Paper in ArgMAS 2013 Post-proceedings

I’m co-author of a paper in a post-workshop proceedings of the Ninth International Workshop on Argumentation in Multi-Agent Systems (ArgMAS 2012) June 4-8, Valencia, Spain.
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, schemes require a computational approach so that agents can use the components of a scheme to construct and 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{WynerABCArgMASPost2013,
author = {Adam Wyner and Atkinson, Katie and Trevor Bench-Capon},
title = {A Functional Perspective on Argumentation Schemes},
booktitle = {Post-Proceedings of the 9th International Workshop on Argumentation in Multi-Agent Systems ({ArgMAS} 2013)},
year = {2013},
editor = {Peter McBurney and Parsons, Simon and Iyad Rahwan},
pages = {??-??}
}
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By Adam Wyner

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Paper in CMNA 2010 Post-proceedings

I’m co-author of a paper in a post-workshop proceedings of the Workshop on Computational Models of Natural Argument in 2010 and 2011.
Working on the Argument Pipeline: Through Flow Issues between Natural Language Argument, Instantiated Arguments, and Argumentation Frameworks
Adam Wyner, Tom van Engers, and Anthony Hunter
Abstract
In many domains of public discourse such as arguments about public policy, there is an abundance of knowledge to store, query, and reason with. To use this knowledge, we must address two key general problems: first, the problem of the knowledge acquisition bottleneck between forms in which the knowledge is usually expressed, e.g. natural language, and forms which can be automatically processed; second, reasoning with the uncertainties and inconsistencies of the knowledge. Given such complexities, it is labour and knowledge intensive to conduct policy consultations, where participants contribute statements to the policy discourse. Yet, from such a consultation, we want to derive policy positions, where each position is a set of consistent statements, but where positions may be mutually inconsistent. To address these problems and support policy-making consultations, we consider recent automated techniques in natural language processing, instantiating arguments, and reasoning with the arguments in argumentation frameworks. We discuss application and “bridge” issues between these techniques, outlining a pipeline of technologies whereby: expressions in a controlled natural language are parsed and translated into a logic (a literals and rules knowledge base), from which we generate instantiated arguments and their relationships using a logic-based formalism (an argument knowledge base), which is then input to an implemented argumentation framework that calculates extensions of arguments (an argument extensions knowledge base), and finally, we extract consistent sets of expressions (policy positions). The paper reports progress towards reasoning with web-based, distributed, collaborative, incomplete, and inconsistent knowledge bases expressed in natural language.
Bibtex
@INPROCEEDINGS{WynerVanEngersHunterCMNAPOST2013,
author = {Adam Wyner and Tom van Engers and Anthony Hunter},
title = {Working on the Argument Pipeline: Through Flow Issues between Natural
Language Argument, Instantiated Arguments, and Argumentation Frameworks},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the Workshop on Computational Models of Natural Argument},
year = {2013},
editor = {??},
pages = {??-??},
note = {To appear}
}
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By Adam Wyner

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Paper at RuleML Special Session on Human-Rules

I’m co-author of a paper in the special session Human-Rules at The 7th International Web Rule Symposium (RuleML 2013), Seattle, Washington, USA.
Seattle, Washington, USA
A Study on Translating Regulatory Rules from Natural Language to Defeasible Logic
Adam Wyner and Guido Governatori
Abstract
Legally binding regulations are expressed in natural language. Yet, we cannot formally or automatically reason with regulations in that form. Defeasible Logic has been used to formally represent the semantic interpretation of regulations; such representations may provide the abstract specification for a machine-readable and processable representation as in LegalRuleML. However, manual translation is prohibitively costly in terms of time, labour, and knowledge. The paper discusses work in progress using the state-of-the-art in automatic translation of a sample of regulatory clauses to a machine readable formal representation and a comparison to correlated Defeasible Logic representations. It outlines some key problems and proposes tasks to address the problems.
Bibtex
@INPROCEEDINGS{WynerGovernatoriH-R2013,
author = {Adam Wyner and Guido Governatori},
title = {A Study on Translating Regulatory Rules from Natural Language to Defeasible Logic},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the {R}ule{ML} 2013},
publisher = {{CEUR}},
year = {2013},
pages = {??-??},
address = {Seattle, Washington, USA},
note = {To appear}
}
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By Adam Wyner

