Lex Informatica: The Formulation of Information Policy Rules through Technology

Historically, law and government regulation have established default rules for information policy, including constitutional rules on freedom of expression and statutory rights of ownership of information. This Article will show that for network environments and the Information Society, however, law and government regulation are not the only source of rule-making. Technological capabilities and system design choices impose rules on participants. The creation and implementation of information policy are embedded in network designs and standards as well as in system configurations. Even user preferences and technical choices create overarching, local default rules. This Article argues, in essence, that the set of rules for information flows imposed by technology and communication networks form a “Lex Informatica” that policymakers must understand, consciously recognize, and encourage

Study to gather evidence on the working conditions of platform workers VT/2018/032 Final Report 13 December 2019

Platform work is a type of work using an online platform to intermediate between platform workers, who provide services, and paying clients. Platform work seems to be growing in size and importance. This study explores platform work in the EU28, Norway and Iceland, with a focus on the challenges it presents to working conditions and social protection, and how countries have responded through top-down (e.g. legislation and case law) and bottom-up actions (e.g. collective agreements, actions by platform workers or platforms). This national mapping is accompanied by a comparative assessment of selected EU legal instruments, mostly in the social area. Each instrument is assessed for personal and material scope to determine how it might impact such challenges. Four broad legal domains with relevance to platform work challenges are examined in stand-alone reflection papers. Together, the national mapping and legal analysis support a gap analysis, which aims to indicate where further action on platform work would be useful, and what form such action might take

Strategies for Change: Research Initiatives and Recommendations to Improve Police-Community Relations in Oakland, CA

New Stanford research on thousands of police interactions found significant racial differences in Oakland, Calif., police conduct toward African Americans in traffic and pedestrian stops, while offering a big data approach to improving police-community relationships there and elsewhere.The report makes 50 specific recommendations for police agencies to consider, such as more expansive data collection and more focused efforts to change the nature of mindsets, policies and systems in law enforcement that contribute to racial disparities.Among the findings, African American men were four times more likely to be searched than whites during a traffic stop. African Americans were also more likely to be handcuffed, even if they ultimately were not arrested.Across the United States, the report noted, police agencies are guided by the commitment to serve communities with fairness, respect and honor. Yet tensions between police and communities of color are documented to be at an all-time high

Regulating Systemic Risk: Towards an Analytical Framework

The global financial crisis demonstrated the inability and unwillingness of financial market participants to safeguard the stability of the financial system. It also highlighted the enormous direct and indirect costs of addressing systemic crises after they have occurred, as opposed to attempting to prevent them from arising. Governments and international organizations are responding with measures intended to make the financial system more resilient to economic shocks, many of which will be implemented by regulatory bodies over time. These measures suffer, however, from the lack of a theoretical account of how systemic risk propagates within the financial system and why regulatory intervention is needed to disrupt it. In this Article, we address this deficiency by examining how systemic risk is transmitted. We then proceed to explain why, in the absence of regulation, market participants cannot be relied upon to disrupt or otherwise limit the transmission of systemic risk. Finally, we advance an analytical framework to inform systemic risk regulation

Psychometrics in Practice at RCEC

A broad range of topics is dealt with in this volume: from combining the psychometric generalizability and item response theories to the ideas for an integrated formative use of data-driven decision making, assessment for learning and diagnostic testing. A number of chapters pay attention to computerized (adaptive) and classification testing. Other chapters treat the quality of testing in a general sense, but for topics like maintaining standards or the testing of writing ability, the quality of testing is dealt with more specifically.\ud All authors are connected to RCEC as researchers. They present one of their current research topics and provide some insight into the focus of RCEC. The selection of the topics and the editing intends that the book should be of special interest to educational researchers, psychometricians and practitioners in educational assessment

Trusted operational scenarios - Trust building mechanisms and strategies for electronic marketplaces.

This document presents and describes the trusted operational scenarios, resulting from the research and work carried out in Seamless project. The report presents identified collaboration habits of small and medium enterprises with low e-skills, trust building mechanisms and issues as main enablers of online business relationships on the electronic marketplace, a questionnaire analysis of the level of trust acceptance and necessity of trust building mechanisms, a proposal for the development of different strategies for the different types of trust mechanisms and recommended actions for the SEAMLESS project or other B2B marketplaces.trust building mechanisms, trust, B2B networks, e-marketplaces

The prevalence of credit risk in Greek Banking: Risk management & methodology for evaluating corporate credit risk and Greek Business Environment

Our article consists of the following 4 parts: - In the first part: documented the importance of credit risk with the presentation - analysis of the growth of 6 Greek major financial institutions loan portfolio, for the period 2001 to 2008 and comparison of the loan amount with their own funds and total assets them (based on published accounts). - In the second part: we refer to the approval and monitoring procedures that should be followed by banks using the internal ratings (IRB) methods for corporate loans. Our interest is focused on linking credit ratings to the terms of financing (collateral costs) and on the importance of evaluation / assessment and collateral for the balance of exposures. For typesetting the above is estimated the Risk Weight Assets for PD rating scale (National Bank of Greece published data) and relevant Figure/diagram. - In the third part: we analyse the methodology of key criteria for evaluating the creditworthiness of companies. At the same time for a short description of Greek Business environment we used the -List Easy of Doing Business index 2010- of the World Bank and the results of the assessment of business sectors in Greece according to the model of Credit Risk Tracker Greece's Standard & Poor's, as published by the Hellastat. (The key criteria for evaluating creditworthiness of companies mainly come from research on the websites of the companies Fitch, S & P, Moody's KMV, Hellastat, Easy of Doing Business index). - In fourth part: presented, properly treated, the results of empirical research conducted through distribution of questionnaire to 25 experienced in Risk Management, executives, which was called to assess 20 companies on the basis of their specific quantitative and qualitative characteristics. Finally it is noted that in this final part are also presented all the findings and related conclusions, resulting from the scientific research throughout this paper.