Understanding an utterance in an argument crucially requires determining the evidential relations it bears to prior and subsequent propositions in the argument (Birnbaum et al., 1980; Cohen, 1981). The memory representation of an argument should, accordingly, indicate which propositions a given proposition counts as evidence for (a support relation) or against (an attack relation), and which pr...

In this paper we consider hot-potato packet routing on trees. As a lower bound, for all sufficiently large n we construct a permutation routing problem on an n-node tree for which an oblivious greedy hot-potato algorithm requires at least 2n o(n) time steps. This lower bound is also valid for the minimumdistance heuristic. Applying the charging argument of Borodin et al. [8] we establish that a...

By way of conclusion to Rethinking Maps we want to set out a manifesto for map studies for the coming decade. Its goal is to generate ideas and enthusiasm for scholarship that advances our understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of maps, and also enhances the practices of mapping. This is not a call for ever more introspective intellectual navel gazing about maps. Instead it traces rou...

Argument structure patterns can be used to represent classes of safety arguments. Such patterns can become quite complex, making use of loops and choices, posing a potential challenge for comprehension and evaluation, offsetting the likely gains that might follow from creating arguments using them. We show how complex patterns can be constructed by composition of simpler patterns. We provide a ...

A conjecture of V. Sós [3] is proved that any set of 34 (n 3 ) + cn2 triples from an n-set, where c is a suitable absolute constant, must contain a copy of the Fano configuration (the projective plane of order two). This is an asymptotically sharp estimate. Given a 3-uniform hypergraph F , let ex3(n,F) denote the maximum possible size of a 3-uniform hypergraph of order n that does not contain a...

According to the argument from underconsideration, since theory evaluation is comparative, and since scientists do not have good reasons to believe that they are epistemically privileged, it is unlikely that our best theories are true. In this paper, I examine two formulations of this argument, one based on van Fraassen’s “bad lot” premise and another based on what Lipton called the “no-privile...

Suppose that a circular fire spreads in the plane at unit speed. A single fire fighter can build a barrier at speed v > 1. How large must v be to ensure that the fire can be contained, and how should the fire fighter proceed? We contribute two results. First, we analyze the natural curve FFv that develops when the fighter keeps building, at speed v, a barrier along the boundary of the expanding...

This article first argues that states have not balanced against US unipolar power because the potential balancers do not view the United States as a major threat, because they believe it has benign security-seeking motives, at least with regard to other major powers. This explanation runs counter to the Brooks–Wohlforth argument, which holds that states are not balancing because the magnitude o...

AIFdb Corpora provides a facility to group Argument Interchange Format (AIF) argument maps and search for maps that are related to each other (for example, analyses of related texts.) Users can create and share corpora containing any number of argument maps from within AIFdb. By integrating with the OVA+ analysis tool, AIFdb Corpora allows for the creation of corpora compliant with both AIF and...

Canonical subjects of eventive predicates are agentive and animate—so goes one of the over-arching, and idealized, generalizations of argument realization1. As robust as this generalization is, caveats are always made (e.g. Comrie 1989:107,128), in part due to a set of recalcitrant counter-examples, known as “instrumental subjects”, which violate this generalization on both counts. A paradigm c...