The aim of this thesis is to develop theories and formal methods to endow a computing machinery with capabilities to identify, represent, reason and evaluate complex activities that are directed by an individual’s needs, goals, motives, preferences and environment, information which can be inconsistent and incomplete. Current methods for formalising and reasoning about human activity are typically limited to basic actions, e.g., walking, sitting, sleeping, etc., excluding elements of an activity. This research proposes a new formal activity-centric model that captures complex human activity based on a systemic activity structure that is understood as a purposeful, social, mediated, hierarchically organized and continuously developing interaction between people and word. This research has also resulted in a common-sense reasoning method based on argumentation, in order to provide defeasible explanations of the activity that an individual performs based on the activity-centric model of human activity. Reasoning about an activity is based on the novel notion of an argument under semantics-based inferences that is developed in this research, which allows the building of structured arguments and inferring consistent conclusions. Structured arguments are used for explaining complex activities in a bottom-up manner, by introducing the notion of fragments of activity. Based on these fragments, consistent argumentation based interpretations of activity can be generated, which adhere to the activity-centric model of complex human activity. For resembling the kind of deductive analysis that a clinician performs in the assessment of activities, two quantitative measurements for evaluating performance and capacity are introduced and formalized. By analysing these qualifiers using different argumentation semantics, information useful for different purposes can be generated. e.g., such as detecting risk in older adults for falling down, or more specific information about activity performance and activity completion. Both types of information can form the base for an intelligent machinery to provide tailored recommendation to an individual. The contributions were implemented in different proof-of-concept systems, designed for evaluating complex activities and improving individual’s health in daily life. These systems were empirically evaluated with the purpose of evaluating theories and methodologies with potential users. The results have the potential to be utilized in domains such as ambient assisted living, assistive technology, activity assessment and self-management systems for improving health.

Der Aufsatz argumentiert, dass der entscheidende Punkt an Ortholph Fuchspergers "Dialectica deutsch" der Nachweis ist, dass es möglich ist, in deutscher Sprache zu argumentieren. Dies richtet sich gegen die alleinige Verwendung der lateinischen Sprache als wissenschaftlicher Sprache. Fuchsperger zieht damit eine Konsequenz aus der humanistischen Umbestimmung des ars-Begriffes als einer deskriptiven und nicht normativen Verfahrensweise.

As multi-agent systems (MAS) have become more mature and systems in general have become more distributed, it is necessary for those who want to build large scale systems to consider, in some computational depth, how agents can communicate in large scale, complex and distributed systems. Currently, some MAS systems have been developed to use an abstract specification language for argumentation. This as a basis for agent communication; to provide effective decision support for agents and yield better agreements. However, as we build complete MAS that involve argumentation, there is a need to produce concrete implementations in which these abstract specifications are realised via protocols coordinating agent behaviour. This creates a gap between standard argument specification and deployment of protocols. This thesis attempts to close this gap by using a combination of automated synthesis and verification methods. More precisely, this thesis proposes a means of moving rapidly from argument specification to protocol implementation using an extension of the Argument Interchange Format (AIF is a generic specification language for argument structure) called a Dialogue Interaction Diagram (DID) as the dialogue game specification language and the Lightweight Coordination Calculus (LCC is an executable specification language used for coordinating agents in open systems) as an implementation language. The main contribution of this research is to provide approaches for enabling developers of dialogue game argumentation systems to use specification languages (in our case AIF/DID) to generate agent protocol systems that are capable of direct implementation on open infrastructures (in our case LCC).

