Table 2

Tuning a search engine to attain two different scenarios of retrieval.

Scenario 1. Query with specificity of 99.99% is insufficient for a database of 16 million records.



The truth




relevant records
irrelevant records


search engine
records returned to user
495
1,600
2,095

records eliminated
5
15,997,900




500
15,999,500
16,000,000

odds ratio
1,000,000.00



Specificity
99.99%



sensitivity (recall)
99.01%



Precision
23.63%




Scenario 2. The price for a very high specificity: Missing a large number of relevant records.



The truth




relevant records
irrelevant records


search engine
records returned to user
250
16
266

records eliminated
250
15,999,484




500
15,999,500
16,000,000

odds ratio
1,000,000.00



Specificity
99.9999%



sensitivity (recall)
50.00%



Precision
93.99%




Siadaty et al. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 2007 7:1   doi:10.1186/1472-6947-7-1