Relevance

Relevance is the concept of one topic being connected to another topic in a way that makes it useful to consider the first topic when considering the second. The concept of relevance is studied in many different fields, including cognitive sciences, logic, and library and information science. Most fundamentally, however, it is studied in epistemology (the theory of knowledge). Different theories of knowledge have different implications for what is considered relevant and these fundamental views have implications for all other fields as well.

Definition

"Something (A) is relevant to a task (T) if it increases the likelihood of accomplishing the goal (G), which is implied by T." (Hjørland & Sejer Christensen,2002).

A thing might be relevant, a document or a piece of information may be relevant. The basic understanding of relevance does not depend on whether we speak of "things" or "information". For example, the Gandhian principles are of great relevance in today's world.

Epistemology

Relevance (information retrieval)

In information science and information retrieval, relevance denote how well a retrieved document or set of documents meets the information need of the user. Relevance may include concerns such as timeliness, authority or novelty of the result.

History

The concern with the problem of finding relevant information dates back at least to the first publication of scientific journals in the 17th century.

The formal study of relevance began in the 20th Century with the study of what would later be called bibliometrics. In the 1930s and 1940s, S. C. Bradford used the term "relevant" to characterize articles relevant to a subject (cf., Bradford's law). In the 1950s, the first information retrieval systems emerged, and researchers noted the retrieval of irrelevant articles as a significant concern. In 1958, B. C. Vickery made the concept of relevance explicit in an address at the International Conference on Scientific Information.

Since 1958, information scientists have explored and debated definitions of relevance. A particular focus of the debate was the distinction between "relevance to a subject" or "topical relevance" and "user relevance".

Relevance (Person of Interest)

"Relevance" is the sixteenth episode of the second season of the American television drama series Person of Interest. It is the 39th overall episode of the series and is written by Amanda Segel and series creator Jonathan Nolan and directed by Nolan. It aired on CBS in the United States and on CTV in Canada on February 21, 2013.

The plot finds government operative Sameen Shaw (Sarah Shahi) who tracks and stops terrorist threats before they occur on the run and the focus of Finch and Reese's attention. Their pursuit proves to be formidable when they discover that her skill set rivals their own.

Plot