Abstract: Natural language image search is described, for example, whereby natural language queries may be used to retrieve images from a store of images automatically tagged with image tags being concepts of an ontology (which may comprise a hierarchy of concepts). In various examples, a natural language query is mapped to one or more of a plurality of image tags, and the mapped query is used for retrieval. In various examples, the query is mapped by computing one or more distance measures between the query and the image tags, the distance measures being computed with respect to the ontology and/or with respect to a semantic space of words computed from a natural language corpus. In examples, the image tags may be associated with bounding boxes of objects depicted in the images, and a user may navigate the store of images by selecting a bounding box and/or an image.

Abstract: Natural language image search is described, for example, whereby natural language queries may be used to retrieve images from a store of images automatically tagged with image tags being concepts of an ontology (which may comprise a hierarchy of concepts). In various examples, a natural language query is mapped to one or more of a plurality of image tags, and the mapped query is used for retrieval. In various examples, the query is mapped by computing one or more distance measures between the query and the image tags, the distance measures being computed with respect to the ontology and/or with respect to a semantic space of words computed from a natural language corpus. In examples, the image tags may be associated with bounding boxes of objects depicted in the images, and a user may navigate the store of images by selecting a bounding box and/or an image.

Abstract: Multilingual/cross-region search result merging is described. In various examples, a user enters a query to an information retrieval system and receives search results appropriate to different combinations of human language and geographical region, and where the combinations are selected according to features describing intent of the query. In examples, query intent features are computed using a query understanding component (e.g. a trained query intent classifier) and used, optionally with other query features, to identify combinations of human language and geographical region from a stored profile. In examples the stored profile is computed using data about documents available to an information retrieval system and data about past search behavior. In examples, different combinations of language and region are used to retrieve search results which are merged. For example, a query is translated into another language while preserving calculated intent features of the query.

Abstract: Natural language image search is described, for example, whereby natural language queries may be used to retrieve images from a store of images automatically tagged with image tags being concepts of an ontology (which may comprise a hierarchy of concepts). In various examples, a natural language query is mapped to one or more of a plurality of image tags, and the mapped query is used for retrieval. In various examples, the query is mapped by computing one or more distance measures between the query and the image tags, the distance measures being computed with respect to the ontology and/or with respect to a semantic space of words computed from a natural language corpus. In examples, the image tags may be associated with bounding boxes of objects depicted in the images, and a user may navigate the store of images by selecting a bounding box and/or an image.

Abstract: Multilingual/cross-region search result merging is described. In various examples, a user enters a query to an information retrieval system and receives search results appropriate to different combinations of human language and geographical region, and where the combinations are selected according to features describing intent of the query. In examples, query intent features are computed using a query understanding component (e.g. a trained query intent classifier) and used, optionally with other query features, to identify combinations of human language and geographical region from a stored profile. In examples the stored profile is computed using data about documents available to an information retrieval system and data about past search behavior. In examples, different combinations of language and region are used to retrieve search results which are merged. For example, a query is translated into another language whilst preserving calculated intent features of the query.