F. Crestani et al., "Is this document relevant? ... probably": A survey of probabilistic models in information retrieval, ACM C SURV, 30(4), 1998, pp. 528-552
This article surveys probabilistic approaches to modeling information retri
eval. The basic concepts of probabilistic approaches to information retriev
al are outlined and the principles and assumptions upon which the approache
s are based are presented. The various models proposed in the development o
f IR are described, classified, and compared using a common formalism. New
approaches that constitute the basis of future research are described.