Automatic generation of large-scale paraphrases

Research on paraphrase has mostly focussed on lexical or syntactic variation within individual sentences. Our concern is with larger-scale paraphrases, from multiple sentences or paragraphs to entire documents. In this paper we address the problem of generating paraphrases of large chunks of texts. We ground our discussion through a worked example of extending an existing NLG system to accept as input a source text, and to generate a range of fluent semantically-equivalent alternatives, varying not only at the lexical and syntactic levels, but also in document structure and layout

Summarisation and visualisation of e-Health data repositories

At the centre of the Clinical e-Science Framework (CLEF) project is a repository of well organised, detailed clinical histories, encoded as data that will be available for use in clinical care and in-silico medical experiments. We describe a system that we have developed as part of the CLEF project, to perform the task of generating a diverse range of textual and graphical summaries of a patient’s clinical history from a data-encoded model, a chronicle, representing the record of the patient’s medical history. Although the focus of our current work is on cancer patients, the approach we describe is generalisable to a wide range of medical areas

Intuitive querying of e-Health data repositories

At the centre of the Clinical e-Science Framework (CLEF) project is a repository of well organised, detailed clinical histories, encoded as data that will be available for use in clinical care and in-silico medical experiments. An integral part of the CLEF workbench is a tool to allow biomedical researchers and clinicians to query – in an intuitive way – the repository of patient data. This paper describes the CLEF query editing interface, which makes use of natural language generation techniques in order to alleviate some of the problems generally faced by natural language and graphical query interfaces. The query interface also incorporates an answer renderer that dynamically generates responses in both natural language text and graphics

Multilingual generation of controlled languages

We describe techniques based on natural language generation which allow a user to author a document in controlled language for multiple natural languages. The author is expected to be an expert in the application domain but not in the controlled language or in more than one of the supported natural languages. Because the system can produce multiple expressions of the same input in multiple languages, the author can choose among alternative expressions satisfying the constraints of the controlled language. Because the system offers only legitimate choices of wording, correction is unnecessary. Consequently, acceptance of error reports and corrections by trained authors are non-issues

The Influence of layout on the interpretation of referring expressions

From the introduction: The division of text into visual segments such as sentences, paragraphs and sections achieves many functions, such as easing navigation, achieving pragmatic effect, improving readability and reflecting the organisation of information (Wright, 1983; Schriver 1997). In this paper, we report a small experiment that investigates the effect of different layout configurations on the interpretation of the antecedent of anaphoric referring expressions. Layout has so far played little role in Natural Language Generation (NLG) systems. The layout of output texts is generally very simple. At worst, it consists of only a single paragraph consisting of a few sentences; at best it is predetermined by schemas (Coch, 1996; Porter and Lester, 1997) or discourse plans (Milosavljevic, 1999). However, recent work by Power (2000) and Bouayad et al. (2000) has integrated graphically signalled segments (e.g., by whitespace, punctuation, font and face alternation) such as paragraphs, lists, text-sentences and text-clauses in a hierarchical tree-like representation called the document structure.2 This work was carried out within the ICONOCLAST project (Integrating CONstraints On Layout and Style), which aims at automatically generating formatted texts in which the formatting decisions affect the wording and vice-versa.3 If document structure affects the comprehensibility of referring expressions, this must be taken into account in any attempt to generate felicitous formatted texts. This will go a step further from current research in the automatic generation of referring expressions, where only the effect of discourse structure and grammatical function has been investigated (Dale and Reiter, 1995; Cristea et al., 1998;Walker et al., 1998; Kibble and Power, 1999)

Editing OWL through generated CNL

Abstract. Traditionally, Controlled Natural Languages (CNLs) are de-signed either to avoid ambiguity for human readers, or to facilitate auto-matic semantic analysis, so that texts can be transcoded to a knowledge representation language. CNLs of the second kind have recently been adapted to the requirements of knowledge formation in OWL for the Semantic Web. We suggest in this paper a variant approach based on automatic generation of texts in CNL (as opposed to automatic analy-sis), and argue that this provides the best of both worlds, allowing us to pursue human readability in addition to a precise mapping from texts to a formal language.

