On multi-subjectivity in linguistic summarization of relational databases

We focus on one of the most powerful computing methods for natural-language-driven representation of data, i.e. on Yager’s concept of a linguistic summary of a relational database (1982). In particular, we introduce an original extension of that concept: new forms of linguistic summaries. The new forms are named Multi-Subject linguistic summaries, because they are constructed to handle more than one set of subjects, represented by related sets of records/objects collected in a database, like ”cars, bicycles and motorbikes” (within vehicles), ”male and female” (within people), e.g. More boys than girls play football well. Thanks to that, the generated linguistic summaries – quasi-natural language sentences – are more interesting and human-oriented. Moreover, they can be applied together with the classic forms od summaries, to enrich naturality of comments/ descriptions generated. Apart from traditional interpretions linguistic summaries in termsof fuzzy logic, we also introduce some higher-order fuzzy logic methods, to extend possibilities of representing too complex or too ill-defined linguistic terms used in generated messages. The new methods are applied to a computer system that generates natural language description of numeric data, that makes them possible to be clearly presented to an end-user

A Knowledge Multidimensional Representation Model for Automatic Text Analysis and Generation: Applications for Cultural Heritage

Knowledge is information that has been contextualized in a certain domain, where it can be used and applied. Natural Language provides a most direct way to transfer knowledge at different levels of conceptual density. The opportunity provided by the evolution of the technologies of Natural Language Processing is thus of making more fluid and universal the process of knowledge transfer. Indeed, unfolding domain knowledge is one way to bring to larger audiences contents that would be otherwise restricted to specialists. This has been done so far in a totally manual way through the skills of divulgators and popular science writers. Technology provides now a way to make this transfer both less expensive and more widespread. Extracting knowledge and then generating from it suitably communicable text in natural language are the two related subtasks that need be fulfilled in order to attain the general goal. To this aim, two fields from information technology have achieved the needed maturity and can therefore be effectively combined. In fact, on the one hand Information Extraction and Retrieval (IER) can extract knowledge from texts and map it into a neutral, abstract form, hence liberating it from the stylistic constraints into which it was originated. From there, Natural Language Generation can take charge, by regenerating automatically, or semi-automatically, the extracted knowledge into texts targeting new communities. This doctoral thesis provides a contribution to making substantial this combination through the definition and implementation of a novel multidimensional model for the representation of conceptual knowledge and of a workflow that can produce strongly customized textual descriptions. By exploiting techniques for the generation of paraphrases and by profiling target users, applications and domains, a target-driven approach is proposed to automatically generate multiple texts from the same information core. An extended case study is described to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model and approach in the Cultural Heritage application domain, so as to compare and position this contribution within the current state of the art and to outline future directions