- Table View
- List View
Lectures on Runtime Verification: Introductory and Advanced Topics (Lecture Notes in Computer Science #10457)
by Ezio Bartocci Yliès FalconeThe idea of this volume originated from the need to have a book for students to support their training with several tutorials on different aspects of RV. The volume has been organized into seven chapters and the topics covered include an introduction on runtime verification, dynamic analysis of concurrency errors, monitoring events that carry data, runtime error reaction and prevention, monitoring of cyber-physical systems, runtime verification for decentralized and distributed systems and an industrial application of runtime verification techniques in financial transaction systems.
Lectures on Soft Computing and Fuzzy Logic (Advances in Intelligent and Soft Computing #11)
by Antonio Di Nola Giangiacomo GerlaThe present volume collects selected papers arising from lectures delivered by the authors at the School on Fuzzy Logic and Soft Computing held during the years 1996/97/98/99 and sponsored by the Salerno University. The authors contributing to this volume agreed with editors to write down, to enlarge and, in many cases, to rethink their original lectures, in order to offer to readership, a more compact presentation of the proposed topics. The aim of the volume is to offer a picture, as a job in progress, of the effort that is coming in founding and developing soft computing's techniques. The volume contains papers aimed to report on recent results containing genuinely logical aspects of fuzzy logic. The topics treated in this area cover algebraic aspects of Lukasiewicz Logic, Fuzzy Logic as the logic of continuous t-norms, Intuitionistic Fuzzy Logic. Aspects of fuzzy logic based on similar ity relation are presented in connection with the problem of flexible querying in deductive database. Departing from fuzzy logic, some papers present re sults in Probability Logic treating computational aspects, results based on indishernability relation and a non commutative version of generalized effect algebras. Several strict applications of soft computing are presented in the book. Indeed we find applications ranging among pattern recognition, image and signal processing, evolutionary agents, fuzzy cellular networks, classi fication in fuzzy environments. The volume is then intended to serve as a reference work for foundational logico-algebraic aspect of Soft Computing and for concrete applications of soft computing technologies.
Lectures on the Nearest Neighbor Method (Springer Series in the Data Sciences)
by Gérard Biau Luc DevroyeThis text presents a wide-ranging and rigorous overview of nearest neighbor methods, one of the most important paradigms in machine learning. Now in one self-contained volume, this book systematically covers key statistical, probabilistic, combinatorial and geometric ideas for understanding, analyzing and developing nearest neighbor methods. Gérard Biau is a professor at Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris). Luc Devroye is a professor at the School of Computer Science at McGill University (Montreal).
Led by Donkeys: How four friends with a ladder took on Brexit
by LedByDonkeys Ben Stewart James Sadri Oliver KnowlesThe official account - complete with full-colour illustrations - of how four ordinary people managed to expose the government's hypocrisies through a nationwide guerrilla advertising campaign.Seeking to highlight the hypocrisy of our politicians on Brexit four friends armed with nothing more than ladders, roller brushes and a treasure trove of damning statements from our leaders slapped up the politicians' biggest lies on billboards around the country.This guerrilla operation wasn't easy, but it wasn't long before the British public enabled them to take things into their own hands - and the rest is history. Leave the EU or remain? An apparently simple question divided the nation in historic fashion. Many of us believed the words of these politicians. By putting up their quotes as billboards, self-styled 'Led By Donkeys' had clear intentions - to compare the promises that have been made across the years with the damning reality.
Lee de Forest: King of Radio, Television, and Film
by Mike AdamsThe life-long inventor, Lee de Forest invented the three-element vacuum tube used between 1906 and 1916 as a detector, amplifier, and oscillator of radio waves. Beginning in 1918 he began to develop a light valve, a device for writing and reading sound using light patterns. While he received many patents for his process, he was initially ignored by the film industry. In order to promote and demonstrate his process he made several hundred sound short films, he rented space for their showing; he sold the tickets and did the publicity to gain audiences for his invention. Lee de Forest officially brought sound to film in 1919. Lee De Forest: King of Radio, Television, and Film is about both invention and early film making; de Forest as the scientist and producer, director, and writer of the content. This book tells the story of de Forest’s contribution in changing the history of film through the incorporation of sound. The text includes primary source historical material, U.S. patents and richly-illustrated photos of Lee de Forest’s experiments. Readers will greatly benefit from an understanding of the transition from silent to audio motion pictures, the impact this had on the scientific community and the popular culture, as well as the economics of the entertainment industry.
