An informant-based approach to argument strength in Defeasible Logic Programming

This work formalizes an informant-based structured argumentation approach in a multi-agent setting, where the knowledge base of an agent may include information provided by other agents, and each piece of knowledge comes attached with its informant. In that way, arguments are associated with the set of informants corresponding to the information they are built upon. Our approach proposes an informant-based notion of argument strength, where the strength of an argument is determined by the credibility of its informant agents. Moreover, we consider that the strength of an argument is not absolute, but it is relative to the resolution of the conflicts the argument is involved in. In other words, the strength of an argument may vary from one context to another, as it will be determined by comparison to its attacking arguments (respectively, the arguments it attacks). Finally, we equip agents with the means to express reasons for or against the consideration of any piece of information provided by a given informant agent. Consequently, we allow agents to argue about the arguments’ strength through the construction of arguments that challenge (respectively, defeat) or are in favour of their informant agents.Fil: Cohen, Andrea. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Ciencias e Ingeniería de la Computación. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Ciencias e Ingeniería de la Computación. Instituto de Ciencias e Ingeniería de la Computación; ArgentinaFil: Gottifredi, Sebastián. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Ciencias e Ingeniería de la Computación. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Ciencias e Ingeniería de la Computación. Instituto de Ciencias e Ingeniería de la Computación; ArgentinaFil: Tamargo, Luciano Héctor. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Ciencias e Ingeniería de la Computación. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Ciencias e Ingeniería de la Computación. Instituto de Ciencias e Ingeniería de la Computación; ArgentinaFil: García, Alejandro Javier. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Ciencias e Ingeniería de la Computación. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Ciencias e Ingeniería de la Computación. Instituto de Ciencias e Ingeniería de la Computación; ArgentinaFil: Simari, Guillermo Ricardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Ciencias e Ingeniería de la Computación. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Ciencias e Ingeniería de la Computación. Instituto de Ciencias e Ingeniería de la Computación; Argentin

Mejoramiento de los servicios de razonamiento basados en programación lógica rebatible

Esta línea de investigación se enfoca en mejorar las capacidades de razonamiento de agentes que participan en Sistemas Multi-Agente (SMA). Su objetivo general es mejorar y desarrollar nuevas técnicas para los servicios de razonamiento basados en Programación Lógica Rebatible (Defeasilble Logic Programming o DeLP) combinando revisión de creencias, argumentación y mecanismos de confianza y reputación para su aplicación en SMA. En particular, se espera avanzar en la implementación de nuevos servicios y facilidades de los Servicios de Razonamiento basados en DeLP. Dicha integración permitirá realizar un avance en las tres áreas de investigación, y además, proveerá de técnicas avanzadas aplicables a los modelos de razonamiento de agentes inteligentes y sistemas multi-agente para entornos dinámicos.Eje: Agentes y Sistemas InteligentesRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Exploration of metaphors used by Indonesian legislators and political elites in the Indonesian sociopolitical domain

