JP2003050821A - Multilingual document retrieval system - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [Problem] To provide a multilingual document search system capable of efficiently searching for a target multilingual document even when the ability other than the language used for the search is low. A search keyword included in an information search request described in a first language is translated into another language by a keyword translation unit, and an information search expression in a plurality of languages is generated by an information search expression generation unit. Is done. Of the retrieved documents retrieved by the document retrieval unit 200 using this information retrieval formula,
The information of the document described in the language is selected by the screening of the searcher, and at least one of the information on the publication date, category, and field of the document included in the selected document is extracted as the narrowing condition information. Then, based on the extracted narrowing condition information, narrowed documents are extracted. These narrowing down processes are performed by the document narrowing down unit 133.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a multilingual document retrieval system for retrieving documents described in a plurality of languages, and particularly presents documents described in a plurality of languages in response to a retrieval request described in a certain language. A multilingual document retrieval system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Various systems have been proposed for searching documents described in a plurality of languages by using a search condition described in one language, for example, a native language such as a language X that a searcher is good at. A typical example is to translate a search condition described in language X (particularly a search keyword) into another language corresponding to the search target, for example, language Y, and perform a document search with the search condition described in language Y. Is.

Such a multilingual search system is
It is useful not only for conducting comparative studies on systems, social phenomena, etc., but also for learning the systems, customs, etc. of study abroad destinations for foreign students.

Generally, not all documents searched by a search keyword match the search purpose of the searcher, and noise documents are also included, and the searcher screens bibliographic information, abstracts, original texts, etc. of the searched documents. By doing so, the documents that match the search purpose are extracted. In the search of multilingual documents, the number of noise documents increases due to the uncertainty of the search keyword and the like.

However, the searcher who has created the search condition in the language X rarely has a high understanding ability with respect to the other languages Y, and the burden of the above-mentioned screening is large. Especially, it is very large for a searcher who has low language ability such as an international student at the beginning of study abroad. In order to eliminate such a burden, it is conceivable to automatically translate all the retrieved documents into the language X and screen the translated documents, but considering the translation accuracy and the processing load, the system configuration is large-scale. Becomes unrealistic.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and efficiently searches a target multilingual document even when the ability other than the language used for searching the native language is low. It is an object of the present invention to provide a multilingual document retrieval system that enables it.

[0007]

A multilingual document retrieval system of the present invention is for retrieving a document described in a plurality of languages, and a document information storage unit for storing metadata and contents of the document, An input unit for inputting an information search request including a search keyword, and translating the search keyword included in the input information search request into another language different from the first language used to describe the information search request. ,
A keyword translation unit that obtains a translation keyword, an information search request in the first language, and an information search formula generation unit that generates an information search formula by using the translation keyword; An information search execution unit that searches documents stored in the information storage unit; an information presentation unit that presents the searched documents searched by the information search execution unit;
A document narrowing unit that narrows down the searched documents, the metadata includes at least one of information about the publication date, category, and field of the document, and the document narrowing unit Of the documents retrieved by the information retrieval execution unit, information of the documents described in the first language is presented through the information presentation unit to prompt selection of one or more documents, and Documents in which at least one of information on the issue date, category, and field is extracted as narrowing-down condition information, and documents having narrowing-down condition information common or similar to the extracted narrowing-down condition information in the search documents. Is presented as a narrowed-down document through the information presenting section. By doing this, it is possible to screen documents described in a language such as a native language and identify the field of the document of interest, and narrow down documents described in other languages to those of the same field, etc. Efficient search is possible.

Further, the metadata in the multilingual document retrieval system of the present invention can include a plurality of information relating to the field of the document. This way
When narrowing down the search documents, it is possible to reduce the situation in which necessary documents cannot be used due to too narrowing down.

Further, the information retrieval request in the multilingual document retrieval system of the present invention includes language designation information for designating a description language of a document for which retrieval is requested, and the other language translated by the keyword translation unit. Is a language designated by the language designation information, and the document narrowing unit is described in a language designated by the language designation information among documents having narrowing condition information common or similar to the extracted narrowing condition information. The presented documents are presented as narrowed-down documents through the information presentation unit. By doing so, it is possible to efficiently search the documents described in the target language.

Further, in the multilingual document search system of the present invention, the metadata includes information on the issuing country of the document, and the information search request specifies the issuing country of the document requesting the search. The other language that includes information and is translated by the keyword translation unit is a language used for documents in the issuing country designated by the issuing country designation information, and the document narrowing unit is the extracted narrowing condition. Among documents that have narrowing condition information that is common or similar to the information,
Documents of the issuing country designated by the issuing country designation information are presented as narrowed-down documents through the information presenting unit. This makes it possible to efficiently search for documents published in the target country.

