Abstract: A question answering system includes a question sentence analyzing unit, a question keyword identifying unit, a passage acquiring unit and an answer generating unit. The question sentence analyzing unit determines whether or not an input question sentence is an ambiguous question. The question keyword identifying unit extracts a question keyword from the input question sentence. The passage acquiring unit executes a search process to which the question keyword is applied. The answer generating unit generates answers in a form of a list of predicates extracted correspondingly to the question keyword, based on passages acquired by the passage acquiring unit.

Abstract: A question answering system includes an answer candidate extraction unit, a query generation unit, a passage search unit, an answer candidate inspection unit and an answer output unit. The answer candidate extraction unit executes a search process based on an input question to extract a plurality of initial answer candidates. The query generation unit generates a query including at least two of the initial answer candidates as search words. The passage search unit executes a search process based on the query to extract a hit sentence corresponding to the query. The answer candidate inspection unit analyzes the hit sentence to inspect a relationship between the initial answer candidates and generates answer candidates to the input question on a basis of an inspection result. The answer output unit outputs the answer candidates generated by the answer candidate inspection unit.

Abstract: A question answering system includes a question input unit input to a question, a search unit, an anaphoric analysis unit, an information extraction unit and an answer candidate extraction unit. The search unit executes search processing based on the input question. The anaphoric analysis unit executes anaphoric analysis processing on a search result. The information extraction unit extracts sentences, which include expressions having a reference relation therebetween, as reference relation sentences, the reference relation determined by finding relation in an expressions of at least one of a noun phrase, a pronoun, and a zero pronoun between sentences in the search result on a basis of a result of the anaphoric analysis; selects a first candidate sentence from a passage obtained as the search result; and selects a second candidate sentence, which is the reference relation sentence of the first candidate sentence. The answer candidate extraction unit extracts an answer candidate.

Abstract: A question answering system includes a question answering unit, an analysis unit, a tree structure generation unit, a feature extraction unit, an evaluation unit and a re-ranking unit. The question answering unit executes search processing based on an input question and acquires answer candidates to the question. The analysis unit executes syntactic analysis processing or syntactic and semantic analysis processing on a passage obtained as a result of the search processing. The tree structure generation unit generates a tree structure based on an analysis result. The feature extraction unit extracts a relation between a search word applied in the search processing and each acquired answer candidate as a feature corresponding to each answer candidate from the tree structure. The evaluation unit determines an evaluation value of each answer candidate based on the feature extracted. The re-ranking unit re-ranks the answer candidates based on the evaluation values.

Abstract: A question answering system includes a question input unit, a search unit, an answer candidate extraction unit, an answer candidate inspection unit and an answer output unit. The search unit executes search processing based on an input question. The answer candidate extraction unit extracts an initial answer candidate based on a result of the search processing. The answer candidate inspection unit inspects the initial answer candidate. The answer candidate inspection unit executes search processing with using a query including the initial answer candidate. The answer candidate inspection unit determines whether each word of a sentence obtained as a result of the search processing has a similar lexical meaning to that of each word of the input question. The answer candidate inspection unit selects an initial answer candidate contained in a query determined to have the similar lexical meaning, as a secondary answer candidate.

Abstract: A translation device has a dictionary that stores a set of words and their corresponding meanings in plural languages; an input unit that inputs a document; a recognizing unit that recognizes text in the inputted document; an analyzing unit that devides the text recognized by the recognizing unit into words; a translating unit that translates each of the words obtained by the analyzing unit into a translated term by using the dictionary; and an output unit that outputs an output image containing the translated term for a key word.

Abstract: The invention provides an electronic device that has an identification unit that performs character recognition processing on image data representing a text written in a first language and identifies candidate character strings representing results of the character recognition processing for each of structural units of the text, a decision unit that decides whether a second language selected by a user is different from the first language, a presentation unit that presents translations of the candidate character strings in the second language for each of structural units for which plural candidate character strings are identified when the first language and the second language are different, and a selection unit that allows the user to select a single translation from the translations presented by the presentation unit.

Abstract: A translation device for translating a document has an image analysis unit and a translation unit. The image analysis unit determines a word and an abbreviation of the word. The translation unit translates the word and generates a new abbreviation based on the translated word.

Abstract: A translation device comprises a character recognition unit that recognizes text data in a text region of an input image; a translator that translates the text data in the text region; and a layout configuration processor that generates data containing the translated text data in the text region and graphics in the input image, wherein a layout of the input image is maintained in a layout of the image of the data generated by the layout configuration processor.

Abstract: The present invention provides a translation memory system including: a memory which stores plural pairs of a natural language sentence written in a first language and an interlingua representation of the natural language sentence; an analysis unit which performs a syntactic and semantic analysis on a natural language sentence written in a second language and translates the natural language sentence into an interlingua representation on the basis of the analysis result; a search unit which searches the memory to identify an interlingua representation which corresponds to or has a predetermined level of similarity to the interlingua representation obtained by the analysis unit, and which extracts a natural language sentence written in the first language paired with the identified interlingua representation; and an output unit which outputs the natural language sentence extracted by the search unit as a translation result.

