We combine techniques of XML Mining and Text Mining for the benefit of Information Retrieval. By manipulating the word sequence according to the XML structure of the marked-up text, we strengthen phrase boundaries so that they are more obvious to the algorithms that extract multiword sequences from text. Consequently, the quality of the indexed phrases improves, which has a positive effect on the average precision measured by the INEX 2007 standards.

XML retrieval is facing new challenges when applied to heterogeneous XML documents, where next to nothing about the document structure can be taken for granted. We have developed solutions where some of the heterogeneity issues are addressed. Our fragment selection algorithm selectively divides a heterogeneous document collection into equi-sized fragments with full-text content. If the content is considered too data-oriented, it is not accepted. The algorithm needs no information about element names. In addition, three techniques for fragment expansion are presented, all of which yield a 13--17% average improvement in average precision. These techniques and algorithms are among the first steps in developing document-type-independent indexing methods for the full text in heterogeneous XML collections.

Document assembly has turned out to be a convenient approach to corporate publishing and reuse of large collections of documents. Automated assembly of a document reduces the amount of human effort when creating customized documents consisting of document fragments from a collection.However, most methods used require a number of parameters to be defined prior to the assembly process, and providing these parameters in the correct format is seen to be too demanding for an average user. We have designed and implemented a graphical user interface that provides the user with a simple way to specify the parameters of the assembly process. The interface, which is dynamically generated based on a given document configuration, lets the user create and customize documents such as technical manuals.In our example assembly case, the user can select the product, the manual type, the language of the manual as well as the optional components to be included in the manual.