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CMNA X

The 10th International Workshop on
Computational Models of Natural Argument
in association with ECAI 2010

www.cmna.info/CMNA10

16 August 2010
Lisbon, Portugal

AIMS AND SCOPE

The series of workshops on Computational Models of Natural Argument is continuing to attract high quality submissions from researchers around the world since its inception in 2001. Like the past editions, CMNA 10 acts to nurture and provide succor to the ever growing community working on Argument and Computation, a field developed in recent years overlapping Argumentation Theory and Artificial Intelligence.

AI has witnessed a prodigious growth in uses of argumentation throughout many of its subdisciplines: agent system negotiation protocols that demonstrate higher levels of sophistication and robustness; argumentation-based models of evidential relations and legal processes that are more expressive; groupwork tools that use argument to structure interaction and debate; computer-based learning tools that exploit monological and dialogical argument structures in designing pedagogic environments; decision support systems that build upon argumentation theoretic models of deliberation to better integrate with human reasoning; and models of knowledge engineering structured around core concepts of argument to simplify knowledge elicitation and representation problems. Furthermore, benefits have not been unilateral for AI, as demonstrated by the increasing presence of AI scholars in classical argumentation theory events and journals, and AI implementations of argument finding application in both research and pedagogic practice within philosophy and argumentation theory.

The workshop focuses on the issue of modelling “natural” argumentation. Naturalness may involve, for example, the use of means which are more visual than linguistic to illustrate a point, such as graphics or multimedia; or the use of more sophisticated rhetorical devices, interacting at various layers of abstraction; or the exploitation of “extra-rational” characteristics of the audience, taking into account emotions and affective factors.

Contributions are solicited addressing, but not limited to, the following areas of interest:

• The characteristics of natural arguments: ontological aspects and cognitive issues.
• The use of models from informal logic and argumentation theory, and in particular, approaches to specific schools of thought developed in informal logic and argumentation.
• Rhetoric and affect: the role of emotions, personalities, etc. in models of argumentation.
• The roles of licentiousness and deceit and the ethical implications of implemented systems demonstrating such features.
• The linguistic characteristics of natural argumentation, including discourse markers, sentence format, referring expressions, and style.
• Persuasive discourse processing (discourse goals and structure, speaker/hearer models, content selection, etc.).
• Language dependence and multilingual approaches.
• Empirical work based on corpora looking at these topics are especially welcomed.
• Non-monotonic, defeasible and uncertain argumentation.
• Natural argumentation and media: visual arguments, multi-modal arguments, spoken arguments.
• Models of argumentation in multi-agent systems inspired by or based upon theories of human argument.
• Empirically driven models of argument in AI and Law.
• Evaluative arguments and their application in AI systems (such as decision support and advice giving).
• Issues of domain specificity, and in particular, the independence of argumentation techniques from the domain of application.
• Applications of computer supported collaborative argumentation, in realistic domains in which argument plays a key role, including pedagogy, e-democracy and public debate.
• Applications of argumentation based systems, including, for example, the pedagogical, health-related, political, and promotional.
• Methods to better convey the structure of complex argument, including representation and summarisation.
• Tools for interacting with structures of argument, including visualisation tools and interfaces supporting natural, stylised or formal dialogue.
• The building of computational resources such as online corpora related to argumentation.

PROGRAMME COMMITTEE

Workshop co-chairs:
Chris Reed, University of Dundee, UK
Floriana Grasso, University of Liverpool, UK
Nancy Green, University of North Carolina Greensboro, USA

This year’s programme committee is to be confirmed, but will be similar to the PC for 2009:

Leila Amgoud, IRIT, France
Katie Atkinson, University of Liverpool, UK
Guido Boella, University of Turin, Italy
Karl Branting, The MITRE Corporation, Hanover, MD
Giuseppe Carenini, University of British Columbia, Canada
Chrysanne DiMarco, University of Waterloo, Canada
Tom Gordon, Fraunhofer FOKUS, Berlin, Germany
Marco Guerini, FBK-IRST, Trento, Italy
Helmut Horacek, Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken Germany
Anthony Hunter, University College London, UK
David Moore, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK
Fabio Paglieri, ISTC-CNR, Rome, Italy
Vincenzo Pallotta, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
Cécile Paris, CSIRO, Sydney, Australia
Paul Piwek, Open University, UK
Henry Prakken, Universities of Utrecht and Groningen, The Netherlands
Sara Rubinelli, University of Lucerne, Switzerland
Patrick Saint-Dizier, IRIT-CNRS, Toulouse, France
Oliviero Stock, ITC-IRST, Trento, Italy
Doug Walton, University of Windsor, Ontario
Simon Wells, University of Dundee, UK
Adam Wyner, King’s College, London, UK

SUBMISSIONS

The workshop encourages submissions in three categories:

• Long papers, either reporting on completed work or offering a polemic discussion on a burning issue (up to 10 pages)
• Short papers describing work in progress (up to 5 pages)
• Demonstration of implemented systems: submissions should be accompanied by written reports (up to 3 pages). Authors should contact the organisers to ensure suitable equipment is available.

It is highly recommended to submit papers using the final camera-ready formatting style specified in the ECAI style guide (except for the number of pages) available at http://ecai2010.appia.pt/

Paper submission will be handled by the Easychair conference system: please visit http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cmna10

Deadline for long papers submission:   9 May  2010
Deadline for short papers submission:  6 June 2010
Notification to authors:              14 June 2010
Camera-ready version:                 26 June 2010

CMNA 10:                     Monday 16 August 2010

Authors of accepted papers will be invited to submit a revised version for the Routledge/Taylor & Francis journal, Argument and Computation.

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