Prism : an answer projection system

Prism is an answer projection system that combines the best attributes of traditional and Web-based question answering systems. Traditional question answering systems retrieve answers with pinpoint accuracy but limited coverage, using a small and reliable data source, while Web-based systems retrieve answers with broad coverage but limited accuracy, using a large but noisy data source. By taking advantage of the strengths of each system, an answer projection system can answer as many questions as a Web-based system while still being as accurate as a traditional system. In fact, Prism improves the performance of a traditional question answering system by 25%. It improves the accuracy of answers retrieved from the World Wide Web by 10%, and more importantly, it verifies answers retrieved from the Web by providing reliable supporting documents. By combining Prism with traditional and Web-based systems, we obtain a question answering system with high accuracy and broad coverage.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2003

Author dc:creator

• Wu, Lynn, 1981-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Boris Katz.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/18021

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/18021