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People often offer an excuse or an apology after they do something wrong in an attempt to mitigate any potential negative consequences. In this paper, we examine how individuals employ social accounts when explaining their interpersonal transgression of meeting lateness to others in actual work settings. We examined the different combinations of social accounts and the social outcomes (forgiveness, helping behaviors, and intentions to continue interaction) of being late to a meeting. Across two studies using complementary experimental and survey methods, we found that a majority of late arrivers' explanations included remorse and that including remorse significantly influences helping behaviors. Furthermore, we found no interaction between excuses and offering remorse. Implications of these findings and future directions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the digital era, recommender systems (RS) have become an integral part of our daily interactions, exerting a significant impact on users and society. However, this also raises ethical challenges related to RS that should be considered. Addressing these challenges requires the application of explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) models to make RS more understandable. Based on the current state-of-the-art literature, this paper aims to provide a comprehensive overview of XAI for RS and its ethical implications, with the aim of proposing a research agenda for ethical RS based on XAI. The findings of the literature review show that neural network-based RS have received much attention in terms of offering explanations, while there is a research gap in explaining context-based RS and in evaluating explanations. In addition, a set of ethical challenges for RS are discussed by exploring how explanations for recommendations can contribute to the ethical use of RS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines teacher pragmatic acts (verbal and embodied) in response to children's crying in a Russian preschool. It focuses on crying episodes associated with children's inability or unwillingness to follow the norms and expectations surrounding children's conduct (e.g., crying when not allowed to do something). The paper employs discourse analysis; the data are 40 h of video- and audio-recorded interactions. The analysis shows that teachers used directives and other pragmatic acts (e.g., assessments, explanations) that encouraged children to stop crying. The directives were produced in multi-party participation frameworks where peers were referred to or recruited as active participants. Teachers used positive and negative assessments of crying. Crying was presented in a negative light in contrast with positive non-crying behaviors; positive assessments (praise and affectionate touch) were offered when crying stopped. The consequences of crying were presented as negatively affecting others. It is argued that such discursive treatment of crying contributes to socializing children to conformity. The paper contributes to our understanding of how through the use of pragmatic acts, child crying is discursively treated in ways that invoke norms of pragmatic conduct (e.g., not crying when asked to participate in a planned activity) and social values regarding group membership. • Analysis examines teachers' pragmatic acts (verbal and embodied) in response to crying in a Russian preschool. • Methods utilize discourse analysis. • Findings explore teachers' use of directive trajectories and other pragmatic acts that encouraged children to stop crying. • Conclusions are discussed in relation to norms of pragmatic conduct and social values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews conversation analytic research on explanations in pedagogical interaction, particularly in language learning classrooms. In reviewing this literature, this paper aims to provide a comprehensive account of what is interactionally involved when giving pedagogical explanations so that future research investigating the effectiveness of these kinds of explanations can be appropriately measured. The paper first discusses characteristics of explanation as interactional phenomena, namely that they are sequentially organized, either planned or unplanned, and either monologically or dialogically organized. Then, the paper details how explanations in three particular linguistic domains (i.e., pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary) are accomplished interactionally. In doing so, this paper highlights similarities and differences across linguistic domains that are frequently found in language learning classrooms. The paper ends by identifying patterns across pedagogical explanations and by suggesting directions for future research.

