A formalisation and prototype implementation of Argumentation for Statistical Model Selection

Sassoon, I., Zillessen, S., Keppens, J. and McBurney, P.

Argument & Computation 10(1):83-103.

December 2018

Abstract

The task of data collection is becoming routine in many disciplines and this results in increased availability of data. This routinely collected data provides a valuable opportunity for analysis with a view to support evidence based decision making. In order to confidently leverage the data in support of decision making the most appropriate statistical method needs to be selected, and this can be difficult an end user not trained in statistics. This article provides an application of argumentation to support the analysis of clinical data. An argumentation based approach to devise a decision support system for such an application was introduced. The argumentation based approach generated an Extended Argumentation Framework by instantiating the argument scheme for possible model, its critical questions and generating meta-level arguments from preference contexts relevant to the data and the analysis objective of the end user. This article formalises the argument scheme for statistical model selection, its critical questions and the structure of the knowledge base required to support the instantiation of the arguments and meta-level arguments through the use of Z notation.This article describes the prototype implementation of argumentation for statistical model selection based on the Z specification outlined.

DOI: 10.3233/AAC-181002