Papers by Pompeu Casanovas
This deliverable describes results from market research in Spanish law firms, including an overvi... more This deliverable describes results from market research in Spanish law firms, including an overview of competitor’s analysis and a definition of the requirements and functionalities of the proposed product. Market analysis covers both statistic analysis from external sources and qualitative data from fieldwork research developed within the framework of the SEKT project (forty in-depth interviews with lawyers in large, medium, and small law firms). The results show that there is an emerging market for Semantic Web technology in the legal domain, notably in the areas of e-mail management (i. e. intelligent search, inbound business scan, outbound content compliance). Despite the competition being fierce in the e-mail management marketplace, the need for intelligent search and content compliance beyond current archiving methods also reveals a clear opportunity to exploit SEKT technologies commercially.
Contemporary societies are not like the traditional ones. The members of the latter accept tradit... more Contemporary societies are not like the traditional ones. The members of the latter accept tradition as a source of behavior, and adapt to a form of identity that excludes or significantly limits the ability to choose. In contemporary societies, on the contrary, the choice is open and it defines the space where individuals can interact and relate to the group they belong to.
OSINT stands for Open Source Intelligence, (O)SI for (Open) Social Intelligence, PbD for Privacy ... more OSINT stands for Open Source Intelligence, (O)SI for (Open) Social Intelligence, PbD for Privacy by Design. The CAPER project has built an OSINT solution oriented to the prevention of organized crime. How to balance freedom and security? This position paper describes a way to embed the legal and ethical issues raised by the General Data Reform Package (GDRP) in Europe into this kind of surveillance platforms. It focuses on the indirect strategy to flesh out Privacy by Design principles (PbD) through Semantic Web Regulatory Models (SWRM). Institutional design, self-regulatory systems, and the possibility to build up a meta-level rule of law are discussed.
Revised Selected Papers of the AICOL 2013 International Workshops on AI Approaches to the Complexity of Legal Systems - Volume 8929
The General Council of the Judiciary is the third power in Spain, and is responsible for the prof... more The General Council of the Judiciary is the third power in Spain, and is responsible for the professional education of judges and for the operation of the judicial system. Becoming a judge in Spain requires passing an open, competitive exam, where many candidates apply and few are accepted. Having passed the exam, candidates immediately become judges, and have all of the corresponding obligations and responsibilities. Key Benefits of Using Semantic Web Technology Main benefits for the Spanish General Council of the Judiciary include Management of professional and pragmatic knowledge relevant for judges performing their daily jobs Fostering consistency in judges decisions based on an accumulation of relevant knowledge Shortening of time between newly appointed judges being aware of a situation and their corresponding action taking Knowledge management (retrieval of questions and jurisprudence) based on an "understanding" of the content rather than of keyword matching
La reflexió filosòfica a Catalunya ha conegut avatars múltiples i ha experimentat processos contr... more La reflexió filosòfica a Catalunya ha conegut avatars múltiples i ha experimentat processos contradictoris. Però em sembla que, modernament, hi ha hagut un fet que ha marcat de manera decisiva la seva estabilització i el seu desenvolupament. Em refereixo, naturalment, a la Guerra Civil (1936-1939). La guerra va significar una cesura importantíssima i, en el fons, el final d'un procés fragmentari que s'havia iniciat a la primera meitat del segle XIX amb la restauració de la Universitat de Barcelona (1837) i l'aparició de figures com Ramon Martí d'Eixalà (1808-1857), Xavier Llorens i Barba (1820-1872) i, especialment, Jaume Balmes (1810-1848). Hi ha distintes formes d'entendre aquest procés des de la història intel•lectual. Isidre Molas, per exemple, des de la filosofia política, l'entén com el diàleg o la contraposició entre dues formes o matrius de pensament -conservadora l'una, liberal l'altra-que es formen a principis del segle XIX i que vertebren la reflexió política del modernisme i el noucentisme a finals del segle XIX i durant la primera meitat del segle XX. Miquel Batllori prossegueix el camí iniciat per Frederic Clascar (1873-1919) 4 i Ignasi Casanovas (1872-1936), 5 i ha connectat la reflexió filosòfica del segle XIX amb el treball d'erudició, discussió i crítica dels planteja-C I C L E Aranguren IV. Filosofia del segle XX a Catalunya 9 6. Com és sabut, la gran obra de Miquel Batllori no es limita al set-cents i vuit-cents, sinó que abasta l'edat mitjana i, especialment, l'humanisme del Renaixement. Una de les claus de la seva obra, em sembla, es troba justament en el període inicial de formació, amb Ignasi Casanovas i en diàleg amb l'Escola de la UAB (Serra Hunter). Dic això perquè la tesi de fons és la de trobar una unitat discontínua en la filosofia i cultura catalanes, des de Ramon Llull (segle XIII) fins a Jaume Balmes (segle XIX). Hi ha ja bastantes miscel•lànies i llibres de síntesi. Només per citar-ne alguns, vegeu, Josep Solervicens (ed.
