The REVERE project:Experiments with the application of probabilistic NLP to systems engineering

Despite natural language’s well-documented shortcomings as a medium for precise technical description, its use in software-intensive systems engineering remains inescapable. This poses many problems for engineers who must derive problem understanding and synthesise precise solution descriptions from free text. This is true both for the largely unstructured textual descriptions from which system requirements are derived, and for more formal documents, such as standards, which impose requirements on system development processes. This paper describes experiments that we have carried out in the REVERE1 project to investigate the use of probabilistic natural language processing techniques to provide systems engineering support

The Normativity of Law in Law and Economics

The Normativity of Law in Law and Economics Péter Cserne* 1. Introduction This paper is about some theoretical and methodological problems of law and economics (economic analysis of law, EAL). More specifically, I will use game theoretical insights to answer the question, relevant both for law and economics and legal philosophy, how should a social scientific analysis of law account for the normativity of law (the non-instrumental reasons for rule-following) while retaining the observer's (explanatory or descriptive) perspective. The goal is to offer a constructive critique of both traditional law and economics scholarship and mainstream analytical legal philosophy (the "Jurisprudence of Orthodoxy", see Leith and Ingham, 1977) in this respect. I will try to find out what EAL has to do with the "internal aspect of law", i.e. the fact or the claim that law provides specific reasons for action, in order to successfully challenge mainstream legal theory. EAL can be conceived either as a (consequentialist) normative legal philosophy, as an explanatory/descriptive theory about law (rational choice theory applied to law) or as a set of propositions for legal reform (legal policy). In this paper I will concentrate on the second, explanatory branch. In this second sense, EAL seeks to explain, first, how law influences human behaviour by changing incentives (law as explanans) and, second, to analyse legal (and possibly non-legal) rules as the outcome of individual actions (law as explanandum). This explanatory/descriptive approach has to confront a clear and central problem, often raised as a (self)critique of standard EAL: its inability or inadequacy to deal with the internal perspective on law. In fact, even if this approach has several more or less sophisticated versions what seems to be common to all of them is to treat legal rules (rule-following) instrumentally. Thus the case of rule-guided behaviour is either included in these theories in an ad hoc manner or is missing altogether. On the other side, contemporary analytical legal philosophy which is (at least in the English-speaking world) generally considered as a branch of practical philosophy, usually treats legal rules as specific non-instrumental reasons for action. In this view, even if empirically there are different motives why people obey the law (including conformism, fear of sanctions, etc.), the nature of law is defined by this specific reason, while the further motives are not reasons in a genuine sense for compliance with the law. Now, in order to be taken seriously as an explanatory legal theory, EAL has to account for this feature i.e. that law offers reasons for action, and to answer (or at least take side in the current philosophical debate on) some fundamental questions about the normativity of law. These questions are both conceptual/analytical ('What is the conceptual difference between regularity of behaviour and rule-following?', 'What does it mean to follow a rule?') and explanatory ('Why people obey the law if they do?'). At the same time, in order to be taken seriously as sound social science, EAL has to stick to the methodological principles of rational choice theory as explanatory social science. In the following I shall enquire whether EAL can fulfil this double challenge. One consequence of these methodological principles should be emphasised right at the beginning. The normative or justificatory question, central to mainstream analytical legal philosophy conceived as a part of normative practical philosophy, 'Is there a (moral) duty to obey the law?' should remain outside the scope of this paper (and in general, explanatory/descriptive EAL). But the moral or prudential standpoint of the participants who face this question in some form should, of course, be recorded and included in the analysis as an object of explanation. To repeat, I shall be speaking about EAL throughout only in the second sense as an explanatory enterprise. As a different enterprise, it might be possible to work out a full-fledged normative legal philosophy as a version of EAL, based roughly on welfarist (consequentialist) principles, which would have to answer that justificatory question. But this prospect doesn't concern me here.1 In the last decades serious efforts have been made within rational choice theory (especially game theory) to deal with norms both as explananda and as explanantia. In these analyses norms are often denoted more specifically as 'social norms' and considered explicitly as non-legal, i.e. in contradistinction to legal norms. As it will be clear, these models are still highly relevant for my purposes. In part, but not only because the mechanisms exposed in these rational choice models are general enough to be applicable to legal rules too. My question is now, whether the incorporation of these results of rational choice theory in EAL makes it possible to approach the abovementioned basic problems of legal theory in a new way. In a broader perspective it might be possible that also the gap between explanatory social science and normative practical philosophy can be bridged via evolutionary game theory, especially the indirect evolutionary approach. The structure of the paper is the following. Section 2 presents how rule-following is modelled in standard EAL scholarship. Section 3 is about the jurisprudential meaning, importance and explanations of the normativity of law. Instead of the detailed analysis of jurisprudential and legal philosophical issues related to the normativity of law I will restrict myself to sketch the most characteristic standpoints. Section 4 overviews rational choice models of norms and normativity and discusses some features of the legal system in view of the previous insights. This section is intended to be systematic (maybe at some price of details and originality) but is evidently far from exhaustive. Section 5 concludes.

