Hi All,

This is the promised XML supplement to my 2012-02-22 email with subject line:
[legalruleml] [ontology] Legal Domain Ontology.

About Monica's remarks regarding Tara's two points:

1. Extending Monica's path name to a URL, I assume the required LKIF vocabulary
will be available at
http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/legalruleml/ontology/lkif/consumerLaw
(this URL could be easily changed, see 2.). Omitting the defeasibility attribute
for the moment (to be discussed in connection with Guido's yesterday's draft),
the current RuleML (specifically, Hornlogeq) can then be used for Monica's
example refining the premium rule (http://ruleml.org/papers/Primer) as shown
below. Keep in mind that RuleML uses an 'object-oriented' or 'striped-syntax'
XML, where object-like, Upper-cased 'node' elements alternate with
property-like, lower-cased 'edge' elements. Some edge elements, such as <op> and
<arg>, are optional because their omission does not produce ambiguity, but node
elements cannot be 'skipped' in this way. To avoid confusion with XML's general
@id attribute (allowed on all elements), which assumes too restrictive types of
values, a @node attribute with type xs:anyURI is used (allowed only on node
elements). For simplicity (until we settle on the Temporal RuleML layer), I use
an extra integer argument on the premium and spending relations for the time
interval of their validity, where an integer such as 2012 represents an entire
calendar year (interval) from the total order of AD years. A predecessor
operation (which really should be applicable only to integers > 1) can then be
used to get at what is just an individual constant <Ind>previous year</Ind> in
the Primer. This is (preliminarily) implemented with RIF's numeric-subtract
built-in, keeping Monica's assumption that the rule is used backward only, with
the <Var>year</Var> parameter bound to a fixed integer. The premium rule's <And>
premise is assumed to be (left-to-right) sequential, first computing
<Var>previous-year</Var> as numeric-subtract (an 'active', per-value function)
of 1 from the premium <Var>year</Var>; then looking up a spending
<Var>amount</Var> with a euro unit (represented as a 'passive', per-copy
function) for the previous year; and finally ensuring that the amount was
greater than or equal to 5000.

<Assert mapClosure="universal" mapDirection="backward" mapMaterial="no"> <Implies node="#rule1"> <then> <Atom node="#atm1"> <Rel
iri="http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/legalruleml/ontology/lkif/consumerLaw#premium"/> <Var
type="http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/legalruleml/ontology/lkif/consumerLaw#customer">customer</Var> <Var>year</Var> </Atom> </then> <if> <And> <Equal node="#equ1"> <Var>previous-year</Var> <Expr node="#exp1"> <Fun iri="http://www.w3.org/TR/rif-dtb/#func:numeric-subtract"
per="value"/> <Var>year</Var> <Data xsi:type="xs:integer">1</Data> </Expr> </Equal> <Atom node="#atm2"> <Rel
iri="http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/legalruleml/ontology/lkif/consumerLaw#spending"/> <Var>customer</Var> <Expr><Fun per="copy">euro</Fun><Var>amount</Var></Expr> <Var>previous-year</Var> </Atom> <Atom node="#atm3"> <Rel
iri="http://www.w3.org/TR/rif-dtb/#pred:numeric-greater-than-or-equal"/> <Var>amount</Var> <Data xsi:type="xs:integer">5000</Data> </Atom> </And> </if> </Implies> </Assert>

2. The above-illustrated RuleML syntax is independent from the ontology because
vocabulary URLs such as .../lkif/consumerLaw#xyz would just need to be replaced
with other ontologies' vocabulary URLs such as .../superlegal/consumerLaw#xyz.

Best, Harold

From: lega...@lists.oasis-open.org [mailto:lega...@lists.oasis-open.org]
On Behalf Of monica.palmirani Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2012 9:01 PM To: lega...@lists.oasis-open.org Subject: Re: [legalruleml] Legal Domain Ontology

Hi Tara,

good points! Thanks for this email.

