Category: argumentation

Video Lecture on Agreement Technologies and Argumentation

I participated in a recent Agreement Technologies (AT) meeting in June 2012 in Valencia, Spain; AT is a European Cooperation in Science and Technology funded organisation. As part of a new book with associated videolectures, I presented the videolecture Agreement Technologies and Argumentation, written by Sanjay Modgil and Francesca Toni, which has a runtime of just under 10 minutes. The other videolectures are good introductions to other areas of AT.

Presentations at CMNA 2012 and RuleML 2012

I have gave a talk about my paper at the ECAI workshop on Computational Models of Natural Argumentation 2012 and also presented an invited talk at the RuleML 2012 conference. The PDFs of these talks are below.
Questions, arguments, and natural language semantics
Translating Rules in Natural Language to RuleML
Shortlink to this page.
By Adam Wyner

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Papers at CMNA 2012 and AT 2012

Recent papers at two conferences. One is in the 12th workshop on Computational Models of Natural Argument (CMNA 2012), Montpellier, France. A second paper is in the 1st International Conference on Agreement Technologies (AT 2012), Dubrovnik, Croatia.
Questions, arguments, and natural language semantics
Adam Wyner
Abstract
Computational models of argumentation can be understood to bridge between human and automated reasoning. Argumentation schemes represent stereotypical, defeasible reasoning patterns. Critical questions are associated with argumentation schemes and are said to attack arguments. The paper highlights several issues with the current understanding of critical questions in argumentation. It provides a formal semantics for questions, an approach to instantiated argumentation schemes, and shows how the semantics of questions clarifies the issues. In this approach, questions do not attack schemes, though answers to questions might.
Bibtex
@INPROCEEDINGS{WynerCMNA2012,
author = {Adam Wyner},
title = {Questions, Arguments, and Natural Language Semantics},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 12th Workshop on Computational Models of Natural Argumentation ({CMNA} 2012)},
year = {2012},
address = {Montpellier, France},
note = {To appear}}
Arguing from a Point of View
Adam Wyner and Jodie Schneider
Abstract
Evaluative statements, where some entity has a qualitative attribute, appear widespread in blogs, political discussions, and consumer websites. Such expressions can occur in argumentative settings, where they are the conclusion of an argument. Whether the argument holds depends on a the premises that express a user’s point of view. Where different users disagree, arguments may arise. There are several ways to represent users, e.g. by values and other parameters. The paper proposes models and argumentation schemes for evaluative expressions, where the arguments and attacks between arguments are relative to a user’s model.
Bibtex
@INPROCEEDINGS{WynerSchneider2012AT,
author = {Adam Wyner and Jodi Schneider},
title = {Arguing from a Point of View},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the First International Conference on Agreement Technologies},
year = {2012},
address = {Dubrovnick, Croatia},
note = {To appear}}
Shortlink to this page.
By Adam Wyner

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Presentation on Argument Mining at the London Text Analytic Meetup

On July 13 at Fizzback HQ in London, I presented a talk at the London Text Analytic Meetup on Argument Mining. The slides are available at the link below.
Comments on Natural Language and Argumentation
Adam Wyner
Abstract
Opinion and sentiment mining of web-based content are widely done to find out the views of users about consumer goods or politics, but the techniques rely on accrual, do not identify justification, and do not provide structure to support reasoning. Argument mining provides an articulated view of web-based content, identifying justifications, counterpoints, and structure for reasoning.
Two other papers were presented at the meetup.
One by Francesca Toni and Lucas Carstens from Imperial College:
Sentiment Analysis is concerned with differentiating opinionated text from factual text and, in the case of opinionated text, determine its polarity. With this paper, we present A-SVM, a system that tackles the discrimination of opinionated text from non-opinionated text with the help of Support Vector Machines (SVM). In a two-step process, SVM classifications are improved via arguments, acquired by means of a user feedback mechanism. The system has been used to investigate the merits of approaching Sentiment Analysis in a multi faceted manner by comparing straightforward Machine Learning techniques with this multimodal system architecture. All evaluations were executed using a purpose-built corpus of annotated text and its classification performance was compared to that of SVM. The classification of a test set of approximately 12,000 words yielded an increase in classification precision of 5.6%.
Another paper by Francesca Toni and Valentinos Evripidou from Imperial College
We describe a new argumentation method for analysing opinion exchanges between on-line users aiding them to draw informative, structured and meaningful information. Our method combines different factors, such as social support drawn from votes and attacking/supporting relations between opinions interpreted as abstract arguments. We show a prototype web application which puts into use this method to offer anintelligent business directory allowing users to engage in debate and aid them to extract the dominant, emerging public opinion.
By Adam Wyner

