This book presents research in an interdisciplinary field, resulting from the vigorous and fruitful cross-pollination between traditional deontic logic and computer science. AI researchers have used deontic logic as one of the tools in modelling legal reasoning. Computer scientists have discovered that computer systems (including their interaction with other computer systems and with human agents) can often be productively modelled as norm-governed. So, for example, deontic logic has been applied by computer scientists for specifying bureaucratic systems, access and security policies, and soft design or integrity constraints, and for modelling fault tolerance. In turn, computer scientists and AI researchers have also discovered (and made it clear to the rest of us) that various formal tools (e.g. nonmonotonic, temporal and dynamic logics) developed in computer science and artificial intelligence have interesting applications to traditional issues in deontic logic. This volume presents some of the best work done in this area, with the selection at once reflecting the general interdisciplinary (and international) character that this area of research has taken on, as well as reflecting the more specific recent inter-disciplinary developments between traditional deontic logic and computer science.

Time is ubiquitous in information systems. Almost every enterprise faces the problem of its data becoming out of date. However, such data is often valu able, so it should be archived and some means to access it should be provided. Also, some data may be inherently historical, e.g., medical, cadastral, or ju dicial records. Temporal databases provide a uniform and systematic way of dealing with historical data. Many languages have been proposed for tem poral databases, among others temporal logic. Temporal logic combines ab stract, formal semantics with the amenability to efficient implementation. This chapter shows how temporal logic can be used in temporal database applica tions. Rather than presenting new results, we report on recent developments and survey the field in a systematic way using a unified formal framework [GHR94; Ch094]. The handbook [GHR94] is a comprehensive reference on mathematical foundations of temporal logic. In this chapter we study how temporal logic is used as a query and integrity constraint language. Consequently, model-theoretic notions, particularly for mula satisfaction, are of primary interest. Axiomatic systems and proof meth ods for temporal logic [GHR94] have found so far relatively few applications in the context of information systems. Moreover, one needs to bear in mind that for the standard linearly-ordered time domains temporal logic is not re cursively axiomatizable [GHR94]' so recursive axiomatizations are by necessity incomplete.

Proceedings of the conference held Dec. 7-9, 2006, at the Université Pantheon Assas, Paris II, France.

This book is dedicated to Marek Sergot, Professor in Computational Logic at Imperial College London, on the occasion of his 60th birthday. Professor Sergot’s scientific contributions range over many different fields. He has developed a series of novel ideas and formal methods bridging areas including artificial intelligence, computational logic, philosophical logic, legal theory, artificial intelligence and law, multi-agent systems and bioinformatics. By combining his background in logic and computing with his interest in the law, deontic logic, action, and related areas, and applying to all his capacity to understand the subtleties of social interaction and normative reasoning, Professor Sergot has opened up new directions of research, and has been a reference, an inspiration, and a model for many researchers in the fields to which he has contributed. The Festschrift includes several reminiscences and introductory essays describing Professor Sergot's achievements, followed by a series of articles on logic programming, temporal reasoning and action languages, artificial intelligence and law, deontic logic and norm-governed systems, and logical approaches to policies.

This volume presents the refereed proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Deontic Logic and Normative Systems, DEON 2014, held in Ghent, Belgium, in July 2014. The 17 revised papers and the 2 invited papers included in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 31 submissions. Topics covered include challenges from natural language for deontic logic; the relationship between deontic and other types of modality: epistemic modality, imperatives, supererogatory, etc.; the deontic paradoxes; the modeling of normative concepts other than obligation and permission, e.g., values; the game-theoretical aspects of deontic reasoning; the emergence of norms; norms from a conversational and pragmatic point of view; and norms and argumentation.

This volume contains the proceedings of the fourteenth JURIX conference, held December 13-14 2001 at the University of Amsterdam. The Foundation for Legal Knowledge Based Systems (JURIX) is a forum for research in law and computer science. Since 1988, JURIX has organized annual international conferences on research in the field. Topics addressed range from the theoretical (such as the modelling of the law and legal reasoning) to the practical (such as the design of systems that support legal decision making and teaching).

A considerable number of books and papers have analyzed normative concepts using new techniques developed by logicians; however, few have bridged the gap between the English legal culture and the Continental (i.e. European and Latin American) tradition in legal philosophy. This book addresses this issue by offering an introductory study on the many possibilities that logical analysis offers the study of legal systems. The volume is divided into two sections: the first covers the basic aspects of classical and deontic logic and its connections, advancing an explanation of the most important topics of the discipline by comparing different systems of deontic logic and exploring some of the most important paradoxes in its domain. The second section deals with the role of logic in the analysis of legal systems by discussing in what sense deontic logic and the logic of norm-propositions are useful tools for a proper understanding of the systematic structure of law.