Joan-Josep Vallbé

Being metropolitan: the effects of individual and contextual factors on shaping metropolitan identity

ABSTRACT While the single institution of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (MAB) is a recent creation, some form of institutional cooperation among most of the metropolitan municipalities has been functioning over the past 40 years. However, despite the ample evidence about municipal and national patterns of identification in Catalonia, no data about political orientations or patterns of identity toward the metropolitan area among the metropolitan population have been gathered so far. Using new survey data we explore two main features of metropolitan identification among the Barcelona metropolitan population. First, we analyze the relationship between place of residence and metropolitan identification. Second, we explore the shaping of the orientations of citizens regarding the governance structure of the MAB, with particular interest in the central role of the city of Barcelona. Results underscore the role of the core city and the effects of residential mobility in shaping both metropolitan identity and governance orientations.

Empirically Grounded Developments of Legal Ontologies: A Socio-Legal Perspective

This paper shows the multiple relationships between empirical data and semantic content in the legal field. One of the well-known problems of ontology construction is the “knowledge acquisition bottleneck problem” pointed out many years ago by Edward Feigenbaum and others. This problem has not been completely solved in the next generation of Semantic Web developments. It is our contention that both an accurate description of the legal environment and well-grounded previous sociological studies may help to address it in a more satisfactory way. This means adopting a user-centered approach to legal ontologies, in what we will call an “iterative and integrated pragmatic cycle” involving legal theorists, socio-legal researchers, professional people (lawyers, magistrates, prosecutors…) and computer scientists. We describe the example of how the ontology of iuriservice was built up.

Moving to suburbia? Effects of residential mobility on community engagement:

Previous research has emphasised that residential mobility, especially the suburbanisation of metropolitan regions, is a key factor in understanding the social and institutional context that shapes local political dynamics. Recent studies show that local communities with high rates of recent population growth show lower levels of turnout than others with significantly lower levels or even negative growth. However, because of both the aggregate nature of most available data and sample designs, no firm conclusions can be drawn regarding the specific relationship between residential mobility and the individual and contextual determinants of social and political behaviour. In this paper we explore the interaction between individual and contextual features to better understand the problems that suburbanisation poses to local community engagement. We use data from a survey specifically designed to comply with the requirements of such a study. The sample was designed through strata that take into account the recent population growth of municipalities. Results show the relevance of accounting for both individual- and contextual-level variables to shed light on the political and social dimensions of residential mobility and local suburbanisation.

Knocking on Heaven's Door - User Preferences on Digital Cultural Distribution

This paper explores the social, demographic and attitudinal basis of consumer support of a Copyright Compensation System (CCS), which, for a small monthly fee would legalise currently infringing online social practices such as private copying from illegal sources and online sharing of copyrighted works. We do this by first identifying how different online and offline, legal and illegal, free and paying content acquisition channels are used in the media market using a cluster-based classification of respondents. Second, we assess the effect of cultural consumption on the support for a shift from the status quo towards alternative, CCS-based forms of digital cultural content distribution. Finally, we link these two analyses to identify the factors that drive the dynamics of change in digital cultural consumption habits. Our study shows significant support to a CCS compared to the status quo by both occasional and frequent buyers of cultural goods, despite the widespread adoption of legal free and paying online services by consumers. The nature of these preferences are also explored with the inclusion of consumer preference intensities regarding certain CCS attributes. Our results have relevant policy implications, for they outline CCS as a reform option. In particular, they point evidence-based copyright reform away from its current direction in the EU of stronger enforcement measures, additional exclusive rights, and increased liability and duties of care for online platforms. This work shows that CCS may be an apt policy tool to hinder piracy and potentially increase right holder revenues, while respecting fundamental rights and promoting technological development.

Is Europe Falling Behind in Data Mining? Copyright's Impact on Data Mining in Academic Research

With the diffusion of digital information technology, data mining (DM) is widely expected to increase the productivity of all kinds of research activities. Based on bibliometric data, we demonstrate that the share of DM-related research articles in all published academic papers has increased substantially over the last two decades. We develop an ordinal categorization of countries according to essential aspects of the copyright system affecting the costs and benefits of DM research. We demonstrate that countries in which data mining for academic research requires the express consent of rights holders, data mining makes up a significantly smaller share of total research output. To our knowledge, this is the first time that an empirical study identified a significant negative association between copyright protection and innovation. We also show that within countries where DM requires express consent by rights holders, there is an inverse relationship between rule of law indicators and the share of DM related articles in all research articles.

Semantic Technology for Professional Judicial Knowledge

An iFAQ (intelligent Frequently Asked Questions) system designed to provide assistance to young judges at their first appointment is described. The development and use of legal domain ontologies is described. The functionality of the system is set out, along with the system architecture. The methodology and results of a system evaluation are also reported.

Representing Organizational Uncertainty

This chapter presents the main data analysis of the book. First, the hypotheses are presented. Second, the framework for treating text as data is discussed, and textual data are described. Third, the data analysis itself is performed. The analysis begins exploring the extent to which the problems raised during the on-call service are indeed different from the other problematic situations judges deal with in their work. After that, we test whether the problems faced when on call are not related to theoretical doubts but mainly practical doubts, i.e., they are identifiable demands from the outer environment whose solution is not specifically contained in the legal knowledge they acquire either in the law degree or preparing the entrance examination.

Decisions and Organizations

This chapter explores the study of decision-making within organizations in the political science literature as part of institutional performance. The chapter builds upon a simple analytical model that combines the theory of human rationality underlying each approach to organizational decision-making, and the way institutions are perceived to influence human decisions.

Conclusions and Further Work

In this chapter we present, first, general conclusions to the book. Afterward, we discuss three different sets of issues regarding the results presented in this book. First, we outline the need for a general framework that combines statistical programming and natural language processing. Second, we discuss the challenges that our results pose to the design of bureaucratic organizations and how improvised solutions should be integrated into organizational memories. Third, we relate our results with further paths of research about procedural rationality and expertise.

Bounded Rationality and Organizations

From a behavioral standpoint, a decision is the result of the adaptation of an individual to the constraints imposed by both the external environment and the limits of rationality (inner environment). This chapter presents the theoretical framework for our behavioral analysis of rational decisions within organizations. This framework will be outlined through two different levels of analysis. First, the general features of the inner environment of a decision—i.e., the psychological aspects regarding rationality in human mind. Second, the external environment of a decision—i.e., the outer shape of means and ends, provided generally by the organization.