This paper develops the first parts of a logical framework for the empirical sciences, by means of a redefinition of theory structuralism as originally developed by Joseph Sneed, Wolfgang Stegmüller, and others, in the context of a ‘rigid’ logic as based on a fixed (therefore rigid) ontology. The paper defends a formal conception of the empirical sciences that has an irreducible ontological bas...

Argumentation Frameworks

1 The medical staff might not have to be represented here since they only enter what factors that should be monitored and so they can be seen as the same entity as the nurses' station.

In this paper, we describe an open problem in abstract argumentation theory: the precise conditions under which semi-stable extensions exist. Although each finite argumentation framework can be shown to have at least one semi-stable extension, this is no longer the case when infinite argumentation frameworks are considered. This puts semi-stable semantics between stable and preferred semantics....

There have been numerous recent proposals for key predistribution schemes for wireless sensor networks based on various types of combinatorial structures such as designs and codes. Many of these schemes have very similar properties and are analysed in a similar manner. We seek to provide a unified framework to study these kinds of schemes. We derive general formulas for the metrics of the resul...

Argumentation is a process of evaluating and comparing a set of arguments. A way to compare them consists in using a ranking-based semantics which rank-order arguments from the most to the least acceptable ones. Recently, a number of such semantics have been proposed independently, often associated with some desirable properties. However, there is no comparative study which takes a broader pers...