In this paper rOWLer, a hybrid rule engine for legal reasoning is presented. The engine combines the expressiveness of rules and ontologies to enable legal reasoning – hence the name “rOWLer”. It is tailored for use in public administration (tax law, pension law, social benefits law, etc.) and provides a flexible architecture, in particular concerning amendments, which allows for adaption to di...

This paper discusses the state of the art in CBR ontologies from the perspective of one developing an improved system for case-based legal reasoning. The paper proposes three specific roles for a CBR ontology and illustrates them in the context of the intended output of the new system: a legal classroom discussion of how to decide a case featuring hypothetical reasoning and abstract analogies. ...

When developing a catalogue of technical requirements for online voting systems to be used in legally ruled, non-parliamentary elections, major interdisciplinary problems arise which currently cannot be solved. Technical requirements are not yet definable due to lacking legal preconditions, and legal definitions are not yet definable due to lacking technical experience. Problems of this type ar...

This paper provides a systematic overview of the major constitutional and legal aspects of e-voting, together with their technical implications. All democracyoriented legal and constitutional requirements of an Internet-based voting system are identified. Such a voting system has to comply with these, in order to encourage and promote the participation of citizens, without violating any of thei...

This article continues our journey analyzing the different provider settings in which palliative care services can be offered to patients. Our focus continues to examine the matrix of federal and state laws and regulations that impact reimbursement streams, and fraud and abuse concerns. The rules to comply with depend upon the provider setting in which the palliative care services are offered. ...

Increasingly, information systems are becoming distributed and pervasive, enabling organizations to deliver services remotely to individuals and to share and store personal information, worldwide. However, system developers face significant challenges in identifying and managing the many laws that govern their services and products in this new multi-jurisdictional environment. To address this c...

ions: the law initially defines llrightsll in terms 0 f concrete objects and ordinary human actions , but these rights are then treated as llobjects I1 themselves, and made subject to further human llactionsll ; by repeating this process of reification many times, a complex body of commercial law can be developed. Because of their technical complexity, the legal rules at the top levels of this ...

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Compliance with law, industry standards, and corporate governance regulations are one of the driving factors for discovering security requirements. This paper aims to incorporate constraints from regulations through security requirements at an early stage of development. Constraints are extracted using a pattern based approach from legal texts of information security laws and policies derived f...

This research explores how and to what extent Semantic Web techniques can implement Hohfeldian legal concepts. Laws and regulations are forms of rules in natural language. Because laws are objective and formal, they are suitable for specification with formal logic. Hohfeldian legal concepts are an important tool for the explicit creation of normative legal relationships between the parties. The...