Left Atrial and Scar Quantification and Segmentation: First Challenge, LAScarQS 2022, Held in Conjunction with MICCAI 2022, Singapore, September 18, 2022, Proceedings (Lecture Notes in Computer Science #13586)
by Xiahai Zhuang Lei Li Sihan Wang Fuping WuThis book constitutes the First Left Atrial and Scar Quantification and Segmentation Challenge, LAScarQS 2022, which was held in conjunction with the 25th International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, MICCAI 2022, in Singapore, in September 2022.The 15 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected form numerous submissions. The aim of the challenge is not only benchmarking various LA scar segmentation algorithms, but also covering the topic of general cardiac image segmentation, quantification, joint optimization, and model generalization, and raising discussions for further technical development and clinical deployment.
Legacy Data: A Structured Methodology For Device Migration In Dsm Technology
by Pallab ChatterjeeThis unique book deals with the migration of existing hard IP from one technology to another, using repeatable procedures. It will allow CAD practitioners to quickly develop methodologies that capitalize on the large volumes of legacy data available within a company today.
A Legacy for Living Systems: Gregory Bateson as Precursor to Biosemiotics (Biosemiotics #2)
by Jesper HoffmeyerGregory Bateson’s contribution to 20th century thinking has appealed to scholars from a wide range of fields dealing in one way or another with aspects of communication and epistemology. A number of his insights were taken up and developed further in anthropology, psychology, evolutionary biology and communication theory. But the large, trans-disciplinary synthesis that, in his own mind, was his major contribution to science received little attention from the mainstream scientific communities. This book represents a major attempt to revise this deficiency. Scholars from ecology, biochemistry, evolutionary biology, cognitive science, anthropology and philosophy discuss how Bateson's thinking might lead to a fruitful reframing of central problems in modern science. Most important perhaps, Bateson's bioanthropology is shown to play a key role in developing the set of ideas explored in the new field of biosemiotics. The idea that organismic life is indeed basically semiotic or communicative lies at the heart of the biosemiotic approach to the study of life. The only book of its kind, this volume provides a key resource for the quickly-growing substratum of scholars in the biosciences, philosophy and medicine who are seeking an elegant new approach to exploring highly complex systems.
Legacysoftware: Das lange Leben der Altsysteme (Xpert.press)
by Dieter MasakDie Software heutiger Unternehmen besteht zum größten Teil aus Altsystemen, die zwischen fünf und dreißig Jahren alt sein können. In der heutigen Softwareliteratur wird vorwiegend die Schaffung und Konzeption von neuen Systemen behandelt. Ziel dieses Buches ist es dagegen, eine Darstellung der Entwicklungsmöglichkeiten und Strategien für die Altsysteme aufzuzeigen. Dabei beschäftigt sich der Autor auch mit folgenden Fragen: Wie kann die Wartung besser werden? Muss man wirklich ablösen? Wie funktioniert der Ersatz durch Standardsoftware?
A Legal Analysis of NGOs and European Civil Society
by Piotr StaszczykAmid widespread awareness and discussion of "the democratic deficit" and "shrinking civil space," the role of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) becomes increasingly important. Yet the precise legal status of such bodies is ill-defined. Here, for the first time, is a thorough commentary and analysis of the position of NGOs and European civil society in the European Union (EU) constitutional system, bringing to the fore existing and desirable means of public participation in EU lawmaking. Recognizing that NGOs have historically been designed to meet the ends of civil society, the analysis focuses on the following topics and issues: means in EU law of advocating for the collective interests of civil society; unofficial means of influencing the EU institutions; access to documents and the European Citizens’ Initiative as means of exerting pressure on EU legislation; relations between the EU institutions and NGOs, including lobbying activities; bringing actions in the common good before courts and other institutions; the special role of NGOs in environmental protection; complaints to the Commission and the European Ombudsman; EU funding for NGOs; and transboundary philanthropy. Drawing on a broad spectrum of sources of law, including CJEU case law and relevant legal literature, the book offers insightful proposals leading to the democratization of the EU’s internal procedures that will allow enhanced cooperation of civil society representatives across national borders. In its thorough examination of legal tools that can respond to the "democratic deficit," this book makes a distinctive contribution to the public debate on the future of the European Union, especially in the context of emerging threats to further integration. It will prove of great value not only to civil activists, academics and policymakers but also to everyone interested in European integration and affordance for social participation.
