Machine translation of non-literary texts: Some Canadian experiences

A survey was carried out of past and current Canadian experiences with machine-aided translation (MAT) systems of non-literary texts in one government institution and three industrial settings. Each organization requires a great deal of translation and had conducted several experiments in the use of MAT. The survey supports positive conclusions about the prospects for expanded use of computers in translation.The authors express their thanks to all those who helped in the preparation of this paper. We are particularly grateful to the staff of the translation departments of the organizations mentioned in the paper for their kind cooperation and their willingness to answer our questions: Chantal Delorme ofIBM Canada, Lorraine Desmarais and Mr. Plamondon of Bell Canada, Pierre Tellier of the Department of the Secretary of State, Maria Russo and Raymond Lapointe of the Xerox Corporation. Furthermore we thank Prof. Graeme Hirst for helpful discussion.     

Defensive Disclosure of Patentable Inventions under Antitrust Enforcement

Why do large firms disclose patentable inventions defensively? We study IBM's disclosure and patenting activity and find that stronger antitrust enforcement and consent decrees limiting patent protection lead to more defensive disclosure. We extend our analysis to Xerox and show, using a differences-in-differences approach, a decline in patent propensity and an increase in patent scope in patent classes affected by the 1975 consent decree. We extend our analysis to include AT&;T, the other exceptionally large firm with defensive-disclosure activity, and show that their patenting propensity declined under increased antitrust enforcement relative to other firms in the industry. Overall, we show how these firms used defensive disclosure as a strategy to balance the benefits of patenting with the costs of uncertain antitrust enforcement. Our results are especially relevant in light of the defensive patent strategies many firms employ to preempt and cope with patent litigation.     

Finite-State Computational Morphology: An Analyzer Prototype For Zulu

As one of the largest of the 11 official languages of South Africa, Zulu is spoken by approximately 9 million people. It forms part of a language family which is characterized by rich agglutinating morphological structures. This paper discusses a prototype of a computational morphological analyzer for Zulu, built by means of the Xerox finite state tools, in particular lexc and xfst. In addition to considering both the morphotactics and the morphophonological alternation rules that apply, the focus is on implementation and other issues that need to be resolved in order to produce a useful software artefact for automated morphological analysis. The current status of the prototype is alluded to by providing morphological scope, that is the various word categories (parts of speech) that may be handled, and the lexical coverage in terms of the number of different Zulu roots that are included in the embedded lexicon of the analyzer. Preliminary testing and validation procedures are briefly discussed.     

基于Socket的TCP／IP网络通讯模式研究

分析利用TCP/IP进行网络通讯需要解决的问题,介绍了在Socket基础上编程的界面、端口、字节顺序和广播的处理方式,给出了Socket实现通讯的客户/服务器模型。     

Thermal oxidation of InAs and characterization of the oxide film

The thermal oxidation of InAs and the properties of the resultant oxide films were studied. Uniform InAs oxide films with a resistivity of 10¹² Ω cm were obtained on InAs substrates by low temperature oxidation at around 400°C. The thermal oxide films are mainly composed of polycrystalline In₂O₃ and As₂O₃. Increasing oxidation temperature causes thermal decomposition of the As₂O₃ and the accumulation of elemental arsenic in the oxide film. The oxide resistivity decreases with increasing oxidation temperature, mainly as a result of the thermal decomposition of the As₂O₃. The interface state densities near the midgap of InAs are (2–5) × 10¹¹ cm^-2 eV^-1. A metamorphic layer is formed beneath the thermal oxide of InAs by high temperature oxidation above 500°C.     

Time server in advanced automation local area network

The unique and accurate time standard is becoming important today, especially in billing calculation, concurrency control and timing control of distributed systems. In the local network environment, many applications are time-dependent. A universal time standard and time protocol are required. This paper will describe the time server, time protocol and the reliability consideration of the time server.     

Interface characterization of InSb MOS structures

The electrical properties of MOS devices are critically dependent on the oxide-semiconductor interface. The preparation of suitable insulating layers of oxide or other material is essential for the performance of such devices and it is particularly difficult in the case of III-V compound semiconductors. We report a method of preparing an insulating layer on InSb by a plasma oxidation process. The oxidation method will be described as well as results of the analysis of the oxide-semiconductor interface by electrical and compositional techniques. Capacitance-voltage characteristics reveal the existence of interface states which are distributed near the conduction and the valence bands with a higher density near the former. Depth profiling of the oxide by Ar⁺ sputtering and Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) shows that the oxide is composed of a mixture of indium oxide with the antimony oxide. At the interface a transition region can clearly be observed, whose composition seems to be mostly indium oxide rich in metallic antimony. This information can be derived from the Auger line shapes and positions. We find AES to be an extremely helpful tool for this kind of investigation, in spite of the obvious disadvantages of ion sputtering, especially in the case of indium and antimony. Correlations of the AES data with the electrical analysis results are suggested.