Decision support systems (DSS) have been extensively used in the management of natural resources for nearly two decades. However, practical difficulties with the application of DSS in real-world situations have become increasingly apparent. Complexities of decision making, encountered in the context of ecosystem management, are equally present in sustainable forestry. Various writers have criti...

In this paper we propose a new model to represent human debates and methods obtain collective conclusions from them. This overcomes two drawbacks of existing approaches. First, our does not assume that participants agree on the structure debate. It by allowing express their opinion about all aspects Second, participants’ opinions are rational, an assumption significantly limits current Instead,...

‘Concern Alignment in Conversations’ project aims, through empirical examinations of real-life conversations, to establish a theoretical and descriptive framework to capture discourse structures and underlying rational and affective processes in human-human joint planning interactions at dialogue act exchange level. Concern alignment model has been developed to address convergent negotiation fo...

John Rawls claims that the belief there is but one reasonable and rational conception of "the good" incompatible with political liberalism. A close examination thought Thomas Aquinas, however, reveals commitment to a particular need not imply rejection In fact, Aquinas' notion virtue anticipates Rawls' overlapping consensus. addition, thorough exploration work indicates that, for most part, he ...

The use of consensus design to produce stable proteins has been applied to numerous structures and classes of proteins. Here, we describe the engineering of novel FN3 domains from two different proteins, namely human fibronectin and human tenascin-C, as potential alternative scaffold biotherapeutics. The resulting FN3 domains were found to be robustly expressed in Escherichia coli, soluble and ...

Formal methods can be used at all stages of a software development project. In this paper we reflect on the roles of ITU-T standardized System Design Languages and their interplay in design processes of cooperative systems, highlighting the usability of User Requirements Notation (URN) standard to capture requirements with workflow-based re-engineering process of complex systems. In this paper ...

In Essays on Aggregation in Deliberation and Inquiry, I study models of aggregation for probabilities, full beliefs, and preferences. Aggregation matters for finding consensus, neutral positions, or agreement, which serves crucial functions in rational deliberation and inquiry for both individual agents and groups. While it may be obvious that neutrality or consensus matters in settings of grou...