TOWARDS A COMBINED REPRESENTATION FOR SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL REFERENCE

Temporal and spatial references have been treated as unrelated issues in semantic representation. What must be represented are the spatial and temporal situations to which the speaker alludes. For example, with "John threw a ball through a window", It must be shown that the event occurred some time in the past and that the ball followed a trajectory that took it through a window. Many theories that mention one topic discuss the other, but only separately, e.g., Fillmore (1968), Schank (1973), and Schubert (1976). This paper proposes a simultaneous resolution of an important part of both problems. It is proposed that spatial and temporal references b

A Logical-Form and Knowledge-Base Design for Natural Language Generation

This paper presents a technique for interpreting output demands by a natural language sentence generator in a formally transparent and efficient way. These demands are stated in a logical language. A network knowledge base organizes the concepts of the application domain into categories known to the generator. The logical expressions are interpreted by the generator using the knowledge base and a restricted, but efficient, hybrid knowledge representation system. This design has been used to allow the NIGEL generator to interpret statements in a first-order predicate calculus using the NIKL and KL-TWO knowledge representation systems. The success of this experiment has led to plans for the inclusion of this design in both the evolving Penman natural language generator and the Janus natural language interface. 1

Semantic Interpretation Using KL-ONE

This paper presents extensions to the work of Bobrow and Webber [Bobrow&Webber 80a, Bobrow&Webber 80b] on semantic interpretation using KL-ONE to represent knowledge. The approach is based on an extended case frame formalism applicable to all types of phrases, not just clauses. The frames are used to recognize semantically acceptable phrases, identify their structure, and, relate them to their meaning representation through translation rules. Approaches are presented for generating KL-ONE structures as the meaning of a sentence, for capturing semantic generalizations through abstract case frames, and for handling pronouns and relative clauses

E-GOVERNMENT THROUGH PROCESS MODELING: A REQUIREMENTS FIELD STUDY

e-Government offers its constituency the hope of engaging in government interaction at any time from any place. This has been slow to materialize. We believe this is due in large part to the complexity of government processes. This paper reports experimental field study evidence that a rigorously defined process modeling language can accurately map this complexity. It introduces Little-JIL, a rigorously defined process modeling language. It then reports experience using this language to capture government processes for an e-Government system to allow online license renewals for the government of Massachusetts. These processes were previously described using Use Case methodology. The errors and shortcomings identified provide opportunities for a more correct and efficient implementation of these processes. The paper concludes with a proposal for improved e-Government development methods