Immersive 3D Environments and Multilinguality: Some Non-Intrusive and Dynamic e-learning-oriented Scenarios based on Textual Information

International audienceVirtual Worlds may become primary tools for learning many aspects of history, for acquiring new skills, for job assessment, and for many of our most cost-effective and productive forms of collaboration (Metaverse Roadmap Report, 2007). We will present some non-intrusive and dynamic e-learning based scenarios related to multilin- gual textual information within an immersive 3D environment. We refer to these scenarios as non-intrusive because they do not interrupt the user's activities within the immersive 3D en- vironment. Rather, they enrich his/her individual experience. Obviously, these scenarios need to be dynamic, because user interaction occurs mostly in real-time. In addition, these non- intrusive and dynamic e-learning-oriented scenarios exemplify how a standardized framework for textual multilingual support associated with an immersive 3D environment, may consid- erably change the way people usually deal with multilingual information and with language learning on the Internet. We would like to illustrate that, in the context of immersive 3D envi- ronments, dealing with multilinguality is more than just localization and real-time automatic translations. Finally, the analysis of these non-intrusive and dynamic e-learning based scenarios lead us to propose a general architecture allowing immersive 3D environments to deal with multilinguality in the most general and dynamic way possible

Standards for communication and E-learning in virtual worlds: The Multilingual-Assisted Chat Interface

International audienceMany of today's applications embed textual chat interfaces or work with multilingual textual information. The Multilingual Information Framework (MLIF) [ISO DIS 24616] is being designed in order to fulfill the multilingual needs of today's applications. Within our research activity for the MLIF standard, we developed the Multilingual-Assisted Chat Interface, which intends to help people communicate in virtual worlds with others who do not speak the same language and to offer new possibilities for learning foreign languages. By developing this application, we also wanted to show the advantages of using web services for externalizing computation: we used the same web service for two virtual worlds: Second Life and Solipsis. In this paper, we first propose a short analysis of social interactions and language learning in virtual worlds. Then, we describe in a technical way the features, architecture and development indications for the Multilingual-Assisted Chat Interface.De nos jours, beaucoup d'applications embarquent des interfaces de clavardage, ou fonctionnent avec des informations textuelles multilingues. MLIF (MultiLingual Information Framework) [ISO DIS 24616] est en cours de développement, dans le but de satisfaire les besoin des applications d'aujourd'hui. Dans le cadre de notre activité de recherche pour le standard MLIF, nous avons développé l'interface de clavardage avec assistance multilingue, qui a pour vocation d'aider les utilisateurs à communiquer, dans les mondes virtuels, avec d'autres utilisateurs qui ne parlent pas la même langue, et d'offir de nouvelles possibilités pour apprendre des langues étrangères. En développant cette application, nous voulions également montrer les avantages de l'utilisations de services web pour externaliser les calculs: nous avons utilisé le même service web pour deux mondes virtuels distincts: Second Life et Solipsis. Dans cet article, nous proposons d'abord une courte analyse des interactions sociales et de l'apprentissage des langues dans les mondes virtuels. Ensuite, nous décrivons techniquement les fonctionnalités, l'architecture, et des indications de développement pour l'interface de clavardage avec assistance multilingue

Multilingual Lexical Support for the SEMbySEM project.

International audienceIn this paper we describe how multilingual linguistic and lexical information is stored and accessed within the framework of the SEMbySEM project\footnote{SEMbySEM (\url{http://www.sembysem.org}) is a research project within the European ITEA2 programme (\url{http://www.itea2.org/}). It started June 2008 and will end December 2010.}. The SEMbySEM project is dedicated to defining tools and standards for the supervision and management of complex and dynamic systems by using a semantic abstract representation. To provide the project with multilingual linguistic and lexical information and in order to achieve an appropriate, flexible, reusable and accurate representation of this information we chose the Linguistic Information Repository representation \cite{NeOn08} model and adapted it to our needs. In this paper we discuss the rationale for this choice, describe its implementation and also the employment of other linguistic standards

