Information Retrieval and Query Expansion for Biomedical Data

The field of biomedical research generates vast amount of data from various sources, including electronic health records, scientific publications, clinical trials, and experimental studies. This data provides valuable insights into the underlying mechanisms of diseases and their treatments. However, biomedical data's sheer volume and complexity pose significant challenges in retrieving and analyzing relevant information. This chapter provides an overview of information retrieval with focus on retrieving biomedical data. It begins by introducing information retrieval (IR) and highlights the significance of IR. Further, it discusses the role of query expansion in improving the performance of an information retrieval system (IRS). The insights gained from this chapter can help researchers in designing and developing more effective IR systems that can unlock the full potential of biomedical data and accelerate progress in biomedical research.