Discovering Argumentative Patterns in Energy Polylogues: A Macroscope for Argument Mining

A macroscope is proposed and tested here for the discovery of the unique argumentative footprint that characterizes how a collective (e.g., group, online community) manages differences and pursues disagreement through argument in a polylogue. The macroscope addresses broader analytic problems posed by various conceptualizations of large-scale argument, such as fields, spheres, communities, and institutions. The design incorporates a two-tier methodology for detecting argument patterns of the arguments performed in arguing by an interactive collective that produces views, or topographies, of the ways that issues are generated in the making and defending of standpoints. The design premises for the macroscope build on insights about argument patterns from pragma-dialectical theory by incorporating research and theory on disagreement management and the Argumentum Model of Topics. The design reconceptualizes prototypical and stereotypical argument patterns for characterizing large-scale argumentation. A prototype of the macroscope is tested on data drawn from six threads about oil-drilling and fracking from the subreddit Changemyview. The implementation suggests the efficacy of the macroscope’s design and potential for identifying what communities make controversial and how the disagreement space in a polylogue is managed through stereotypical argument patterns in terms of claims/premises, inferential relations, and presentational devices

Incremental Construction of Robust but Deep Semantic Representations for Use in Responsive Dialogue Systems

Peldszus A, Schlangen D. Incremental Construction of Robust but Deep Semantic Representations for Use in Responsive Dialogue Systems. In: Hajičová E, ed. Proceedings of the Coling Workshop on Advances in Discourse Analysis and its Computational Aspects. 2012

Joint Satisfaction of Syntactic and Pragmatic Constraints Improves Incremental Spoken Language Understanding

Peldszus A, Buß O, Baumann T, Schlangen D. Joint Satisfaction of Syntactic and Pragmatic Constraints Improves Incremental Spoken Language Understanding. Presented at the 13th Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics, Avignon, France

A methodology for analyzing human-automation interactions in flight operations using formal verification techniques

When designing and developing systems in safety critical or cost intensive environments it is important to identify as much potential risks as possible prior to operating the system. This includes aspects of the interaction between human and automation systems that are prone to issues. This work-in-progress paper describes a methodology that systematically derives relevant analysis questions for complex human-automation interaction systems. It demonstrates how formal models for all components of the human-automation system can be created. These models are used by model checking algorithms to verify the safety properties associated with the selected analysis questions. While this paper includes no evaluation of the methodology, an ongoing evaluation study is outlined based on the life support system (ECLS) of the European science laboratory Columbus, which is part of the International Space Station. Each step of the formal verification methodology is illustrated with the results obtained so far on the ECLS case study