The massive presence of online learning resources leads many students to have more information than they can consume efficiently. Therefore, students do not always find adaptive learning material for their needs and preferences. In this paper, we present a Conversational Educational Recommender System (C-ERS), which helps students in the process of finding the more appropriated learning resources considering their learning objectives and profile. The recommendation process is based on an argumentation-based approach that selects the learning objects that allow a greater number of arguments to be generated to justify their suitability. Our system includes a simple and intuitive communication interface with the user that provides an explanation to any recommendation. This allows the user to interact with the system and accept or reject the recommendations, providing reasons for such behavior. In this way, the user is able to inspect the system's operation and understand the recommendations, while the system is able to elicit the actual preferences of the user. The system has been tested online with a real group of undergraduate students in the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, showing promising results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We extend the extant research on neutral recommendation agents (RAs) to those that lack recommendation neutrality and are biased toward sponsors. We first investigate the effects of recommendation neutrality on users' trust and distrust in RAs by comparing a biased RA with sponsorship disclosure with a neutral RA. We then apply a contingency approach to examine the effects of sponsorship disclosure on users' trust and distrust in biased RAs, with explanations for organic recommendations as a contingent factor. A laboratory experiment was conducted in the United States. We determine that users' trust in the biased RA with sponsorship disclosure is lower and that their distrust is higher than that in the neutral RA. Results also show that user trust in a biased RA increases only when explanations for organic recommendations and sponsorship disclosure are both provided. Users' perceived psychological contract violations of an RA have been verified as a key mediator of the examined effects. However, explanations for organic recommendations, sponsorship disclosure, or their combination fail to significantly lower users' distrust in a biased RA. A second experiment conducted in Hong Kong confirms the major findings of the experiment conducted in the United States. Theoretical contributions and practical implications for e-commerce RAs are discussed. This paper was accepted by Anandhi Bharadwaj, information systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Analytical Sociology is not often used in the mainstream Sociology, its history is however, traceable to the classical works of scholars such as Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Alexis de Tocqueville as well as contemporary sociological thinkers like Talcott Parsons and Robert Merton, among others. This paper provides a contemporary argument for the application of mechanistic explanation in the overall understanding of Analytical Sociology using relevant and practical examples. In the course of this, attention has been paid to the concept of explanation and its various types in a sociological discourse. This paper therefore argues that social reality can significantly be understood only when explanations are systematic and detailed in content and context. The conclusion is that analytical sociology has the capacity to explain the actions of social actors within the social environment beyond some social doubts, even though, not all situations, can be sufficiently explained with the strategy.

This paper addresses the theoretical notion of a game as it arises across scientific inquiries, exploring its uses as a technical and formal asset in logic and science versus an explanatory mechanism. While games comprise a widely used method in a broad intellectual realm (including, but not limited to, philosophy, logic, mathematics, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, computation, linguistics, physics, economics), each discipline advocates its own methodology and a unified understanding is lacking. In the first part of this paper, a number of game theories in formal studies are critically surveyed. In the second part, the doctrine of games as explanations for logic is assessed, and the relevance of a conceptual analysis of games to cognition discussed. It is suggested that the notion of evolution plays a part in the game-theoretic concept of meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Purpose: The process of business to business (B2B) sales forecasting is a complex decision-making process. There are many approaches to support this process, but mainly it is still based on the subjective judgment of a decision-maker. The problem of B2B sales forecasting can be modeled as a classification problem. However, top performing machine learning (ML) models are black boxes and do not support transparent reasoning. The purpose of this research is to develop an organizational model using ML model coupled with general explanation methods. The goal is to support the decision-maker in the process of B2B sales forecasting. Design/Methodology/Approach: Participatory approach of action design research was used to promote acceptance of the model among users. ML model was built following CRISP-DM methodology and utilizes R software environment. Results: ML model was developed in several design cycles involving users. It was evaluated in the company for several months. Results suggest that based on the explanations of the ML model predictions the users' forecasts improved. Furthermore, when the users embrace the proposed ML model and its explanations, they change their initial beliefs, make more accurate B2B sales predictions and detect other features of the process, not included in the ML model. Conclusions: The proposed model promotes understanding, foster debate and validation of existing beliefs and thus contributes to single and double-loop learning. Active participation of the users in the process of development, validation, and implementation has shown to be beneficial in creating trust and promotes acceptance in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most well-known and widely used local search techniques for solving optimization problems in Constraint Programming is the Large Neighborhood Search (LNS) algorithm. Such a technique is, by nature, very flexible and can be easily integrated within standard backtracking procedures. One of its drawbacks is that the relaxation process is quite often problem dependent. Several works have been dedicated to overcome this issue through problem independent parameters. Nevertheless, such generic approaches need to be carefully parameterized at the instance level. In this paper, we demonstrate that the issue of finding a problem independent neighborhood generation technique for LNS can be addressed using explanation-based neighborhoods. An explanation is a subset of constraints and decisions which justifies a solver event such as a domain modification or a conflict. We evaluate our proposal for a set of optimization problems. We show that our approach is at least competitive with or even better than state-of-the-art algorithms and can be easily combined with state-of-the-art neighborhoods. Such results pave the way to a new use of explanation-based approaches for improving search. