Approximate syllogistic reasoning: a contribution to inference patterns and use cases

In this thesis two models of syllogistic reasoning for dealing with arguments that involve fuzzy quantified statements and approximate chaining are proposed. The modeling of quantified statements is based on the Theory of Generalized Quantifiers, which allows us to manage different kind of quantifiers simultaneously, and the inference process is interpreted in terms of a mathematical optimization problem, which allows us to deal with more arguments that standard deductive ones. For the case of approximate chaining, we propose to use synonymy, as used in a thesaurus, for calculating the degree of confidence of the argument according to the degree of similarity between chaining terms. As use cases, different types of Bayesian reasoning (Generalized Bayes' Theorem, Bayesian networks and probabilistic reasoning in legal argumentation) are analysed for being expressed through syllogisms

It was never just about the statue: ethos of historical figures in public debates on contested cultural objects

Collective, historical memory becomes increasingly important in public debates on cultural heritage across many countries. Their key elements are contested cultural objects—such as statues or memorials—which construct nations' memory that governs societal processes such as decolonisation or de-Stalinization. This paper analyses arguments about five such objects in UK, US, South Africa, Poland and Spain in order to identify discursive strategies used to argue whether to remove or to keep them. Large-scale comparative discourse analysis reveals that the ethos of historical figures—such as the Confederates or Joseph Stalin—commemorated by these cultural objects plays an essential and primary role in these debates. We argue that values associated with the character of these figures determine the dynamics of discourse and its close analysis allows us to uncover what societies are struggling with when handling artifacts of the past in the present da

Explorando métodos non-supervisados para calcular a similitude semántica textual

Neste traballo preséntanse varios métodos non-supervisados para a detección da similitude semántica textual, os cales están baseados en modelos distribucionais e no parseado de dependencias. Os sistemas son avaliados mediante datasets empregados na ASSIN Shared Task, celebrada conxuntamente co PROPOR 2016. Os métodos máis básicos ofrecen un mellor comportamento que aqueles, mais complexos, que inclúen información sintáctico-semántica na análise das oracións. Por último, o uso de modelos distribucionais construidos automaticamente a partir de corpus ofrece resultados comparábeis ás estratexias que utilizan recursos léxicos externos construídos manualmente

An empirical study on how humans appreciate automated counterfactual explanations which embrace imprecise information

The explanatory capacity of interpretable fuzzy rule-based classifiers is usually limited to offering explanations for the predicted class only. A lack of potentially useful explanations for non-predicted alternatives can be overcome by designing methods for the so-called counterfactual reasoning. Nevertheless, state-of-the-art methods for counterfactual explanation generation require special attention to human evaluation aspects, as the final decision upon the classification under consideration is left for the end user. In this paper, we first introduce novel methods for qualitative and quantitative counterfactual explanation generation. Then, we carry out a comparative analysis of qualitative explanation generation methods operating on (combinations of) linguistic terms as well as a quantitative method suggesting precise changes in feature values. Then, we propose a new metric for assessing the perceived complexity of the generated explanations. Further, we design and carry out two human evaluation experiments to assess the explanatory power of the aforementioned methods. As a major result, we show that the estimated explanation complexity correlates well with the informativeness, relevance, and readability of explanations perceived by the targeted study participants. This fact opens the door to using the new automatic complexity metric for guiding multi-objective evolutionary explainable fuzzy modeling in the near futureIlia Stepin is an FPI researcher (grant PRE2019-090153). Jose M. Alonso-Moral is a Ramon y Cajal researcher (grant RYC-2016–19802). This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (grants RTI2018-099646-B-I00, PID2021-123152OB-C21, and TED2021-130295B-C33) and the Galician Ministry of Culture, Education, Professional Training and University (grants ED431F2018/02, ED431G2019/04, and ED431C2022/19). All the grants were co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF/FEDER program).S

Prospects for practice-based philosophy of logic

We explore prospects for practice-based approaches to logical theory, in particular the link between classical and intuitionistic logic and the inferential structure of traditional practices of representation & argument in science and mathematics. After discussing some key notions about practice, we outline the connection between representation practices and classical logic, and then consider a spectrum of actual practices followed or proposed by (real) scientists. Intuitionistic logic helps to clarify the potential of practice-based approaches for understanding pluralism, and to hammer some key points about the general thesis.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad FFI2009-1002

Tratamiento multimodal de contextos

We take as starting point the context logic studied in (Grossi, Meyer, and Dignum 2008) and (Aucher et al. 2009), which was concerned with the development of a dynamic logic of rules. Here we focus on issues of Formal Epistemology and omit the addition of deontic operators.We define some basic logics that are useful for the study of epistemic actions such as expanding, contracting or revising a theory taking into account different kinds of inferential results

Abducción y semántica de teoría de juegos

An agency-inspired inferential game is proposed in which two agents (abductive and deductive) interact. It depicts hybrid inferencial contexts where deductive and abductive steps are mixed. The abductive agent can use results obtained by the deductive one but not vice versa due to the abductive process do not always generate deductive valid formulas.

GM and KM immunoglobulin allotypes in the Galician population: new insights into the peopling of the Iberian Peninsula

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The current genetic structure of Iberian populations has presumably been affected by the complex orography of its territory, the different people and civilizations that settled there, its ancient and complex history, the diverse and persistent sociocultural patterns in its different regions, and also by the effects of the Iberian Peninsula representing a refugium area after the last glacial maximum. This paper presents the first data on <it>GM </it>and <it>KM </it>immunoglobulin allotypes in the Galician population and, thus, provides further insights into the extent of genetic diversity in populations settled in the geographic extremes of the Cantabrian region of northern Spain. Furthermore, the genetic relationships of Galicians with other European populations have been investigated.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Galician population shows a genetic profile for <it>GM </it>haplotypes that is defined by the high presence of the European Mediterranean <it>GM</it>*<it>3 23 5* </it>haplotype, and the relatively high incidence of the African marker <it>GM*1,17 23' 5*</it>. Data based on comparisons between Galician and other Spanish populations (mainly from the north of the peninsula) reveal a poor correlation between geographic and genetic distances (<it>r </it>= 0.30, <it>P </it>= 0.105), a noticeable but variable genetic distances between Galician and Basque subpopulations, and a rather close genetic affinity between Galicia and Valencia, populations which are geographically separated by a long distance and have quite dissimilar cultures and histories. Interestingly, Galicia occupies a central position in the European genetic map, despite being geographically placed at one extreme of the European continent, while displaying a close genetic proximity to Portugal, a finding that is consistent with their shared histories over centuries.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These findings suggest that the population of Galicia is the result of a relatively balanced mixture of European populations or of the ancestral populations that gave rise to them. This would support the importance of the migratory movements that have taken place in Europe over the course of recent human history and their effects on the European genetic landscape.</p