Abstract: A question answering system includes a question dividing unit, a question answering unit, and an answer determination unit. The question dividing unit applies a predetermined question dividing rule to an input question, to divide the input question into sub-questions. The question answering unit acquires answer candidates corresponding to the sub-questions generated by the question dividing unit, together with certainty values serving as reliability indexes. The answer determination unit selects an answer to the input question from among the answer candidates acquired by the question answering unit.

Abstract: According to an aspect of the present invention, a language processing device has a text input section and an anaphora analysis section. The text input section acquires text data. The anaphora analysis section analyzes whether a correct anaphora relation is included in the text data acquired by the text input section. The correct anaphora relation has an anaphor and an antecedent corresponding to the anaphor.

Abstract: A question answering system includes a similar-question generation unit, a first search unit, a second search unit, and an answer selection unit. The similar-question generation unit selects a feature word from an input question to generate a transformational question in which the feature word is replaced with another word. The first search unit executes a first search process based on the transformational question. The second search unit selects a word included in a first search result acquired as an extension word and executes a second search process with using the selected extension word. The answer selection unit analyzes a correspondence relation among extension words included in a second search result, determines the feature word and a constructive part of an answer equivalent word in the second search result based on an analysis result, and selects a word determined to be an answer.

Abstract: A question answering system includes a question-sentence analysis unit, a search unit, an answer-candidate extraction unit, a check-expression generation unit, a check-expression search unit and an answer-candidate correction unit. The question-sentence analysis unit extracts a keyword applied to a search process from an input question sentence. The search unit executes the search process with using the extracted keyword. The answer-candidate extraction unit extracts answer candidates for the input question sentence based on a search result. The check-expression generation unit analyzes the input question sentence to generate a check expression concatenating an analysis result and the extracted answer candidates. The check-expression search unit executes a search process based on the generated check expression. The answer-candidate correction unit selects an output answer to the input question from among answer the candidates based on a search result.

Abstract: As a retrieval result, appropriate text of a second language is provided in response to a retrieval request by text of a first language. A first directory storing part stores a first directory structure created for a first language. A second directory storing part stores a second directory structure created for a second language. A directory relation storing part stores correspondences between directories in the first directory structure and directories in the second directory structure. A directory retrieval part receives a retrieval request by the first language from a user and decides which directory in the first directory structure the request has a high degree of relation with. A multilingual retrieval part decides documents having a high degree of relation with the retrieval request, of documents belonging to a directory in the second directory structure that corresponds to the decided directory.

Abstract: The invention provides a document processing device including: a memory that stores syntax data expressing syntax of character strings whose probability of being a title of a document is high or-character strings whose probability of being a title of a document is low; an input unit that inputs document data obtained by digitizing a document; an extraction unit that analyzes the input document data and extracts character string data expressing character strings; a syntax analyzing unit that analyzes the extracted character string data and specifies the syntax of each character string contained in the document corresponding to the document data; and a specifying unit that specifies, from among the extracted character string data, character string data expressing a title of the document corresponding to the document data, based on results of specification by the syntax analyzing unit and content stored in the memory.

Abstract: The present invention provides a document processing device including: an inputting unit that inputs page image data corresponding to images of pages of a document; an extracting unit that analyzes the page image data input by the inputting unit, specifies the content of each item contained in the document corresponding to that page image data, and extracts item data, the item data being character strings expressing that content; a generating unit that links the item data extracted by the extracting unit and generates name data, the name data being a character string expressing a name to be attached to the document; and a writing unit that associates the name data generated by the generating unit with the page image data input by the inputting unit and writes the name data and the page image data to a memory.

Abstract: The present invention provides a document processing device including: a specifying unit that specifies character strings which have a common property across documents, from among character strings included in plural documents which are represented by plural corresponding document data; and a rewriting unit that rewrites, among the character strings specified by the specifying unit, character strings expressed in formats different from a defined format to character strings expressed in the defined format.

Abstract: The present invention provides a document processing device including: a general feature vector memory that stores feature vectors of a shape for each of plural characters; an input unit that optically reads in a document; a extracting unit that extracts feature vectors from the shapes of characters in a document read in by the input unit; a general shape recognition unit that estimates a character for which the feature vectors of its shape extracted by the extracting unit, based on the feature vectors extracted by the extracting unit and the content stored in the general feature vector memory; and a specific feature vector memory that stores the feature vectors extracted by the extracting unit in association with an estimation result of the general shape recognition unit.

Abstract: In the learning apparatus, a memory stores a dictionary in an updatable manner, and an inputting means inputs data when an instruction is input by a user. An outputting part processes the data inputted through the inputting part by using the dictionary stored in the memory, and outputs the result of the processing. An identifier receiver obtains an identifier of the user or a group to which the user belongs. An updating means updates the dictionary only when the identifier obtained by the identifier receiver is pre-registered in the memory.