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, many accurate decision support systems have been constructed as black boxes, that is as systems that hide their internal logic to the user. This lack of explanation constitutes both a practical and an ethical issue. The literature reports many approaches aimed at overcoming this crucial weakness, sometimes at the cost of sacrificing accuracy for interpretability. The applications in which black box decision systems can be used are various, and each approach is typically developed to provide a solution for a specific problem and, as a consequence, it explicitly or implicitly delineates its own definition of interpretability and explanation. The aim of this article is to provide a classification of the main problems addressed in the literature with respect to the notion of explanation and the type of black box system. Given a problem definition, a black box type, and a desired explanation, this survey should help the researcher to find the proposals more useful for his own work. The proposed classification of approaches to open black box models should also be useful for putting the many research open questions in perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Decision support system for applications with multiple comparison criteria. • Users' preferences configurable via conditional rules. • Decision framework based on an argumentative system. • The system provides detailed explanations for the selected alternatives. • Empirical analysis to evaluate the performance of an implemented version. Abstract In our current society, it is very common to have access to a huge amount of information and scenarios in which it is possible to choose among a great number of alternatives. Therefore, systems that automate or assist with the decision-making process are becoming crucial. Those systems should allow users to represent their preferences accurately, even in scenarios where the user has many forms of comparing the available alternatives. In this paper, we propose an argument-based framework for multi-criteria decision-making based on conditional rules, that allows users to encode their preferences among the comparison criteria in terms of requirement and tolerance values. From these rules, arguments that are involved in the comparison process are generated. In order to comply with users' demands for explanations of the given answers, our proposed framework can provide qualitative explanations about the argumentation process, and also an explanatory graph that shows how all the alternatives were ranked and the connections with the user's rules that were used. We also show the results of an empirical analysis of the performance of a developed prototype. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this exploratory study is to examine the use of an ethical intervention strategy – counterexplanation – on individuals’ ethical decision-making. As opposed to providing reasons to support a decision in the case of explanation, counterexplanation is the provision of reasons that either speak against or provide evidence against a chosen course of action. The number of explanations and/or counterexplanations provided by the participants is expected to have a significant effect on ethical evaluation and intention. The number of explanations is expected to be negatively related to ethical decision-making while the number of counterexplanations is expected to be positively related to ethical decision-making. The experiment, that made use of five ethical vignettes, manipulated four treatment groups – explanation, counterexplanation, explanation/counterexplanation, and counterexplanation/explanation. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the four reatments. They performed the requirements of their treatment before recording their ethical evaluations and intentions. As expected, larger numbers of explanations led to less ethical decision-making and larger numbers of counterexplanations led to more ethical decision-making. However, when both types of explanations are required, the order of counterexplaining before explaining is more desirable as it leads to more ethical decision-making. The study also reports that individuals with high social desirability bias (a tendency to present oneself in a culturally acceptable manner) may generate less counterexplanations. Implications of the findings are explained in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifying structures in a given combinatorial problem is often a key step for designing efficient search heuristics or for understanding the inherent complexity of the problem. Several Operations Research approaches apply decomposition or relaxation strategies upon such a structure identified within a given problem. The next step is to design algorithms that adaptively integrate that kind of information during search. We claim in this paper, inspired by previous work on impact-based search strategies for constraint programming, that using an explanation-based constraint solver may lead to collect invaluable information on the intimate dynamically revealed and static structures of a problem instance. Moreover, we discuss how dedicated OR solving strategies (such as Benders decomposition) could be adapted to constraint programming when specific relationships between variables are exhibited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research presented here explores the hypothesis that the deployment and acceptance of decision support systems in medicine will be enhanced if the basis for the recommendation produced by the system is apparent. We describe a decision support system for advising on patients suffering from bronchiolitis. This