On the Relaxed Consecutive Retrieval Property in File Organization

Abstract

In the information retrieval systems, the consecutive retrieval property first defined by S.P. Ghosh is an important relation between a set of queries and a set of records. Its existence enables the design of the system with a minimal search time and no redundant storage. However, the consecutive retrieval property cannot exist between every arbitrary query set and every record set unless the duplication of records are allowed. We consider the file organization satisfying the relaxed consecutive retrieval property which tolerates both the loss of search time and the redundancy of records, and determine the relationships between these parameters by rate-distortion theoretic approach. The result indicates that it is worthwhile to search for algorithms that will generate the storage locations satisfying the relaxed consecutive retrieval property, when the system size becomes sufficiently large.