Legal Analytics: The Future of Analytics in Law
by Namita Singh Malik Elizaveta A Gromova Smita Gupta Balamurugan BalusamyLegal Analytics: The Future of Analytics in Law navigates the crisscrossing of intelligent technology and legal field in building up new landscape of transformation. Legal automation navigation is multidimensional wherein it intends to construct streamline communication, approval and management of legal task. Evolving environment of technology has emphasized need for better automations in legal field from time to time. Although legal scholars took long to embrace Information revolution of legal field. •Describes the historical development of law and automation •Analyses the challenges and opportunities in law and automation •Studies the current research and development in the convergence of Law, Artificial Intelligence and Legal Analytics •Explores the recent emerging trends and technologies that are used by various legal System globally for Crime Prediction & Prevention •Examines the applicability of legal analytics in forensic investigation •Investigates the impact of legal analytics tools and techniques in judicial decision making •Analyses deep learning techniques and its scope in accelerating legal analytics in developed and developing countries • Provides the in-depth analysis of implementation, challenges and issues in the society related to legal analytics The book is primarily aimed at graduates, postgraduates in law & technology, computer science and information technology. Legal practitioners and academicians will also find this book helpful.
Legal Analytics: The Future of Analytics in Law
by Namita Singh Malik, Elizaveta A Gromova, Smita Gupta and Balamurugan BalusamyLegal Analytics: The Future of Analytics in Law navigates the crisscrossing of intelligent technology and legal field in building up new landscape of transformation. Legal automation navigation is multidimensional wherein it intends to construct streamline communication, approval and management of legal task. Evolving environment of technology has emphasized need for better automations in legal field from time to time. Although legal scholars took long to embrace Information revolution of legal field. •Describes the historical development of law and automation •Analyses the challenges and opportunities in law and automation •Studies the current research and development in the convergence of Law, Artificial Intelligence and Legal Analytics •Explores the recent emerging trends and technologies that are used by various legal System globally for Crime Prediction & Prevention •Examines the applicability of legal analytics in forensic investigation •Investigates the impact of legal analytics tools and techniques in judicial decision making •Analyses deep learning techniques and its scope in accelerating legal analytics in developed and developing countries • Provides the in-depth analysis of implementation, challenges and issues in the society related to legal analytics The book is primarily aimed at graduates, postgraduates in law & technology, computer science and information technology. Legal practitioners and academicians will also find this book helpful.
Legal and Ethical Challenges of Artificial Intelligence from an International Law Perspective (Law, Governance and Technology Series #46)
by Themistoklis TzimasThis book focuses on the legal regulation, mainly from an international law perspective, of autonomous artificial intelligence systems, of their creations, as well as of the interaction of human and artificial intelligence. It examines critical questions regarding both the ontology of autonomous AI systems and the legal implications: what constitutes an autonomous AI system and what are its unique characteristics? How do they interact with humans? What would be the implications of combined artificial and human intelligence? It also explores potentially the most important questions: what are the implications of these developments for collective security –from both a state-centered and a human perspective, as well as for legal systems? Why is international law better positioned to make such determinations and to create a universal framework for this new type of legal personality? How can the matrix of obligations and rights of this new legal personality be construed and what would be the repercussions for the international community? In order to address these questions, the book discusses cognitive aspects embedded in the framework of law, offering insights based on both de lege lata and de lege ferenda perspectives.
Legal Aspects of Autonomous Systems: A Comparative Approach (Data Science, Machine Intelligence, and Law #4)
by Dário Moura Vicente Rui Soares Pereira Ana Alves LealAs computational power, the volume of available data, IT systems’ autonomy, and the human-like capabilities of machines increase, robots and AI systems have substantial and growing implications for the law and raise a host of challenges to current legal doctrines. The main question to be answered is whether the foundations and general principles of private law and criminal law offer a functional and adaptive legal framework for the “autonomous systems” phenomena.The main purpose of this book is to identify and explore possible trajectories for the development of civil and criminal liability; for our understanding of the attribution link to autonomous systems; and, in particular, for the punishment of unlawful conduct in connection with their operation. AI decision-making processes – including judicial sentencing – also warrant close attention in this regard.Since AI is moving faster than the process of regulatory recalibration, this book provides valuable insights on its redesign and on the harmonization, at the European level, of the current regulatory frameworks, in order to keep pace with technological changes.Providing a broader and more comprehensive picture of the legal challenges posed by autonomous systems, this book covers a wide range of topics, including the regulation of autonomous vehicles, data protection and governance, personality rights, intellectual property, corporate governance, and contract conclusion and termination issues arising from automated decisions, blockchain technology and AI applications, particularly in the banking and finance sectors.The authors are legal experts from around the world with extensive academic and/or practical experience in these areas.
