Relational justice: mediation and ODR through the World Wide Web

ODR means "Online Dispute Resolution". Dialogue, negotiation and mediation are coming back as sources of contemporary law. We introduce in this paper two concepts and two related projects. We define the concepts of "relational law" and "relational justice". And, at the same time, we describe how to put them in place from a social and technological point of view. Therefore, we introduce two concrete applications: (i) the Catalan White Book on Mediation, a large project to assemble the required social and legal knowledge to draft a general statute on mediation (Catalan Government); (ii) the Ontomedia Project, a semantically-driven platform allowing end-users to negotiate and mediate their conflicts in several domains (family, commerce, environment, health care, administration…). The paper describes the state of the art of ODR services, and proposes some strategies for legal electronic institutions. A middle-out theoretical approach and a mediation core-ontology are briefly described. We situate these two projects within the next generation of Semantic Web services, and the so-called Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 developments

Consumer Trust in the Digital Environment

[Purpose] The objective of this paper is to study alternative dispute resolution mechanisms in both the electronic contracting of goods and/or services and interactive advertising. [Methodology/Approach/Design] The Spanish and European regulations will be analyzed in terms of regulation and self-regulation mechanisms. Self-regulation instruments are a suitable complement to current legal regulations. [Findings] Although disputes that may arise between consumers and businesses can be settled in court, the circumstances of cases involving e-commerce and interactive advertising may determine that the use of out-of-court instruments is appropriate. In this sense, self-regulation systems promote conflict prevention. In the event that it arises, it is about reaching a faster resolution than the courts of justice, cheaper and carried out by specialists in the matter. [Practical Implications] The implications of this investigation may be applicable to transactions of goods and services in general, to civil society and to the public sector. [Originality] This investigation demonstrates the convenience and significance of considering out-of-court dispute resolution mechanisms over conventional means, both in Spain and in the European Union. The self-regulation instruments are based on a Code of Conduct and an impartial and independent control body that applies it. Normally, codes of conduct are based on the application of different instruments for extrajudicial conflict resolution.[Purpose] The objective of this paper is to study alternative dispute resolution mechanisms in both the electronic contracting of goods and/or services and interactive advertising. [Methodology/Approach/Design] The Spanish and European regulations will be analyzed in terms of regulation and self-regulation mechanisms. Self-regulation instruments are a suitable complement to current legal regulations. [Findings] Although disputes that may arise between consumers and businesses can be settled in court, the circumstances of cases involving e-commerce and interactive advertising may determine that the use of out-of-court instruments is appropriate. In this sense, self-regulation systems promote conflict prevention. In the event that it arises, it is about reaching a faster resolution than the courts of justice, cheaper and carried out by specialists in the matter. [Practical Implications] The implications of this investigation may be applicable to transactions of goods and services in general, to civil society and to the public sector. [Originality] This investigation demonstrates the convenience and significance of considering out-of-court dispute resolution mechanisms over conventional means, both in Spain and in the European Union. The self-regulation instruments are based on a Code of Conduct and an impartial and independent control body that applies it. Normally, codes of conduct are based on the application of different instruments for extrajudicial conflict resolution.[Purpose] The objective of this paper is to study alternative dispute resolution mechanisms in both the electronic contracting of goods and/or services and interactive advertising. [Methodology/Approach/Design] The Spanish and European regulations will be analyzed in terms of regulation and self-regulation mechanisms. Self-regulation instruments are a suitable complement to current legal regulations. [Findings] Although disputes that may arise between consumers and businesses can be settled in court, the circumstances of cases involving e-commerce and interactive advertising may determine that the use of out-of-court instruments is appropriate. In this sense, self-regulation systems promote conflict prevention. In the event that it arises, it is about reaching a faster resolution than the courts of justice, cheaper and carried out by specialists in the matter. [Practical Implications] The implications of this investigation may be applicable to transactions of goods and services in general, to civil society and to the public sector. [Originality] This investigation demonstrates the convenience and significance of considering out-of-court dispute resolution mechanisms over conventional means, both in Spain and in the European Union. The self-regulation instruments are based on a Code of Conduct and an impartial and independent control body that applies it. Normally, codes of conduct are based on the application of different instruments for extrajudicial conflict resolution.[Purpose] The objective of this paper is to study alternative dispute resolution mechanisms in both the electronic contracting of goods and/or services and interactive advertising. [Methodology/Approach/Design] The Spanish and European regulations will be analyzed in terms of regulation and self-regulation mechanisms. Self-regulation instruments are a suitable complement to current legal regulations. [Findings] Although disputes that may arise between consumers and businesses can be settled in court, the circumstances of cases involving e-commerce and interactive advertising may determine that the use of out-of-court instruments is appropriate. In this sense, self-regulation systems promote conflict prevention. In the event that it arises, it is about reaching a faster resolution than the courts of justice, cheaper and carried out by specialists in the matter. [Practical Implications] The implications of this investigation may be applicable to transactions of goods and services in general, to civil society and to the public sector. [Originality] This investigation demonstrates the convenience and significance of considering out-of-court dispute resolution mechanisms over conventional means, both in Spain and in the European Union. The self-regulation instruments are based on a Code of Conduct and an impartial and independent control body that applies it. Normally, codes of conduct are based on the application of different instruments for extrajudicial conflict resolution