system supports its recommendations with precedent cases selected to support the recommendation along with justification text that highlights aspects of these cases relevant to the query case. It also presents an estimate of its confidence in the recommendation. The main contribution of this paper is an evaluation of this system in a clinical context. The evaluation shows that this type of explanation does enhance the usefulness of the system for practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present the formalization and implementation of a decision framework in which a group of agents can express their preferences among a set of alternatives by using several comparison criteria. We define special kind of argument to support agents' preferences, and the set of generated arguments is used both to obtain the set of selected alternatives and to explain why they were selected. We introduce a software application that implements our proposed approach and provides interactive tools for obtaining different kinds of explanations for the computed results. Also, we formally study the proposed argumentation process and we prove that the set of warranted conclusions, which support the obtained results, is consistent. We also show that our framework works properly on choice scenarios with incomplete evidence, and we propose how to optimize the computation process for dynamic environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dung's Argumentation Framework (AF) has been extended in several directions, including the possibility of representing uncertainty about the existence of arguments and attacks. In this regard, two main proposals have been introduced in the literature: Probabilistic Argumentation Framework (PrAF) and Incomplete Argumentation Framework (iAF). PrAF is an extension of AF with probability theory, thus representing quantified uncertainty. In contrast, iAF represents unquantified uncertainty, that is it can be seen as a special case where we only know that some elements (arguments or attacks) are uncertain. In this paper, we first address the problem of computing the probability that a given argument is accepted in PrAF. This is carried out by introducing the concept of probabilistic explanation for any given (probabilistic) extension. We show that the complexity of the problem is FP # P -hard and propose polynomial approximation algorithms with bounded additive error for PrAFs where odd-length cycles are forbidden. We investigate the approximate complexity of the related FP # P -hard problems of credulous and skeptical acceptance in PrAF, showing that they are generally harder than the problem of computing the probability that a given argument is accepted. Next we consider iAF and, after showing some equivalence properties among classes of iAFs, we study iAF as a special case of PrAF where uncertain elements have associated a probability equal to 1/2. Finally, given this result, we investigate the relationships between iAF acceptance problems and probabilistic acceptance in PrAF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People often offer an excuse or an apology after they do something wrong in an attempt to mitigate any potential negative consequences. In this paper, we examine how individuals employ social accounts when explaining their interpersonal transgression of meeting lateness to others in actual work settings. We examined the different combinations of social accounts and the social outcomes (forgiveness, helping behaviors, and intentions to continue interaction) of being late to a meeting. Across two studies using complementary experimental and survey methods, we found that a majority of late arrivers’ explanations included remorse and that including remorse significantly influences helping behaviors. Furthermore, we found no interaction between excuses and offering remorse. Implications of these findings and future directions are discussed.

In multicausal abductive tasks a person must explain some findings by assembling a composite hypothesis that consists of one or more elementary hypotheses. If there are n elementary hypotheses, there can be up to 2n composite hypotheses. To constrain the search for hypotheses to explain a new observation, people sometimes use their current explanation—the previous evidence and their present composite hypothesis of that evidence; however, it is unclear when and how the current explanation is used. In addition, although a person's current explanation can narrow the search for a hypothesis, it can also blind the problem solver to alternative, possibly better, explanations. This paper describes a model of multicausal abductive reasoning that makes two predictions regarding the use of the current explanation. The first prediction is that the current explanation is not used to explain new evidence if there is a simple (i.e., nondisjunctive, concrete) hypothesis to account for that evidence. The second prediction is that the current explanation is used when attempting to discriminate among several alternative hypotheses for new evidence. These hypotheses were tested in three experiments. The results are consistent with the second prediction: the current explanation is used when discriminating among alternative hypotheses. However, the first prediction—that the current explanation is not used when a simple hypothesis can account for new data—received only limited support. Participants used the current explanation to constrain their interpretation of new data in 46.5% of all trials. This suggests that context‐independent strategies compete with context‐dependent ones—an interpretation that is consistent with recent work on strategy selection during problem solving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial intelligence (AI) has posed numerous legal--ethical challenges. These challenges are particularly acute when dealing with AI demonstrating substantial computational prowess, which is then correlated with agency or autonomy. A common response to considering this issue is to inquire whether an AI system is "conscious" or not. If it is, then it could constitute an agent, actor, or person. This framing is, however, unhelpful since there are many unresolved questions about consciousness. Instead, a practical approach is proposed, which could be used to better regulate new AI technologies. The value of the practical approach in this study is that it (1) provides an empirically observable, testable framework that contains predictive value; (2) is derived from a data-science framework that uses semantic information as amarker; (3) relies on a self-referential logic which is fundamental