IDRISI Search Tips

	How to Form a Simple Query
	Matching Levels
	Common Arabic Mistakes & Soundex
	Search for Arabic Words With Diacritics
	Case Sensitive Search

How to Form a Simple Query

1. Run the search page you want to search through by typing it full URL in the address box of your browser, and hit Enter..

2. Type the text you want to search for in the appropriate field. If you want to search for the name of the document creator, for example, type the words you want to search for in the “Author” field (If it exists in the search page).

3. Check “Common Arabic Mistakes & Soundex” checkbox if :you want to expand your Arabic query  to include words containing the commonly committed Arabic writing mistakes such as initial hamza, final taa and final yaa. This option is available only for Arabic queries. As for English queries the Soundex option allows you to search for English words with the same pronunciation such as; write, right and rite.

4. Check “Case Sensitivity” checkbox if you want to search for English words with same case you entered (Capital/Small).

5. Select a search type from the “Search Type” drop down list according to the criteria shown in the table below:

Most of the time you are searching you need to define a certain relationship among the entered query words. You may need for example to search for the words "Classes" and "Categories" together, "Classes" and not "Categories", "Classes" or "Categories", "Classes" and the derivatives of "Categories", …etc. These relations among the query words can be controlled by the specification of search type to use for your query.

6. Select a matching level from the "Matching Level" drop down list, according to the following criteria:

7. Select the number of results you want to appear per page (10, 20 or 30) from the result control.

Matching Levels

7. Matching Level	Use this Level to	Example
   Exact	Search for the Documents containing the exact entered word(s).
   Stem	Search for the Documents containing the exact entered word and all its forms with suffixes and prefixes.	رجل رجلان، رجلين،
   Derivatives	Search for documents containing the exact entered word and all its forms.	قال ¬ قائل، قول، مقولة…الخ
   Synonyms	Search for documents containing the exact entered word and all its synonyms.	Advantage ----> Avail
   Antonyms	Search for documents containing the antonyms of the entered word.	Advantage ----> Disadvantage
   Translation	Search for documents containing the exact entered word and its translation into Arabic or English according to the source language.	Describe ----> يصف
   Thesaurus	Search for documents containing the exact entered word and all the words that fall under it in your thesaurus hierarchy. For more details, click Here.	All the words under the entered word in the thesaurus tree structure.
   Root	Search for documents containing the exact entered word and all the words sharing the same root with this word.	راهب ¬ إرهابي، راهب، رهبة…الخ

8. Click “Search” to submit your query to the search engine according to the specified criteria or click “Clear” to reselect the criteria, the search results page appears.

Notice: The appearance of the results page depends upon the selections and criteria you specify during the process of publishing.

QBE Search

Short for Query By Example search type, one of the most intelligent search techniques. Using query by example in IDRISI, the user types an example for what he wants to search for directly into his query.
Queries here are a direct representation of what the user wants to get out of his collections. It is the same like talking to your collection telling it that "I want this piece of information. There are 3 search styles using IDRISI's QBE.

Free QBE Search
When you select this type of search as the base for your query, you can submit a part of a document as a query. It is like telling IDRISI "give me other documents like this one".

-/+ Operators
This type allows you control the relationship among the entered words and how to find them using Plus (+) and minus (-) signs.
Example:

1. Type: Arab - world + boundaries.

2. Select "Query by Example" from the Search Types.

3. Click "Search", IDRISI retrieves all the indexed documents containing the word boundaries,  not containing the word world, and may or may not contain the word Arab.

Term Weight Conditions
This type allows you to give any of the query words a higher weight than the rest of the words when calculating the relevancy ranking. This is  done by typing each word followed by square brackets inside which you should type the percentages.

Example:

1. Type: Arab  [40] world [60].

2. Select "Query By Example" from the Search Types.

3. Click "Search", the program retrieves all the indexed documents containing the word world with a frequency higher than Arab (with the ratio of the number of each word).

IQL Search

Short for IDRISI Query Language. It allows the search using the Boolean Operators and some proprietary operators that are provided by IDRISI to increase the flexibility of the search process. These operators are:

exact         stem      derv     syn      qbe         trans      ant          stat       prox    root

Exact Search

This search type retrieves the documents containing the exact entered word.

Example:

1. Type: exact ( تعليم).

2. Select "IQL" from Search Type drop down list.

3. Click "Search", the program retrieves all the documents containing the word "تعليم" with and without diacritics according to the specified criteria.

Stem-Based Search

In this search type the search query is expanded to include all forms of the entered word with or without affixes.

Affixes are the suffixes and prefixes that are added to words without changing its meaning. prefixes are letters that are added to the beginnings of words such as:  ( ال، لل، بال ). in words like الرجل، للرجل ، بالرجلand suffixes are letters that are added to the end of words such as: ( ان، ين، ات ). in words like الرجلان، الرجلين، مسلمات.

Example:

1. Type: stem (علم).

2. Select "IQL" from Search Type drop down list.

3. Click "Search", the program retrieves all the indexed documents containing the word " علم " and all its stems such as العلم and العلماء.

Derivative Search

In this search type the search query is expanded to include all derivatives of the entered word.

Derivatives are the words that come form the same root of the original word such as nouns, infinitives,  verbs...etc.

Example:

1. Type: derv ( تعليم ).

2. Select "IQL" from Search Type drop down list.

3. Click "Search", the program retrieves all the documents containing the word " تعليم " and all its derivatives such as علوم، علماء.

Search by Synonyms

In this search type the search query is expanded to include the synonyms of the entered word.

