Prepositional fusion rules

Abstract

In previous papers, we have presented a logic-based framework for merging structured news reports. Structured news reports are XML documents, where the text entries are restricted to individual words or simple phrases, such as names and domain-specific terminology, and numbers and units. We assume structured news reports do not require natural language processing. In this paper, we present prepositional fusion rules as a way of implementing logic-based fusion for structured news reports. Fusion rules are a form of scripting language that define how structured news reports should be merged. The antecedent of a fusion rule is a call to investigate the information in the structured news reports and the background knowledge, and the consequent of a fusion rule is a formula specifying an action to be undertaken to form a merged report. It is expected that a set of fusion rules is defined for any given application. We give the syntax and mode of execution for fusion rules, and explain how the resulting actions give a merged report.