This thesis examines the ways Indonesian politicians exploit the rhetorical power of metaphors in the Indonesian political discourse. The research applies the Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Metaphorical Frame Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis to textual and oral data. The corpus comprises: 150 political news articles from two newspapers (Harian Kompas and Harian Waspada, 2010-2011 edition), 30 recordings of two television news and talk-show programmes (TV-One and Metro-TV), and 20 interviews with four legislators, two educated persons and two laymen. For this study, a corpus of written bahasa Indonesia was also compiled, which comprises 150 texts of approximately 439,472 tokens. The data analysis shows the potential power of metaphors in relation to how politicians communicate the results of their thinking, reasoning and meaning-making through language and discourse and its social consequences. The data analysis firstly revealed 1155 metaphors. These metaphors were then classified into the categories of conventional metaphor, cognitive function of metaphor, metaphorical mapping and metaphor variation. The degree of conventionality of metaphors is established based on the sum of expressions in each group of metaphors. Secondly, the analysis revealed that metaphor variation is influenced by the broader Indonesian cultural context and the natural and physical environment, such as the social dimension, the regional, style and the individual. The mapping system of metaphor is unidirectionality. Thirdly, the data show that metaphoric thought pervades political discourse in relation to its uses as: (1) a felicitous tool for the rhetoric of political leaders, (2) part of meaning-making that keeps the discourse contexts alive and active, and (3) the degree to which metaphor and discourse shape the conceptual structures of politicians‟ rhetoric. Fourthly, the analysis of data revealed that the Indonesian political discourse attempts to create both distance and solidarity towards general and specific social categories accomplished via metaphorical and frame references to the conceptualisations of us/them. The result of the analysis shows that metaphor and frame are excellent indicators of the us/them categories which work dialectically in the discourse. The acts of categorisation via metaphors and frames at both textual and conceptual level activate asymmetrical concepts and contribute to social and political hierarchical constructs, i.e. WEAKNESS vs.POWER, STUDENT vs. TEACHER, GHOST vs. CHOSEN WARRIOR, and so on. This analysis underscores the dynamic nature of categories by documenting metaphorical transfers between, i.e. ENEMY, DISEASE, BUSINESS, MYSTERIOUS OBJECT and CORRUPTION, LAW, POLITICS and CASE. The metaphorical transfers showed that politicians try to dictate how they categorise each other in order to mobilise audiences to act on behalf of their ideologies and to create distance and solidarity

The Trail, 2017-10-27

https://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/thetrail_all/3479/thumbnail.jp

The Political-Pedagogical Teacher. A Narrative Study on Subjective Limits and Experimental Practices from Dissident and Organised Chilean Teachers

This research problematises what it means to be a teacher in Chile after 35-40 years subjected to working within an established neoliberal regime. It is focused on the subjective limits that this type of regime imposes on teachers and on some possible ways of struggling and experimenting beyond these limits. Since the early 1980s, thorough neoliberal policies have reshaped Chilean society. In 2006 and again in 2011, widespread student demonstrations were the first significant social movement and political critique against this neoliberal regime. During this period, teachers were described as an absent subject. However, in 2014 dissident teachers spontaneously asserted themselves inaugurating ‘the teachers’ spring’, which in 2015 involved a 57-days strike, and again 50 days in 2019. Following a narrative approach, I conducted 35 interviews with 10 leaders and eight grassroots teachers of eight different dissident teachers’ organisations. I did a set of three interviews with the grassroots teachers concerning their story, everyday limits and experimental practices as teachers. I analysed the interviews by creating ‘personal narratives’ and used these narratives to analyse the broader topic of their struggle as organised and dissident teachers. I argue that the dissident teachers’ phenomenon is a struggle in the field of pedagogy, enabling the composition of a political-pedagogical teacher subject. Each chapter of analysis provides support for this argument. First, I analyse the problem of agobio as the overarching notion mobilised by teachers to give an account of and delineate the effects of 35-40 years of neoliberalism (‘a struggle’). Second, I analyse political-pedagogical dissent as the main criticism and critique the dissident teachers have articulated to problematise and disrupt the problem of agobio (‘in the field of pedagogy’). Lastly, I examine three types of relationship where the dissident teachers are experimenting with political-pedagogical teaching practices (‘the constitution of a political-pedagogical teacher subject’)

Occasioning Dialogic Spaces of Innovation: The pan-Canadian EHR, Infoway and the Re-Scripting of Healthcare

