58, Assumption-Based Argumentation

This chapter ('Assumption-Based Argumentation' by Phan Minh Dung, Robert A Kowalski, Francesca Toni) written for the book 'Argumentation in Artificial Intelligence' (2009) contains the representation of an argument as a tree, which I adapt in my paper submitted to 'Computational Uses of Argumentation'. The trees in this paper display the structural relationships between claims and assumptions, justified by the inference rules.

56, Negotiating Socially Optimal Allocations of Resources

Can't believe I haven't blogged this paper ('Negotiating Socially Optimal Allocations of Resources', 2006, by Ulle Endriss et al) til now. Fundamental!

PrologBeans Intro

I use PrologBeans to interface Jade (built on Java) and Prolog. Google it for details. Roughly, what you need to do is:

1. Start up an agent (a Java file). E.g. 'AgentNegotiatior.java' as contained in my 'argmas09modified' directory.
2. From this, make a connection to a Prolog server using 'PBConnect.java' (leave this unchanged) which requires a Prolog file like 'run.pl'. The Prolog file (in my case 'run.pl') loads up 'pbconnection.pl' (which I have modified for my purposes) and whatever other Prolog files you need to load (containing your Prolog clauses) before calling 'main' (defined in 'pbconnection.pl').
3. Run your queries from the Java file using a 'PrologSession' instance.
4. Shut down the server upon completion from your Java file.

Hope that makes sense.

55, CaSAPI: a system for credulous and sceptical argumentation

This paper ('CaSAPI: a system for credulous and sceptical argumentation', 2007, Dorian Gaertner, Francesca Toni) was the first to generalise ABA frameworks to allow multiple contraries.

Dispute Derivation Choices

Excellent description in 'Computing Arguments and Attacks in Assumption-Based Argumentation' (2007, Dorian Gaertner, Francesca Toni) of the five types of choices that need to be made in any implementation of the structured AB-dispute derivation algorithm, i.e.

- Choice of player (P or O);
- Choice of argument (in P or O);
- Selection function (a sentence from the chosen argument);
- Choice of (inference) rule (if chosen sentence is not assumption);
- Choice to ignore (if the opponent is selected and the selection function returns an assumption).

It is stated in this paper that the 'choice of argument' does not apply to AB-dispute derivations, since arguments aren't explicit in AB-dispute derivations. I don't think this is correct. If the opponent is selected in an AB-dispite derivation, the choice of 'S in Oi' is like a 'choice of argument' and the choice of 'sigma in S' is determined by the 'selection function'.

54, Argumentation Based on Classical Logic

Really well written paper ('Argumentation Based on Classical Logic', 2009, Philippe Besnard, Anthony Hunter). Loads of examples throughout. I like the concept of an argument being 'more conservative' than another (i.e. it is "less demanding on the support and less specific about the consequent") and that of a 'maximally conservative undercut'. The argument trees considered are "merely a representation of the argumentation" and (differently to 'abstract argument systems') do not display cases where the argumentation is infinite and unresolved as being so.

53, Hybrid Argumentation and its Properties

This paper ('Hybrid Argumentation and its Properties', 2008, Dorian Gaertner and Francesca Toni) presents a hybrid between abstract assumption-based argumentation. Good re-usable intro to the ABA framework in Section 2.