to agency; (4) enables the "grading" or "ranking" of AI systems, which provides an alternative method (as opposed to current risk-tiering approaches) and measure to determine the suitability of an AI system within a specific domain (e.g., such as social domains or emotional domains); (5) presents consistent, coherent, and higher informational content as opposed to other approaches; (6) fits within the conception of what informational content "laws" are to contain and maintain; and (7) presents a viable methodology to obtain "agency", "agent", and "personhood", which is robust to current and future developments in AI technologies and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Expert systems have had little impact as computing artifacts. In this paper we argue that the reason for this stems from the underlying assumption of most builders of expert systems that an expert system needs to acquire information and to control the interaction between the human user and itself. We show that this assumption has serious linguistic and usability flaws which diminish the likelihood of producing socially acceptable expert systems. We propose a reversal of this paradigm, for the design of expert systems, by assuming that it is the human user who needs to acquire information and to control the interaction between themselves and the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep networks have shown strong performance in glioma grading; however, interpreting their decisions remains challenging due to glioma heterogeneity. To address these challenges, the proposed solution is the Causal Segmentation Framework (CSF). This framework aims to accurately predict high- and low-grade gliomas while simultaneously highlighting key subregions. Our framework utilizes a shrinkage segmentation method to identify subregions containing essential decision information. Moreover, we introduce a glioma grading module that combines deep learning and traditional approaches for precise grading. Our proposed model achieves the best performance among all models, with an AUC of 96.14%, an F1 score of 93.74%, an accuracy of 91.04%, a sensitivity of 91.83%, and a specificity of 88.88%. Additionally, our model exhibits efficient resource utilization, completing predictions within 2.31s and occupying only 0.12 GB of memory during the test phase. Furthermore, our approach provides clear and specific visualizations of key subregions, surpassing other methods in terms of interpretability. In conclusion, the Causal Segmentation Framework (CSF) demonstrates its effectiveness at accurately predicting glioma grades and identifying key subregions. The inclusion of causality in the CSF model enhances the reliability and accuracy of preoperative decision-making for gliomas. The interpretable results provided by the CSF model can assist clinicians in their assessment and treatment planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For critical operational decisions (e.g. consulting services), explanations and interpretable results of powerful Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are becoming increasingly important. Knowledge graphs possess a semantic model that integrates heterogeneous information sources and represents knowledge elements in a machine-readable form. The integration of knowledge graphs and machine learning methods represents a new form of hybrid intelligent systems that benefit from each other's strengths. Our research aims at an explainable system with a specific knowledge graph architecture that generates human-understandable results even when no suitable domain experts are available. Against this background, the interpretability of a knowledge graph-based explainable AI approach for business process analysis is focused. We design a framework of interpretation, show how interpretable models are generated by a single case study and evaluate the applicability of our approach by different expert interviews. Result paths on weaknesses and improvement measures related to a business process are used to produce stochastic decision trees, which improve the interpretability of results. This can lead to interesting consulting self-services for clients or be applied as a device for accelerating classical consulting projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a fundamental framework for defining different types of explanations of AI systems and the criteria for evaluating their quality. Starting from a structural view of how explanations can be constructed, i.e., in terms of an explanandum (what needs to be explained), multiple explanantia (explanations, clues, or parts of information that explain), and a relationship linking explanandum and explanantia, we propose an explanandum-based typology and point to other possible typologies based on how explanantia are presented and how they relate to explanandia. We also highlight two broad and complementary perspectives for defining possible quality criteria for assessing explainability: epistemological and psychological (cognitive). These definition attempts aim to support the three main functions that we believe should attract the interest and further research of XAI scholars: clear inventories, clear verification criteria, and clear validation methods. • We propose a framework for defining different types of explanations of AI systems. • We contextualize current XAI discourses within the proposed framework. • We highlight two broad perspectives for defining quality criteria for explainability. • We discuss the relevance of our framework in light of current and upcoming AI regulation. • We confer fundamental aspects for future research of XAI scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years the use of complex machine learning has increased drastically. These complex black box models trade interpretability for accuracy. The lack of interpretability is troubling for, e.g., socially sensitive, safety-critical, or knowledge extraction applications. In this paper, we propose a new explanation method, SLISE, for interpreting predictions from black box models. SLISE can be used with any black box model (model-agnostic), does not require any modifications to the black box model (post-hoc), and explains individual predictions (local). We evaluate our method using real-world datasets and compare it against other model-agnostic, local explanation methods. Our approach solves shortcomings in other related explanation methods by only using existing data instead of sampling new, artificial data. The method also generates more generalizable explanations and is usable without modification across various data domains.

