A Rewriting Framework for Activities Subject to Regulations

Activities such as clinical investigations or financial processes are subject to regulations to ensure quality of results and avoid negative consequences. Regulations may be imposed by multiple governmental agencies as well as by institutional policies and protocols. Due to the complexity of both regulations and activities there is great potential for violation due to human error, misunderstanding, or even intent. Executable formal models of regulations, protocols, and activities can form the foundation for automated assistants to aid planning, monitoring, and compliance checking. We propose a model based on multiset rewriting where time is discrete and is specified by timestamps attached to facts. Actions, as well as initial, goal and critical states may be constrained by means of relative time constraints. Moreover, actions may have non-deterministic effects, that is, they may have different outcomes whenever applied. We demonstrate how specifications in our model can be straightforwardly mapped to the rewriting logic language Maude, and how one can use existing techniques to improve performance. Finally, we also determine the complexity of the plan compliance problem, that is, finding a plan that leads from an initial state to a desired goal state without reaching any undesired critical state. We consider all actions to be balanced, that is, their pre and post-conditions have the same number of facts. Under this assumption on actions, we show that the plan compliance problem is PSPACE-complete when all actions have only deterministic effects and is EXPTIME-complete when actions may have non-deterministic effects

Two Decades of Maude

This paper is a tribute to José Meseguer, from the rest of us in the Maude team, reviewing the past, the present, and the future of the language and system with which we have been working for around two decades under his leadership. After reviewing the origins and the language's main features, we present the latest additions to the language and some features currently under development. This paper is not an introduction to Maude, and some familiarity with it and with rewriting logic are indeed assumed.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

IMPLEMENTATION OF FRAMEWORK DECISIONS REGARDING SUBSTANTIVE CRIMINAL LAW INTO THE POLISH LEGAL ORDER – SELECTED ISSUES

Referat składa się z trzech zasadniczych części. We wstępie omówione zostały kolejne etapy współpracy państw Unii Europejskiej w ramach III filara UE – od jego powstania (Traktat o Unii Europejskiej, podpisany w Maastricht 7 lutego 1992 r.) do traktatu z Lizbony (podpisany 13 grudnia 2007 r.). W części drugiej dokonano charakterystyki najistotniejszego instrumentu prawnego III filara, służącego zbliżaniu prawa karnego państw członkowskich, czyli decyzji ramowej. W części trzeciej zaprezentowane zostały przykłady implementacji wybranych decyzji ramowych do polskiego porządku prawnego – decyzji ramowej Rady 2002/475/WSiSW z dnia 13 czerwca 2002 r. w sprawie zwalczania terroryzmu oraz decyzji ramowej Rady 2002/629/WSiSW z dnia 19 lipca 2002 r. w sprawie zwalczania handlu ludźmi. Ich wybór jest nieprzypadkowy. Autor na ich przykładzie starał się zaprezentować dwie przeciwstawne metody implementacji: metodę polegającą na transpozycji norm prawnych i nadaniu przepisom form pasujących do polskiego porządku prawnego oraz jej przeciwieństwo – „przepisanie" treści postanowień implementowanej decyzji.The paper is composed of three basic parts. In the introduction are discussed the successive stages of cooperation of the states of the European Union within the III pillar of the EU – from its inception (the European Union Treaty, signed in Maastricht on the 7th of February 1992) to the Treaty of Lisbon (signed on the 13th of December 2007). In the second part is described the most significant legal instrument of the III pillar, implementing the harmonisation of the criminal law of the member states, that is the framework decisions. In the third part are presented examples of the implementation of chosen framework decisions in Polish law – the Framework Decision of the Council of 2002/475/JHA of 13th of June 2002 on combating terrorism and the Framework Decision of the Council 2002/629/JHA of the 19th of July 2002 on combating trafficking in human beings. Certainly the choice is not casual. The author endeavours to present two extreme models of implementing of framework decisions: a method of implementation consisting in transfer of legal rules, with the aim of inserting created norms into the Polish legal order and the contrary one of rewriting the content of the implemented framework decision without any reflection

Trade and Environment Beyond Singapore

This paper discusses the likely evolution of the trade and environment issue in the World Trade Organization after the upcoming ministerial meeting in Singapore this December. It makes a number of points. Progress within the GATT/WTO on this issue looks likely to be slow and painfully incremental rather than bold as environmental groups would wish to see. The paper also argues that despite (and beyond) Singapore, one has to go further than the GATT/WTO to see the potential evolution of the trade and environment issue. Developments seem likely to be driven in the next few years as much by factors outside the GATT/WTO as well as within it, as new global environmental arrangements, some with potentially large trade implications (such as carbon emission limitation agreements), emerge.