Increasing Human-Organ Transplant Availability: Argumentation-Based Agent Deliberation

This article is part of a special issue on Intelligent Agents in Healthcare. The shortage of human organs for transplantation is a serious problem, yet the current organ selection and assignment processes discard many organs deemed nonviable for transplantation. However, these processes ignore that medical specialists might disagree as to whether an organ is viable. A novel organ selection process lets transplant physicians, who might be geographically dispersed, deliberate over an organ's viability. This argument-based deliberation is formalized in a multiagent system called Carrel+, which requires the deliberation to adhere to formal rigorous standards acknowledging the domain's safety-critical nature.     

A Context/Communication Information Agent

We are developing a Context/Communication Information Agent (CIA), an autonomous software agent that proactively searches for the right information at the right time. Our goal is to design and evaluate a system that leverages what people naturally do, using this knowledge to retrieve information, and presenting it with a minimal cost of disruption to the users. In this paper, we describe the results a low-fidelity prototype performed in a meeting situation, the design space for such an application, and our plans for continued investigation.     

Argumentation-Based Agent Interaction in an Ambient-Intelligence Context

A multiagent system uses argumentation-based interaction in an ambient-intelligence context to provide services for people with different combinations of impairments. This paper focuses on ambient intelligence system of agents for knowledge-based and integrated services for mobility-impaired users integrated projectpsilas (ASK-ITIP) furthered the challenge by aiming to support users having different types and combinations of impairments. ASK-ITIP use of argumentation to model a distributed decision-making process for a coalition of assistant agents, each an expert on a different impairment. When a user suffers from a combination of impairments, these agents engage in an argumentation-based dialogue to agree on the user's needs. We found that applying argumentation was natural in this context because, generally speaking, we can abstractly define argumentation as the principled interaction of different, potentially conflicting arguments to obtain a consistent conclusion. Moreover, argumentation-based interaction is combined with a standardized interaction type based on the foundation for intelligent physical agents interaction protocol.     

基于Agent和XML的普适计算上下文集成框架

普适计算是一种新的计算模式,目的是根据用户需要提供随时随地的服务。为实现这种服务,需要多种设备和软件平台的参与,而这些设备和平台提供的上下文往往是异构且冗余的,不利于上下文信息的访问。设计一个集成框架,以解决以上问题。方法是利用Agent采集底层上下文信息,并将其转换成各种应用程序或中间件能够理解的格式,屏蔽数据异构。在高层,采用Agent技术,并使用XML作为移动Agent通信语言,实现上下文信息的交流,完成上下文的高层集成,解除平台异构,从而简化应用程序的设计,更有效地支持普适服务。     

Deliberation and reactivity in autonomous mobile robots

This paper discusses issues related to the design of the control architectures for an autonomous mobile robot capable of performing tasks efficiently and intelligently, i.e. in a manner adapted to its environment, to its own state and to the execution status of its task. We present our developments and experimentations on mobile robot navigation and show how it is necessary to produce representations at several levels of abstraction, that are used by adequate processes for obstacle detection, target recognition, robot localization, and motion planning and control. We also show that deliberation is necessary for the robot in order to anticipate events, take efficient decisions, and react adequately to asynchronous events. We also discuss the organization of the system, i.e. the design of the control architecture.     

翻转课堂中争论式教学研究和实践

翻转课堂教学法是在信息技术的支持下让学生在课外学习基础知识,教师在课堂上以学生为中心的教学活动中引导学生达到高阶思维的认知过程。笔者分析了翻转课堂的主体、转课堂上思维的发展方式以及争论式教学的意义,叙述了在翻转课堂上采用争论式教学的实践,说明争论式教学有助于知识加工,能促进高阶思维的发展。     

Context, situations, and design agents

The terms “context” and “situation” are often used interchangeably or to denote a variety of concepts. This paper aims to show that these are two different but related concepts and it reifies their difference within the framework of design agents. The external world of an agent is described as the aggregation of all entities that the agent could possibly sense or effect, where context is from its external world that an agent interacts with and is aware of. The interpreted world of an agent is described in terms of the experiences of that agent, where situations are processes that direct how interactive experiences proceed. Situations determine what part of the external world are in the current context, and situations influence interaction and so influence what and how common ground is acquired.     

Roles,design, and the nature of CSCL

In this article, I argue that roles are a key construct for CSCL that demonstrate the interdisciplinary strengths of CSCL as a field. CSCL is a problem-driven field with a history of incorporating different paradigms, and has the advantage of using a design stance to understand phenomena like collaboration and learning that are difficult to study. Roles are understood differently by different disciplines, but the concept of roles serves as a boundary object between the different disciplines within CSCL and highlights potential areas for research.     