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ICAIL 2013 Papers

I’m co-author of three papers at The 14th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law (ICAIL 2013), Rome, Italy, The Netherlands.
Il Colloseo, Rome, Italy
OASIS LegalRuleML
Tara Athan, Harold Boley, Guido Governatori, Monica Palmirani, Adrian Paschke, Adam Wyner
Abstract
In this paper we present the motivation, use cases, design principles, abstract syntax, and initial core of LRML. The LRML core is sufficiently rich for expressing legal sources, time, defeasibility, and deontic operators. An example is provided. LRML is compared to related work.
Bibtex
@INPROCEEDINGS{AthanEtAl2013,
author = {Tara Athan and Harold Boley and Guido Governatori and Monica Palmirani and Adrian Paschke and Adam Wyner},
title = {{OASIS} {L}egal{R}ule{ML}},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law (ICAIL 2013)},
year = {2013},
pages = {3-12},
address = {Rome, Italy}
}
Argument Schemes for Reasoning with Legal Cases Using Values
Trevor Bench-Capon, Henry Prakken, Adam Wyner, and Katie Atkinson
Abstract
Argument schemes can provide a means of explicitly describing reasoning methods in a form that lends itself to computation. The reasoning required to distinguish cases in the manner of CATO has been previously captured as a set of argument schemes. Here we present argument schemes that encapsulate another way of reasoning with cases: using preferences between social values revealed in past decisions to decide cases which have no exact matching precedents when the cases are described in terms of factors. We provide a set of schemes, with variations to capture different ways of comparing sets and varying degrees of promotion of values; we formalise these schemes; and we illustrate them with some examples.
Bibtex
@INPROCEEDINGS{BenchCaponPrakkenWynerAtkinsonValueCBR2013,
author = {Trevor Bench-Capon and Henry Prakken and Adam Wyner and Katie Atkinson},
title = {Argument Schemes for Reasoning about Legal Cases},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law (ICAIL 2013)},
year = {2013},
pages = {13-22},
address = {Rome, Italy}
}
Argumentation Based Tools for Policy-Making
Maya Wardeh, Adam Wyner, Trevor Bench-Capon, and Katie Atkinson
Abstract
Short paper, so no abstract.
Bibtex
@INPROCEEDINGS{WardehWynerAtkinsonBenchCaponDemos2013,
author = {Maya Wardeh and Adam Wyner and Trevor Bench-Capon and Katie Atkinson},
title = {Argumentation Based Tools for Policy-Making},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law (ICAIL 2013)},
year = {2013},
pages = {249-250},
address = {Rome, Italy}
}
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By Adam Wyner

