Abstract: Selection terminals, typically PC computers running internet browsers, make search requests to a searching station or search engine. The searching station receives search terms and performs a probabilistic searching operation. In this way, emphasis is placed upon received terms that occur infrequently within source material. Search results, in the form of web sites of interest of which the high value search terms occur are returned back to the selecting terminal for display. An icon is displayed at the selection terminals and search terms are supplied to the searching station by high-lighting text of interest and then dragging and dropping it to the icon. In this way, it is possible for sophisticated searching operations to be performed with significantly less effort required on the part of the user. In particular, there is no requirement for a user to specify Boolean operations.

Abstract: An automatic text classification system is provided which extracts words and word sequences from a text or texts to be analyzed. The extracted words and word sequences are compared with training data comprising words and word sequences together with a measure of probability with respect to the plurality of qualities. Each of the plurality of qualities may be represented by an axis whose two end points correspond to mutually exclusive characteristics. Based on the comparison, the texts to be analyzed are then classified in terms of the plurality of qualities. In addition, a fuzzy logic retrieval system and a system for generating the training data are provided.