scholarly journals Talking about the likelihood of risks: an agent-based simulation of discussion processes in risk workshops

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Clemens Harten ◽  
Matthias Meyer ◽  
Lucia Bellora-Bienengräber
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Information Transfer ◽  
Risk Assessments ◽  
Interaction Patterns ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Ideal Speech Situation ◽  
Group Characteristics ◽  
Speech Situation ◽  
The Ideal

Purpose This paper aims to explore drivers of the effectiveness of risk assessments in risk workshops. Design/methodology/approach This study uses an agent-based model to simulate risk assessments in risk workshops. Combining the notions of transactive memory and the ideal speech situation, this study establishes a risk assessment benchmark and then investigates real-world deviations from this benchmark. Specifically, this study models limits to information transfer, incomplete discussions and potentially detrimental group characteristics, as well as interaction patterns. Findings First, limits to information transfer among workshop participants can prevent a correct consensus. Second, increasing the required number of stable discussion rounds before an assessment improves the correct assessment of high but not low likelihood risks. Third, while theoretically advantageous group characteristics are associated with the highest assessment correctness for all risks, theoretically detrimental group characteristics are associated with the highest assessment correctness for high likelihood risks. Fourth, prioritizing participants who are particularly concerned about the risk leads to the highest level of correctness. Originality/value This study shows that by increasing the duration of simulated risk workshops, the assessments change – as a rule – from underestimating to overestimating risks, unraveling a trade-off for risk workshop facilitators. Methodologically, this approach overcomes limitations of prior research, specifically the lack of an assessment and process benchmark, the inability to disentangle multiple effects and the difficulty of capturing individual cognitive processes.

Negotiating Ethics as a Two Level Debate

1998 ◽  
pp. 254-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert van Es
Keyword(s):  
Human Behavior ◽  
Moral Behavior ◽  
Discourse Ethic ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Ideal Speech Situation ◽  
Moral Debate ◽  
Common Understanding ◽  
Speech Situation ◽  
The Ideal

As a form of moral debate, discourse ethic, according to Habermas, is based on regulated discussion. Participating moral agents share a common understanding in the ideal speech situation. Following procedures they try to reach consensus on questions of justice and rights. Critics of discourse ethic point to the bias of Western assumptions regarding agents and methods, the danger of elitism, and the optimism and the pacifism that run through the theory. After modification, Habermas distinguishes two types of discourse: the discourse of justification and the discourse of application. The second is inferior to the first. In the second, there is room for negotiating. There is another way of looking at negotiation, one that takes negotiating seriously as an important category of human behavior. This category shows an interesting overlap with moral behavior. Distinguishing four concepts of negotiating and using reciprocity and trust as the moral minimum, Negotiating Ethics is presented as a two level moral debate, close to Habermas but morally different in essential aspects.

Teaching and Assessing Oral Skills as Democratic Practice

Politics ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 197-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Stafford
Keyword(s):  
Communicative Competence ◽  
Self Assessment ◽  
Assessment Feedback ◽  
A Value ◽  
Democratic Practice ◽  
Ideal Speech Situation ◽  
Political Studies ◽  
Oral Skills ◽  
Speech Situation ◽  
The Ideal

Teaching and assessing oral skills is important, but relatively novel in the discipline of Political Studies; this article defends the practice, and outlines the ‘nuts and bolts’ of one methodology for doing it. Preliminary explanation in lectures, practice in seminars, assessment, feedback and self-assessment are all covered and the paperwork illustrated. The methodology is based in part on Habermas's theory of ‘communicative competence’ and the ‘ideal speech situation’; it therefore implies and imparts the values of respect, equality, democracy and consensus. It is suggested that a value-free approach to the teaching of oral skills is impossible.

scholarly journals The Persuasiveness of a Message and the Problem of Legitimacy

2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (5) ◽  
pp. 59-73
Author(s):  
Rafał Leśniczak
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Jürgen Habermas ◽  
The Public ◽  
Jurgen Habermas ◽  
Ideal Speech Situation ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Silvio Berlusconi ◽  
Speech Situation ◽  
The Ideal

The author analyses several selected speeches of Italian politicians: the founder of the Forza Italia party, Silvio Berlusconi; the founder and leader of the Five Stars Movement, Beppe Grillo; and the current Prime Minister of Italy, Matteo Renzi. The study makes it possible to evaluate whether the conditions for the ideale Sprechsituation (the ideal speech situation) of Jürgen Habermas are fulfilled in analysing the public discourse. Particular attention will be given to the relationship between the persuasiveness of the communication and the problem of legitimacy.

