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Discourse planning for information composition and delivery: A reusable platform

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 December 2009

CÉCILE PARIS ,
NATHALIE COLINEAU ,
ANDREW LAMPERT  and
KEITH VANDER LINDEN
CÉCILE PARIS
Affiliation:
CSIRO – ICT Centre, PO Box 76, Epping, NSW 1710, Australia e-mails: cecile.paris@csiro.au, nathalie.colineau@csiro.au, andrew.lampert@csiro.au
NATHALIE COLINEAU
Affiliation:
CSIRO – ICT Centre, PO Box 76, Epping, NSW 1710, Australia e-mails: cecile.paris@csiro.au, nathalie.colineau@csiro.au, andrew.lampert@csiro.au
ANDREW LAMPERT
Affiliation:
CSIRO – ICT Centre, PO Box 76, Epping, NSW 1710, Australia e-mails: cecile.paris@csiro.au, nathalie.colineau@csiro.au, andrew.lampert@csiro.au
KEITH VANDER LINDEN
Affiliation:
Department of Computer Science, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, MI 49546, USA e-mail: kvlinden@calvin.edu
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Abstract

To work effectively in information-rich environments, knowledge workers must be able to distil the most appropriate information from the deluge of information available to them. This is difficult to do manually. Natural language engineers can support these workers by developing information delivery tools, but because of the wide variety of contexts in which information is acquired and delivered, these tools have tended to be domain-specific, ad hoc solutions that are hard to generalise. This paper discusses Myriad, a platform that generalises the integration of sets of resources to a variety of information delivery contexts. Myriad provides resources from natural language generation for discourse planning as well as a service-based architecture for data access. The nature of Myriad's resources is driven by engineering concerns. It focuses on resources that reason about and generate from coarse-grained units of information, likely to be provided by existing information sources, and it supports the integration of pipe-lined planning and template mechanisms. The platform is illustrated in the context of three information delivery applications and is evaluated with respect to its utility.

Type
Papers
Information
Natural Language Engineering , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , January 2010 , pp. 61 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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