Thirty years of artificial intelligence and law: the third decade

AbstractThe first issue of Artificial Intelligence and Law journal was published in 1992. This paper offers some commentaries on papers drawn from the Journal’s third decade. They indicate a major shift within Artificial Intelligence, both generally and in AI and Law: away from symbolic techniques to those based on Machine Learning approaches, especially those based on Natural Language texts rather than feature sets. Eight papers are discussed: two concern the management and use of documents available on the World Wide Web, and six apply machine learning techniques to a variety of legal applications.</jats:p

Logical Comparison of Cases

Comparison between cases is a core issue in case-based reasoning. In this paper, we discuss a logical comparison approach in terms of the case model formalism. By logically generalizing the formulas involved in case comparison, our approach identifies analogies, distinctions and relevances. An analogy is a property shared between cases. A distinction is a property of one case ruled out by the other case, and a relevance is a property of one case, and not the other, that is not ruled out by the other case. The comparison approach is applied to HYPO-style comparison (where distinctions and relevances are not separately characterized) and to the temporal dynamics of case-based reasoning using a model of real world cases

Thirty years of Artificial Intelligence and Law: the second decade

The first issue of Artificial Intelligence and Law journal was published in 1992. This paper provides commentaries on nine significant papers drawn from the Journal's second decade. Four of the papers relate to reasoning with legal cases, introducing contextual considerations, predicting outcomes on the basis of natural language descriptions of the cases, comparing different ways of representing cases, and formalising precedential reasoning. One introduces a method of analysing arguments that was to become very widely used in AI and Law, namely argumentation schemes. Two relate to ontologies for the representation of legal concepts and two take advantage of the increasing availability of legal corpora in this decade, to automate document summarisation and for the mining of arguments

Manganese-labeled alginate hydrogels for image-guided cell transplantation

Cell transplantation has been studied extensively as a therapeutic strategy for neurological disorders. However, to date, its effectiveness remains unsatisfactory due to low precision and efficacy of cell delivery; poor survival of transplanted cells; and inadequate monitoring of their fate in vivo. Fortunately, different bio-scaffolds have been proposed as cell carriers to improve the accuracy of cell delivery, survival, differentiation, and controlled release of embedded stem cells. The goal of our study was to establish hydrogel scaffolds suitable for stem cell delivery that also allow non-invasive magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We focused on alginate-based hydrogels due to their natural origin, biocompatibility, resemblance to the extracellular matrix, and easy manipulation of gelation processes. We optimized the properties of alginate-based hydrogels, turning them into suitable carriers for transplanted cells. Human adipose-derived stem cells embedded in these hydrogels survived for at least 14 days in vitro. Alginate-based hydrogels were also modified successfully to allow their injectability via a needle. Finally, supplementing alginate hydrogels with Mn ions or Mn nanoparticles allowed for their visualization in vivo using manganese-enhanced MRI. We demonstrated that modified alginate-based hydrogels can support therapeutic cells as MRI-detectable matrices.This work was supported by NanoTech4ALS (ref. ENMed/0008/2015, 13/EuroNanoMed/ 2016), funded under the EU FP7 M-ERA.NET program, and European Social Fund (POWR.03.02.00- 00-I028/17-00). Eduarda P. Oliveira acknowledges the Ph.D. scholarship (SFRH/BD/137726/2018), attributed by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). Authors also acknowledge the R&D Project KOAT—Kefiran exopolysaccharide: Promising biopolymer for use in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering, with reference PTDC/BTMMAT/29760/2017, financed by FCT and co-financed by FEDER and POCI.

The Polish School of Argumentation:A Manifesto

Building on our diverse research traditions in the study of reasoning, language and communication, the Polish School of Argumentation integrates various disciplines and institutions across Poland in which scholars are dedicated to understanding the phenomenon of the force of argument. Our primary goal is to craft a methodological programme and establish organisational infrastructure: this is the first key step in facilitating and fostering our research movement, which joins people with a common research focus, complementary skills and an enthusiasm to work together. This statement—the Manifesto—lays the foundations for the research programme of the Polish School of Argumentation