A multi-level matching method with hybrid similarity for document retrieval

► We propose a multi-level-structured representation to express more semantic information of a document. ► A multi-level matching method incorporate with EMD distance solved by linear programming is introduced. ► A hybrid similarity including the global and local information is used to enhance the retrieval accuracy. ► Experimental results corroborate that our proposed method works well for lengthy documents. ► Our proposed two-step retrieval system can serve as a general and computationally efficient solution to DR.