Integrating Discourse Markers into a Pipelined Natural Language Generation Architecture

Pipelined Natural Language Generation (NLG) systems have grown increasingly complex as architectural modules were added to support language functionalities such as referring expressions, lexical choice, and revision. This has given rise to discussions about the relative placement of these new modules in the overall architecture

Using dialogue to learn math in the LeActiveMath project

We describe a tutorial dialogue system under development that assists students in learning how to differentiate equations. The system uses deep natural language understanding and generation to both interpret students ’ utterances and automatically generate a response that is both mathematically correct and adapted pedagogically and linguistically to the local dialogue context. A domain reasoner provides the necessary knowledge about how students should approach math problems as well as their (in)correctness, while a dialogue manager directs pedagogical strategies and keeps track of what needs to be done to keep the dialogue moving along.

Sedimentation Processes in Selected Coastal Wetlands From the Gulf of Mexico and Northern Europe.

Sediment cores were collected from coastal wetlands from the Gulf coast of North America and northern Europe to study accretion rates and heavy metal accumulation. There was a significant decrease in vertical accretion rates from low to high marsh for Gulf coast samples. Contrary to previous results, these low tidal range sites did not have negative accretion balances. Northern European samples demonstrated the utility of Chernobyl \sp{137}Cs as a sediment marker. There were large differences in sediment characteristics and accretion rates between Polish and western European samples. Vertical accretion rates based on \sp{210}Pb were lower than \sp{137}Cs rates for most cores. The \sp{210}Pb rates included effects of compaction and decomposition, and profiles of bulk density and organic content confirmed this. All European sites had positive accretion balances. Multiple regression analyses of a large data set showed that vertical accretion rates were best described by a regression using relative sea level rise, surface organic content, sediment bulk density, position within the marsh, and the interaction between relative sea level rise and position. The significance of the interaction term indicated that low marsh sites responded differently to increases in relative sea level rise than middle and high marsh sites. There was a much higher correlation between vertical accretion and organic accumulation than between vertical accretion and mineral accumulation. A computer model, using an annual cohort approach, successfully simulated sedimentation processes, including surface sediment deposition, below-ground production, decomposition, and compaction. Sensitivity analyses indicated that the most important factors affecting model-generated accretion rates were: pore space, mineral matter deposition, initial elevation, sea level rise, and below-ground production. Chronologies of sediment heavy metal concentrations for high and low marsh cores from northern Europe showed very good agreement, indicating that sediment profiles represent historic inputs of heavy metals. Some of the sediments had very high heavy metal concentrations, with peak sediment concentrations up to five times greater than found in the oldest sediment samples. Metal concentrations have recently decreased in the cores from St. Annaland and Stiffkey Marshes but remained high throughout the upper part of the cores from the Oder River

Carbon Sequestration And Sediment Accretion In San Francisco Bay Tidal Wetlands

Tidal wetlands play an important role with respect to climate change because of both their sensitivity to sea-level rise and their ability to sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Policy-based interest in carbon sequestration has increased recently, and wetland restoration projects have potential for carbon credits through soil carbon sequestration. We measured sediment accretion, mineral and organic matter accumulation, and carbon sequestration rates using 137Cs and 210Pb downcore distributions at six natural tidal wetlands in the San Francisco Bay Estuary. The accretion rates were, in general, 0.2–0.5 cm year−1, indicating that local wetlands are keeping pace with recent rates of sea-level rise. Mineral accumulation rates were higher in salt marshes and at low-marsh stations within individual sites. The average carbon sequestration rate based on 210Pb dating was 79 g C m−2 year−1, with slightly higher rates based on 137Cs dating. There was little difference in the sequestration rates among sites or across stations within sites, indicating that a single carbon sequestration rate could be used for crediting tidal wetland restoration projects within the Estuary

Writing Postcards from the Museum: Composing Personalised Tangible Souvenirs

Building a long-lasting personal relationship with visitors by maintaining their engagement after the visit is one of the most challenging endeavours cultural heritage sites face. When successful, this connection fosters new opportunities for the visitor to get in touch with the heritage, e.g. to visit again or to take part in cultural activities. One way to establish a personal connection is via personalisation services that generate souvenirs for the visitors to take away and foster future engagements with the heritage. This paper discusses how the techniques for personalised text generation can be applied to produce post-visit postcards exploiting the interaction logs collected during the museum visit. The personalised postcard summarises the visit, creates a link with what was experienced and suggests further paths for content discovery. A user study conducted over four weeks confirms the appreciation for the personalised postcard and suggests future developments

Understanding student input for tutorial dialogue in procedural domains

We present an analysis of student language input in a corpus of tutoring dialogue in the domain of symbolic differentiation. Our focus on procedural tutoring makes the dialogue comparable to collaborative problem-solving (CPS). Existing CPS models describe the process of negotiating plans and goals, which also fits procedural tutoring. However, we provide a classification of student utterances and corpus annotation which shows that approximately 28% of non-trivial student language in this corpus is not accounted for by existing models, and addresses other functions, such as evaluating past actions or correcting mistakes. Our analysis can be used as a foundation for improving models of tutoring dialogue

Dealing with Interpretation Errors in Tutorial Dialogue.

We describe an approach to dealing with interpretation errors in a tutorial dialogue system. Allowing students to provide explanations and generate contentful talk can be helpful for learning, but the language that can be understood by a computer system is limited by the current technology. Techniques for dealing with understanding problems have been developed primarily for spoken dialogue systems in informationseeking domains, and are not always appropriate for tutorial dialogue. We present a classification of interpretation errors and our approach for dealing with them within an implemented tutorial dialogue system