Friday, March 19, 2010

Multilingual Search Engine

Universidad Politecnica de Madrid researchers have developed a multilingual search engine that can query a data repository written in Interlingua using questions formulated in any language and provide an answer in that same language. The search engine requires an information base that is written in the Universal Networking Language, the only general-purpose Interlingua. The search engine works by deducing the answer from the question instead of just finding the answer. First, the system searches the text corpus for statements that could contain the answer. Second, it determines which statements actually contain the answer. Finally, it generates the answer in the same language the question was formulated in. The researchers used a biographical encyclopedia to test the system, and reported that 82 percent of the 75 questions they posed were correct.

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