Journal of Catalan Intellectual History, 2020
This is a Research Note about the ongoing Project on the semantics of pactism (pactisme) in Catal... more This is a Research Note about the ongoing Project on the semantics of pactism (pactisme) in Catalan ancient law. Pactism is the name of the legal doctrine that grounds the validity of legal provisions upon a pact-based model. It was developed as a basis for Catalan Public law in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries. We present it as a medieval realism. Looking at the concomitances of 20th century legal realism and the doctrine of pactism can shed light on the emergence of early states and the construction of legal doctrines stemming from the reception of Roman law, the wide use of ius commune, and the development of case-based law and Scholastic reasoning methods. The semantics of pact-modelling processes and outcomes has yet to be established. Thus, it is also contended that Digital Humanities can offer some technological solutions to unravel underlying linguistic, cognitive and ontological patterns to understand the political culture that came out of it and developed until the 18th c...
Journal of Catalan Intellectual History, 2020
Late Medieval anti-Jewish violence is a well-known phenomenon, but its origins and institutionali... more Late Medieval anti-Jewish violence is a well-known phenomenon, but its origins and institutionalization are still blurred and enigmatic. In thirteenth and fourteenth century Catalonia, the denouement of the increasing popular hostility against the Jewry was particularly dramatic. The seeds of violence were the result of a long and complex process of social, theological and political interactions. In this contribution, we will discuss the intellectual matrix of medieval anti-Semitism in Catalonia and its relationship with the rising of scholastics and with the theoretical foundations of Catalan politics. We will also approach its counterpart: the Jewish response to collective suffering.
Droit et intelligence artificielle: une révolution de la connaissance juridique
Des de fa més o menys una dècada, 1 els estudis sobre la literatura filosòfica catalana han entra... more Des de fa més o menys una dècada, 1 els estudis sobre la literatura filosòfica catalana han entrat en un moment d'una relativa efervescència i fertilitat que seria convenient d'aprofitar. No es tracta ja, com en el passat, d'aporta-cions aïllades, més o menys consistents, o de grups concrets interessats a vincular-se amb un o altre il•lustre precedent, sinó d'un moviment difús, divers i generalitzat-tant geogràficament com acadèmicament-que ha produït en molt pocs anys un volum considerable de bibliografia i d'inicia-tives acadèmiques. Les "Jornades Científiques" sobre la filosofia catalana celebrades a l'Institut d'Estudis Catalans, els cursos "Pensament i filosofia a Catalunya", els Symposia de la Càtedra Ferrater Mora dedicades específi-cament a autors catalans, la creació d'una Secció de Filosofia Catalana en la Societat Catalana de Filosofia o la publicació de diversos números mono-gràfics en les revistes L'Espill o Enraho...
This paper constitutes a short introduction to Catalan political and legal thought. I have tried ... more This paper constitutes a short introduction to Catalan political and legal thought. I have tried to summarize the essentials of a particular way to understand institutions, legal systems and political behavior which are historical in nature. Several researchers, historians, jurists, and political scientists are addressing the traditional subject of Catalan pactism with a renewed interest. This paper is conceived as a reflection on this trend. I distinguish between 'Catalan legal mind' and 'the Legal Catalan Mind' which started up at the beginning of the 16 th c., was consolidated during the 17 th , and eventually produced what is known as "political pactism" in the 19 th c. and 20 th c.
This article deals with some regulatory and legal problems of the Web of Data. Data and metadata ... more This article deals with some regulatory and legal problems of the Web of Data. Data and metadata are defined. Digital Rights Management (DRM) and Rights Expression Languages (REL) are introduced. Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL), Licensed Linked Data Resources (LLDR) and Creative Commons Licenses are referred. The development of REL by means of Ontology Design Patterns such as LLDR, or Open Licenses sustained by Policy Models such as ODRL, situates the discussion on metadata at the regulatory level. With the development of the Web of Data the Rule of Law needs to evolve to a Meta-Rule of Law, incorporating tools to regulate and monitor the semantic layer of the Web. This means reflecting on the construction of a new public dimension space for the exercise of rights.
Ontology-driven systems with reasoning capabilities in the legal field are now better understood.... more Ontology-driven systems with reasoning capabilities in the legal field are now better understood. Legal concepts are not discrete, but make up a dynamic continuum between common sense terms, specific technical use, and professional knowledge, in an evolving institutional reality. Thus, the tension between a plural understanding of regulations and a more general understanding of law is bringing into view a new landscape in which general legal frameworks — grounded in well-known legal theories stemming from 20th-century c. legal positivism or sociological jurisprudence — is made compatible with specific forms of rights management on the Web. In this sense, Semantic Web tools are not only being designed for information retrieval, classification, clustering, and knowledge management. They can also be understood as regulatory tools, i.e. as components of the contemporary legal architecture, to be used by multiple stakeholders — front-line practitioners, policy-makers, legal drafters, com...
