SCIFF is a framework thought to specify and verify interaction in open agent societies. The SCIFF language is equipped with a semantics based on abductive logic programming; SCIFF's operational component is a new abductive logic programming proof procedure, also named SCIFF, for reasoning with expectations in dynamic environments. In this article we present the declarative and operational semantics of the SCIFF language, and the termination, soundness, and completeness results of the SCIFF proof procedure, and we demonstrate SCIFF's possible application in the multiagent domain. (http://lia.deis.unibo.it/research/ socs/), and by the MIUR PRIN 2005 projects 2005-011293 (Specifica e verifica di protocolli di interazione fra agenti) and 2005-015491 (Vincoli e preferenze come formalismo unificante per l'analisi di sistemi informatici e la soluzione di problemi reali).

Attention is an increasingly popular mechanism used in a wide range of neural architectures. The mechanism itself has been realized in a variety of formats. However, because of the fast-paced advances in this domain, a systematic overview of attention is still missing. In this article, we define a unified model for attention architectures in natural language processing, with a focus on those designed to work with vector representations of the textual data. We propose a taxonomy of attention models according to four dimensions: the representation of the input, the compatibility function, the distribution function, and the multiplicity of the input and/or output. We present the examples of how prior information can be exploited in attention models and discuss ongoing research efforts and open challenges in the area, providing the first extensive categorization of the vast body of literature in this exciting domain.

Terms of service of on-line platforms too often contain clauses that are potentially unfair to the consumer. We present an experimental study where machine learning is employed to automatically detect such potentially unfair clauses. Results show that the proposed system could provide a valuable tool for lawyers and consumers alike.

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Argumentation mining aims at automatically extracting structured arguments from unstructured textual documents. It has recently become a hot topic also due to its potential in processing information originating from the Web, and in particular from social media, in innovative ways. Recent advances in machine learning methods promise to enable breakthrough applications to social and economic sciences, policy making, and information technology: something that only a few years ago was unthinkable. In this survey article, we introduce argumentation models and methods, review existing systems and applications, and discuss challenges and perspectives of this exciting new research area.

In multiagent systems, agent interaction is ruled by means of interaction protocols. Compliance to protocols can be hardwired in agent programs; however, this requires that only ''certified'' agents interact. In open societies, composed of autonomous and heterogeneous agents whose internal structure is, in general, not accessible, interaction protocols should be specified in terms of the agent observable behaviour, and compliance should be verified by an external entity. In this paper, we propose a Java-Prolog-CHR system for verification of compliance of agents' behaviour to protocols specified in a logic-based formalism (Social Integrity Constraints). We also present the application of the formalism and the system to the specification and verification of the FIPA Contract-Net protocol

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