ISO and Social Standardisation: Uncomfortable compromises in Global Policy-Making

This paper intends to explore the involvement of ISO, the world’s most iconic standard-setting institution, in the field of social responsibility, leading to the publication of the ISO26000 standard in November, 2010. Through several aspects of this experience, an almost decade-long process, I will show how ISO developed a new political structure aimed specifically at creating global policy, originating one the most sophisticated frameworks in existence to consensualise "universal" sociopolitical principles and infuse them with the legitimacy of a "global" technocracy and liberal institutions. Moreover, I will use the latest ISO26000 experience to argue that conceptual and institutional minimalism, which favours "soft" approaches towards global policy-making, paradoxically results from combining a technocratic aim for global compatibility with more participatory decision-making arrangements involving previously excluded socio-political actors. In that sense, ISO’s upgraded participatory mechanisms solved certain deadlocks suffered by previous initiatives only to affront and spark a new round of contradictions and consequences. Thus, I will conclude commenting on the intrinsic relationship between global standards, governance and complexity, and the difficulties of politically articulating programmes with dissimilar functional differentiation

Group Selection: The quest for social preferences

This paper surveys the literature on group selection. I describe the early contributions and the group selection controversy. I also describe the main approaches to group selection in the recent literature; fixation, assortative group formation, and reproductive externalities.Altruism; spite; externalities; conformity; fixation; signalling

Special Issue: Intercultural discourse in domain-specific English

This monographic issue focuses on intercultural communication in specialist fields and its realizations in English for specific purposes. The concept of interculturality on which this issue is built is rooted in discourse, in line with recent research on interaction in specialized domains. Indeed, language is approached here as inseparable from a given socio-cultural configuration – not merely consistent with it, but deeply involved in its construction of reality and its representations. From single phrases to generic patterns, linguistic constructs encode a culture-bound world view. The analysis of discourse often shows that texts are not only where cultures are built, but also where at times they are distorted, rejected or ignored

Is resilience a normative concept?

In this paper, we engage with the question of the normative content of the resilience concept. The issues are approached in two consecutive steps. First, we proceed from a narrow construal of the resilience concept – as the ability of a system to absorb a disturbance – and show that under an analysis of normative concepts as evaluative concepts resilience comes out as descriptive. In the second part of the paper, we argue that (1) for systems of interest (primarily social systems or system with a social component) we seem to have options with respect to how they are described and (2) that this matters for what is to be taken as a sign of resilience as opposed to a sign of the lack of resilience for such systems. We discuss the implications of this for how the concept should be applied in practice and suggest that users of the resilience concept face a choice between versions of the concept that are either ontologically or normatively charged

ACCOUNTANTS ABOUT ACCOUNTING POLICIES. AN EMIPRICAL INVESTIGATION OF SMES FROM BIHOR COUNTY

This paper examines the setting up of accounting procedures and policies in sampled SMEs from Bihor, county selected after criteria of size at the end of 2008. In order to conduct our research we have set up a questionnaire of 25 questions which has been applied to 100 SMEs. The obtained results showed that out of the 83 respondents, only 92,68% agree with the provisions of Article 10 of Order 3055/2009, according to which entities must develop their own accounting policies approved by the managers, only 75,60% of the respondents agree that the existence of written accounting policies at the enterprise level improves the quality of financial reporting and managers’ decision making process and a significant number of respondents (21,95%) do not know the fact that during a financial year, a firm’s accounting policies cannot be changed. The most relevant result of our investigative research consist in identifying the need to train the human resources involved in the process of writing and applying accounting policies and procedures in SMEs and the necessity to set up a manual of accounting department.accounting policies, financial reporting, disclosure, SMEs

Corporate brands, the British Monarchy, and the resource-based view of the firm

Drawing on the nascent literature on corporate brands, the economic theory of the resourced-based view of the firm and the extensive literature on the British Monarchy, this article examines the branding credentials of the British Crown. This is the first time that this most arcane of institutions has been examined from organizational and management perspectives. The synthesis of these literatures confirmed the branding credentials of the Crown. From this, it is deduced that if the British Crown is a corporate brand then it ought to be managed as such. A conceptual model for the management of the monarchy is introduced and this involves the dynamic orchestration of five elements (Royal, Regal, Relevant, Responsive and Respected.) This is called “The Royal Branding Mix.” The Royal and Regal elements equate to a brand’s identity and have an explicit organizational focus. In contrast, the Relevant, Responsive, and Respected dimension have a public (stakeholder) focus. A “Corporate Branding Mix” is introduced which aims to have a more general utility and represents an adaptation of the “Royal Branding Mix.