Legal Aspects of Ethnic Data Collection and Positive Action: The Roma Minority in Europe
by Jozefien Van CaeneghemThis book addresses the legal feasibility of ethnic data collection and positive action for equality and anti-discrimination purposes, and considers how they could be used to promote the Roma minority’s inclusion in Europe. The book’s central aim is to research how a societal problem can be improved upon from a legal perspective. The controversy surrounding ethnic data collection and positive action severely limits their use at the national level. Accordingly, legal and political concerns are analysed and addressed in order to demonstrate that it is possible to collect such data and to implement such measures while fully respecting international and European human rights norms, provided that certain conditions are met.Part I focuses on ethnic data collection and explores the key rules and principles that govern it, the ways in which this equality tool could be used, and how potential obstacles might be overcome. It also identifies and addresses the specific challenges that arise when collecting ethnic data on the Roma minority in Europe. In turn, Part II explores positive action and the broad range of measures covered by the concept, before analysing the applicable international and European framework. It reviews the benefits and challenges of implementing positive action for Roma, identifies best practices, and gives special consideration to inter-cultural mediation in the advancement of Roma inclusion. The book concludes with an overview of the main findings on both topics and by identifying three essential elements that must be in place, in addition to full respect for the applicable legal rules, in order to combat discrimination and achieve the inclusion of Roma in Europe by complementing existing anti-discrimination frameworks with the collection of ethnic data and the implementation of positive action schemes.
Legal Challenges of Big Data
by Joe Cannataci Oreste Pollicino Valeria FalceThis groundbreaking book explores the new legal and economic challenges triggered by big data, and analyses the interactions among and between intellectual property, competition law, free speech, privacy and other fundamental rights vis-à-vis big data analysis and algorithms. Offering both theoretical and practical insights, contributions illustrate the disruptive nature of the data-driven economy. Chapters discuss how products and services are digitalised and broken into bits, that in turn are reassembled, traded and used across sectors and borders, in contrast to how algorithms are already used to influence our choices, govern our news feeds and revolutionise business models at large. Having shown algorithms and big data to be the two fundamental driving forces of the new information society, expert authors explore which policy options, institutional frameworks and values should be adopted by lawmakers and regulatory authorities in order to ensure a fair balance between private interests such as competition, innovation and the fundamental rights of individuals. Innovatively combining both public and private law perspectives, this unique book will provide a valuable resource for scholars and students of information and technology law, media law, privacy, regulatory and human rights law. Its attention to the latest developments will also prove essential for policymakers and practitioners working in related areas.
Legal Developments on Cybersecurity and Related Fields (Law, Governance and Technology Series #60)
by Francisco António Carneiro Pacheco de Andrade Pedro Miguel Fernandes Freitas Joana Rita de Sousa Covelo de AbreuThis book presents a fresh approach to cybersecurity issues, seeking not only to analyze the legal landscape of the European Union and its Member States, but to do so in an interdisciplinary manner, involving scholars from diverse backgrounds – ranging from legal experts to ICT and engineering professionals.Cybersecurity requirements must be understood in a broader context, encompassing not just conventional aspects, but also emerging topics. This can only be achieved through an interdisciplinary approach. Indeed, cybersecurity should be consistently considered in relation to cybercrime and/or cyber defense, while examining it through the lens of specific domains that are intertwined with various legal fields. Moreover, it is crucial to uphold ethical standards and safeguard fundamental rights, particularly regarding personal data protection.By adopting this comprehensive perspective, the significance of cybersecurity in the exercise of public authority becomes apparent. It also plays an essential role in upholding the fundamental values of both individual Member States and the EU as a whole, such as the rule of law. Moreover, it fosters trust, transparency, and effectiveness in market relations and public administration interactions.In turn, the book draws on the expertise of its authors to provide insights into ICT components and technologies. Understanding these elements holistically is essential to viewing every "cyber" phenomenon from a legal standpoint. In addition to the holistic and interdisciplinary approach it presents, the book offers a captivating exploration of cybersecurity and an engaging read for anyone interested in the field.
