An empirical study of argumentation schemes in deliberative dialogue

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Context-dependent Trust Decisions with Subjective Logic

A decision procedure implemented over a computational trust mechanism aims to allow for decisions to be made regarding whether some entity or information should be trusted. As recognised in the literature, trust is contextual, and we describe how such a context often translates into a confidence level which should be used to modify an underlying trust value. J{\o}sang's Subjective Logic has long been used in the trust domain, and we show that its operators are insufficient to address this problem. We therefore provide a decision-making approach about trust which also considers the notion of confidence (based on context) through the introduction of a new operator. In particular, we introduce general requirements that must be respected when combining trustworthiness and confidence degree, and demonstrate the soundness of our new operator with respect to these properties.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures, technical report of the University of Aberdeen (preprint version

Towards computational dialogue types for BIM collaborative design: an initial study.

Collaborative design is an iterative process of selecting and evaluating solutions under potentially conflicting requirements, a concept central to Building Information Modelling (BIM) implementation. Previous research has shown that design can be better understood via computational argumentation-based dialogue. We suggest that in BIM context different types of dialogue should be considered and we propose an approach that translates collaborative, conceptual and perceptual activities undertaken by design and construction professionals to dialogue types

Deliberation, Practical Reasoning and Problem-solving

We present a series of realistic examples of deliberation and discuss how they can form the basis for building a typology of deliberation dialogues. The observations from our examples are used to suggest that argumentation researchers and philosophers have been thinking about deliberation in overly simplistic ways. We argue that to include all the kinds of argumentation that make up realistic deliberations, it is necessary to distinguish between different kinds of deliberations. We propose a model including a problem-solving type of deliberation based on practical reasoning, characterised by revisions of the initial issue made necessary by the agents’ increased knowledge of new circumstances

Truth Discovery in Crowdsourced Detection of Spatial Events

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This research is based upon work supported in part by the US ARL and UK Ministry of Defense under Agreement Number W911NF-06-3-0001, and by the NSF under award CNS-1213140. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views or represent the official policies of the NSF, the US ARL, the US Government, the UK Ministry of Defense or the UK Government. The US and UK Governments are authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for Government purposes notwithstanding any copyright notation hereon.Peer reviewedPostprin

A Dynamic Model of Trust in Dialogues

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Representational transformations : using maps to write essays

This research was supported by NSERC (The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada) RGPIN-2020-04401 and EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) EP/T518062/1.Essay-writing is a complex, cognitively demanding activity. Essay-writers must synthesise source texts and original ideas into a textual essay. Previous work found that writers produce better essays when they create effective intermediate representations. Diagrams, such as concept maps and argument maps, are particularly effective. However, there is insufficient knowledge about how people use these intermediate representations in their essay-writing workflow. Understanding these processes is critical to inform the design of tools to support workflows incorporating intermediate representations. We present the findings of a study, in which 20 students planned and wrote essays. Participants used a tool that we developed, Write Reason, which combines a free-form mapping interface with an essay-writing interface. This let us observe the types of intermediate representations participants built, and crucially, the process of how they used and moved between them. The key insight is that much of the important cognitive processing did not happen within a single representation, but instead in the processes that moved between multiple representations. We label these processes `representational transformations'. Our analysis characterises key properties of these transformations: cardinality, explicitness, and change in representation type. We also discuss research questions surfaced by the focus on transformations, and implications for tool designers.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Polarization in patterns of human monocyte-derived macrophages in relation to estrogen treatment and menopausal status

Mononuclear phagocytes respond to environmental cues with the acquisition of distinct functional phenotypes, M1 (classical) or M2 (alternative), which in turn are involved in different pathological conditions. 17β-estradiol (E2), the major female sex hormone, is known to mediate profound effects on monocyte and macrophage immune function acting through estrogen receptors (ER). We hypothesized that estrogen-dependent effects on the monocyte/macrophage system protect postmenopausal women from cardiovascular disease. To test our hypothesis, we first investigated the effects of E2 on human monocyte-derived macrophage subsets in resting state (M0) and after M1 or M2 polarized activation. Human monocytes were isolated from buffy coats by density gradient centrifugation and monocyte-to-macrophage differentiation occurred within 7 days in the absence of any stimulating factors other than serum. We demonstrated that spontaneously differentiated human macrophages polarized to M1/M2 phenotypes by 48h-stimulation with LPS/IFN-γ or IL-4/IL-13, respectively. Polarized macrophages showed specific gene expression profiles different cytokine production (TNFα, IL-1β, IL-10, CCL22) and surface markers. In particular, the M1 phenotype was characterized by flow cytometry as percentage of CD68+, CD68+/CCR2+, CD14+/CD16-/CD68+ or CD80+ cells and the M2 phenotype was identified as CD163+, CD206+, CX3CR1+ cells. We also demonstrated that M1 activation with LPS/IFN-γ down-regulated the M2 immunophenotype. Similarly to dexamethasone, used as a reference drug, E2 promoted a M2 macrophage signature counteracting the negative regulation by pro-inflammatory stimuli of both M2 surface marker expression and cytokine production. Overall, these data suggest that differences in the functional status of macrophages are critical to investigate pharmacological macrophage targeting. Given that the pro-inflammatory activity of monocyte-macrophages plays a role in the development and progression of CVD, we subsequently investigated if an imbalance in the M1/M2 ratio of macrophages derived from peripheral blood monocytes menopausal women could be detected in relation to menopausal status. In the resting state, macrophages from post-menopausal women displayed similar M1/M2 phenotype with respect to macrophages from pre-menopausal women. However, among post-menopausal women, the M2 phenotype was enhanced and M1 was attenuated by ongoing statin therapy with respect to non statin-treated patients. Moreover, macrophages from post-menopausal women after polarized activation displayed similar M1 response but impaired alternative activation (M2) with respect to those from pre-menopausal women. In the attempt to identify a biomarker linking menopause to cardiovascular risk, the M1/M2 ratio in circulating monocytes from pre- and post-menopausal women was measured and found unchanged. In conclusion, estrogenic pathways modulate the phenotypes and function of human macrophages and represent a possible pharmacological intervention in inflammatory disease. Future perspectives include investigating monocyte-macrophage polarization in women in relation to menstrual cycle and endocrine disease such as polycystic ovary syndrome