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 an input unit that inputs image data from a document; a detecting unit that detects a security information image, which indicates that the inputted image is a confidential image, from the inputted image data; a translating unit that translates the security information image detected by the detecting unit; and an outputting unit that outputs the translated image of the security information image.

Abstract: An image processing apparatus sequentially reduces a document, while changing the reduction factor step-by-step. Next, the image processing apparatus refers to the characters that constitute the document that has been reduced with the respective reduction factors, and specifies a reduction factor at which blank regions surrounded by line portions that express each character do not disappear. When an appropriate reduction factor is specified, the image processing apparatus specifies a resolution of the characters for that reduction factor, and converts the resolution of the document data to that specified resolution. Then, the image processing apparatus performs various processing for the document data whose resolution has been converted. Thus the resolution of document data is converted such that the document is reduced with a reduction factor suitable for computer processing.

Abstract: A translation device analyses image data that includes characters, to separate and extract a character region, and another region whose structural elements differ from those of the character region; recognizes characters in the region determined to be the character region; extracts a character string related to the other region, from a result of the character recognition, to associate the character string with the character region from which the character string is extracted and the other region; translates the resulting recognized characters; and, based on the association between the character string and the other character region, pastes the resulting translation that includes the character string onto the same page as the other region that is associated with the character string.

Abstract: The invention provides a document processing device that has a translation section that translates character data included in a designated area of a manuscript, and a replacing section that when the translated character data contains a reference term that refers to a target term that is not specified in the translated character data, replaces the reference term in the translated character data with a translation of the target term existing in an area of the manuscript other than the designated area.

Abstract: A translating device has: an input unit that inputs a document; a unit that specifies a target language; a unit that translates the inputted document into the translated document written in the target language; a memory that stores a set of condition data and advertisement data assigned to the condition data, or a set of a keyword and advertisement data assigned to the keyword; a unit that selects advertisement data from the memory, the advertisement data being assigned either to condition data or a keyword; a unit that determines an insertion location at which to insert the advertisement data selected by the data selection unit into the translated document, by taking into account a layout of the translated document; a unit that generates an output image of the translated document by inserting the advertisement data at the insertion location; and a unit that outputs the output image.

Abstract: The invention provides an image reading device comprising: an image reading section that reads an image from an input document and creates input image data; a specifying section that extracts a specific character string or a specific image from the input image data created by the image reading section; a database that stores specific character strings, and an access target for rewriting information, in association with one another; an updating section that rewrites the input image data using the data obtained from the access target specified by the specific character string or the specific image extracted by the specifying section, creating output image data; and an image output section that outputs the output image data created by the updating section.

Abstract: A translation system comprises an image reading unit that optically reads an image of a manuscript and generates image data; an inputting unit that inputs a translation target language; a character recognizing unit that generates an original text by performing a character recognition process on the image data generated by the image reading unit; a translation text database in which are associated and stored translation texts, language identifiers which specify the languages in which the translation texts are written, and document identifiers which specify the contents of the translation texts; an extracting unit that extracts the document identifier which specifies the content of the original text from the original text; a searching unit that searches the translation text database for a translation text associated with a document identifier identical to the document identifier extracted from the original text by the extracting unit and a language identifier identical to the language identifier which specifies

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 described above, the present invention also provides, in one aspect, a translation requesting device for translating a document having: a first replacing unit that replaces an original phrase to a substitute phrase; a translating unit that translates the substitute phrase; and a second replacing unit that replaces the original phrase to a translation phrase based on the translated substitute phrase, wherein the substitute phrase is decided to maintain semantic properties of the original phrase.

Abstract: A device for outputting translated document has a document input part that inputs document data to be translated; a translation part that translates the document data inputted by the document input part; an output destination specifying part that specifies an output destination of the translated document for each target language; and an output destination switching part that switches the output destination of the translated document data based on the output destination specified by the output destination specifying part.

Abstract: A document management apparatus and a document management system that selects the document which are best to digitize from among document being used in an office, and set the priority for digitization of each document are provided. The document management apparatus comprising: an accumulator apparatus that stores, the document ID, used place and used time for a document that is used; a computing part that analyzes information stored in accumulator apparatus, and for each document, computes the usability of the document data to be digitized; a specifying part that specifies document that correspond to document data for which the usability is relatively high by comparing it to the usability already computed for the data for each document; and output part that outputs the specified result to client.

Abstract: An image reading apparatus has a scan quality parameter extraction part, a scan quality evaluation part and a notification part. The scan quality parameter extraction part extracts scan quality parameters representing the quality of a scanned image from image data based on a scan error detection algorithm. The scan quality evaluation part determines whether a scan error occurs, based on the scan error detection algorithm and the scan quality parameters. Also, the notification part notifies a result determined by the scan quality evaluation part to a user.

Abstract: An experience-knowledge information processing apparatus that manages knowledge acquired from personal experiences so as to reuse the knowledge easily. Preferably, when information about knowledge acquired from a personal experience is inputted by a client, a server performs a process for associating the knowledge with an activity where the experience has been gained, and associating the knowledge with a knowledge creation process expressing a process for creating the knowledge on the basis of the description of the questionnaire. Thus, the knowledge information associated thus is accumulated in an experience-knowledge database. A two-dimensional table indicating the total number of pieces of knowledge with activities and knowledge creation processes in columns and rows, a knowledge propagation state graph, or the like, is displayed and outputted by a process of an experience-knowledge processing portion based on the information accumulated in the experience-knowledge database.