The Legal Guide to E-Business (Non-ser.)
by Jacqueline KlosekThis concise and current guidebook to the legal issues involved with conducting e-business is a one-stop source for both domestic and cross-border laws and regulations. Any business that conducts commerce via a Web site must deal with these issues with regard to numerous situations. This book addresses the legal ramifications of developing and hosting websites, explains how to minimize liability through the use of website Terms of Use and user agreements, explicates specific international issues arising from the conduct of e-commerce, examines online marketing and advertising, online privacy issues, and online intellectual property rights.Entrepreneurs, executives, and corporate counsel from enterprises of all sizes and in all industries will benefit from this useful legal roadmap.
Legal Issues of Mobile Apps: A Practical Guide
by Ioannis IglezakisIn less than ten years touchscreen smartphones and their apps have created an unprecedented technological revolution. Yet they are rife with serious potential for breaches of privacy and security, and a lack of uniform rules makes navigation of the legal landscape extremely difficult. Addressing this unstable regulatory environment, this concise, practical guide for the first time provides a measure of legal certainty. It examines case law and legislation in Europe and the United States to highlight the rights and obligations of all actors involved in the marketing of mobile apps, bring to light essential principles and recommend some viable solutions. Nine experts, all versed in the latest developments in international and national laws and regulations affecting digital mobile technology, examine such key topics as the following: contract law as applied to the sale and use of smartphone apps; intellectual property rights in mobile apps; protection of users; data protection; European Union (EU) medical device legislation and its safety implications for app users; fitness or wellness apps; apps’ collection of personal data; apps as hostile code and malware delivery mechanisms; competition law issues; taxation of mobile apps; liability issues for app developers and distributors; and implications of the EU’s new regulatory framework on online platforms. Because it is difficult for a basic user to understand how vulnerable everyday apps can be, and because every new information technology platform delivers new risks along with its benefits, legal practitioners working in a wide variety of fields will be increasingly called upon to engage with both personal and enterprise security and privacy breach cases arising from the use of mobile apps. This deeply informed practical analysis goes a long way toward ensuring appropriate handling of legal issues which arise in the mobile app context. Every practitioner, government official and software developer will welcome this much-needed volume.
Legal Ontology Engineering: Methodologies, Modelling Trends, and the Ontology of Professional Judicial Knowledge (Law, Governance and Technology Series #3)
by Núria CasellasEnabling information interoperability, fostering legal knowledge usability and reuse, enhancing legal information search, in short, formalizing the complexity of legal knowledge to enhance legal knowledge management are challenging tasks, for which different solutions and lines of research have been proposed. During the last decade, research and applications based on the use of legal ontologies as a technique to represent legal knowledge has raised a very interesting debate about their capacity and limitations to represent conceptual structures in the legal domain. Making conceptual legal knowledge explicit would support the development of a web of legal knowledge, improve communication, create trust and enable and support open data, e-government and e-democracy activities. Moreover, this explicit knowledge is also relevant to the formalization of software agents and the shaping of virtual institutions and multi-agent systems or environments. This book explores the use of ontologism in legal knowledge representation for semantically-enhanced legal knowledge systems or web-based applications. In it, current methodologies, tools and languages used for ontology development are revised, and the book includes an exhaustive revision of existing ontologies in the legal domain. The development of the Ontology of Professional Judicial Knowledge (OPJK) is presented as a case study.
Legal Principles for Combatting Cyberlaundering (Law, Governance and Technology Series #19)
by Daniel Adeoyé LeslieThis volume deals with the very novel issue of cyber laundering. The book investigates the problem of cyber laundering legally and sets out why it is of a grave legal concern locally and internationally. The book looks at the current state of laws and how they do not fully come to grips with the problem. As a growing practice in these modern times, and manifesting through technological innovations, cyber laundering is the birth child of money laundering and cybercrime. It concerns how the internet is used for 'washing' illicit proceeds of crime. In addition to exploring the meaning and ambits of the problem with concrete real-life examples, more importantly, a substantial part of the work innovates ways in which the dilemma can be curbed legally.This volume delves into a very grey area of law, daring a yet unthreaded territory and scouring undiscovered paths where money laundering, cybercrime, information technology and international law converge. In addition to unearthing such complexity, the hallmark of this book is in the innovative solutions and dynamic remedies it postulates.
Legal Programming: Designing Legally Compliant RFID and Software Agent Architectures for Retail Processes and Beyond (Integrated Series in Information Systems #4)
by Brian Subirana Malcolm BainLegal Programming: Designing Legally Compliant RFID and Software Agent Architectures for Retail Processes and Beyond provides a process-oriented discussion of the legal concerns presented by agent-based technologies, processes and programming. It offers a general outline of the potential legal difficulties that could arise in relation to them, focusing on the programming of negotiation and contracting processes in a privacy, consumer and commercial context. The authors will elucidate how it is possible to create form of legal framework and design methodology for transaction agents, applicable in any environment and not just in a specific proprietary framework, that provides the right level of compliance and trust. Key elements considered include the design and programming of legally compliant methods, the determination of rights in respect of objects and variables, and ontologies and programming frameworks for agent interactions. Examples are used to illustrate the points made and provide a practical perspective.