The Liar, Context and Logical Form

This essay attempts to give substance to the claim that the liar'sparadox shows the truth predicate to be context sensitive. The aim ismodest: to provide an account of the truth predicate's contextsensitivity (1) that derives from a more general understanding ofcontext sensitivity, (2) that does not depend upon a hierarchy ofpredicates and (3) that is able to address the liar's paradox. Theconsequences of achieving this goal are not modest, though. Perhapssurprisingly, for reasons that will be discussed in the last section ofthis essay, a natural account of the truth predicate's contextsensitivity appears to lead naturally to a version of the correspondencetheory of truth according to which the truth predicate can be understoodas a relation holding between a sentence and a salient set of contexts.The plan of this essay is as follows. Section 1 contains a generalaccount of context sensitivity. The purpose of this section is toisolate certain features of context sensitivity and formal methods oftreating them, which we will then apply to the truth predicate. Section 2then outlines two minimal conditions to be satisfied by a truthpredicate. In Section 3, I present a version of the liar paradoxthat results from these conditions and the assumption that the truthpredicate is not context sensitive in the sense described in sectionone. Finally, in section four, I provide what appear to be naturalconsequences of a truth predicate's context sensitivity. Section 4 isadmittedly speculative and points in the direction for future research.     

Residuation, Structural Rules and Context Freeness

The article presents proofs of the context freeness of a family of typelogical grammars, namely all grammars that are based on a uni- ormultimodal logic of pure residuation, possibly enriched with thestructural rules of Permutation and Expansion for binary modes.     

IMS Application Servers: Roles, Requirements, and Implementation Technologies

The IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) defines a generic architecture to support communication services over a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) infrastructure. In the IMS architecture, application servers host and execute the IMS service logic. These servers can be SIP application servers, open services architecture (OSA) application servers, or a customized applications for mobile networks using enhanced logic (Camel) service environment. Some technologies used in telephony and voice-over-IP (VoIP) application servers are also applicable to IMS application servers, but such servers have some unique requirements that could limit the extent to which these technologies can meet them.     

The Role of Intuition and Deliberation for Exploration and Exploitation Success

Advances in social and cognitive psychology and related fields have drawn attention to the role of intuition in organizational decision making. In this study we link intuitive and deliberate decision‐making styles to the success of exploration and exploitation activities, which are understood as two qualitatively opposing strategies that organizations can adopt. We provide empirical evidence that the two opposing strategies are linked to two opposing styles of decision making – intuitive and deliberate. In doing so, we draw on data which we received from 140 entrepreneurs and managing partners of Austrian companies and show that exploration is strongly related to intuitive decision making whereas exploitation draws on both intuitive and deliberate decision making. Based on our findings, we stress the complementarity of the two decision‐making styles, and point out that particularly in the light of the fast‐changing premises in which organizations have to manoeuvre today, decision makers are well advised to use both decision‐making styles to their best benefit.     

Determining Prepositional Attachment, Prepositional Meaning, Verb Meaning, and Thematic Roles

An algorithm for semantic interpretation that integrates the determination of the meaning of verbs, the attachment and meaning of prepositions, and the determination of thematic roles is presented. The parser does not resolve structural ambiguity, which is solely the task of the semantic interpreter. Lexical semantic information about nouns and verbs is applied to the resolution of verb polysemy and modifier attachment. Semantic interpretation is centered on the representation of the meaning of the verb, called verbal concept. Verbal concepts are organized into a classification hierarchy. As long as the meaning of the verb remains unknown, parsing proceeds on a syntactic basis. Once the meaning of the verb is recognized, the semantic component makes sense of the syntactic relations built so far by the parser and of those still to be parsed. The algorithm has been implemented and tested on real–world texts.     

The Roles of Awareness,Sanctions, and Ethics in Software Compliance

Monitoring agencies continue to express concern over the use of unlicensed business software in organizations because of the ethical, legal, and financial implications of noncompliance. We constructed a multiple mediation model based on protection motivation theory in order to examine the threat and coping evaluation processes of employees regarding software license compliance. The responses of 138 organizational employees were used to empirically test the research model. The research model helps explain why compliance awareness influences compliance attitudes and behavior. The empirical findings indicate that compliance attitudes result from both consequence and coping appraisals with ethical beliefs having a stronger influence on compliance attitudes compared to the threat of sanctions. Furthermore, awareness drives the formation of threat and coping beliefs and directly influences attitude. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the findings that will enable organizations to meet the compliance challenge.     

Effective Governance of It: Design Objectives, Roles, and Relationships

This article describes the key roles and relationships in a best-practice IT governance design, including the roles and responsibilities of an IT governance council, the CIO, IT customer services, the IT project office, and several non-IT roles. the author argues that organizational readiness and stakeholder participation are critical success factors for a new IT governance implementation.     

Effective Governance of It: Design Objectives,Roles, and Relationships

Abstract

This article describes the key roles and relationships in a best-practice IT governance design, including the roles and responsibilities of an IT governance council, the CIO, IT customer services, the IT project office, and several non-IT roles. the author argues that organizational readiness and stakeholder participation are critical success factors for a new IT governance implementation.