On the integration of trust with negotiation, argumentation and semantics

Agreement Technologies are needed for autonomous agents to come to mutually acceptable agreements, typically on behalf of humans. These technologies include trust computing, negotiation, argumentation and semantic alignment. In this paper, we identify a number of open questions regarding the integration of computational models and tools for trust computing with negotiation, argumentation and semantic alignment. We consider these questions in general and in the context of applications in open, distributed settings such as the grid and cloud computing. © 2013 Cambridge University Press.This work was partially supported by the Agreement Technology COST action (IC0801). The authors would like to thank for helpful discussions and comments all participants in the panel on >Trust, Argumentation and Semantics> on 16 December 2009, Agia Napa, CyprusPeer Reviewe

Persuasion-enhanced computational argumentative reasoning through argumentation-based persuasive frameworks

One of the greatest challenges of computational argumentation research consists of creating persuasive strategies that can effectively influence the behaviour of a human user. From the human perspective, argumentation represents one of the most effective ways to reason and to persuade other parties. Furthermore, it is very common that humans adapt their discourse depending on the audience in order to be more persuasive. Thus, it is of utmost importance to take into account user modelling features for personalising the interactions with human users. Through computational argumentation, we can not only devise the optimal solution, but also provide the rationale for it. However, synergies between computational argumentative reasoning and computational persuasion have not been researched in depth. In this paper, we propose a new formal framework aimed at improving the persuasiveness of arguments resulting from the computational argumentative reasoning process. For that purpose, our approach relies on an underlying abstract argumentation framework to implement this reasoning and extends it with persuasive features. Thus, we combine a set of user modelling and linguistic features through the use of a persuasive function in order to instantiate abstract arguments following a user-specific persuasive policy. From the results observed in our experiments, we can conclude that the framework proposed in this work improves the persuasiveness of argument-based computational systems. Furthermore, we have also been able to determine that human users place a high level of trust in decision support systems when they are persuaded using arguments and when the reasons behind the suggestion to modify their behaviour are provided

Persuasion-enhanced computational argumentative reasoning through argumentation-based persuasive frameworks

One of the greatest challenges of computational argumentation research consists of creating persuasive strategies that can effectively influence the behaviour of a human user. From the human perspective, argumentation represents one of the most effective ways to reason and to persuade other parties. Furthermore, it is very common that humans adapt their discourse depending on the audience in order to be more persuasive. Thus, it is of utmost importance to take into account user modelling features for personalising the interactions with human users. Through computational argumentation, we can not only devise the optimal solution, but also provide the rationale for it. However, synergies between computational argumentative reasoning and computational persuasion have not been researched in depth. In this paper, we propose a new formal framework aimed at improving the persuasiveness of arguments resulting from the computational argumentative reasoning process. For that purpose, our approach relies on an underlying abstract argumentation framework to implement this reasoning and extends it with persuasive features. Thus, we combine a set of user modelling and linguistic features through the use of a persuasive function in order to instantiate abstract arguments following a user-specific persuasive policy. From the results observed in our experiments, we can conclude that the framework proposed in this work improves the persuasiveness of argument-based computational systems. Furthermore, we have also been able to determine that human users place a high level of trust in decision support systems when they are persuaded using arguments and when the reasons behind the suggestion to modify their behaviour are provided

Algorithms for Dynamic Argumentation Frameworks: An Incremental SAT-Based Approach

Peer reviewe

A Formal Framework for Designing Boundedly Rational Agents

Notions of rationality and bounded rationality play important roles in research on the design and implementation of autonomous agents and multi-agent systems, for example in the context of instilling socially intelligent behavior into computing systems. However, the (formal) connection between artificial intelligence research on the design and implementation of boundedly rational and socially intelligent agents on the one hand and formal economic rationality – i.e., choice with clear and consistent preferences – or instrumental rationality – i.e., the maximization of a performance measure given an agent’s knowledge – on the other hand is weak. In this paper we address this shortcoming by introducing a formal framework for designing boundedly rational agents that systematically relax instrumental rationality, and we propose a system architecture for implementing such agents

A Formal Framework for Designing Boundedly Rational Agents

Notions of rationality and bounded rationality play important roles in research on the design and implementation of autonomous agents and multi-agent systems, for example in the context of instilling socially intelligent behavior into computing systems. However, the (formal) connection between artificial intelligence research on the design and implementation of boundedly rational and socially intelligent agents on the one hand and formal economic rationality – i.e., choice with clear and consistent preferences – or instrumental rationality – i.e., the maximization of a performance measure given an agent’s knowledge – on the other hand is weak. In this paper we address this shortcoming by introducing a formal framework for designing boundedly rational agents that systematically relax instrumental rationality, and we propose a system architecture for implementing such agents

A Survey on Understanding and Representing Privacy Requirements in the Internet-of-Things

People are interacting with online systems all the time. In order to use the services being provided, they give consent for their data to be collected. This approach requires too much human effort and is impractical for systems like Internet-of-Things (IoT) where human-device interactions can be large. Ideally, privacy assistants can help humans make privacy decisions while working in collaboration with them. In our work, we focus on the identification and representation of privacy requirements in IoT to help privacy assistants better understand their environment. In recent years, more focus has been on the technical aspects of privacy. However, the dynamic nature of privacy also requires a representation of social aspects (e.g., social trust). In this survey paper, we review the privacy requirements represented in existing IoT ontologies. We discuss how to extend these ontologies with new requirements to better capture privacy, and we introduce case studies to demonstrate the applicability of the novel requirements