A digest translation of an extensive review of machine translation. One time after the war the research and development of machine translation was subsidized by the government and carried out mainly by information scientists. For over twenty years their efforts could not yield operative systems as initially expected because theydid not fully aware of the linguistic complexities. In 1966 the American government cut off R&D budget. In the following decade linguistic analysis techniques had advanced and the computer capacity, file techniques and interactive technology had been also developed. Particularly in Eurpoe the necessity for machine translation had been strengthened due to EC activities together with ever-mounting international tensions. Various machine translation techniques had been experimented includingnot only full-automated systems but also man-machine systems and auto-dictionaries, and others from widest angles, so that the state of the art is now nearing practical use.

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Brief description of the organization of the INSPEC service and its database family together with the indexing and classificatory structures. Analysis was made of its actual indexing and the relation between search efficiency and cost was made clear according to De Jong Hofman's paper by varying search strategies. Advantages and disadvantages of search formulations with controlled terms and with them plus free terms are shown. It is also made clear that the major causes of search failures are due to original indexing errors.

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The 1977 volume of the EE series of the Bunken Sokuho (Current Bibliography on Sceince and Technology) is analyzed statistically in terms of journal titles, their countries of origin,subjects, etc. Also obtained are statistics by publicationforms, number of keywards assigned, and number of articles abstracted. The tendency of concentration to "core journals" isfound stronger than in the Mechanical Engineering Series of the Bunken Sokuho. Distribution of abstracts in 7 subject categories does not show significant change for 3 years1975-77 except in electronics category. The data are compared with those of the two INSPEC jourrials, Electrical Engineering Abstracts and Computer and Control Abstracts for1977, in respect to subject distribution and journal coverage.

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Specific features of the construction industry in general is outlined and the history , functions and business procedures of the patent center of the Kajima Corporation is described .The trend of patent applications by major construction companies is analyzed . By using a JAPATIC online terminal, the rate of claiming examination , rate of publication and otherdata were obtained. The distribution of open patents by patent classification and by company was made and sometrends were found.

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A terminal of the JOIS online service over telephone line was installed at the central laboratories of the Idemitsu Co. Selection of equipment, and utilization procedures of the JOIS service is stated. Comparison of JOIS usage before and after introduction of online terminal is made. Users' assessment, advantages and effects are given and the JOIS service is found to be relatively inexpensive at the moment but various improvements are suggested .

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