Ontology Mapping for a Legal Question Answering System

Legal information retrieval systems, such question answering, use legal ontologies to represent semantic objects, to associate them with legal documents and to make inferences about them. The ontology mapping process can help users to reuse and compare information from different ontologies. In this paper we present a review on legal ontologies and present an approach to ontology mapping based on argumentation. Individual mappings are computed by specialized agents using different mapping approaches. Next, these agents use argumentation to exchange their local results, in order to agree on the obtained mappings. To each argument is associated a strength, representing how confident an agent is in the similarity of two ontology terms. Based on their preferences and confidence of the arguments, the agents compute their preferred mapping sets. The arguments in such preferred sets are viewed as the set of globally acceptable arguments. This work is part of a question answering system for the legal domain

Matching Law Ontologies using an Extended Argumentation Framework based on Confidence Degrees

Law information retrieval systems use law ontologies to represent semantic objects, to associate them with law documents and to make inferences about them. A number of law ontologies have been proposed in the literature, what shows the variety of approaches pointing to the need of matching systems. We present a proposal based on argumentation to match law ontologies, as an approach to be considered for this problem. Argumentation is used to combine different techniques for ontology matching. Such approaches are encapsulated by agents that apply individual matching algorithms and cooperate in order to exchange their local results (arguments). Next, based on their preferences and confidence, the agents compute their preferred matching sets. The arguments in such preferred sets are viewed as the set of globally acceptable arguments. We show the applicability of our model matching two legal core ontologies: LKIF and CLO

Using an Extended Argumentation Framework based on Confidence Degrees for Legal Core Ontology Mapping

Web legal information retrieval systems use legal ontologies to represent semantic objects, to associate them with legal documents and to make inferences about them. The quality of the output of these systems can be improved with the ontology completeness, which can be obtained by the ontology merging process. The first step in this process is the ontology mapping. This paper proposes to use abstract argumentation frameworks to combine ontology mapping approaches. We extend the Value-based Argumentation Framework (VAF)[1], in order to represent arguments with confidence degrees. Our agents apply individual mapping algorithms and cooperate in order to exchange their local results (arguments). Next, based on their preferences and confidence of the arguments, the agents compute their preferred mapping sets. The arguments in such preferred sets are viewed as the set of globally acceptable arguments. We applied our model to map two legal core ontologies, LRI-Core and DOLCE-Lite, and to map LRI-Core with SUMO generic core ontology

Supporting public decision making in policy deliberations: An ontological approach

This is the post-print version of the Paper. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2011 SpringerSupporting public decision making in policy deliberations has been a key objective of eParticipation which is an emerging area of eGovernment. EParticipation aims to enhance citizen involvement in public governance activities through the use of information and communication technologies. An innovative approach towards this objective is exploiting the potentials of semantic web technologies centred on conceptual knowledge models in the form of ontologies. Ontologies are generally defined as explicit human and computer shared views on the world of particular domains. In this paper, the potentials and benefits of using ontologies for policy deliberation processes are discussed. Previous work is then extended and synthesised to develop a deliberation ontology. The ontology aims to define the necessary semantics in order to structure and interrelate the stages and various activities of deliberation processes with legal information, participant stakeholders and their associated arguments. The practical implications of the proposed framework are illustrated.This work is funded by the European Commission under the 2006/1 eParticipation call

[How] Can Pluralist Approaches to Computational Cognitive Modeling of Human Needs and Values Save our Democracies?

In our increasingly digital societies, many companies have business models that perceive users’ (or customers’) personal data as a siloed resource, owned and controlled by the data controller rather than the data subjects. Collecting and processing such a massive amount of personal data could have many negative technical, social and economic consequences, including invading people’s privacy and autonomy. As a result, regulations such as the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) have tried to take steps towards a better implementation of the right to digital privacy. This paper proposes that such legal acts should be accompanied by the development of complementary technical solutions such as Cognitive Personal Assistant Systems to support people to effectively manage their personal data processing on the Internet. Considering the importance and sensitivity of personal data processing, such assistant systems should not only consider their owner’s needs and values, but also be transparent, accountable and controllable. Pluralist approaches in computational cognitive modelling of human needs and values which are not bound to traditional paradigmatic borders such as cognitivism, connectionism, or enactivism, we argue, can create a balance between practicality and usefulness, on the one hand, and transparency, accountability, and controllability, on the other, while supporting and empowering humans in the digital world. Considering the threat to digital privacy as significant to contemporary democracies, the future implementation of such pluralist models could contribute to power-balance, fairness and inclusion in our societies

Legal Ontologies for the spanish e-Government

The Electronic Government is a new field of applications for the semantic web where ontologies are becoming an important research technology. The e-Government faces considerable challenges to achieve interoperability given the semantic differences of interpretation, complexity and width of scope. In this paper we present the results obtained in an ongoing project commissioned by the Spanish government that seeks strategies for the e-Government to reduce the problems encountered when delivering services to citizens. We also introduce an e-Government ontology model; within this model a set of legal ontologies are devoted to representing the Real-estate transaction domain used to illustrate this paper

A conceptual model for semantically-based e-government portals

Issues of semantic interoperability and service integration for e-government portals are the domain of interest of the present paper. We propose a Conceptual Model for One-Stop e-Government Portals based on the Semantic Web Service technology. We describe our research into building the three basic ontologies and their integration with standard ontologies. The result is a project-independent reusable model. At the same time, we outline a simple methodology for applying the proposed conceptual model into a specific scenario