You can always search for keywords only. Or, you can
choose to imaginatively access the information by looking
for the idea, which is abstract rather than concrete.
This is also known as a "concept search". This is also
the same as turning the Inference Engine on.
SmoothSearch or Concept expansion (or Inference Engine or Imaginative Access)
may be turned on or off by default in a
database. This is shown sometimes by a Concept button or checkbox,
or sometimes shown by a button or checkbox which lets you turn on or off
the SmoothSearch or Imaginative Access capability, or by a button or checkbox
that allows you to turn on the Inference Engine.
You can turn this function on by clicking the button
on, or precede a word or phrase within your query with a '~'
(tilde) character to expand its meaning. If the
button is already checked on, you can click it off, or selectively turn it off
on a particular word with the '~' (tilde).
The search software has an editable vocabulary of over 250,000 word
and phrase associations. Each entry is generally classifiable by
either its meaning or part of speech.
The general theory behind our concept search is that in any
communication the exact choice of word usage may vary between authors,
but the underlying meaning is carried by overlapping domains of
commonly shared vocabulary. To compensate for the differing
vocabulary between an author and a searcher of the document our
software looks for all of the possible combinations of intersecting
meanings that are present in the search request.
A good example of this is the intersection of bear and arms
. Individually the words have a greatly diverse set of meanings, but
together they have only the "carrying weapons" meaning.