Legal Protection Insurance and Legal Technology: The Legal Framework for Offering Legal Technology with a Particular Focus on the German Market (SpringerBriefs in Law)
by Constantin Jung Domenik H. WendtThis book addresses the legal protection insurance market and continues the collection and analysis of data carried out by Legal Protection International aisbl (at the time, the International Association of Legal Protection Insurance) in recent years. Its first part covers the fundamentals of and recent advances in the legal protection insurance market, while the second presents a study on the relevant legal framework for offering Legal Technology services as a legal protection insurer in Germany. In this context, the study also defines the term “Legal Technology”, categorises Legal Technology services (“application-oriented categorisation”), analyses the relevant European legal framework and highlights the connections to the upcoming European Artificial Intelligence Act.
The Legal Regulation of Cyber Attacks
by Ioannis IglezakisThis updated edition of a well-known comprehensive analysis of the criminalization of cyberattacks adds important new guidance to the legal framework on cybercrime, reflecting new legislation, technological developments, and the changing nature of cybercrime itself. The focus is not only on criminal law aspects but also on issues of data protection, jurisdiction, electronic evidence, enforcement, and digital forensics. It provides a thorough analysis of the legal regulation of attacks against information systems in the European, international, and comparative law contexts. Among the new and continuing aspects of cybersecurity covered are the following: the conflict of cybercrime investigation and prosecution with fundamental rights to privacy and freedom of expression; the 2016 Directive on security of network and information systems (NIS Directive); the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR); the role of national computer security incident response teams (CSIRTs); the European Union (EU) response to new technologies involving payment instruments, including virtual currencies and digital wallets; the EU Commission’s legislative proposals to enhance cross-border gathering of electronic evidence; internet service providers’ role in fighting cybercrime; measures combatting identity theft, spyware, and malware; states and legal persons as perpetrators of cybercrime; and the security and data breach notification as a compliance and transparency tool. Technical definitions, case laws, and analysis of both substantive law and procedural law contribute to a comprehensive understanding of cybercrime regulation and its current evolution in practice. Addressing a topic of growing importance in unprecedented detail, this new edition of a much-relied-upon resource will be welcomed by professionals and authorities dealing with cybercrime, including lawyers, judges, academics, security professionals, information technology experts, and law enforcement agencies.
Legal Tech and the New Sharing Economy (Perspectives in Law, Business and Innovation)
by Toshiyuki Kono Nikolaus Forgó Marcelo Corrales Compagnucci Shinto Teramoto Erik P. M. VermeulenThe exponential growth of disruptive technology is changing our world. The development of cloud computing, big data, the internet of things, artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, and other related autonomous systems, such as self-driving vehicles, have triggered the emergence of new products and services. These significant technological breakthroughs have opened the door to new economic models such as the sharing and platform-based economy. As a result, companies are becoming increasingly data- and algorithm-driven, coming to be more like “decentralized platforms”. New transaction or payment methods such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, based on trust-building systems using Blockchain, smart contracts, and other distributed ledger technology, also constitute an essential part of this new economic model. The sharing economy and digital platforms also include the everyday exchange of goods allowing individuals to commodify their surplus resources. Information and innovation technologies are used in order to then match these resources with existing demand in the market. Online platforms such as Airbnb, Uber, and Amazon reduce information asymmetry, increase the value of unused resources, and create new opportunities for collaboration and innovation. Moreover, the sharing economy is playing a major role in the transition from exclusive ownership of personal assets toward access-based exploitation of resources. The success of online matching platforms depends not only on the reduction of search costs but also on the trustworthiness of platform operators. From a legal perspective, the uncertainties triggered by the emergence of a new digital reality are particularly urgent. How should these tendencies be reflected in legal systems in each jurisdiction? This book collects a series of contributions by leading scholars in the newly emerging fields of sharing economy and Legal Tech. The aim of the book is to enrich legal debates on the social, economic, and political meaning of these cutting-edge technologies. The chapters presented in this edition attempt to answer some of these lingering questions from the perspective of diverse legal backgrounds.