information retrieval software. It was founded in 2003, and has office in the UK, USA and South Africa. Its current range of software includes products for enterprise search, Taxonomy Management and statistical classification.
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[edit] History
In August 2003 the company introduced the idea of using compound term processing (aka phrase based indexing) via an article published in INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AND TECHNOLOGY (VOL 36 PART 4). A British Library Direct catalogue entry can be found here: [1].
The complete original article can also be downloaded from here: [2].
Most meaning is expressed in short patterns of words whilst single words in isolation are highly ambiguous. And yet all other statistical information retrieval products work on the basis of single word terms.
Concept Searching is the only company to offer a full range of statistical information retrieval products based on Compound Term Processing. This unique technology automatically identifies the word patterns in unstructured text that convey the most meaning and our products use these higher order terms to improve Precision with no loss of Recall.
The algorithms adapt to each customer's content and they work in any language regardless of vocabulary or linguistic style.
Its interesting to contrast conceptSearching's "Compound Term Processing" with the patents for "Phrase based indexing and retrieval" filed by Anna Lynn Patterson in 2004, and to which Google subsequently acquired the rights. A full discussion of the patents can be found here: Webmaster Woman. The patents themselves can be found online, for example: 20060031195.
Several other companies use the term concept search or concept searching and even conceptsearching, for example: Ontrack Inview and FIOS Inc. However, these sources seem to be describing quite different techniques to those described by Concept Searching Limited 's "Compound Term Processing". Also SearchExpress seems to define concept search as simply a list of synonyms. Can someone please describe how these techniques differ from "Boolean Search", "Keyword Search" and "Fuzzy Search". And what does "Compound Term Processing" really mean?
[edit] Products
The current product range includes:
- conceptSearching - concept-based search engine
- conceptClassifier - concept-based auto-classification and metadata generation engine
conceptSearching automatically identifies the most significant word patterns in any text and uses these compound terms to rank results based on an understanding of meaning rather than simply based on finding the required words. This is significantly more adaptive and flexible than exact phrase or proximity searching. Also, queries can be expressed in natural language, with no need for complex query syntax associated with traditional Boolean techniques.
conceptSearching is the first true "concept search" engine in that it combines Bayesian Inference with Shannon's Information Theory to correctly weight not only single words but also compound terms (i.e. multi-word phrases). Since most concepts are expressed in short phrases, rather than in single words used in isolation, this unique technology is being used to significant improve Precision with no loss of Recall.
[edit] Customer Base
Concept Searching's customer base includes many global companies and organizations including: BP, Banca Intesa, Logica, U.S. Air Force Medical Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Concept Searching also has many OEM and Systems Integration partners, including: AT&T Government Solutions, Concentra, Parity, Volocom and Web Labs. [3]