The first language used for describing the information retrieval request in the multilingual document retrieval system of the present invention can be selected by the retriever. This makes it possible to search using multiple languages, improving usability.

The multilingual document retrieval system of the present invention further comprises an automatic translation device for automatically translating multilingual documents.
When presenting a document described in the other language, the information presenting unit presents the information automatically translated into the first language by using the automatic translation device. In this way, the target document can be efficiently translated automatically, and the use of the search document can be made more efficient.

[0013]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of a multilingual document search system according to the present invention, and includes a search support unit 100 and a document search unit 200. Search support section 1
00 mainly performs pre-processing and post-processing of a search required in response to a search request from a searcher.
0 is for actually performing a document search process in response to a search request. However, FIG. 1 mainly shows the functions of the elements constituting the system, and does not necessarily correspond to the actual hardware configuration of the system. Further, the arrangement of each element does not have to be collected in the search support unit 100 and the document search unit 200, and each element may be arranged in a distributed manner.
In that case, the connection between the elements may use a communication line such as the Internet.

A search support unit 100 in the system of FIG.
Is a user interface unit 110 and an input processing unit 12
0, a search control unit 130, an output processing unit 140, an automatic translation device 150, and the search control unit 130.
Is a keyword translation unit 131 and an information search formula generation unit 13
2. The document narrowing unit 133 is included. Further, the document search unit 20
0 includes a content storage unit 210, a search execution unit 220, and a metadata storage unit 230.

The user interface section 110 is for inputting necessary information and displaying a search result when the user uses the present system, and is composed of a keyboard, a mouse, a display device and the like. Also, W
When configuring a search system using a WW server,
A user terminal connected via a network is used.

The input processing section 120 retrieves various information input via the user interface section 110 from the search control section 1.
Since the output processing unit 140 presents the information output from the search control unit 130 to the searcher,
It is sent to the user interface unit 110. The information sent to the user interface unit 110 includes not only search result information but also menu information and the like for assisting the searcher in inputting information.

The search control unit 130 responds to a search request input via the input processing unit 120, and the document search unit 200.
To perform a process of presenting a search result obtained from the document search unit 200 to a searcher, and includes a keyword translation unit 131, an information search formula generation unit 132, and a document narrowing unit 133.

The keyword translation unit 131 translates the search keyword included in the input information search request into another language to obtain a translated keyword. The other language to be translated is the language designated by the language designation information when the information retrieval request includes the language designation information designating the description language of the document requested to be searched. Further, when the information search request includes the issue country designation information designating the issue country of the document for which the search is requested, the language used in the document of the issue country designated by the issue country designation information. In this case, it is preferable to select the language using a table (not shown) in which the issuing country and the language used in the document are associated with each other.

If the information retrieval request does not include the language designation information or the issuing country designation information, the translation is performed in all the languages supported by the retrieval system. Moreover, since a publicly known various method can be adopted as a specific translation method, the description thereof is omitted.

The information retrieval formula generating unit 132 indicates the language used to describe the retrieval request based on the inputted retrieval request (hereinafter, when simply described as "first language", this language). ), An information search formula in another language is generated based on the translation keyword obtained by the keyword translation unit 131 and the input search request. The information search formula generated by the information search formula generation unit 132 is sent to the document search unit 200 and used for document search according to the search request.

The document narrowing unit 133 is a document search unit 200.
It narrows down the documents searched by, and presents the information of the documents described in the first language among the searched documents to the searcher to select the documents that match the search purpose, The information is narrowed down by using the information of documents selected by the searcher. More specifically, at least one of information about the publication date, category, and field of the selected document is extracted as narrowing-down condition information, and narrowing-down condition information common or similar to the extracted narrowing-down condition information is extracted. The search documents having "" are extracted as narrowed down documents.

The automatic translation device 150 performs automatic translation between multilingual documents, and when the search support unit 100 presents documents described in a language other than the first language to a searcher. Used for. It is considered that the searcher usually has a poor understanding of a language other than the first language, and therefore, when presenting the narrowed-down documents and the like, the documents other than the documents written in the language other than the first language are displayed in the first language. It is translated and presented. The translation into the first language may be performed automatically, or may be performed by presenting a narrowed-down document list including bibliographic items to the searcher and waiting for the searcher's translation request.

Since the automatic translation apparatus itself is used in various ways, it can be appropriately selected in consideration of the type of document, the required accuracy, the processing speed and the like. Further, it is not necessary to be provided integrally with the search support unit 100 and can be omitted.

The document retrieval unit 200 is an information retrieval formula generation unit 1
A document based on the information search formula generated in 32 is searched, and a content storage unit 210 that stores the content of the document to be searched, a search execution unit 220 that performs a search process based on the information search formula, and a content storage unit. A metadata storage unit 2 that stores the metadata of documents stored in 210
Including 30.