Example:

1. Type: syn (organize).

2. Select "IQL" from Search Type drop down list.

3. Click "Search", the program retrieves all the indexed documents containing the word "organize" and all its synonyms such as methodize, arrange, array…etc.

Query by Example

One of the most intelligent search techniques. Using query by example in IDRISI, the user types an example for what he wants to search for directly into his query.
Queries here are a direct representation of what the user wants to get out of his collections. It is the same like talking to your collection telling it that "I want this piece of information. There are 3 search styles using IDRISI's QBE.

-/+ conditions:

This type allows you control the relationship among the entered words and how to find them using Plus +and minus - signs.

1. Type: qbe (Arab- world + boundaries).

2. Select "IQL" from Search Type drop down list.

3. Click "Search", the program retrieves all the documents containing the word 'boundaries',  not containing the word 'world", and may or may not contain the word 'Arab.

Term Weight Conditions:

This type allows you to search for words more than other words in the collections. This is  done by typing each word followed by square brackets inside which you should type the percentages.

Example:

1. Type: qbe (Arab  [80] world [20]).

2. Select "IQL" from Search Type drop down list.

3. Click "Search", the program retrieves all the indexed documents containing the word 'Arab" with a frequency higher than the other which should be of a lower frequency.

Search by Translation

In this search type the search query is expanded to include all meanings of the entered word in Arabic (or English).

Example:

1. Type: 'trans (prepare)'.

2. Select "IQL" from Search Type drop down list.

3. Click "Search", the program retrieves all the documents containing the meanings of the word "prepare" such as  تجهيز and تهيئة  etc.

Search for Antonyms

In this search type the search query is expanded to include all antonyms of the entered word.

Example:

1. Type: ant (peace).

2. Select "IQL" from Search Type drop down list.

3. Click "Search", the program retrieves all the indexed documents containing the antonyms of the word "peace" such as: agitation, upheaval, war…etc.

Statement Search

In this search type the search result  include all the words which are in the same statement regardless of the order.

Example:

1. Type: stat (Human, rights, respect).

2. Select "IQL" from the Search Type drop down list.

3. Click "Search", the program retrieves all the documents containing all the entered words in the same statement.

Proximity Search

In this search type the search result  includes the documents containing all the entered words provided that they are all within 100 words.

Example:

1. Type: prox (Human, rights, respect).

2. Select "IQL" from the Search Type drop down list

3. Click "Search", the program retrieves all the documents containing all the entered words in the same text neighborhood (within 100 words) .

In this search type the search query is expanded to include all words with the same root.

To search by Root:

1. Type: root (علم).

2. Select "IQL" from Search Type drop down list.

3. Click "Search", the program retrieves all the indexed documents containing the words (عَلًمَ، علوم، تعليم، عٍلم، علامة) and all its derivatives such as writing, wrote, written...etc.

Boolean Operators

Search by Boolean operators is the use of natural language conditions inside queries. There are three common Boolean Operators:

1. Or

Usage: To search for one of two words (Man or Boy). This will retrieve all the documents that contain at least only one of the two words.

1. Type the words “Man or Boy” in the appropriate text box, and choose “IQL” from the search type list (if any).

2. Click “Search” button.

The documents resulting from this query are those documents that contain the word “Boy” and the documents that contain the word “Man” and the documents containing the two words together (Indicated by the dark and light gray in the previous illustration).

2. And

Usage: To search for two words together (science and technology). It retrieves all the only the documents containing the two words. together

Example:

1. Type the words “Man and Boy” in the appropriate text box, and choose “IQL”  from the search type list (if any).

2. Click “Search” button.

The documents resulting from this query are those documents that contain both the word “Boy” and the word “Man” together (Indicated by the gray section in the previous illustration).

3. And not

Usage: To search for the documents containing a certain word and not containing another word (science and not technology à retrieves all the documents that contain the word "science" and doesn't contain the word "technology").

Example:

1. Type the words “Man and not boy” in the appropriate text box, and choose “IQL”  from the search type list (if any).

2. Click “Search” button.

 

The documents resulting from this query are those documents that contain word “Boy” and does not contain the word “Man” (Indicated by the gray section in the previous illustration). Notice that the documents containing the two words “man” and “boy” are out of the result list.

Common Arabic Mistakes (CAM) & Soundex

This search capability allows your collection users to avoid the Arabic common mistakes normally made by most Arabic native writers either in the search query or in the original documents. These mistakes are various, but IDRISI handles only the most common three mistakes:

• Initial Hamza: Most Arabic writers normally ignore initial Hamza in words such as "أحمد" which is incorrectly written without Hamza "احمد".

• Final Taa: Most Arabic writers normally replace final Taa in words such as "ثقافة " with a final Haa "ثقافه".

• Final Yaa: Most Arabic writers normally replace final Yaa in words such as "علي" with a final Ya "على" and vice versa.

IDRISI Search Engine is capable of recognizing such mistakes and handling them. If you search for "احمد" , for example, the system retrieves all the entered names with and without hamza.

Soundex

This capability is available for English queries only. It allows you to expand your query to include all English words with the same pronunciation as the entered word. For example, if you search for "write" and select CAM & Soundex , the search results will include all the documents containing the word "write", the word "right" or the word "rite"

Search for Words With Diacritics

IDRISI allows you to search for diacritized Arabic words, allowing the end-user get accurate results for query words that have more than one form such as (علم) which can be, for example be ( عَلَمً ) or ( عٍلمْ ). using IDRISI you can solve this problem by typing the word you want to search for with exact diacritics.

Case Sensitivity Search

This option is used with English queries. It allows the users of your collections to search for words accurately with the exact case (Capital or Small letters).