Applications of logical approaches to argumentation

The fourteenth International Workshop on Computational Logic in Multi-Agent Systems (CLIMA XIV) was held from 15–18 September 2013 in Corunna, Spain, and was co-located with the 22nd International Conference Logic Programming and Non-Monotonic Reasoning (LPNMR) and the 7th International Workshop on Modular Ontologies (WoMO’13). The purpose of the CLIMA workshops is to provide a forum for discussing techniques, based on computational logic, for representing, programming and reasoning about agents and multi-agent systems in a formal way. Other CLIMA editions have mostly been conducted in conjunction with major computational logic and artificial intelligence events such as CL in 2000, ICLP in 2001 and 2007, FLoC in 2002, LPNMR and AI-Math in 2004, JELIA in 2004 and 2008, AAMAS in 2006, MATES in 2009, ECAI in 2010, 2012, and 2014, and IJCAI in 2011. In 2005, CLIMA VI was organised as a stand-alone event. General information about the workshop series, with links to past and future events, can be found on the CLIMA workshop series home page.1 Driven by the fact that argumentation has become an important and exciting topic in artificial intelligence, intimately related to both the areas of computational logic and of multi-agent systems, CLIMA XIV featured a Special Session on Argumentation Technologies organised by Paolo Torroni and Stefan Woltran. Recent years have witnessed strong research activities ranging from theory to applications and increased uses of argumentation throughout a variety of subdisciplines. The Special Session on Argumentation Technologies was intended to bring researchers from these communities together, providing a forum to discuss concepts, theories, methodologies, and applications of computational models of argumentation. CLIMA XIV received the exceptionally high number of 44 submissions, of which 23 were accepted for publication in the Springer Proceedings (LNCS 8143). In particular, 21 of these submissions were attracted by the Special Session on Argumentation Technologies. The number and overall high quality of the papers on argumentation technologies led to the decision to edit a volume dedicated to this topic, resulting in this special issue of Argument & Computation on applications of logical approaches to argumentation. Another special issue on selected papers covering all areas of CLIMA is to be published in the Journal of Logic and Computation.