Incorporating natural language descriptions into modeling and simulation

Abstract

We explore an approach to merging simulation and natural language in which conceptual structures are used which can repre sent the structure and meaning of sentences as well as basic mathematical concepts. Sentences can be transformed to these structures, and, via language generation, the structures can be transformed into mathematical equations. The process is illustrated using a text description of a plankton respiration model. The ap proach shows how qualitative natural language statements can be merged with both qualitative and quantitative modeling and simulation.