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Exposé des raisons de fait et de droit qui fondent le dispositif, « mobiles psychologiques » ayant conduit le juge à se forger sa conviction, telle est la motivation des décisions de la Cour européenne des droits de l'homme. Parce qu'elle cherche à la fois à justifier et à expliquer les choix du juge, la motivation strasbourgeoise ne se conçoit pas comme une simple déduction purement logique. Elle est aussi un acte important de rhétorique. La Cour accorde une importance particulière au fait d'emporter l'adhésion de l'auditoire afin que celui-ci réceptionne de façon spontanée ses décisions et le droit qu'elle produit. C'est en faisant appel à la raison que la Cour entend affirmer son autorité et réaliser la mission qu'elle s'est fixée : former un droit commun européen des droits de l'homme. A la fois moyen de renforcement de la légitimité du juge et condition de la légitimité de ses décisions, la motivation contribue à nourrir la confiance des justiciables et des Etats parties dans la justice européenne. Dotée d'une fonction pédagogique, la motivation permet aussi à la Cour de persuader l'auditoire et d'inciter les Etats à la réception de sa jurisprudence. De ces différentes fonctions découlent alors une certaine manière de motiver. Certes, l'exposé des motifs n'est pas exempt de critiques. Il révèle régulièrement les erreurs, les manipulations et les excès d'un juge au pouvoir normatif certain. Mais le nombre considérable de décisions rendues invite à conclure au caractère satisfaisant de la motivation. Les efforts de la Cour pour construire un style judiciaire de qualité, mais aussi adapter de façon constante le contenu de sa motivation et « coller » de ce fait au plus près des réalités de la société démocratique européenne, doivent en effet être soulignés. / The motivation of the European Court of Human Rights' judgments is based both on the exposition of reasons containing elements of fact and law and on the “psychological motives” that allow the European judge to build up his convictions. The motivation included in the judgment tries both to justify and explain the Court's choice. So, it can't be considered only as a purely logical deduction. It is also an important act of rhetoric. The European Court wishes her audience to accept its case law in a spontaneous and voluntary way. The Court chooses therefore to appeal to good sense rather than constraint to assert its case law authority and so fulfill its long term mission which consists in building a European common law on Human Rights . The motivation contributes to build the legitimacy of the European Court's decisions. It also allows the public and the Contracting States to trust the European justice and to acknowledge the legitimacy of its decisions. It means that the motivation is also a teaching method helping to receive its case law and to accept the European supervision. To achieve this aim, the Court chose different strategies that sometimes show the mistakes, the manipulations or the excesses of the European Court's function. Nevertheless, the general opinion on the Court's motivation is positive and helps to adapt its contents to the realities of the democratic European society. The European Court's efforts to build a quality style of judgments must be also underlined.

The diploma thesis titled "Language Correctness and Incorrectness as an Argument Used in Online Discussions" deals with a language criticism which is used as an argument in online discussions. Firstly, the thesis frames language and speech, argumentation, rhetoric, and communication. Then it introduces online discussions and describes how they work, and how they contribute to communication. It is also focused on the users as creators of content in online discussions. The thesis analyzes the corpus of online discussions in which the argumentation based on language correctness and incorrectness is contained. According to communication situations, the thesis classifies by what language criticism is started, what arguments are used by the critics, how the critized react, and how the others perceive language criticism. The research also examines the consequence of language criticism in online discussions. The goal of the thesis is to determinate whether and how language incorrectness may affect information value of particular post, and how the arguments based on language correctness and incorrectness are used.

Master thesis called "Users rhetoric of selected asynchronous discussions on the Internet" studies culture of language and rhetorical cultivation in the selected discussion pieces from the three news servers, namely Aktuálně.cz., iDnes.cz and Neviditelný pes. Under many of these virtual newspaper articles there are discussions that are meant to develop read ideas and opinions. This discussion space is accessible for practically everyone who has an access to the Internet, which is one of the characteristics and advantages of network media over traditional ones. However limitations of traditional media anticipated the use of appropriate and cultivated language. Network media have different characteristics and asynchronous discussion make other demands on language in them. Natural language is the basic communication medium, which is the primary content of most mass media. In the practical part there is an examination of users speech behavior in these discussions. The rhetorical analysis is used there, which allows a holistic view of speech including its argumentative construction. The aim is to find out what this type of online dialogues is characteristic from the point of view of rhetoric.

