Determining geographic representations for arbitrary concepts at query time

Abstract

In typical concept@location-queries, the location is sometimes given by terms that cannot be found in gazetteers or geographic databases. Such terms usually describe vague geographical regions, but might also include more general terms like mining or theme parks, in which case the corresponding geographic footprint is less obvious. In the present paper we describe our approach to deal with such vague location specifications in geographic queries. Roughly, we determine a geographic representation for these location specifications from toponyms found in the top documents resulting from a query using the terms describing the location. In this paper we describe an efficient process to derive the geographic representation for such situations at query time. Furthermore, we present experiments depicting the performance of our approach as well as the result quality. Our approach allows for an efficient execution of queries such as camping ground near theme park. It can also be used as a standalone-application giving a visual impression of the geographic footprint of arbitrary terms.