Automatic Production of Multilingual Environmental Information

Abstract

Multilingual environmental information is communicated via different media. These media can be newspapers, TV, internet, WAP, SMS, etc. Each of the media has a presentation mode which fits best. Thus, it turned out that for newspapers, pictograms which indicate good, normal, and bad conditions, a map with pictograms and/or a very short text are to be preferred. In contrast, the information provided in the internet, can be very detailed and personalized and contain the latest data available at the moment the user requests the information. Furthermore, in the internet, the user can interactively select more details or change the presentation mode. For all media, the most challenging information mode is text. Since a template-based method where predefined sentences with empty slots filled at the time of generation cannot ensure coherent and cohesive text for all contextual settings, full-fledged generation techniques are needed. In this paper, we present the generation techniques as used for the production of multilingual air quality information in the framework of the MARQUIS-project.