笹嶋 宗彦

For the improvement of usability of mobile internet services for mobile handsets based on the semantic web technology, one of promising ways is to realize task-oriented menu system which enables users search for mobile internet services by "what they want to do", not by "name of the category". To realize such task-oriented menu system, this paper proposes a task ontology-based modeling method which supports the description of users' activity and related knowledge such as how to solve problems that occurs on the users, prevention method for accidents, and so on. Models described by our method contribute to checking, designing and improving mobile internet services for mobile handsets.

異言語間コミュニケーションを支援するための新しいツールを提案する．従来の電子辞書などはユーザの意思表示を支援するが，それに対する相手回答の理解を支援できていない．提案方式はユーザが相手に伝えたい文を類似文選択方式で日本語入力すると，その対訳とその文に回答するための手段である回答画面を付加して表示する．ユーザは相手言語を聞き取れなくても回答を予測し理解できるため，コミュニケーションが成立する．提案方式に基づいて試作機を作成しグループインタビューによる評価を行った結果，提案方式が異言語間コミュニケーション支援に貢献することが明らかになった．This paper introduces Global Communicator, a new tool for supporting multi-lingual communication between different language speakers. Conventional tools such as electronic dictionaries enable users to express basic intentions to others, but are often insufficient to help understand replies. The input of a Japanese sentence in the Global Communicator not only produces a translation of the input sentences but also displays a window featuring possible answers. The authors have evaluated the function of a prototype system which resulted in a thorough understanding of the merits and short comings of the Global Communicator.

This paper introduces a new tool for supporting multilingual communication between speakers of different languages. Conventional tools such as electronic dictionaries enable users to communicate basic intentions to others, but are often insufficient to help understand replies. The input of a Japanese sentence in the proposed tool not only produces a translation of the sentences but also displays a window featuring possible answers. The authors have evaluated the function of a prototype system which resulted in a thorough understanding of the merits and comings of the proposed tool.

In this paper, we propose BTH, a parsing algorithm which is able to efficiently parse keyword lattice that contains large number of false candidates. In BTH, the grammar is written in template form, and then, it is compiled into a hash table. BTH analyzes the lattice without unfolding to keyword sequences, by propagating acceptable templates among the linked keywords and filtering through the hash table in each keywords. It has a time bound proportional to n 2 (where n is the number of keywords in the lattice), although the number of false candidates increases exponentially. Simulation results shows that BTH can parse lattice which contains over 100 billion false candidates within 0.35 sec, with grammar which is corresponding to 2 million of templates, on a notebook-PC(PentiumII 266MHz).

This research is concerned with causal understanding and qualitative reasoning of behavior of physical systems, which are crucial issues of model-based problem solving. In this paper, we describe a domain ontology of fluid systems and an ontology of time for generating causal ordering in terms of components. Our ontology design has been done according to the following three criteria : cognitive causal explanations in terms of components, reusability of components and disambiguation of reasoning results. We discuss in-depth requirements for domain ontologies and propose a causal specification scheme to represent component's local causal properties and an ontology of time to enable intuitive causal ordering of complex behavior originated in the combination of components. We identify causality of fluid systems following the requirements and describe reusable models of crucial components of plants and general properties of fluid and heat for deriving global knowledge. A method of qualitative reasoning and causal ordering is discussed together with its capability and mechanism. The ontologies have been successfully applied to nuclear power plant modeling and its qualitative simulation. Reasoning results matched those obtained by domain experts.

Model-based expert systems are expected to contribute to overcoming the difficulties of conventional rule-based systems. This paper describes the modeling of mechanical systems and a method of qualitative reasoning based on causal specifications. The causal specifications represent a component's local causal properties, following the principles for reusability and composability. it contributes to providing intuitive causal ordering of complex behavior originated in the combination of components, including inter-component negative feedback. A model of a system is represented by combining a set of local component models and global knowledge derived from general properties of the physical entity. This allows for reusable knowledge which is easy to describe. Furthermore, the method has been successfully applied to a nuclear power plant. Reasoning results were unambiguous and matched those obtained by domain experts. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd

Although a lot of researchers have pointed out the significance of functional representation, the general relations between function and behavior are not yet fully understood. We consider the knowledge of each component in a system as consisting of two elements. One is a necessary and sufficient concept for simulation of the component which we call the behavior model. The other is the interpretation of the behavior under a desirable state which the component is expected to achieve, which we call function. By classification of the primitives necessary for the interpretation of the behavior in various domains, which we call ''domain ontology'', we can capture and represent the function by selection and combination of the primitives. This paper proposes FBRL, a new language for representing behavior and function by combining the primitive we identified. Also we investigate the relation between function and behavior based on the primitives. As the primitives can represent concepts at various levels of abstraction, they will contribute to those task which rely on the simulations on the model of the target object, such as diagnosis, design, explanation and so on. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd