Natural language processing for intelligent information retrieval

Abstract

An ongoing research effort that concerns natural language processing (NLP) for improved representation and retrieval of biomedical information is described. The primary focus of this research program is the development of SPECIALIST, an experimental system for parsing and accessing biomedical text. The system uses lexical, morphologic, syntactic, and semantic information as it builds structured representations of sentences and phrases in biomedical texts. It includes a database retrieval facility to allow for testing and evaluation of natural language processing techniques in information retrieval. The SPECIALIST system is implemented in Quintus Prolog and C and runs on Sun 4 workstations.