The Canadian public healthcare system appears to currently be under considerable strain. Escalating costs, dwindling budgets and growing patient dissatisfaction are just a few of the systemic pressures that have called into question our current ways of delivering healthcare. As a consequence, there is a growing recognition that renewal is needed, and that this renewal, to be successful, should meet the needs of a wide array of stakeholders, hence calling for unprecedented levels of collaboration among increasingly fragmented interests. In order to bring about this renewal, the federal government seems to be intent on implementing a pan-Canadian electronic health record (EHR) system. To that end, in 2001, Canada Health Infoway was born out of a novel collaboration between federal and jurisdictional health ministries with the specific mandate to accelerate the implementation of EHRs across Canada. In this thesis, I use material-semiotic and dialogic approaches to gain a more nuanced understanding of how the pan-Canadian EHR system is unfolding and in what ways Infoway is trying to accelerate that unfolding. I conclude by suggesting that a more dialogic approach to innovating, in which the innovator focuses on finding various ways to occasion dialogic spaces, may better foster the creation of new meanings of the innovation and therefore result in a more, and not less, harmonious change process. Furthermore, through these dialogic spaces, it is not just multiple meanings of the innovation that are being occasioned, but the innovation itself seems to become more meaningful

Mencius and Xunzi: On moral agency and the concept of Neng

Master'sMASTER OF ART

Spectacle as Myth: Guanxi, the relational and the urban quotidian in contemporary Chinese art (2005-2008)

This thesis is an interrogation of the spectacle of Chinese contemporary art and the concept of a Chinese modernity, in terms of the legacy from the Communist era, China's social fabric and its urban quotidian. It contributes to knowledge in a way of understanding Chinese contemporary art that is firmly rooted in both Chinese and Western historical and cultural theories and from the point of view of a Chinese from the diaspora. Its originality also derives from the manner in which it questions the validity of imposing a Western modernity on a Chinese context and its identification of a more complex causal framework influencing fine art discourses globally. The principle has been to reconstitute the idea of the Orient, in this case China, as a significant Other, not at the periphery of Western culture but with equal stature in terms of hegemony, history and heritage. This has necessitated an interdisciplinary interrogation that accounts for a range of influences such as the Chinese political, social and cultural elements within China's dynamic economic growth and alongside influences of globalisation and Western modernism. The research is built on the author's academic scholarship in western art theory and practice, Chinese art history and culture and a particular personal connection with China. The first is an undergraduate First Class Honours degree in Fine Art from Central St. Martins and subsequent professional practice as an artist and lecturer, the second a Masters degree in Chinese Art and Archaeology from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and the third as a Chinese from the diaspora, born in a Beijing hutong and whose father's early professional life was inextricably linked to that of Mao

Cross-Cultural Currents in the Work of Yu-Cheng Chuang: An Examination of the Chinese Principle of Jingjie and Western Idea of the Picturesque as Parallel Influences on Site-Specificity in Land Art

This combined studio practice/text thesis analyses links among the Chinese concept of jingjie, the archetypal patterns of sacred places, the picturesque movement in European aesthetics, and site-specificity in 1960s Land Art. In addition to examining site-specificity and the theoretical aspects of my studio practice, I explore the relationship between my ethnicity and my work in the context of contemporary Chinese and Taiwanese art environments. Guided by the principle that "practice and theory inform each other," I restate the significance of jingjie in contemporary art, especially its connection with the physical and psychological patterns found in archetypal "sacred places." Jingjie was fundamental to the spatial fluidity found in Chinese landscape arts, especially garden design. After demonstrating how Chinese gardens influenced English landscape garden principles and the 18th-century European picturesque movement, I argue that similar East-West connections served as direct and indirect influences on the site-specific work of middle and late 20th-century Land Art artists. I then describe how picturesque depictions of the relationship between man and nature influenced 19th-century landscape architecture in North America and 20th-century Land Art throughout the West. Finally, jingjie and Chinese gardens are used to explore archetypal sacred place patterns and their influences on the Western tradition of the picturesque. These parallel East-West connections served as the foundation for later interest in site-specificity, and were essential in establishing a historical context for understanding cross-cultural currents and their influences on Land Art artists. Using jingjie as my focus, I examine aspects of contemporary art that are not usually addressed by art critics, and reconsider the relevance of the Western picturesque tradition through a reciprocal model of cultural influences

Fidel Castro speaks on Marxism-Leninism: Dec. 2, 1961

https://stars.library.ucf.edu/prism/1093/thumbnail.jp