A wide variety of scholars acknowledge heritage planning as a widespread phenomenon. However, to what extent it is widespread is debatable. Also, if heritage planning is an acknowledged widespread phenomenon, what can be learned about it when looking at the rhetoric and the key concepts used in different contexts? This study aims at a cross-contextual investigation. The main aim is to interpret and to discuss rhetoric and underlying ideas used in heritage planning debates across contextual boundaries. The main aim is made workable through a number of methodological choices that curtail the scope of the study. The following main question is the result of these choices; what kinds of arguments, metaphors and figures of thought are similar (context-independent) versus different (context-dependent) in a selection of recent and on-going debates about heritage planning from Malmö and Rotterdam? As part of the methodology, figures of thought – that are expected to be relevant for understanding debates about heritage planning – are treated. This includes figures of thought such as the idea of an “original” and the idea of “progress”. Cases from the cities of Malmö and Rotterdam are chosen to study what similarities and differences come to the fore in heritage planning debates running parallel in time but being situated in different contexts (respectively a Swedish and a Dutch). The debates chosen are about the Kockums Crane and the area of Varvsstaden in Malmö and about the Porters Lodge and the area of RDM in Rotterdam. The analysis shows that the arguments and premises raised, the metaphors used and the underlying figures of thought are to a great extent similar between the cases from Malmö and the cases from Rotterdam. However, the use of arguments, metaphors and figures of thought differs professional groups in-between (“monument curators” versus “planners”) and between debates about single objects (the Kockums Crane and the Porters Lodge) and debates about the development of areas (Varvsstaden and the area of RDM). This study shows that arguments, metaphors and figures of thought effectively are exchanged across national boundaries through professions. More notable however, is that different “language-games” played or kinds of arguments used by monument curators and planners do not seem to conflict with each other at a discursive level. For example, the monument curator’s story-telling metaphors are smoothly turned into the planner’s commodification metaphors. However, at the level of figures of thought a potential conflict may arise between the preservationist idea of the moral duty of stewardship and the idea of commodification of built heritage propagated by an alliance between bureaucracy and economy.

Research has established a close link between talk and cognition; that talk is central to the meaning-making process and thus to learning science. However, the challenge is shifting teacher pedagogical practices to those that promote meaningful learner talk and mediate substantive engagement with science concepts. Research suggests that long-term school based teacher support programmes do bring about changes in teacher beliefs and classroom practices. My study was part of a five year project to investigate teaching strategies for the implementation of South Africa’s new science curriculum in Soweto high schools. Taking a socio-cultural perspective I sought to understand the use of science talk as a tool for teachers to mediate meaningful engagement with and understanding of high school science. I investigated teacher-learner interactions in three experienced teachers’ classrooms following their participation in the intervention programme. I wanted to understand how they used talk to create dialogic discourse and how meaning making was negotiated within this discourse. Taking a collaborative research approach I used case study methodology to collect and analyse observational data from each teachers’ lessons. Data analysis was informed by Mortimer and Scott’s model for analysing classroom interactions and Toulmin’s Argument Pattern (TAP). My findings indicated that classrooms had become interactive. Although teachers took up a largely authoritative stance there was tendency to a dialogic communicative approach. That is, while traditional IRE discourse persisted, there was significant evidence that teachers created dialogic discourse (eliciting and taking up learners’ ideas). Teachers both opened up and shut down talk, through evaluative and elaborative feedback, respectively. I observed the emergence of spontaneous argumentation in two teachers’ lessons. Argumentation differed from forms reported in literature in two significant ways. First, arguments were co-constructed by the teacher and learners and secondly, an unusual form of argumentation to make sense of conventional science concepts as opposed to the usual argumentation on socio-scientific issues as observed in local South African studies so far. Whereas most argumentation research has focused on the structure of arguments constructed by individual participants, I observed arguments co-constructed collaboratively by several participants. These findings have been published in a peer reviewed journal. A further, unrecorded finding for South Africa was engagement in talk within hybrid spaces, which are combinations of formal scientific ways of talking with context-based and culturally informed forms of talk. Lastly, science talk was enriched in these classrooms by linking it to other forms of engagement, such as reading, writing, practical activities and computer technology. This too has not been reported in South Africa. Some methodological findings emanating from my study included the positive effects of the model adopted by the Project on Implementation of Curriculum Change (ICC Project). The project employed a model of sustained on-site teacher support, systematic teacher-researcher collaboration, co-teaching and modelling of teaching strategies. I also discuss the implications of my findings for teacher professional development as well as for science teacher education in South Africa and further afield.