We present a domain-independent topic segmentation algorithm for multi-party speech. Our feature-based algorithm combines knowledge about content using a text-based algorithm as a feature and about form using linguistic and acoustic cues about topic shifts extracted from speech. This segmentation algorithm uses automatically induced decision rules to combine the different features. The embedded text-based algorithm builds on lexical cohesion and has performance comparable to state-of-the-art algorithms based on lexical information. A significant error reduction is obtained by combining the two knowledge sources. Related WorkExisting approaches to textual segmentation can be broadly divided into two categories. On the one hand, many algorithms exploit the fact that topic segments tend to be lexically cohesive. Embodiments of this idea include semantic similarity (Morris and Hirst, 1991;Kozima, 1993), cosine similarity

This paper presents a classifier-combination experimental framework for named entity recognition in which four diverse classifiers (robust linear classifier, maximum entropy, transformation-based learning, and hidden Markov model) are combined under different conditions. When no gazetteer or other additional training resources are used, the combined system attains a performance of 91.6F on the English development data; integrating name, location and person gazetteers, and named entity systems trained on additional, more general, data reduces the F-measure error by a factor of 15 to 21% on the English data.

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We present a multi-document summarizer, MEAD, which generates summaries using cluster centroids produced by a topic detection and tracking system. We describe two new techniques, a centroid-based summarizer, and an evaluation scheme based on sentence utility and subsumption. We have applied this evaluation to both single and multiple document summaries. Finally, we describe two user studies that test our models of multi-document summarization.

We present a novel sentence reduction system for automatically removing extraneous phrases from sentences that are extracted from a document for summarization purpose. The system uses multiple sources of knowledge to decide which phrases in an extracted sentence can be removed, including syntactic knowledge, context information, and statistics computed from a corpus which consists of examples written by human professionals. Reduction can significantly improve the conciseness of automatic summaries.