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Dead Cert – BBC Podcast about Uncertainty in Public Discourse

BBC Radio 4 has a 30 minute radio show about uncertainty in public discourse. Several of the points were well made and relevant to key lines of research that I do (argumentation, policy-making), so I thought it worthwhile to give a link here.
The main questions that caught my attention were:

  • How do we (public, experts, and politicians) make public decisions where there is uncertainty?
  • How are problems and proposals presented by different organisations (politicians, experts, and journalists)?

All the content below is from the BBC. The link below should take you to the BBC site and start the presentation. However, there might be some restrictions on access from outside the UK.
– Adam
Certainty: is the lust for it a sin? And if so, should politics fear for its soul? Michael Blastland makes a plea for policy makers to be less sure of themselves in “Dead Cert”, originally broadcast on 6 November 2008.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/analysis/all#playepisode21

Papers at ITBAM 2012, ePart 2012, and EKAW 2012

Recent papers at various conferences. One is in the 3rd International Conference on Information Technology in Bio- and Medical Informatics (ITBAM 2012), Vienna, Austria. Another is in the 4th International Conference on eParticipation (ePart 2012), Kristainsand, Norway. And a final paper is in the 18th International Conference on Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management, Galway, Ireland.
Argumentation to represent and reason over biological systems
Adam Wyner, Luke Riley, Robert Hoehndorf, and Samuel Croset.
Abstract
In systems biology, networks represent components of biological systems and their interactions. It is a challenge to efficiently represent, integrate and analyse the wealth of information that is now being created in biology, where issues concerning consistency arise. As well, the information offers novel methods to explain and explore biological phenomena. To represent and reason with inconsistency as well as provide explanation, we represent a fragment of a biological system and its interactions in terms of a computational model of argument and argumentation schemes. Process pathways are represented in terms of an argumentation scheme, then abstracted into a computational model for evaluation, yielding sets of ‘consistent’ arguments that represent compatible biological processes. From the arguments, we can extract the corresponding processes. We show how the analysis supports explanation and systematic exploration in a biology network.
Bibtex
@INPROCEEDINGS{WynerEtAlITBAM2012,
author = {Adam Wyner and Riley, Luke and Robert Hoehndorf and Samuel Croset},
title = {Argumentation to Represent and Reason over Biological Systems},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Information Technology in Bio- and Medical Informatics ({ITBAM} 2012)},
year = {2012},
note = {To appear},
}
Model based critique of policy proposals
Adam Wyner, Katie Atkinson, and Trevor Bench-Capon
Abstract
Citizens may engage with policy issues both to critique official justifications, and to make their own proposals and receive reasons why they are not favoured. Either direction of use can be supported by argumentation schemes based on formal models, which can be used to verify and generate arguments, assimilate objections etc. Previously we have explored the citizen critiqing a justification using an argumentation scheme based on Alternating Action-based Transition Systems. We now present a system which uses the same model to critique proposals from citizens. A prototype has been implemented in Prolog and we illustrate the ideas with code fragments and a running example.
Bibtex
@INPROCEEDINGS{WynerABCEPart2012,
author = {Adam Wyner and Atkinson, Katie and Trevor Bench-Capon},
title = {Model Based Critique of Policy Proposals},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on e{P}articipation (e{P}art 2012)},
year = {2012},
note = {To appear},
}
Dimensions of argumentation in social media
Jodi Schneider, Brian Davis, and Adam Wyner
Abstract
Mining social media for opinions is important to governments and businesses. Current approaches focus on sentiment and opinion detection. Yet, people also justify their views, giving arguments. Understanding arguments in social media would yield richer knowledge about the views of individuals and collectives. Extracting arguments from social media is difficult. Messages appear to lack indicators for argument, document structure, or inter-document relationships. In social media, lexical variety, alternative spellings, multiple languages, and alternative punctuation are common. Social media also encompasses numerous genres. These aspects can confound the extraction of well-formed knowledge bases of argument. We chart out the various aspects in order to isolate them for further analysis and processing.
Bibtex
@INPROCEEDINGS{SchneiderEtAlEKAW2012,
author = {Jodi Schneider and Davis, Brian and Adam Wyner},
title = {Dimensions of Argumentation in Social Media},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management ({EKAW} 2012)},
year = {2012},
note = {To appear},
}
Shortlink to this page.
By Adam Wyner