1. I worked with the group of LKIF [http://www.estrellaproject.org/lkif-core/]
in the Estrella project and I contributed in some parts
[http://www.estrellaproject.org/doc/D1.1-LKIF-Specification.pdf;
http://carneades.berlios.de/resources/Home/LKIF-Specification.pdf], so I am
inclined to use it extensively for coping with one of the main goal of
LegalRuleML: fill the gap between text and rule: I want to use LKIF for different purposes: a) to link the predicates/verbs of the rules to the connected ontology class.
Example: Rel "premium" is a predicate so I want to connect this predicete with
its definition in the ontology with the legal classe "premium". The same for
"customer" considering the definition provided by the Consumer Law. This permits
to link the predicate to the law definitions and to improve interoperability
among different legal knowledge entgineers. b) to link the text with the legal concepts. If the text said "end-user" instead
of "customer" I can connect the Var "counterpart" to the legal concept of
"customer" and in a such a way to favor the interoperability, the retrieval by
concepts, the multilingual text, the interconnection among different base-rules. c) to use the axiomes of the LKIF-core for the legal reasoning combined with the
rules. The concept of "customer" in Consumer Law is a precise class of people
with some properties. If I define these proprieties in the ontology, I can reuse
it any time that I need it. [Palmirani, et. al., Fill the Gap in the Legal Knowledge Modelling , RuleML2009]

<Assert mapClosure="universal" mapDirection="backward" mapMaterial="no"> <Implies timesBlock="#t2" ruleType="defeasible" id="rule1"> <then timesBlock="#t2"> <Atom id="atm1"> <Rel
refersTo="/ontology/lkif/consumerLaw:premium">premium</Rel> <Var
refersTo="/ontology/lkif/consumerLaw:customer">counterpart</Var> </Atom> </then> <if timesBlock="#t2"> <Atom id="atm2" timesBlock="#t3"> <Rel>previous year spending </Rel> <Var>customer</Var> <formula><Var>x</Var> >= 5000 euro</formula> </Atom> </if> </Implies> </Assert >

After this introduction, when I said " LegalRuleML wants to define the main
legal classes of the rules components" I have in mind a different kind of
ontology: not thematic ontology linked to a specific legal domain, but the
anatomy of the "legal rule". The question is: which parameters or attributes
make the "legal rule" special and interesting respect a normal rule? which parts
we have to define for permitting a correct and powerfull legal reasoning ?

2. the syntax is independent to the ontology because I can point-out to
different ontologies using "refersTo" attribute (not only to LKIF). My goal is
different: to define the meta-ontology of the "legal rule". This work influences
for sure the LegalRuleML tags definition. E.g. as naf was created for capturing
a particular concept of negation, so we have to define, and after to represent
with appropriate tags in LegalRuleML, the essence of the "legal rule". E.g.
obligation: subject of the obligation, addresser, authority, level of obligation
(civil, penal, administrative), jurisdiction of the obligation (only in Italy,
in all the world, for all the facts or for only the fact happended in Italy),
temporal validity of the obligation. ( 2.1.1.1 Semantic modeling in the LegalRuleML 1.0-core-spec
http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/legalruleml/download.php/44972/LegalRuleML0.1-core-spec-2012-01-30.doc)

Yours, Monica

Il 16/02/2012 00:37, Tara Athan ha scritto: From the discussion today it sounds like part of LegalRuleML will be an ontology
of concepts in the legal domain. Somethings I would like to see clarified are:

1. to what extent will this ontology be taken from existing ontologies,
including upper ontologies, such as DOLCE [1], or legal domain ontologies such
as lkif [2], and to what extent will it be new;

2. is it desirable that the parts of the syntax that are dependent on the
ontology be separable (through modularization) from the parts that are
independent.

I would argue that in #1 as much as possible be used from existing ontologies
provided these ontologies have a broad acceptance, and for #2 as much separation
as possible, so that if/when the ontology evolves or is replaced, it has minimal
effects on the syntax that is independent of the legal domain.

[1] www.loa.istc.cnr.it/<http://www.loa.istc.cnr.it/>DOLCE.html [2] https://github.com/RinkeHoekstra/lkif-core

--------------------------------------------------------------------- To
unsubscribe, e-mail:
lega...@lists.oasis-open.org<mailto:lega...@lists.oasis-open.org>
For additional commands, e-mail:
lega...@lists.oasis-open.org<mailto:lega...@lists.oasis-open.org>

--

===================================

Associate professor of Legal Informatics

School of Law

Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna

C.I.R.S.F.I.D. http://www.cirsfid.unibo.it/

Palazzo Dal Monte Gaudenzi - Via Galliera, 3

I - 40121 BOLOGNA (ITALY)

Tel +39 051 277217

Fax +39 051 260782

E-mail moni...@unibo.it<mailto:moni...@unibo.it>