Selective Sampling for Example-based Word Sense Disambiguation

This paper proposes an efficient example sampling method for example-based word sense disambiguation systems. To construct a database of practical size, a considerable overhead for manual sense disambiguation (overhead for supervision) is required. In addition, the time complexity of searching a large-sized database poses a considerable problem (overhead for search). To counter these problems, our method selectively samples a smaller-sized effective subset from a given example set for use in word sense disambiguation. Our method is characterized by the reliance on the notion of training utility: the degree to which each example is informative for future example sampling when used for the training of the system. The system progressively collects examples by selecting those with greatest utility. The paper reports the effectiveness of our method through experiments on about one thousand sentences. Compared to experiments with other example sampling methods, our method reduced both the overhead for supervision and the overhead for search, without the degeneration of the performance of the system.Comment: 25 pages, 14 Postscript figure

Java API-Aware Code Generation Engine: A Prototype

Software reuse enhances a programmer\u27s productivity and reduces programming errors. Improving software reuse through libraries and frameworks is a vast problem area. This thesis offers an approach to solve two sub-problems within the problem area- to identify the right library components, and to offer code snippets that use the components correctly. The Java API-Aware Code Generation Engine, or JAGE for short, is a prototype system that demonstrates the feasibility of generating semantically valid code snippets consisting of method calls to classes in the J2SDK library. Developers often search for sample code snippets that describe how to use the library. This thesis describes the design and implementation of JAGE, which allows software developers to use an English sentence to generate helpful code snippets in Java. This thesis also discusses the related concepts in natural-language processing including ontology, Wordnet, and object-orientation in the area of automatic code snippet generation

Inducing translation templates with type constraints

This paper presents a generalization technique that induces translation templates from a given set of translation examples by replacing differing parts in the examples with typed variables. Since the type of each variable is inferred during the learning process, each induced template is also associated with a set of type constraints. The type constraints that are associated with a translation template restrict the usage of the translation template in certain contexts in order to avoid some of the wrong translations. The types of variables are induced using type lattices designed for both the source and target languages. The proposed generalization technique has been implemented as a part of an example-based machine translation system. © Springer Science+Business Media 2007

Idiom treatment experiments in machine translation

Idiomatic expressions pose a particular challenge for the today\u27;s Machine Translation systems, because their translation mostly does not result literally, but logically. The present dissertation shows, how with the help of a corpus, and morphosyntactic rules, such idiomatic expressions can be recognized and finally correctly translated. The work leads the reader in the first chapter generally to the field of Machine Translation and following that, it focuses on the special field of Example-based Machine Translation. Next, an important part of the doctoral thesis dissertation is devoted to the theory of idiomatic expressions. The practical part of the thesis describes how the hybrid Example-based Machine Translation system METIS-II, with the help of morphosyntactic rules, is able to correctly process certain idiomatic expressions and finally, to translate them. The following chapter deals with the function of the transfer system CAT2 and its handling of the idiomatic expressions. The last part of the thesis includes the evaluation of three commercial systems, namely SYSTRAN, T1 Langenscheidt, and Power Translator Pro, with respect to continuous and discontinuous idiomatic expressions. For this, both small corpora and a part of the extensive corpus Europarl and the Digital Lexicon of the German Language in 20th century were processed, firstly manually and then automatically. The dissertation concludes with results from this evaluation.Idiomatische Redewendungen stellen für heutige maschinelle Übersetzungssysteme eine besondere Herausforderung dar, da ihre Übersetzung nicht wörtlich, sondern stets sinngemäß erfolgen muss. Die vorliegende Dissertation zeigt, wie mit Hilfe eines Korpus sowie morphosyntaktischer Regeln solche idiomatische Redewendungen erkannt und am Ende richtig übersetzt werden können. Die Arbeit führt den Leser im ersten Kapitel allgemein in das Gebiet der Maschinellen Übersetzung ein und vertieft im Anschluss daran das Spezialgebiet der Beispielbasierten Maschinellen Übersetzung. Im Folgenden widmet sich ein wesentlicher Teil der Doktorarbeit der Theorie über idiomatische Redewendungen. Der praktische Teil der Arbeit beschreibt wie das hybride Beispielbasierte Maschinelle Übersetzungssystem METIS-II mit Hilfe von morphosyntaktischen Regeln befähigt wurde, bestimmte idiomatische Redewendungen korrekt zu bearbeiten und am Ende zu übersetzen. Das nachfolgende Kapitel behandelt die Funktion des Transfersystems CAT2 und dessen Umgang mit idiomatischen Wendungen. Der letzte Teil der Arbeit beinhaltet die Evaluation von drei kommerzielle Systemen, nämlich SYSTRAN, T1 Langenscheidt und Power Translator Pro, in Bezug auf deren Umgang mit kontinuierlichen und diskontinuierlichen idiomatischen Redewendungen. Hierzu wurden sowohl kleine Korpora als auch ein Teil des umfangreichen Korpus Europarl und des Digatalen Wörterbuchs der deutschen Sprache des 20. Jh. erst manuell und dann maschinell bearbeitet. Die Dissertation wird mit Folgerungen aus der Evaluation abgeschlossen