While existing inference engines solved real world problems using probabilistic knowledge representation, one challenging task is to efficiently utilize the representation under a situation of uncertainty during conflict resolution. This paper presents a new approach to straightforwardly combine a rule-based system (RB) with a probabilistic graphical inference framework, i.e., naïve Bayesian network (BN), towards probabilistic argumentation via a so-called probabilistic assumption-based argumentation (PABA) framework. A rule-based system (RB) formalizes its rules into defeasible logic under the assumption-based argumentation (ABA) framework while the Bayesian network (BN) provides probabilistic reasoning. By knowledge integration, while the former provides a solid testbed for inference, the latter helps the former to solve persistent conflicts by setting an acceptance threshold. By experiments, effectiveness of this approach on conflict resolution is shown via an example of liver disorder diagnosis.

Argumentation is a process of reaching a consensus through premises and rebuttals. If an artificial dialogue system can perform argumentation, it can improve users' decisions and ability to negotiate with the others. Previously, researchers have studied argumentative dialogue systems through a structured database regarding argumentation structure and evaluated the logical consistency of the dialogue. However, these systems could not change its response based on the user's agreement or disagreement to its last utterance. Furthermore, the persuasiveness of the generated dialogue has not been evaluated. In this study, a method is proposed to generate persuasive arguments through a hierarchical argumentation structure that considers human agreement and disagreement. Persuasiveness is evaluated through a crowd sourcing platform wherein participants' written impressions of shown dialogue texts are scored via a third person Likert scale evaluation. The proposed method was compared to the baseline method wherein argument response texts were generated without consideration of the user's agreement or disagreement. Experiment results suggest that the proposed method can generate a more persuasive dialogue than the baseline method. Further analysis implied that perceived persuasiveness was induced by evaluations of the behavior of the dialogue system, which was inherent in the hierarchical argumentation structure.

In this paper, a Boolean algebra approach is proposed to encode various acceptability semantics for abstract argumentation frameworks, where each semantics can be equivalently encoded into several Boolean constraint models based on Boolean matrices and a family of Boolean operations between them. Then, we show that these models can be easily translated into logic programs, and can be solved by a constraint solver over Boolean variables. In addition, we propose some querying strategies to accelerate the calculation of the grounded, stable and complete extensions. Finally, we describe an experimental study on the performance of our encodings according to different semantics and querying strategies.

In our former paper, we formalized a Logic of Multiple-valued Argumentation (LMA) on an expressive knowledge representation language, Extended Annotated Logic Programming (EALP), in order to make it possible to construct arguments under uncertain information. In this paper, We confirm expressivity and applicability by applying LMA to arguments reflecting Easterners' preference over argumentation as well as Eastern thought and philosophy. In doing so, we exploit a wide variety of complete lattices as truth-values, showing the flexibility and adaptability of LMA to various multiple-valuedness required in argumentation under uncertain information. In particular, we consider a significant specialization of LMA to Tetralemma with an Eastern mind. Through various argument examples, it is shown that LMA allows for a kind of pluralistic argumentation, or a fusion of Eastern and Western argumentation.