Ichiro Kobayashi

A model of rhetorical structure analysis of Japanese instructional texts and its application to a smart help system

The purpose of this paper is to propose an algorithm of rhetorical structure analysis of Japanese texts with special reference to wordprocessor help texts, which is to be realized in an interactive help system. The model of the rhetorical structure analysis presented in this paper is applicable to 25 texts (118 sentences) extracted from in the help texts accompanying Microsoft Word 2000. Also, several ways of utilizing the rhetorical structure of the help texts in information retrieval and text planning in the course of interaction with the user are proposed, so that it is possible to bring the computer closer to the people and make effective use of the existing resources.

Everyday language help system based on software manual

This paper presents a method for providing an everyday language smart help using an application software manual. This system takes three phases in the process: understanding of a users input, matching the result of understanding with manual texts of application software, and paraphrasing the matched texts to output for the user. We focus on the output phase, in which a manual text matched in the matching phase is paraphrased using the analysis result in the understanding phase. Four paraphrasing methods for a novice user are identified by a subject experiment, and rules for these methods are applied in respect to the linguistic features extracted in the understanding phase. An example scenario is shown, and the applied rules and their effects are discussed.

An approach to a dynamic system simulation based on human information processing

As we know that human intellectual activities are performed by the use of language; a human being thinks and reasons with language. In this paper, we propose a new simulation method which imitates human information processing based on the use of language. -An ordinary simulation method uses mathematical equations to estimate the future trends of a dynamic system, however, we propose a new simulation method which uses a model consists of natural language, which is called a linguistic model. A linguistic model does not have a fixed structure, but the structure of the model itself will be generated so that the model should become the most appropriate model to estimate the future behavior of a dynamic system. We regard that human intellectual activities such as thinking, reasoning, etc. are also texts realized by context as well as a linguistic text is done by context. We show a human linguistic reasoning model generation with an example of forecast of foreign exchange rate (FER) changes.

A study on meaning processing of dialogue with an example of development of travel consultation system

Abstract This paper describes an approach to processing meaning instead of processing information in computing. Human intellectual activity is supported by linguistic activities in the brain. Therefore, processing the meaning of language instead of processing information should be able to lead us to realize human intelligence on a computer. As an example of proposed framework for processing meaning, we build a travel consultation dialogue system which can understand utterance by a user and retrieve information through dialogue. Through a simulation example of the system, we show that both information processing and language processing are integrated into one processing.

A Study on Text Generation from Non-verbal Information on 2D Charts

This paper describes a text generation method to explain non-verbal information with verbal information, i.e., natural language. We use as non-verbal information, two dimensional numerical information, is explained its behavior with natural language. To bridge the gap between non-verbal information and verbal information, I apply fuzzy sets theory to translate quantitative information into qualitative information. The proposed method is verified by showing the generation process of some example texts which explain the behavior of a line chart.

Toward text based information processing: with an example of natural language modeling of a line chart

In order to achieve intellectual information processing on a computer as human beings do in their brain, we have to focus on the work of language in human intellectual activities such as thinking and reasoning. Language has lots of good characteristics as an information medium, for example, language can aggregate various kinds of information, can represent different kinds of modalities, and so on. In the paper, as an example of that, we consider how we can transfer non-verbal information to verbal information by showing a line chart which shows how the behavior of the foreign exchange rate changes is explained with natural language.

An approach to everyday language computing: An application to forecast of atmospheric pressure distribution

This paper discusses an application of the idea of everyday language computing (Kobayashi and Sugeno, Proc. 12th Fuzzy Syst. Symp., 1996, pp. 63–66; Kobayashi and Sugeno, Proc. Breakthrough Opportunities for Fuzzy Logic, 1996, pp. 89–94), and explains that the organization of human intelligence takes the same form as that of the linguistic system. We introduce fuzziness into describing knowledge so that it becomes flexible and appropriate for the changing situations. As an example, we apply our method to the forecast of atmospheric pressure distribution (FAPD).

Toward a computational environment for everyday language communication

The aim of the study is to provide all people, from small children to aged persons, with a computational environment for everyday language communication. In order to achieve this, we propose a framework for a language operating systems. The authors explain their approach to dealing with the meaning of language, the architecture of the language operating system and its components. In particular, they describe the notion of language protocol and its resource representation (i.e., semiotic base), compared to the other protocols and their resource representations. The authors argue that by processing the meaning of language rather than processing information, they attempt to provide a more humanlike computer system and an intelligent computational environment to all people.

Language protocol for everyday language computing

The aim of this study is to develop a new communication protocol which has the same characteristics of natural language in terms of providing flexible communication. In this paper, we describe how natural language-based protocol is developed as a computer communication protocol and the mechanism of the communication.

A model of rhetorical structure analysis of Japanese texts and its application to intelligent text processing: a case for a smart help system

The purpose of this paper is to propose an algorithm of rhetorical structure analysis of Japanese instructional texts with special reference to wordprocessor help texts and ways of utilizing the rhetorical structure of the help texts in the course of providing the response to the user so that we can bring the computer closer to the people and make effective use of the existing resources.