© 1991 by British Computer Society
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Manipulating Full-text Scientific Databases: A Logic-based Semantico-pragmatic Approach*
Department of Computer Science, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Fl 32901, USA
The syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic interconnections inherent in a portion of NASA's full-text scientific database, ENVIRONET, have been captured in the form of facts and rules using relevance and modal logic. Such a logic formulation of the contents of the database permits content-based retrieval of textural information using arbitrary search granularities. It also allows users to manipulate data contained in tables and graphs which occur as part of the natural text. The system takes into account user factors in deciding on the quantity and quality of information retrieved and how the information is displayed. The organization of the facts and rules is quite independent of the order in which the original text appears.
Received April 1988. revised February 1991.
* The work reported here was conducted under research grant NAG-Goddard Space Flight Center, Goddard MD
Now at: Department of Computer Science, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Fl 32901, USA.
¶ Computer Science Department, Loyola College, Baltimore, MD 21210, USA