The content storage unit 210 stores text data of documents described in a plurality of languages, and as shown in FIG. 1, it is preferable to store the data separately for each description language. Moreover, you may distribute and arrange for every language.

The metadata refers to information for managing the data such as attributes of data to be handled, meaning contents, storage locations, etc. The metadata storage unit 230 has an issue year of the document stored in the content storage unit 210. It contains information about the date, category, and field.

FIG. 2 partially and conceptually shows a part of the information stored in the metadata storage section 230. In the metadata storage unit 230, the description language of the document, the publication country, the document name, the bibliographic information such as the date of publication, and the storage location of the content storage unit 210 are associated with the document numbers for identifying the respective documents. In addition to the indicated link information, information indicating the category of the document and information indicating the field to which the document content belongs are stored. The document category includes not only issuance forms but also those related to the contents of documents such as laws, precedents, and survey reports. Further, it is possible to store a plurality of pieces of information related to fields, and information that is conceptually in a hierarchical relationship is also stored.

The search execution unit 220 is the information search formula generation unit 1
Based on the information search formula generated in 32, the text data or metadata storage unit 230 of the content storage unit 210.
Documents that satisfy the search formula are extracted by referring to the metadata of. A search tool that uses text data and metadata of documents is appropriately selected and used from various practical tools.

Next, the operation of this system will be described based on the schematic flow shown in FIG. It is assumed that the searcher does not recognize the type, structure, search method, etc. of document data that can be provided by this system, and tries to search for the target document only from the words included in the document.

After the searcher logs in to the system, the language used for the search is selected in step 301. This selection is made by presenting the searcher with a menu screen in available languages. The menu screen in this case is preferably displayed in all available languages, but may be displayed in only major languages. When the language to be used is selected, the search condition created in the selected language (which corresponds to the above-mentioned “first language”, and therefore simply referred to as “first language” below) is input. A screen is presented and search conditions are entered (step 30).
2). The search condition is input as indicating the logical operation of the keyword. Then, in step 303, a search target is selected. The search target is performed by designating the language or the issuing country of the document required by the searcher. In addition,
In step 303, the input can be omitted.
Further, the steps 302 and 303 may be input in the reverse order or by using the same menu screen.

When the search target and the search condition are input, in step 304, the keywords included in the search condition are translated. At that time, if the search target is designated, it is translated into the language according to the designation, and if not, it is translated into all the languages supported by the system. That is, if the language is designated in step 303, the language is translated into that language, and if the language is specified in the issuing country, it is translated into the language used for the literature of the issuing country. A plurality of translation keywords may be obtained for each keyword included in the search condition.

Next, in step 305, a search expression is generated. The search expression is generated in the first language and also in the language of the translation keyword obtained in step 304 based on the search condition input in step 302. The generated search formula is sent to the search execution unit 220 of the document search unit 300, and the document described in the language of the search formula is searched based on each search formula (step 30).
6). In addition, when the designation by the issuing country is made in step 303, it is preferable to search only the documents in the designated issuing country except the documents described in the first language.

The search result of the search execution unit 220 is sent to the search control unit 130. Next, in step 307, the documents described in the first language are presented to the searcher, and the searcher waits for selection of documents that match or are close to the search purpose. In this case, only the bibliographical items are searched as the search result.
In order to avoid wasteful data transfer, it is preferable that only the bibliographical items are initially presented to the searcher and the body of the document is acquired from the content storage unit 210 and presented according to the request of the searcher. .

When a document is selected in step 308,
Based on the metadata of the selected document (which is preferably transferred to the search control unit 130 together with the bibliographic items in advance), narrowing-down condition information is extracted (step 309). The narrowing-down condition information uses at least one of the information about the issue date, the category, and the field included in the metadata of the document. The narrowing-down condition information may be extracted according to the category of the selected document, or may be extracted by presenting the information included in the metadata of the selected document to the searcher for selection. . Further, when the issue date information is used as the narrowed-down information, it is preferable that the issue date is a fixed period including the issue date, or only the issue year or only the issue date.

When the narrowing-down condition information is extracted, the documents are narrowed down in step 310. Documents are narrowed down by collating the metadata of the documents retrieved in step 306 with the narrowing condition information and extracting documents having the same metadata or similar metadata. Here, the similar metadata corresponds to, for example, one having a hierarchical relationship in the information about the field. Whether or not to use similar narrowing-down condition information (metadata) may be determined by the designation of the searcher.

When the narrowing down of the documents is completed in step 310, the narrowed down documents are automatically translated (step 311),
In step 312, the translated document is presented to the searcher. The necessity of automatic translation and selection of automatically translated documents may be performed by the searcher's designation.