Learning from instructional explanations is one of the most established, prevalent, and obvious ways of learning--but it carries the risk of shallow processing. Unlike previous research that focused on providing digital just-in-time support measures for learning with explanations, we strived to prepare learners on how to make the most of upcoming explanations. We thus developed a short-term computer-based training intervention on the focused processing of instructional explanations. In two experiments (N1 = 47, N2 = 42), we tested its effects on learning processes and outcomes of a subsequent learning phase. Our results revealed that the training intervention fostered domain-general knowledge about explanations. Furthermore, it enabled learners to benefit from future instructional explanations in other domains (inter-domain transfer for university students, Experiment 1) or at least on other topics (intra-domain transfer for primary school fourth graders, Experiment 2). The digital training intervention did not trigger more cognitive load in the subsequent learning phase. All in all, we describe an initial promising step toward a generic training effect that has the potential advantage of enhancing learning from explanations without altering the actual learning material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines the model-based theory of causal reasoning. It postulates that the core meanings of causal assertions are deterministic and refer to temporally-ordered sets of possibilities: A causes B to occur means that given A, B occurs, whereas A enables B to occur means that given A, it is possible for B to occur. The paper shows how mental models represent such assertions, and how these models underlie deductive, inductive, and abductive reasoning yielding explanations. It reviews evidence both to corroborate the theory and to account for phenomena sometimes taken to be incompatible with it. Finally, it reviews neuroscience evidence indicating that mental models for causal inference are implemented within lateral prefrontal cortex.

Traditional lectures are commonly understood to be a teacher-centered mode of instruction where the main aim is a provision of explanations by an educator to the students. Recent literature in higher education overwhelmingly depicts this mode of instruction as inferior compared to the desired student-centered models based on active learning techniques. First, using a four-quadrant model of educational environments, we address common confusion related to a conflation of two prevalent dichotomies by focusing on two key dimensions: (1) the extent to which students are prompted to engage actively and (2) the extent to which expert explanations are provided. Second, using a case study, we describe an evolution of tertiary mathematics education, showing how traditional instruction can still play a valuable role, provided it is suitably embedded in a student-centered course design. We support our argument by analyzing the teaching practice and learning environment in a third-year abstract algebra course through the lens of Stanislas Dehaene's theoretical framework for effective teaching and learning. The framework, comprising "four pillars of learning", is based on a state-of-the-art conception of how learning can be facilitated according to cognitive science, educational psychology and neuroscience findings. In the case study, we illustrate how, over time, the unit design and the teaching approach have evolved into a learning environment that aligns with the four pillars of learning. We conclude that traditional lectures can and do evolve to optimize learning environments and that the erection of the dichotomy "traditional instruction versus active learning" is no longer relevant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nearly all diseases are caused by different combinations of exposures. Yet, most epidemiological studies focus on estimating the effect of a single exposure on a health outcome. We present the Causes of Outcome Learning approach (CoOL), which seeks to discover combinations of exposures that lead to an increased risk of a specific outcome in parts of the population. The approach allows for exposures acting alone and in synergy with others. The road map of CoOL involves (i) a pre-computational phase used to define a causal model; (ii) a computational phase with three steps, namely (a) fitting a non-negative model on an additive scale, (b) decomposing risk contributions and (c) clustering individuals based on the risk contributions into subgroups; and (iii) a post-computational phase on hypothesis development, validation and triangulation using new data before eventually updating the causal model. The computational phase uses a tailored neural network for the non-negative model on an additive scale and layer-wise relevance propagation for the risk decomposition through this model. We demonstrate the approach on simulated and real-life data using the R package 'CoOL'. The presentation focuses on binary exposures and outcomes but can also be extended to other measurement types. This approach encourages and enables researchers to identify combinations of exposures as potential causes of the health outcome of interest. Expanding our ability to discover complex causes could eventually result in more effective, targeted and informed interventions prioritized for their public health impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper documents beliefs that manifest themselves through newspaper items and elaborates on their potential to enhance a sustainable learning environment in a school science lesson. “Learning environment” is depicted from different angles and includes virtual and real learning environments, school environments and classroom environments. Descriptive and item analyses were conducted on sixty-eight newspaper items that were identified. The nature of problems and prescriptions/solutions was categorised for each item and the paper further provides elaboration on the types of problems and recommended solutions. The results show that the “believed” structure contents in their newspaper items to catch the attention of the “believer”. Lessons on the power of belief must be learnt by school science teachers if they are to succeed in creating a sustainable learning environment with improved performance in school science.

