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TranSphere
Machine Translation for
the Sphere |
Concept
Machine Translation is the use of computer software to
translate text from one natural language into another. This definition accounts for the
grammatical structure of each language and uses rules and assumptions to transfer the
grammatical structure of the source language (text to be translated) into the target
language (translated text).
TranSphere was developed after several years of extensive linguistic
research in the US, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Its technology reaches beyond simple
rudimentary translations, which have been close to mere word replacement, but rather
towards real life, high volume, industrial and commercial applications.
TranSpheres state-of-the-art computational linguistic technology supports
Arabic, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Persian\Dari, Pashtu and Turkish with English. Also
AppTek provides a line of European languages pairs: German, Spanish, French, Italian,
Russian and Portuguese with English.
Components
There are two components for the MT
system: an engine which processes the translation, and an environment which allows a user
to submit text for translation, receive the results, and manipulate the text before and
after the translation. This environment is compatible with a stand-alone MT workstation,
Client/Server architecture and Web-based solutions. TranSphere also supports MS
Office, MS IE and includes an API for Third party integration.
The client/server solution provides greater flexibility than a stand-alone
workstation. The client environment can be ported to multiple platforms without impacting
the server application. This provides the capability to tailor the user environment to a
particular platform, using all of the commercially available products and tools that are
inherent to that platform. Servers can be Windows NT, UNIX, SUN, SCO, LINUX, etc.
Since an MT engine is both CPU and memory intensive, the selection of a
hardware platform should focus on disk, memory, CPU performance; expandability; commercial
availability and in-country support. The platform should also have the capability to
support multiple processors to provide increased performance. Requirements for the client
platform are much less stringent. Any standard desktop platform, which supports a windowed
environment, is suitable.
Approach
TranSphere has been
designed and implemented by utilizing natural language high-level linguistic programming
tools in the Lexical Functional Grammar paradigm. The programming language has been used
to create data tables containing linguistic symbol definitions, lexical entries,
linguistic rules (for analysis, transfer, and generation), and other control tables, which
are then compiled into the file system. The high-level programming language is compiled
using the ANSI C programming language, which provides a robust and powerful tool for the
computational linguist to focus efforts on MT development while providing maximum
portability across various platforms and operating systems. The system provides integrated
hardware and software solutions that will:
Analyze semantic, morphological and syntactic structures
and produce the output translation.
Function as a fully automated Machine Translation system.
Utilize a general-purpose lexicon.
Access special domains micro-dictionaries pertaining to such domains as Computer,
Aviation, Military, Telecommunications, Economics, Diplomacy, Nuclear, Drug, Chemical, Law
Enforcement and Business.
Provide users with options to define the stacking of those dictionaries.
Support a workstation based solution with a client-server architecture.
Support a Vocabulary Search Utility to identify words not in the systems dictionaries.
Support a Dictionary Maintenance Utility to add users own defined words.
Produce Latin-character-dropped -words for those unfound in dictionary.
Interface with a Text Management System.
Interface with an OCR and a spell checker.
Interface with an ASR and TTS to produce Speech -to-Speech Machine Translation.
These tools can be modules in an integrated translation and editing environment compatible
with existing platforms, email and office applications. They are part of the overall
environment in the English source as well as the telecommunication needs of a bilingual
translation, editing and electronic publishing in a global multi-site organization. The
issues pertaining to the timeliness, quality of translated content and the productivity of
the translation and editing teams will be optimally enhanced with the use of MT.
Features
Capacity and Speed
A human translator can translate about 2,000 to 3,000 words a day. TranSphere
translates thousands of words per minute.
Cost
Human translation costs anywhere from US $ 20 cents
to US $ 60 cents per word. TranSphere pays for itself within the first year of use.
Legacy Data
TranSphere allows for the re-use and storage
of previously translated documentation, in whole or in part utilizing a statistical module
Translation Memory.
End-user
Products
TranSphere is available in several
versions.
Standalone
Client /Server
Web Trans Server
TranSphere also has the following optional add-ons:
Office + MS-web translator.
Third Party Integration API.
Term Substitution.
TranSphere is integrated with:
Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR)
Text-to-Speech (TTS)
Speech-to -Speech MT (Both ASR & TTS)
Click here for Single User License
Language Pairs and Prices
Please, contact George N.
Hallak for Multi-License pricing and customized
solutions |