Interview with Jürgen Habermas

2018 ◽  
pp. 870-882
Author(s):  
Jürgen Habermas
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Process ◽  
Jürgen Habermas ◽  
Deliberative Process ◽  
Jurgen Habermas ◽  
Ideal Speech Situation ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Speech Situation ◽  
The Ideal

This interview with Jürgen Habermas covers a number of crucial and hotly debated topics in deliberative democracy—such as the role of the ideal speech situation, the role of (rational) consensus, and the possibility of deliberation in the strategic realm of politics and in deeply divided societies. In addition, it sets outs his assessment of current developments in deliberative theory—such as the contribution of narratives, emotions and rhetorics to the deliberative process and the role of self-interest and bargaining in deliberation. Jürgen Habermas presents an integrative and optimistic vision of the deliberative program, stressing the importance of a systemic and long-term approach where the democratic process “as a whole is filtered through deliberation”.

scholarly journals Agent-Based Modeling Demonstrates How Local Chemotactic Behavior Can Shape Biofilm Architecture

mSphere ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily G. Sweeney ◽  
Andrew Nishida ◽  
Alexandra Weston ◽  
Maria S. Bañuelos ◽  
Kristin Potter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Helicobacter Pylori ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Structural Features ◽  
Agent Based Modeling ◽  
Emergent Properties ◽  
Cellular Interactions ◽  
Biofilm Growth ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
H Pylori

ABSTRACTBacteria are often found living in aggregated multicellular communities known as biofilms. Biofilms are three-dimensional structures that confer distinct physical and biological properties to the collective of cells living within them. We used agent-based modeling to explore whether local cellular interactions were sufficient to give rise to global structural features of biofilms. Specifically, we asked whether chemorepulsion from a self-produced quorum-sensing molecule, autoinducer-2 (AI-2), was sufficient to recapitulate biofilm growth and cellular organization observed for biofilms ofHelicobacter pylori, a common bacterial resident of human stomachs. To carry out this modeling, we modified an existing platform, Individual-based Dynamics of Microbial Communities Simulator (iDynoMiCS), to incorporate three-dimensional chemotaxis, planktonic cells that could join or leave the biofilm structure, and cellular production of AI-2. We simulated biofilm growth of previously characterizedH. pyloristrains with various AI-2 production and sensing capacities. Using biologically plausible parameters, we were able to recapitulate both the variation in biofilm mass and cellular distributions observed with these strains. Specifically, the strains that were competent to chemotax away from AI-2 produced smaller and more heterogeneously spaced biofilms, whereas the AI-2 chemotaxis-defective strains produced larger and more homogeneously spaced biofilms. The model also provided new insights into the cellular demographics contributing to the biofilm patterning of each strain. Our analysis supports the idea that cellular interactions at small spatial and temporal scales are sufficient to give rise to larger-scale emergent properties of biofilms.IMPORTANCEMost bacteria exist in aggregated, three-dimensional structures called biofilms. Although biofilms play important ecological roles in natural and engineered settings, they can also pose societal problems, for example, when they grow in plumbing systems or on medical implants. Understanding the processes that promote the growth and disassembly of biofilms could lead to better strategies to manage these structures. We had previously shown thatHelicobacter pyloribacteria are repulsed by high concentrations of a self-produced molecule, AI-2, and thatH. pylorimutants deficient in AI-2 sensing form larger and more homogeneously spaced biofilms. Here, we used computer simulations of biofilm formation to show that localH. pyloribehavior of repulsion from high AI-2 could explain the overall architecture ofH. pyloribiofilms. Our findings demonstrate that it is possible to change global biofilm organization by manipulating local cell behaviors, which suggests that simple strategies targeting cells at local scales could be useful for controlling biofilms in industrial and medical settings.

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