A Chat Interface Using Standards for Communication and E-learning in Virtual Worlds

International audienceNowadays, many applications embed textual chat interfaces or work with multilingual textual information. The Multilingual-Assisted Chat Interfaceis an extension of the usual chat interfaces which aims at easing communication and language learning in virtual worlds. We developed it in the frame of the ITEA2 Metaverse1 Project [ITEA2 07016], using the Multilingual Information Framework (MLIF) [ISO DIS 24616]. MLIF is being designed in order to fulll the multilingual needs of today's applications. By developing the Multilingual-Assisted Chat Interface,we wanted to help people communicate in virtual worlds with others who do not speak the same language and to oer new possibilities for learning foreign languages. We also wanted to show the advantages of using web services for externalizing computation: we used the same web service for two virtual worlds: Second Life and Solipsis. First, we shortly analyze social interactions and language learning in virtual worlds. Then, we describe in a technical way the features, and the architecture of the Multilingual-Assisted Chat Interface. Finally, we give development indications for programming with virtual worlds

The GIVE-2 Nancy Generation Systems NA and NM

This paper presents the two instruction generation systems submitted by the team TALARIS at INRIA-Nancy to the GIVE-2 challenge 2010. The first system (NM) aims to provide high-level instructions by giving freedom to the user and relies on an extension of the Dale and Reiter’s incremental algorithm to generate the referring expressions. The second system (NA) uses a more constrained directive navigational strategy and relies on Reference Domain Theory (Denis, 2010) to generate a wide range of referring expressions including pronouns, ellipsis and alternative phrases. The results show that despite NA is more successful than NM, NM is considered a bit more enjoyable by the subjective assessment.

Enabling Multilingual Social Interactions and Fostering Language Learning in Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds are a new way for people to communicate, to meet and to socialize. They are now pushing the boundaries of multilingual communication. The need for multilingual support is increasing every day making virtual worlds a very good example of fields of development where applications supporting multilinguality are becoming an absolute necessity. In order to enhance interoperability between virtual worlds, applications and corpora, it is obvious that standards should come into place. This is the main goal of MLIF and, on a more global perspective, of the Metaverse1 project. In this paper, we study social interactions in virtual worlds, present some cues to facilitate them, and describe the empirical support that we developed for these theories. We also present a few methods for fostering language learning in virtual worlds, and we explain how we have implemented some of them

Tourism in Virtual Worlds: Means, Goals and Needs

Nowadays, tourism is a very important business area. Using virtual worlds technologies, as a new means of information for potential tourists is a challenge where the actual means, goals and needs still need to be exactly identified. Within the Metaverse1 project, Innovalia Spain (in association with other partners from the consortium) has developed a new island in Second Life, which represents the hot spots of Gran Canary. This is a starting point of developments about tourism in virtual worlds, and a part of the related research activity. The INRIA Talaris team in France has developed multilingual tools, which intend to make the tourist's experience in a virtual world even more interesting. This paper aims to analyze why and how virtual worlds may become an important way for touristic areas to promote their services. We will also present the first prototypes of the multilingual tools which we have incorporated in the virtual area. This work is partially supported by the ITEA2 Metaverse1 (www.metaverse1.org) Project

Surgical repair of an esophageal perforation after radiofrequency catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation

Recent reports have described the incidence of atrioesophageal fistulas (AEF), often resulting in death, from radiofrequency (RF) catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation (AF).1 Cases of esophageal perforation without concomitant AEF have not been described as extensively.1 The precise mechanisms leading to esophageal injury after catheter ablation without involvement of the left atrium are not fully understood. The surgical approach to treat esophageal perforation is strongly recommended.2 However, a unified surgical treatment approach has not yet been established. We describe a case of successful surgical repair of an esophageal perforation after ablation using surgical repair in combination with an omental wrap. Keywords: Atrial fibrillation, Radiofrequency catheter ablation, Surger