  Three approaches to content-and-structure XML retrieval are analysed in this
paper: first by using Zettair, a full-text information retrieval system; second
by using eXist, a native XML database, and third by using a hybrid XML
retrieval system that uses eXist to produce the final answers from likely
relevant articles retrieved by Zettair. INEX 2003 content-and-structure topics
can be classified in two categories: the first retrieving full articles as
final answers, and the second retrieving more specific elements within articles
as final answers. We show that for both topic categories our initial hybrid
system improves the retrieval effectiveness of a native XML database. For
ranking the final answer elements, we propose and evaluate a novel retrieval
model that utilises the structural relationships between the answer elements of
a native XML database and retrieves Coherent Retrieval Elements. The final
results of our experiments show that when the XML retrieval task focusses on
highly relevant elements our hybrid XML retrieval system with the Coherent
Retrieval Elements module is 1.8 times more effective than Zettair and 3 times
more effective than eXist, and yields an effective content-and-structure XML
retrieval.
