Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
[Note ID], [Map name], [X-coordinate], [Y-coordinate], [Date posted], [Content],
[Parent note ID], [Input language], [User ID]
X and Y coordinates are the latitude and the longitude on Google Maps to paste the
note. A note and the replies create a thread and “Parent note ID” specifies the parent
note of the note in the thread.
3.4
Translating Comments into Multiple Languages
CoSMOS supports five languages: Japanese, English, Turkish, French, and Chinese
(Traditional), so students, who speak one of the languages, can use their language to
collaborate with others.
A messages submitted to CoSMOS as a note is automatically translated into four lan-
guages by using machine translation services provided by the Language Grid [9], which
is a platform where we can integrate a number of language services and resources to
produce various multi-lingual applications on the Internet. When an original messages
is written in a language but English, the message is translated into English first, and
then translated into other languages. This means that English is used as an intermedi-
ate language in CoSMOS. Fig. 1 shows the translation flow and the actual translation
services used in CoSMOS.
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Fig. 1.
Translation flow and the name of translation services
For example, when a Japanese message is translated into Chinese, the message is
translated into English by using JServer and is translated again from English into Chi-
nese by using Translution.
In addition, the Language Grid provides a Japanese-English glossary on natural
disasters and dictionaries of academic terms, and an English-French glossary on nat-
ural disasters. When a translation service between these languages are activated, the
system automatically consult the glossaries and dictionaries to improve the quality of
translation.
