The Design and Implementation of a Legal Text Database.docVIP

!--Converted with LaTeX2HTML 97.1 (release) (July 13th, 1997) by Nikos Drakos (nikos@cbl.leeds.ac.uk), CBLU, University of Leeds * revised and updated by: Marcus Hennecke, Ross Moore, Herb Swan * with significant contributions from: Jens Lippman, Marek Rouchal, Martin Wilck and others --!-- BEGIN DDS-AUTOHEAD -- http://kerkis.math.aegean.gr/~dspin/pubs/conf/1994-DEXA-Dikaio/html/dexa.htmlThis is an HTML rendering of a working paper draft that led to a publication. The publication should always be cited in preference to this draft using the following reference: Diomidis Spinellis. The design and implementation of a legal text database. In Dimitris Karagiannis, editor, DEXA 94: 5th International Conference on Database and Expert Systems Applications, pages 339-348, Athens, Greece, September 1994. Springer-Verlag. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 856. This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each authors copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder. Diomidis Spinellis Publications !-- END DDS-AUTOHEAD -- The Design and Implementation of a Legal Text Database Diomidis SpinellisSENA S.A. Kyprou 27 GR-152 37 Filothei Greece Abstract: We describe the design and implementation of a legal text database. The database of provides a number of Greek Council of State decisions in the form of a computer-accessible medium (CD-ROM). A graphical front-end is provided which allows the rapid retrieval of cases based on arbitrary keywords combined using boolean operators. The database was populated by automatically converting the word-processor files into a random text retrieval data structure. The system has been designed and implemented with goals of wide availability