M.Sc. Niklas Rach

Research

PhD Thesis

Embedded Aigaion Query

Resolving different viewpoints of virtual agents can be addressed as a dialogical task in which arguments are exchanged. Thereby it is possible for each side to persuade the opponents by establishing a convincing argumentation structure. An Argumentative Dialogue System is a system that allows an agent to carry out argumentative task such as persuasion or negotiation against a human. Despite the strong theoretical grounding, implementations of these kind of systems are rather scarce since they have to overcome different obstacles.

In my thesis I address two important issues of such a system, namely the Natural Language Understanding (NLU) of arguments and the development of a flexible agent strategy.

Research Interests

  • Non-cooperative Dialogue Systems
  • Computational Argumentation
  • Machine Learning

Embedded Aigaion Query 2023

I. Feustel, N. Rach, W. Minker and S. Ultes
Towards interactive explanations of machine learning methods through dialogue systems
In Proceedings of the 13th International Workshop on Spoken Dialogue Systems Technology (IWSDS '23), Springer, 2023
Link to Document
Bibtex

2022

W. Abro, A. Aicher, N. Rach, S. Ultes, W. Minker and G. Qi
Natural Language Understanding for Argumentative Dialogue Systems in the Opinion Building Domain
Knowledge-Based Systems, Vol. 242, pp. 108318, 2022
DOI
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2021

N. Rach, Y. Matsuda, S. Ultes, W. Minker and K. Yasumoto
Estimating Subjective Argument Quality Aspects from Social Signals in Argumentative Dialogue Systems
IEEE Access, Vol. 9, pp. 11610-11621, 2021
Link to Document
DOI
Bibtex

N. Rach, K. Weber, Y. Yang, S. Ultes, E. André and W. Minker
EVA 2.0: Emotional and Rational Multimodal Argumentation between Virtual Agents
it - Information Technology, Vol. 63, Num. 1, pp. 17--30, 2021
Bibtex

N. Rach, C. Schindler, I. Feustel, J. Daxenberger, W. Minker and S. Ultes
From Argument Search to Argumentative Dialogue: A Topic-independent Approach to Argument Acquisition for Dialogue Systems
Proceedings of the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Special Interest Group on Discourse and Dialogue, ACL, Singapore, 2021
Link to Document
Bibtex

W. Abro, A. Aicher, N. Rach, S. Ultes, W. Minker and G. Qi
Natural Language Understanding for Argumentative Dialogue Systems in the Opinion Building Domain
arXiv preprint arXiv:2103.02691, 2021
Link to Document
Bibtex

A. Aicher, N. Rach, W. Minker and S. Ultes
Opinion Building based on the Argumentative Dialogue System BEA
Increasing Naturalness and Flexibility in Spoken Dialogue Interaction: 10th International Workshop on Spoken Dialogue Systems, Springer Singapore, Siracusa (Sicily, Italy), pp. 307--318, 2021
Bibtex

2020

K. Weber, N. Rach, W. Minker and E. André
How to Win Arguments - Empowering Virtual Agents to Improve Their Persuasiveness
Datenbank Spektrum, June 2020
Link to Document
Bibtex

N. Rach, Y. Matsuda, J. Daxenberger, S. Ultes, K. Yasumoto and W. Minker
Evaluation of Argument Search Approaches in the Context of Argumentative Dialogue Systems
Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), Marseille, France, 2020
Link to Document
Bibtex

N. Rach, W. Minker and S. Ultes
Increasing the Naturalness of an Argumentative Dialogue System through Argument Chains
Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Computational Models of Argument, 2020
Link to Document
Bibtex

K. Weber, K. Janowski, N. Rach, K. Weitz, W. Minker, S. Ultes and E. André
Predicting Persuasive Effectiveness for Multimodal Behavior Adaptation using Bipolar Weighted Argument Graphs
Proceedings of the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, Auckland, New Zealand, 2020
Bibtex

2019

N. Rach, K. Weber, A. Aicher, F. Lingenfelser, E. André and W. Minker
Emotion Recognition Based Preference Modelling in Argumentative Dialogue Systems
In 2019 IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications Workshops (PerCom Workshops), Kyoto, Japan, 2019
Bibtex