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Papers at COMMA 2012

At the 4th International Conference on Computational Models of Argumentation in Vienna, Austria, I have a short paper in the main conference and a paper in the demo session.
Semi-automated argumentative analysis of online product reviews
Adam Wyner, Jodi Schneider, Katie Atkinson, and Trevor Bench-Capon
Abstract
Argumentation is key to understanding and evaluating many texts. The arguments in the texts must be identified; using current tools, this requires substantial work from human analysts. With a rule-based tool for semi-automatic text analysis support, we facilitate argument identification. The tool highlights potential argumentative sections of a text according to terms indicative of arguments (e.g. suppose or therefore) and domain terminology (e.g. camera names and properties). The information can be used by an analyst to instantiate argumentation schemes and build arguments for and against a proposal. The resulting argumentation framework can then be passed to argument evaluation tools.
Bibtex
@INPROCEEDINGS{WynerEtAlCOMMA2012a,
author = {Adam Wyner and Schneider, Jodi and Katie Atkinson and Trevor Bench-Capon},
title = {Semi-Automated Argumentative Analysis of Online Product Reviews},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Computational
Models of Argument ({COMMA} 2012)},
year = {2012},
note = {To appear},
}
Critiquing justifications for action using a semantic model: Demonstration
Adam Wyner, Katie Atkinson, and Trevor Bench-Capon
Abstract
The paper is two pages with no abstract.
Bibtex
@INPROCEEDINGS{WynerABCDemoCOMMA2012,
author = {Adam Wyner and Atkinson, Katie and Trevor Bench-Capon},
title = {Critiquing Justifications for Action Using a Semantic Model: Demonstration},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Computational Models of Argument ({COMMA} 2012)},
year = {2012},
pages = {1-2},
note = {To appear},
}
Shortlink to this page.
By Adam Wyner

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Papers at AAMAS 2012 and ArgMas 2012

At the 11th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-agent Systems Conference in Valencia, Spain, I had a short paper in the main conference and a paper in the Argumentation in Multi-agent Systems Workshop
Opinion gathering using a multi-agent systems approach to policy selection
Katie Atkinson, Trevor Bench-Capon, and Adam Wyner
Abstract
An important aspect of e-democracy is consultation, in which policy proposals are presented and feedback from citizens is received and assimilated so that these proposals can be refined and made more acceptable to the citizens affected by them. We present an innovative web-based application that uses recent developments in multi-agent systems (MAS) to provide intelligent support for opinion gathering, eliciting a structured critique within a highly usable system.
Bibtex
@INPROCEEDINGS{AtkinsonBCW-AAMAS2012,
author = {Katie Atkinson and Trevor Bench-Capon and Adam Wyner},
title = {Opinion Gathering Using a Multi-Agent Systems Approach to Policy
Selection},
booktitle = {Proceedings of AAMAS 2012},
year = {2012},
editor = {Vincent Conitzer and Winikoff, Michael and Wiebe van der Hoek and
Lin Padgham},
pages = {1171-1172}
}
A functional perspective on argumentation schemes
Adam Wyner, Katie Atkinson, and Trevor Bench-Capon
Abstract
In multi-agent systems (MAS), abstract argumentation and argumentation schemes are increasingly important. To be useful for MAS, argumentation schemes require a computational approach so that agents can use the components of a scheme to present arguments and counterarguments. This paper proposes a syntactic analysis that integrates argumentation schemes with abstract argumentation. Schemes can be analysed into the roles that propositions play in each scheme and the structure of the associated propositions, yielding a greater understanding of the schemes, a uniform method of analysis, and a systematic means to relate one scheme to another. This analysis of the schemes helps to clarify what is needed to provide denotations of the terms and predicates in a semantic model.
Bibtex
@INPROCEEDINGS{WynerABCArgMAS2012,
author = {Adam Wyner and Atkinson, Katie and Trevor Bench-Capon},
title = {A Functional Perspective on Argumentation Schemes},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 9th International Workshop on Argumentation in
Multi-Agent Systems ({ArgMAS} 2012)},
year = {2012},
editor = {Peter McBurney and Parsons, Simon and Iyad Rahwan},
pages = {203-222},
}
Shortlink to this page.
By Adam Wyner

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.