Tomohiro Shigenobu

Effects of undertaking translation repair using back translation

Translation repair plays an important role in intercultural communication that involves machine translation. It can be used to create messages that have very few translation mistakes. The accuracy of the results of translation repair when an original sentence is rewritten has not yet been evaluated. The improvement brought about by translation repair has to be demonstrated in order to apply translation repair to multilingual communication. Therefore, we have evaluated the translation repair of Japanese-English, Japanese-Chinese, and Japanese-Korean translations using back translation. We have used test sentences with a character count ranging from 15 to 32. On the basis of these evaluation experiments, we have estimated the accuracy and the cost of translation repair. (1) After nearly six rounds of translation repair work in three languages, the average translation accuracy of the sentences used in the experiment was improved (the meaning of the translated sentences was almost the same as that of the original sentences). In the experiment, 65% of the sentences were improved to the level of highly accurate. Moreover, 99% of the sentences were improved to the level of moderately accurate. 2) The cost of repairing a sentence depended on the number of translation-difficult words or phrases that were contained in the sentence. When the quality of a translation was low, finding the word or phrase to be modified was a difficult task. Thus, the cost corresponded to the quality of the translation.

Parallel-text based support system for intercultural communication at medical receptions

Differences in languages have to be bridged in order for intercultural communication to take place. Although the medical field requires highly accurate translations for promoting intercultural communication, the present level of support is insufficient. In this paper, we propose a system that uses parallel texts to support intercultural communication at hospital reception desks. Using parallel texts that have been translated accurately, the proposed system can provide this level of intercultural medical communication. We conducted an experiment to test the effectiveness of the system, which confirmed that it is possible to provide accurate intercultural communication using parallel texts. The experiment compared our system with the conventional system, which uses a printed list of parallel texts, and showed that the retrieval time of the proposed system is about the same as that of the conventional system.

Effects of Repair Support Agent for Accurate Multilingual Communication

Translation repair plays an important role in intercultural communication using machine translation. It can be used to create messages that have very few translation mistakes. However, translation repair is a laborious task. It is important to carry out translation repair efficiently. Therefore, we propose a repair support agent that provides the segments that have not been translated accurately. We perform experiments on the translation repair efficiency to evaluate the effectiveness of the repair support agent. The results of these experiments are as follows. (1) Providing inaccurately translated segments improves the ability to detect inaccurate segments. (2) The inaccurate-judgment rate can affect the improvement of the efficiency of translation repair.

Development of an intercultural collaboration system with semantic information share function

The Internet provides the opportunity to implement the real seamless communications over different geographic domains. However, when they cope with the network level challenges, they encounter the context and cultural level challenges. Therefore, we have developed Intercultural Collaboration System with Semantic Information Share Function. This system is a multilingual conferencing system. This system consists of three functions Spark2 for shared workspace, AnnoChat for chat communication tool and TalkGear2 for audio and video communication tool. The system has a semantic information share function and a translation function.

The role of annotation in intercultural communication

In intercultural communication, there are large barriers when the languages and the cultures are different. It is undoubtedly preferable for people to have smooth communications using their mother language. Therefore, we have developed a chat system called AnnoChat. AnnoChat has an annotation function for smooth intercultural communications. We applied AnnoChat in experiments with Japanese, Chinese, and Korean speakers. The results of the experiments showed that about 70% of the added annotations were reusable as intercultural knowledge information. About 20% of the added annotations were used to supplement information that could not be described while chatting. It is thought to be an effective example of applying annotation in intercultural communications.

EVALUATION AND APPLICATION OF CREATIVITY COLLABORATION SUPPORT SYSTEM GUNGEN DX II FOR CONSENSUS-BUILDING AMONG USERS

We have developed a creativity collaboration support system, called GUNGEN, which supports the KJ method. The KJ method is one of the popular idea generation methods in Japan, like brainstorming. This method consists of four steps: entering ideas, grouping ideas, structuring groups, and writing composition. We have used about one hundred idea labels in the experiments. Several hundred labels are optimal to improve the results of the KJ method. However, long time is necessary to group more labels. Therefore, we have developed GUNGEN DX II for several hundred labels. GUNGEN DX II has a special function to group labels easily and efficiently. The feature for grouping labels is to restrict time and to operate easily. The function generates islands from the common parts of each users groups automatically by majority decision. We have carried out the KJ method and compared it with the previous system. Even if the number of labels increased, the time required to group labels decreased by about 30%.

Idea Generation Support System GUNGEN DX II beyond Papers

We have developed a new idea generation support system, GUNGEN DX II. GUNGEN DX II supports the KJ method. GUNGEN DX II has two functions for handling a large number of ideas. The draft islands generating function supports the idea-grouping step of the KJ method. The function supports the grouping of many ideas intuitively by dropping an idea from the top of a window. The sentence convert func- tion supports the sentence-writing step of the KJ method. The function generates a sentence using island titles semi-automatically. We carried out the KJ method using 544, 287 and 58 ideas. The results of the exper- iments are shown below. (1)Students could perform all the steps of the KJ method using over 500 ideas in one day. (2)If there are draft islands, students may be able to group more than 500 ideas. (3)More time was required for writing a sentence using 544 ideas.

Groupware for a new idea generation with the semantic chat conversation data

The GUNGEN groupware for a new idea generation has been developed and applied to the KJ method with chat conversation data. First, Remote Wadaman V, which is a seminar system equipped with the semantic chat function, supports collecting the chat data as knowledge including explicit and implicit knowledge via cooperative interaction. The semantic chat function allows user to assert semantics corresponding to chat statements with one-selection interface. Next, KUSANAGI supports cooperative idea creation from the collected chat data leaded by the KJ method. The Remote Wadaman V with the semantic chat function has been applied to seminar over half year. The availability of chat data as an ideal label for an idea generation method was investigated.

A Proposal of Knowledge Creative Groupware for Seamless Knowledge

The GUNGEN groupware for the knowledge creation is proposed referred to two methodology; they are KJ method that applies to an idea generation and SECI model as creativity process. The groupware consists of two systems with collaboration technology; a system named Remote Wadaman III supports collecting the log data as implicit knowledge behind cooperative work and other named KUSANAGI supports cooperative idea creation from the collected data leaded by the KJ method. We assumed that the carriage of the KJ method with the groupware supports inter-translation between explicit knowledge and implicit knowledge, as to realize seamless knowledge over SECI model.

Development and Evaluation of an Intercultural Synchronous Collaboration System

The Internet provides the opportunity to implement the real seamless communications over different geographic domains. However, when they cope with the network level challenges, they encounter the context and cultural level challenges. Therefore, we have developed an intercultural synchronous collaboration system, called RemoteWadaman III. RemoteWadaman III is a multilingual video conferencing system. The system has a chat tool with pictographic characters and a translation function. We applied this system to the collaboration between Japanese and Chinese people. From the experiments we evaluate the chat function with pictographic characters, the shared document function, the shared whiteboard function, and the voice and video communication function in the intercultural real-time collaboration.