N. Wagner, M. Kraus, N. Rach and W. Minker
How to address humans: System barge-in in multi-user HRI
Proceedings of the 10th International Workshop on Spoken Dialog Systems Technology (IWSDS 2019), Siracusa (Sicily, Italy), 2019
Bibtex

2018

N. Rach, K. Weber, L. Pragst, E. André, W. Minker and S. Ultes
EVA: A Multimodal Argumentative Dialogue System
Proceedings of the 20th ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction, Boulder, Colorado, October 2018
Bibtex

N. Rach, W. Minker and S. Ultes
Markov Games for Persuasive Dialogue
Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Computational Models of Argument, Warsaw, September 2018
Link to Document
Bibtex

N. Rach, W. Minker and S. Ultes
Handling Unknown User Arguments in Argumentative Dialogue Systems
Proceedings of the 32nd British Human Computer Interaction Conference (HCI), Belfast, UK, July 2018
Link to Document
Bibtex

L. Pragst, N. Rach, W. Minker and S. Ultes
On the Vector Representation of Utterances in Dialogue Context
Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2018), European Language Resources Association (ELRA), Paris, France, Miyazaki, Japan, May 2018
Bibtex

N. Rach, S. Langhammer, W. Minker and S. Ultes
Utilizing Argument Mining Techniques for Argumentative Dialogue Systems
Proceedings of the 9th International Workshop On Spoken Dialogue Systems (IWSDS), Singapore, May 2018
Bibtex

2017

N. Rach, W. Minker and S. Ultes
Interaction Quality Estimation Using Long Short-Term Memories
Proceedings of the 18th Annual Meeting of the Special Interest Group on Discourse and Dialogue (SIGDIAL), Association for Computational Linguistics, Saarbrücken, Germany, pp. 164--169, August 2017
Bibtex

N. Rach, W. Minker and S. Ultes
Towards an Argumentative Dialogue System
Proceedings of 17th Workshop on Computational Models of Natural Argument (CMNA'17), London, UK, June 2017
Link to Document
Bibtex

2016

N. Rach, S. Montangero and M. Paternostro
Optimal control of many-body non-equilibrium quantum thermodynamics
arXiv:1605.07476, 2016
Link to Document
Bibtex

2015

N. Rach, M. Müller, T. Calarco and S. Montangero
Dressing the chopped-random-basis optimization: A bandwidth-limited access to the trap-free landscape
Physical Review A - Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics, 2015
Bibtex

Teaching Assistance

  • Dialogue Systems, WS 2016/2017
  • Dialogue Systems, WS 2017/2018

Projects and Seminars

  • Seminar Dialogue Systems, SS 2016
  • Seminar Research Trends in Dialogue Systems, SS 2016
  • Proseminar Dialogue Systems, SS 2016
  • Seminar Dialogue Systems, WS 2016/2017
  • Seminar Research Trends in Dialogue Systems, WS 2016/2017
  • Proseminar Dialogue Systems, WS 2016/2017
  • Seminar Dialogue Systems, SS 2017
  • Seminar Research Trends in Dialogue Systems, SS 2017
  • Proseminar Dialogue Systems, SS 2017

Ich betreue gerne Bachelor und Master Arbeiten aus dem Bereich meines Promotionsthemas. Schreibe mir einfach eine E-Mail, wenn du Interesse hast.

I am pleased to supervise Bachelor and Master Theses within my PhD Topic. Just write an email if you are interested.

In Progress / Completed

Embedded Aigaion Query 2020

Bachelor Thesis
Argumentative Relation Classification for Argumentative Dialogue Systems
2020

2019

Master Thesis
Multi-Agent Actor-Critic Reinforcement Learning for Argumentative Dialogue Systems
2019

Master Thesis
Natural Language Understanding in Argumentative Dialogue Systems
2019

2017

Bachelor Thesis
A debating ontology for Argumentative Dialogue Systems
2017
Link to Document

Research Assistant

Dr. rer. nat. Niklas Rach

Niklas Rach
Dr. rer. nat. Niklas Rach
Graduation Date: 14.01.2022
First Employment: Ulm University, Germany