Abstract: A method and apparatus is provided to simulate a system that is modelled by object frames which describe information on the events to be processed by the system, and a root frame that contains information on the conditions and times of the simulation. The first step is to search for an (accidental simultaneous state-events) object, which causes an event at the time prescribed by the root frame, by sequentially referring to the scheduled occurrence times of the events so as to execute simulation of the object, the second step is to list the events (intentional simultaneous state-events), which simultaneously occur with the searched-for object, referring to a simultaneous state-events rule, so as to execute simulation of an object causing the event, and the first and the second steps are repeatedly executed until completion of the simulation time, by updating the time of the root frame when processing of both steps is complete for all objects searched for in the first step.

Abstract: A Japanese language sentence containing a word not registered in an electronic dictionary is divided by following a series of predetermined rules. When more than one division of such a sentence is possible, an evaluation is made in order to determine the best division of the sentence containing a word not registered in the dictionary.