[0037]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the present invention, it is possible to efficiently search for a target multilingual document even when the ability other than the language used for searching the native language is low. Become.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of a multilingual document search system of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of information stored in a metadata storage unit.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a schematic operation flow of the system of FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

100 ... Search Support Department 110 ... User interface section 120 ... Input processing unit 130 ... Search control unit 131 ・ ・ ・ Keyword Translation Department 132 ... Information retrieval formula generation unit 133 ... Literature refining section 140 ... Output unit 150 ... Automatic translator 200 ... Literature search section 210: Content storage unit 220 ... Search execution unit 230 ... Metadata storage unit

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ───

[Procedure amendment]

[Submission date] June 4, 2002 (2002.6.4)

[Procedure Amendment 1]

[Document name to be amended] Statement

[Name of item to be corrected] Claim 1

[Correction method] Change

[Correction content]

[Procedure Amendment 2]

[Document name to be amended] Statement

[Correction target item name] 0007

[Correction method] Change

[Correction content]

[0007]

A multilingual document retrieval system of the present invention is for retrieving a document described in a plurality of languages, and a document information storage unit for storing metadata and contents of the document, An input unit for inputting an information search request including a search keyword, and translating the search keyword included in the input information search request into another language different from the first language used to describe the information search request. ,
A keyword translation unit that obtains a translation keyword, an information search request in the first language, and the translation keyword are used to generate an information search expression in the first language and an information search expression in the other language. An information search formula generating unit, an information search executing unit that searches the documents stored in the document information storage unit using the information search formula generated by the information search formula generating unit, and the information search executing unit The information presenting unit that presents the searched documents searched by the document, and the document narrowing unit that narrows down the searched documents, and the metadata is the information about the publication date, category, and field of the documents. The document narrowing unit includes the first document among the documents searched by the information search executing unit.
The information of the document described in the language is presented through the information presenting unit to prompt the selection of one or more documents, and among the information on the publication date, category, and field of the selected document. Of at least one of the above-mentioned retrieved documents, which has narrowing condition information common or similar to the extracted narrowing condition information,
It is presented as a narrowed-down document through the information presentation unit. By doing this, it is possible to screen documents described in a language such as a native language and identify the field of the document of interest, and narrow down documents described in other languages to those of the same field, etc. Efficient search is possible.

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A multilingual document retrieval system for retrieving documents described in multiple languages, wherein a document information storage unit for storing metadata and contents of the document and an information retrieval request including a retrieval keyword are input. An input unit, a keyword translation unit that translates the search keyword included in the input information search request into another language different from the first language used to describe the information search request, and obtains a translated keyword, An information search formula generating unit that generates an information search formula using the information search request in the first language and the translation keyword; and a document stored in the document information storage unit using the information search formula. An information search execution unit to be searched, an information presentation unit that presents the search documents searched by the information search execution unit, and a document narrowing unit that narrows down the search documents. And, the meta data, the issue date of the literature, category,
And at least one of the information on the field, the document narrowing unit, through the information presenting unit, the information of the documents described in the first language among the documents searched by the information search executing unit. Prompting the user to select one or more documents, extracting at least one of information about the publication date, category, and field of the selected documents as narrowing-down condition information, and selecting from among the retrieved documents. A multilingual document search system for presenting documents having narrowing condition information common or similar to the extracted narrowing condition information as narrowed documents via the information presenting unit. 2. The multilingual document search system according to claim 1, wherein the metadata can include a plurality of pieces of information related to the field of the document. 3. The multilingual document retrieval system according to claim 1, wherein the information retrieval request includes language designation information that designates a description language of a document for which retrieval is requested, and the keyword translation unit. The other language translated by is a language designated by the language designation information, and the document narrowing unit specifies the language among documents having narrowing condition information common or similar to the extracted narrowing condition information. A multilingual document search system for presenting documents described in a language specified by information as narrowed-down documents through the information presentation unit. 4. The multilingual document search system according to claim 1, wherein the metadata includes information on a country of publication of the document, and the information search request issues a document requesting a search. Issuing country designation information for designating a country is included, the other language translated by the keyword translation unit is a language used for documents of the issuing country designated by the issuing country designation information, and the document narrowing unit is Among the documents having narrowing-down condition information common or similar to the extracted narrowing-down condition information, the document of the issuing country designated by the issuing-country specifying information is presented as the narrowing-down document through the information presenting unit. A multilingual document retrieval system. 5. The multilingual document search system according to claim 1, wherein the first language used to describe the information search request is selectable by a searcher. Literature search system. 6. The multilingual document retrieval system according to claim 1, further comprising an automatic translation device that automatically translates multilingual documents, wherein the information presenting unit includes: A multilingual document retrieval system for presenting documents automatically translated into the first language by using the automatic translation device when presenting documents described in other languages.