Eastward shift of the Walker Circulation under global warming and its relationship to ENSO variability

© 2014, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.This study investigates the global warming response of the Walker Circulation and the other zonal circulation cells (represented by the zonal stream function), in CMIP3 and CMIP5 climate models. The changes in the mean state are presented as well as the changes in the modes of variability. The mean zonal circulation weakens in the multi model ensembles nearly everywhere along the equator under both the RCP4.5 and SRES A1B scenarios. Over the Pacific the Walker Circulation also shows a significant eastward shift. These changes in the mean circulation are very similar to the leading mode of interannual variability in the tropical zonal circulation cells, which is dominated by El Niño Southern Oscillation variability. During an El Niño event the circulation weakens and the rising branch over the Maritime Continent shifts to the east in comparison to neutral conditions (vice versa for a La Niña event). Two-thirds of the global warming forced trend of the Walker Circulation can be explained by a long-term trend in this interannual variability pattern, i.e. a shift towards more El Niño-like conditions in the multi-model mean under global warming. Further, interannual variability in the zonal circulation exhibits an asymmetry between El Niño and La Niña events. El Niño anomalies are located more to the east compared with La Niña anomalies. Consistent with this asymmetry we find a shift to the east of the dominant mode of variability of zonal stream function under global warming. All these results vary among the individual models, but the multi model ensembles of CMIP3 and CMIP5 show in nearly all aspects very similar results, which underline the robustness of these results. The observed data (ERA Interim reanalysis) from 1979 to 2012 shows a westward shift and strengthening of the Walker Circulation. This is opposite to what the results in the CMIP models reveal. However, 75 % of the trend of the Walker Circulation can again be explained by a shift of the dominant mode of variability, but here towards more La Niña-like conditions. Thus in both climate change projections and observations the long-term trends of the Walker Circulation seem to follow to a large part the pre-existing dominant mode of internal variability

Schenectadys New Deal: The WPA in the City of Schenectady

When President Roosevelt assumed office in March of 1933, he faced an unemployment rate of twenty-five percent, homelessness, and the malaise of a nation stuck in a deepening state of poverty. His solution, aimed at alleviating the circumstances resulting from the Great Depression, was to institute a series of economic programs known as the “New Deal.” Roosevelt proposed the creation of a variety of social welfare programs, including “work relief” that would provide government jobs for the unemployed. The best known program was the Works Progress Administration, or simply, the WPA, created in 1935. Through projects ranging from building roads and schools, constructing sewers and bridges, to the development of parks and playgrounds, the WPA provided much needed relief for the unemployed, and transformed the physical landscape of the nation. While significant research has been done on the New Deal and WPA’s impact on a national level, less has been done on the impact at the local level, and very little research has been conducted examining the WPA’s role and influence in the City of Schenectady. This thesis addresses that gap, and argues that the type of work performed by the WPA in Schenectady corresponded with state and national trends. In addition, attitudes in Schenectady toward work relief corresponded with state trends but diverged from national trends: nationally, Republicans generally opposed the WPA, while local Republicans found it politically advantageous to endorse the program

Can text structure be incompatible with rhetorical structure?

Scott and Souza (1990) have posed the problem of how a rhetorical structure (in which propositions are linked by rhetorical relations, but not yet arranged in a linear order) can be realized by a text structure (in which propositions are ordered and linked up by appropriate discourse connectives) Almost all work on this problem assumes)implicitly or explicitly, that this mapping is governed by a constraint on compatibility of structure. We show how this constraint can be stated precisely, and present some counterexamples which seem acceptable even though they violate compatibility. The examples are based on a phenomenon we call extraposition, in which complex embedded constituents of a rhetorical structure are extracted and realized separately