Dispute Resolution Using Argumentation-Based Mediation

Mediation is a process, in which both parties agree to resolve their dispute by negotiating over alternative solutions presented by a mediator. In order to construct such solutions, mediation brings more information and knowledge, and, if possible, resources to the negotiation table. The contribution of this paper is the automated mediation machinery which does that. It presents an argumentation-based mediation approach that extends the logic-based approach to argumentation-based negotiation involving BDI agents. The paper describes the mediation algorithm. For comparison it illustrates the method with a case study used in an earlier work. It demonstrates how the computational mediator can deal with realistic situations in which the negotiating agents would otherwise fail due to lack of knowledge and/or resources.Comment: 6 page

Transdisciplinarity seen through Information, Communication, Computation, (Inter-)Action and Cognition

Similar to oil that acted as a basic raw material and key driving force of industrial society, information acts as a raw material and principal mover of knowledge society in the knowledge production, propagation and application. New developments in information processing and information communication technologies allow increasingly complex and accurate descriptions, representations and models, which are often multi-parameter, multi-perspective, multi-level and multidimensional. This leads to the necessity of collaborative work between different domains with corresponding specialist competences, sciences and research traditions. We present several major transdisciplinary unification projects for information and knowledge, which proceed on the descriptive, logical and the level of generative mechanisms. Parallel process of boundary crossing and transdisciplinary activity is going on in the applied domains. Technological artifacts are becoming increasingly complex and their design is strongly user-centered, which brings in not only the function and various technological qualities but also other aspects including esthetic, user experience, ethics and sustainability with social and environmental dimensions. When integrating knowledge from a variety of fields, with contributions from different groups of stakeholders, numerous challenges are met in establishing common view and common course of action. In this context, information is our environment, and informational ecology determines both epistemology and spaces for action. We present some insights into the current state of the art of transdisciplinary theory and practice of information studies and informatics. We depict different facets of transdisciplinarity as we see it from our different research fields that include information studies, computability, human-computer interaction, multi-operating-systems environments and philosophy.Comment: Chapter in a forthcoming book: Information Studies and the Quest for Transdisciplinarity - Forthcoming book in World Scientific. Mark Burgin and Wolfgang Hofkirchner, Editor

Multilingual Coreference Resolution in Multiparty Dialogue

Existing multiparty dialogue datasets for coreference resolution are nascent, and many challenges are still unaddressed. We create a large-scale dataset, Multilingual Multiparty Coref (MMC), for this task based on TV transcripts. Due to the availability of gold-quality subtitles in multiple languages, we propose reusing the annotations to create silver coreference data in other languages (Chinese and Farsi) via annotation projection. On the gold (English) data, off-the-shelf models perform relatively poorly on MMC, suggesting that MMC has broader coverage of multiparty coreference than prior datasets. On the silver data, we find success both using it for data augmentation and training from scratch, which effectively simulates the zero-shot cross-lingual setting

Chapter 6: Culture and Ethics

The OTiS (Online Teaching in Scotland) programme, run by the now defunct Scotcit programme, ran an International e-Workshop on Developing Online Tutoring Skills which was held between 8–12 May 2000. It was organised by Heriot–Watt University, Edinburgh and The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK. Out of this workshop came the seminal Online Tutoring E-Book, a generic primer on e-learning pedagogy and methodology, full of practical implementation guidelines. Although the Scotcit programme ended some years ago, the E-Book has been copied to the SONET site as a series of PDF files, which are now available via the ALT Open Access Repository. The editor, Carol Higgison, is currently working in e-learning at the University of Bradford (see her staff profile) and is the Chair of the Association for Learning Technology (ALT)

Socializing Religious Moderation and Peace in the Indonesian Landscape

This paper discusses the idea of religious moderation addressed for peace in Indonesia. This paper is a library research through reference sources on the concepts of religious moderation and peace circulating in Indonesia's new tradition of literacy. This paper concludes that the Indonesian people who have religious diversity need visions and solutions that can build harmony and peace in religious life, especially by using religious moderation to accept different views, and without falling into intolerance, radicalism, and extremism. The goal of religious moderation is to find a middle ground between the two extremes of religion, and to do so peacefully. On the one hand, there are religious fundamentalists who insist that only one religious scripture reading is correct and view all those who disagree as heretics or even infidels. This ultra-conservative group is still reasonably influential, especially in urban areas

The Simulation System for Propagation of Fire and Smoke

This work presents a solution for a real-time fire suppression control system. It also serves as a support tool that allows creation of virtual ship models and testing them against a range of representative fire scenarios. Model testing includes generating predictions faster than real time, using the simulation network model developed by Hughes Associates, Inc., their visualization, as well as interactive modification of the model settings through the user interface. In the example, the ship geometry represents ex-USS Shadwell, test area 688, imitating a submarine. Applying the designed visualization techniques to the example model revealed the ability of the system to process, store and render data much faster than the real time (in average, 40 times faster)