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Main Authors: Gao, Yingqiang, Winiger, Fabian, Montjourides, Patrick, Shaitarova, Anastassia, Gu, Nianlong, Peng-Keller, Simon, Schneider, Gerold
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.04395
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author Gao, Yingqiang
Winiger, Fabian
Montjourides, Patrick
Shaitarova, Anastassia
Gu, Nianlong
Peng-Keller, Simon
Schneider, Gerold
author_facet Gao, Yingqiang
Winiger, Fabian
Montjourides, Patrick
Shaitarova, Anastassia
Gu, Nianlong
Peng-Keller, Simon
Schneider, Gerold
contents Religion and spirituality (R/S) are complex and highly domain-dependent concepts which have long confounded researchers and policymakers. Due to their context-specificity, R/S are difficult to operationalize in conventional archival search strategies, particularly when datasets are very large, poorly accessible, and marked by information noise. As a result, considerable time investments and specialist knowledge is often needed to extract actionable insights related to R/S from general archival sources, increasing reliance on published literature and manual desk reviews. To address this challenge, we present SpiritRAG, an interactive Question Answering (Q&A) system based on Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). Built using 7,500 United Nations (UN) resolution documents related to R/S in the domains of health and education, SpiritRAG allows researchers and policymakers to conduct complex, context-sensitive database searches of very large datasets using an easily accessible, chat-based web interface. SpiritRAG is lightweight to deploy and leverages both UN documents and user provided documents as source material. A pilot test and evaluation with domain experts on 100 manually composed questions demonstrates the practical value and usefulness of SpiritRAG.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_04395
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle SpiritRAG: A Q&A System for Religion and Spirituality in the United Nations Archive
Gao, Yingqiang
Winiger, Fabian
Montjourides, Patrick
Shaitarova, Anastassia
Gu, Nianlong
Peng-Keller, Simon
Schneider, Gerold
Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Religion and spirituality (R/S) are complex and highly domain-dependent concepts which have long confounded researchers and policymakers. Due to their context-specificity, R/S are difficult to operationalize in conventional archival search strategies, particularly when datasets are very large, poorly accessible, and marked by information noise. As a result, considerable time investments and specialist knowledge is often needed to extract actionable insights related to R/S from general archival sources, increasing reliance on published literature and manual desk reviews. To address this challenge, we present SpiritRAG, an interactive Question Answering (Q&A) system based on Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). Built using 7,500 United Nations (UN) resolution documents related to R/S in the domains of health and education, SpiritRAG allows researchers and policymakers to conduct complex, context-sensitive database searches of very large datasets using an easily accessible, chat-based web interface. SpiritRAG is lightweight to deploy and leverages both UN documents and user provided documents as source material. A pilot test and evaluation with domain experts on 100 manually composed questions demonstrates the practical value and usefulness of SpiritRAG.
title SpiritRAG: A Q&A System for Religion and Spirituality in the United Nations Archive
topic Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.04395