1. An information retrieval system, wherein the information retrieval system includes computing hardware which is operable to execute one or more software products recorded on machine-readable data storage media and is operable to: receive from a user device, a search query and a corresponding relevancy expectation score; search a database against the search query and generate a first list of one or more results, wherein each result of the first list has a numeric score associated therewith; transform the relevancy expectation score with a polynomial function, wherein the order of the polynomial function depends on the number of results in the first list; determine a volume regulation function by fitting a natural language specific distribution to the numeric scores of the one or more results of the first list; estimate a cut-off score from a transformed relevancy expectation score and total number of results in the first list, using the determined volume regulation function; and generate a filtered list based on the cut-off score, wherein the filtered list includes one or more results of the first list that have a numeric score greater than or equal to the cut-off score.
1. An information retrieval system, wherein the information retrieval system includes computing hardware which is operable to execute one or more software products recorded on machine-readable data storage media and is operable to: receive from a user device, a search query and a corresponding relevancy expectation score; search a database against the search query and generate a first list of one or more results, wherein each result of the first list has a numeric score associated therewith; transform the relevancy expectation score with a polynomial function, wherein the order of the polynomial function depends on the number of results in the first list; determine a volume regulation function by fitting a natural language specific distribution to the numeric scores of the one or more results of the first list; estimate a cut-off score from a transformed relevancy expectation score and total number of results in the first list, using the determined volume regulation function; and generate a filtered list based on the cut-off score, wherein the filtered list includes one or more results of the first list that have a numeric score greater than or equal to the cut-off score. 6. The information retrieval system as set forth in claim 1 , wherein the user device is implemented using at least one of: a personal computer, a laptop, a personal digital assistant, a tablet, a phablet, a webpad, a wearable computer, a mobile telephone, a wrist-worn computer, and a smart phone.