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Papers at JURIX 2012

I’m co-author of two papers at The 25th International Conference on Legal Knowledge and Information Systems (JURIX 2012), Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Links to the final drafts are forthcoming.
A Model-Based Critique Tool for Policy Deliberation
Adam Wyner, Maya Wardeh, Trevor Bench-Capon, and Katie Atkinson
Abstract
Domain models have proven useful as the basis for the construction and evaluation of arguments to support deliberation about policy proposals. Using a model provides the means to systematically examine and understand the fine-grained objections that individuals might have about the policy. While in previous approaches, a justification for a policy proposal is presented for critique by the user, here, we reuse the domain model to invert the roles of the citizen and the government: a policy proposal is elicited from the citizen, and a software agent automatically and systematically critiques it relative to the model and the government’s point of view. Such an approach engages citizens in a critical dialogue about the policy actions, which may lead to a better understanding of the implications of their proposals and that of the government. A web-based tool that interactively leads users through the critique is presented.
Bibtex
@INPROCEEDINGS{WynerEtAlCritique2012,
author = {Adam Wyner and Wardeh, Maya and Trevor Bench-Capon and Katie Atkinson},
title = {A Model-Based Critique Tool for Policy Deliberation},
booktitle = {Proceedings of 25th International Conference on Legal Knowledge and Information Systems (JURIX 2012)},
year = {2012},
pages = {167-176},
address = {Amsterdam},
publisher = {IOS Press}
comment = {Legal Knowledge and Information Systems. Jurix 2012: The AA-th Annual Conference}
}
An Empirical Approach to the Semantic Representation of Laws
Adam Wyner, Johan Bos, Valerio Basile, and Paulo Quaresma
Abstract
To make legal texts machine processable, the texts may be represented as linked documents, semantically tagged text, or translated to formal representations that can be automatically reasoned with. The paper considers the latter, which is key to testing consistency of laws, drawing inferences, and providing explanations relative to input. To translate laws to a form that can be reasoned with by a computer, sentences must be parsed and formally represented. The paper presents the state-of-the-art in automatic translation of law to a machine readable formal representation, provides corpora, outlines some key problems, and proposes tasks to address the problems.
Bibtex
@INPROCEEDINGS{WynerEtAlSemanticRep2012,
author = {Adam Wyner and Bos, Johan and Valerio Basile and Paulo Quaresma},
title = {An Empirical Approach to the Semantic Representation of Law},
booktitle = {Proceedings of 25th International Conference on Legal Knowledge and Information Systems (JURIX 2012)},
year = {2012},
pages = {177-180},
address = {Amsterdam},
publisher = {IOS Press}
}
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By Adam Wyner

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

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
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By Adam Wyner

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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},
}
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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.

Paper at CMN 2012

At the Language Resources and Evaluation Conference (LREC 2012) in Istanbul, Turkey, I participated in the Computational Models of Narrative workshop.
Arguments as Narratives
Adam Wyner
Abstract
Aspects of narrative coherence are proposed as a means to investigate and identify arguments from text. Computational analysis of argumentation largely focuses on representations of arguments that are either abstract or are constructed from a logical (e.g. propositional or first order) knowledge base. Argumentation schemes have been advanced for stereotypical patterns of defeasible reasoning. While we have well-formedness conditions for arguments in a first order language, namely the patterns for inference, the conditions for argumentation schemes is an open question, and the identification of arguments `in the wild’ is problematic. We do not understand the `source’ of rules from which inference follows; formally, well-formed `arguments’ can be expressed even with random sentences; moreover, argument indicators are sparse, so cannot be relied upon to identify arguments. As automated extraction of arguments from text increasingly finds important applications, it is pressing to isolate and integrate indicators of argument. To specify argument well-formedness conditions and identify arguments from unstructured text, we suggest using aspects of narrative coherence.
Slides for Arguments as Narratives
Bibtex
@INPROCEEDINGS{WynerCMN2012,
author = {Adam Wyner},
title = {Arguments as Narratives},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the Third Workshop on Computational Models of Narrative ({CMN} 2012)},
year = {2012},
editor = {Mark Finlayson},
pages = {178-180},
}
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By Adam Wyner

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Article in Artificial Intelligence and Law Journal for the 25th Anniversary of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law

A forthcoming special issue of the Journal of Artificial Intelligence and Law will be a long multi-author paper that celebrates 25 years of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and the Law.
A History of AI and Law in 50 Papers: 25 years of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and the Law
Bench-Capon et al.
Journal of Artificial Intelligence and Law
To appear.
Each of the authors who contributed to the special issue wrote about a paper from the conference from this 25 year period.
For this special issue, I wrote three sections:

The long paper itself serves as an excellent overview of the field these many years.
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By Adam Wyner

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