II-AAI L wor ksh op series -Se-con d inter na-tio-nal OD R Wor sko p IAA IL wor ksh op series -Se... more II-AAI L wor ksh op series -Se-con d inter na-tio-nal OD R Wor sko p IAA IL wor ksh op series -Se-con d inter na-tio-nal OD R Wor abstract In the legal domain, ontologies enjoy quite some reputation as a way to model normative knowledge about laws and jurisprudence. Several methods have been used and are well-known qua ontological methods. However, no previous attempt to construct ontologies based on professional knowledge exists, capturing judicial practical expertise. This paper shows the preliminary ontology development for the second version of the prototype Iuriservice, a web based intelligent FAQ for judicial use, containing a repository of professional judicial knowledge. The iFAQ system will focus on such knowledge and will base on OPLK —Ontology of Professional Legal Knowledge— developed by UAB. Profesional Legal Knowledge refers to the core of professional work that contains the experience of the daily treatment of cases and is unevenly distributed within individuals as a ...
This paper describes the analysis of the requirements and the knowledge acquisition process for t... more This paper describes the analysis of the requirements and the knowledge acquisition process for the development of a legal ontology for the representation of data protection knowledge in the framework of the NEURONA project. This modular ontology is used in the NEURONA application to reason about the correctness of the measures of protection applied to these data files by an organization. In this sense the use of legal ontologies could not only provide legal professionals and citizens with better access to legal information, but could also support data protection and privacy compliance in organizations and administrations.
We present an intelligent FAQ system for junior judges that intensively uses the ontology and all... more We present an intelligent FAQ system for junior judges that intensively uses the ontology and allows a free text input for querying. We describe the use of legal ontologies as a basis to improve IT support for professional judges. As opposed to most legal ontologies designed so far, which are mostly based on dogmatic and normative knowledge, we emphasize the importance of professional knowledge and experience as an important pillar for constructing the ontology.
In this paper we present an ontology design pattern to conceptualize complaints ̶ an important do... more In this paper we present an ontology design pattern to conceptualize complaints ̶ an important domain still uncovered by ODPs. The proposed Complaint Ontology Pattern (COP) has been designed based on the analysis of free text complaints from available complaint datasets (banking, air transport, automobile) among other knowledge sources. We present a detailed use case from consumer disputes. We evaluate the pattern by annotating the complaints from our use case and by discussing how COP aligns to existing ontologies.
This paper offers an exploratory approach to crowdsourcing methods, tools, and roles based on dif... more This paper offers an exploratory approach to crowdsourcing methods, tools, and roles based on different levels of involvement of users, skills re-quired, and types of data being processed (from raw data to highly structured dada). The paper also aims at refining different crowdsourcing categories and opening up a theoretical discussion on the advantages and limits of using crowdsourcing methods and technologies in disaster management activities
Reuse and Reengineering of Non-ontological Resources in the Legal Domain
Instead of custom-building a new ontology from scratch, knowledge resources can be elicited, reus... more Instead of custom-building a new ontology from scratch, knowledge resources can be elicited, reused and engineered to develop legal ontologies with the goal of promoting the application of good practices and speeding up the ontology development process. This paper focuses on the specificities of non-ontological resources in the legal domain, and provides some guidelines of how these can be reused and engineered to enable heterogeneous resources integration within a legal ontology. The paper presents some examples of these processes using a case-study in the consumer law domain.
SpringerBriefs in Law
Although confidence in democracy to tackle societal problems is falling, new civic participation ... more Although confidence in democracy to tackle societal problems is falling, new civic participation tools are appearing supported by modern ICT technologies. These tools implicitly assume different views on democracy and citizenship which have not been fully analysed, but their main fault is their isolated operation in non-communicated silos. We can conceive public knowledge, like in Karl Popper's World 3, as distributed and connected in different layers and by different connectors, much as it happens with the information in the web or the data in the linked data cloud. The interaction between people, technology and data is still to be defined before alternative institutions are founded, but the so called linked democracy should rest on different layers of interaction: linked data, linked platforms and linked ecosystems; a robust connectivity between democratic institutions is fundamental in order to enhance the way knowledge circulates and collective decisions are made. Keywords Linked democracy Á Multilayered linked democracy Á Linked data Á Linked platforms Á Linked ecosystems Á World 3 Á Institutions 3.1 Introduction Contemporary democracies face growing scepticism about their capacity to manage complex societal problems. Financial crises, inequality and poverty, climate change and armed conflicts routinely test the resilience of our democratic systems. Researchers are predominantly expressing concern about the developments of the last decade. Larry Diamond draws from Freedom House data to argue that we are in a 'mild but protracted democratic recession' since 2006 (Diamond 2015, 144). Roberto Foa and Yascha Mounk analyse World Values Surveys to conclude that citizens in Western democracies have 'become more cynical about the value of
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Papers by Pompeu Casanovas