Rapid development and deployment of bi-directional expert systems using machine translation technology

The present work reports our attempt in developing an English–Arabic bi-directional machine translation tool in the agriculture domain. It aims to achieve automated translation of agricultural expert systems. In particular, we describe the translation of domain knowledge base, including, prompts, responses, explanation text, and advices. In the Central Laboratory for Agricultural Expert Systems (CLAES) where many successful agricultural expert systems have been developed, this tool is found to be essential in developing bi-directional (English–Arabic) expert systems because both English and Arabic versions are needed for development, deployment, and usage purpose. The tool also helps knowledge engineers in overcoming the language barrier by acquiring knowledge from either English or Arabic speaking domain experts. This paper discusses our experience with the developed machine translation tool and reports on results of its application on real agricultural expert systems. 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.