Romain Lenglet's old web page

The web server of the NII (Japanese Institute of Informatics, in Tokyo) hosts a web application for the transliteration of Japanese text. It has been developped in the context of the Papillon international project.

The tranliteration application can be used to transform Japanese text containing kanjis into furigana (kanjis + transliteration into kana). For instance, in the web form, enter (in one line):

"この研究室では、
システムソフトウェアやプログラミング言語に着目し、
日々研究をしています。" with furigana

to obtain (in one line):

この研究(けんきゅう)室(しつ)では、
システムソフトウェアやプログラミング言語(げんご)に着目(ちゃくもく)し、
日々(ひび)研究(けんきゅう)をしています。

Kanjis can be also translated in other ways, using other commands instead of with furigana: in katakana, in hiragana, in romaji, etc. For instance, in the web form, enter (in one line):

"この研究室では、
システムソフトウェアやプログラミング言語に着目し、
日々研究をしています。" in romaji

to obtain (in one line):

kono kenkyū shitsu de wa ,
shisutemu sofutowea ya puroguramingu gengo ni chakumoku shi ,
hibi kenkyū o shi te i masu .

Extensive help for available commands is available.

It can also be used to study a kanji literal in details (how to draw it, its usages in some words, etc.), by entering the kanji literal followed by in svg.

All this is extremely useful for “decyphering” any text in Japanese!

Most people consider that the two words categorization and classification are synonyms, and use them interchangeably. However, there is a subtle difference in meaning between those two words, according to Le Grand Dictionnaire Terminologique, i.e. the dictionnary created by the Office québecquois de la langue française (Québec institute of French language), in Canada. According to their many definitions of the French words catégorisation and classification, I have identified two criteria:

• order or no order: On one hand, a categorization does not impose an order between categories: categories are names, labels, that can be arbitrarily chosen. For instance, it makes no sense to define an order between “smokers” and “non-smokers”, which makes them categories, not classes. On the other hand, a classification defines an order between classes. For instance, in geology, classifications of animals and vegetals define a hierarchy (order) of groups (classes) of individuals that have common properties.
• qualitative or quantitative: On one hand, in a categorization, the criteria used to decide in which category an object is put, are qualitative criteria. On the other hand, in a classification, the criteria are quantitative criteria, i.e. it corresponds to measures that can be made on objects to classify.

However, even if strictly speaking categorizations and classifications are different according to those two criteria, in practice both words are used as synonyms. This can even be demonstrated by the fact that definitions of catégorisation in Le Grand Dictionnaire Terminologique use terms related to classification, and vice-versa.

I have uploaded a new “howto” article, about the extension of the Fractal component model ADL framework to define new parsers and modules. This complements the Fractal ADL tutorial. It is not yet finished though...

I have uploaded a new “howto” article, about the installation of PostgreSQL with MIT Kerberos 5 authentication on Debian GNU/Linux.