The introduction of machine learning to small molecule research– an inherently multidisciplinary field in which chemists and data scientists combine their expertise and collaborate - has been vital to making screening processes more efficient. In recent years, numerous models that predict pharmacokinetic properties or bioactivity have been published, and these are used on a daily basis by chemists to make decisions and prioritize ideas. The emerging field of explainable artificial intelligence is opening up new possibilities for understanding the reasoning that underlies a model. In small molecule research, this means relating contributions of substructures of compounds to their predicted properties, which in turn also allows the areas of the compounds that have the greatest influence on the outcome to be identified. However, there is no interactive visualization tool that facilitates such interdisciplinary collaborations towards interpretability of machine learning models for small molecules. To fill this gap, we present CIME (ChemInformatics Model Explorer), an interactive web-based system that allows users to inspect chemical data sets, visualize model explanations, compare interpretability techniques, and explore subgroups of compounds. The tool is model-agnostic and can be run on a server or a workstation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows the research results obtained with a group of pre-service chemistry teachers at Universidad Pedagógica Nacional, employing didactic units focused in everyday chemistry as strategy for chemistry teaching. The explanations of pre-service chemistry teachers for the analyzed everyday chemical phenomena were characterized according to its admissibility and chemical levels of representation. The project allowed consolidating a space which employs coherently disciplinary and didactic aspects of chemistry, contributing to the pre-service teachers with resources and methodologies to transform the traditional forms of teaching, learning and evaluation of chemistry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In decision-making problems under uncertainty, a decision table consists of a set of attributes indicating what is the optimal decision (response) within the different scenarios defined by the attributes. We recently introduced a method to give explanations of these responses. In this paper, the method is extended. To do this, it is combined with a query system to answer expert questions about the preferred action for a given instantiation of decision table attributes. The main difficulty is to accurately answer queries associated with incomplete instantiations. Incomplete instantiations are the result of the evaluation of a partial model outputting decision tables that only include a subset of the whole problem, leading to uncertain responses. Our proposal establishes an automatic and interactive dialogue between the decision-support system and the expert to elicit information from the expert to reduce uncertainty. Typically, the process involves learning a Bayesian network structure from a relevant part of the decision table and computing some interesting conditional probabilities that are revised accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The goal of predictive toxicology is the automatic construction of carcinogenecity models. Most common artificial intelligence techniques used to construct these models are inductive learning methods. In a previous work we presented an approach that uses lazy learning methods for solving the problem of predicting carcinogenecity. Lazy learning methods solve new problems based on their similarity to already solved problems. Nevertheless, a weakness of these kind of methods is that sometimes the result is not completely understandable by the user. In this paper we propose an explanation scheme for a concrete lazy learning method. This scheme is particularly interesting to justify the predictions about the carcinogenesis of chemical compounds. In addition we propose that these explanations could be used to build a partial domain knowledge. In our particular case, we use the explanations for building general knowledge about carcinogenesis. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper provides an extensive overview of the use of knowledge graphs in the context of Explainable Machine Learning. As of late, explainable AI has become a very active field of research by addressing the limitations of the latest machine learning solutions that often provide highly accurate, but hardly scrutable and interpretable decisions. An increasing interest has also been shown in the integration of Knowledge Representation techniques in Machine Learning applications, mostly motivated by the complementary strengths and weaknesses that could lead to a new generation of hybrid intelligent systems. Following this idea, we hypothesise that knowledge graphs, which naturally provide domain background knowledge in a machine-readable format, could be integrated in Explainable Machine Learning approaches to help them provide more meaningful, insightful and trustworthy explanations. Using a systematic literature review methodology we designed an analytical framework to explore the current landscape of Explainable Machine Learning. We focus particularly on the integration with structured knowledge at large scale, and use our framework to analyse a variety of Machine Learning domains, identifying the main characteristics of such knowledge-based, explainable systems from different perspectives. We then summarise the strengths of such hybrid systems, such as improved understandability, reactivity, and accuracy, as well as their limitations, e.g. in handling noise or extracting knowledge efficiently. We conclude by discussing a list of open challenges left for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper describes an explanation-based tools for constraint programming system. These tools provide to the user the conflicts when it raise during solving process. Our tools simulate constraint additions and/or constraint relaxations without any propagation; it also determine if a given constraint belongs to a conflict and it provide diagnosis tool (e.g. why variable cannot take value val?). With more user-friendly representation of conflicts and explanations, our proposed tools give better problem understanding to the user. We prooved that the proposed tools are efficient, and while there is no debugging system that allow the user to interact with the solver, our explanation-based tools could be used for many other applications. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]