Modularity in action.GNU/Linux and free/Open source sotfware development model unleashed.

Organizational and managerial theories of modularity applied to the design and production of complex artifacts are used to interpret the rise and success of Free/Open Source Software methodologies and practices in software engineeringmodularity; software project management; free/open source software; division of labor; coordination; information hiding

Winter soil respiration in a humid temperate forest: The roles of moisture, temperature, and snowpack

Winter soil respiration at midlatitudes can comprise a substantial portion of annual ecosystem carbon loss. However, winter soil carbon dynamics in these areas, which are often characterized by shallow snow cover, are poorly understood due to infrequent sampling at the soil surface. Our objectives were to continuously measure winter CO2 flux from soils and the overlying snowpack while also monitoring drivers of winter soil respiration in a humid temperate forest. We show that the relative roles of soil temperature and moisture in driving winter CO2 flux differed within a single soil-to-snow profile. Surface soil temperatures had a strong, positive influence on CO2 flux from the snowpack, while soil moisture exerted a negative control on soil CO2 flux within the soil profile. Rapid fluctuations in snow depth throughout the winter likely created the dynamic soil temperature and moisture conditions that drove divergent patterns in soil respiration at different depths. Such dynamic conditions differ from many previous studies of winter soil microclimate and respiration, where soil temperature and moisture are relatively stable until snowmelt. The differential response of soil respiration to temperature and moisture across depths was also a unique finding as previous work has not simultaneously quantified CO2 flux from soils and the snowpack. The complex interplay we observed among snow depth, soil temperature, soil moisture, and CO2 flux suggests that winter soil respiration in areas with shallow seasonal snow cover is more variable than previously understood and may fluctuate considerably in the future given winter climate change

A diversity-based approach to requirements tracing in new product development.

Production models emerged in recent times have stressed the need to face complex production contexts, characterized in particular by the rise in internal and environmental variability. In this work, a stylization of some elements concerning analysis and design of new products is given, and in particular those that involve definition and transfer phases in the development of innovative goods, where change and variability in requirements along development process are often high. This analysis has a twofold goal: first, to supply a conceptual frame for the close examination of some dynamics of requirement's integration into an artifact's design, in order to give account of their variability along development cycle; on the other side, to propose an approach based on simple similarity metrics, to be applied to linguistic descriptions of artifacts in the early phases of development process, in order to identify components in an artifact that undergo larger variability and therefore are to be paid more attention in the subsequent phases of life cycle.

Spartan Daily, October 11, 1967

Volume 55, Issue 16https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/5023/thumbnail.jp

Spartan Daily, October 11, 1967

Volume 55, Issue 16https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/5023/thumbnail.jp

Project dynamics: An analysis of the purpose and value of system dynamics applied to information technology project management

Project failure in the Information Technology (IT) sector is well documented in the literature; project managers miss their target budgets and schedules more than twice as often as they meet them. Traditional project management methodologies initially developed for the large-scale engineering projects of the 1950’s, while still relevant and useful, are reductionist in nature and are therefore missing a systems approach that concentrates on knowledge creation before, during and after a project. The research presented herein will demonstrate the role of system dynamics in augmenting a project’s control processes, as well as the skill set used by the project manager. Research from a wide variety of projects within the information technology sector will be synthesized, some using system dynamics methodologies, and will serve as the basis to comparatively analyze the value added using this novel project management approach. The project dynamics and lessons learned within will illustrate the complex interactions and feedback structures inherent in all projects, as well as seek to educate project managers on their cause-effect relationships. Furthermore, the research will illustrate problematic project dynamics, using various conceptual models, and suggest the need to integrate system dynamics methodologies for project management into traditional project management processes and bodies of knowledge instead of solely relying on them as a post-mortem tool for project analysis

Spartan Daily, October 11, 1967

Volume 55, Issue 16https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/5023/thumbnail.jp

For Our Information, July 1949, Vol. II, no. 1-2

An official publication of the ILR School, Cornell University, “for the information of all faculty, staff and students.

Lawyers Not in Love, The Defenders and Sixties TV

This essay offers a social history and examination of The Defenders as a popular, criti- cally acclaimed television text that negotiated anxieties regarding crime, law, justice, lib- eralism, and masculinity in the 1960s and 1990s. Both The Defenders television series (1961–1965) and the Showtime motion picture series (1997–1998) by the same name rearticulated enduring tensions between law’s formalism and just desires for compassion and mercy, depicting defense attorneys as men who work both inside and outside of “law” to ensure justice and confront the lack of humanism in “the rule of law.” Such discourses are understood and appreciated in different ways in different times, particularly as the cultural politics of nostalgia are engaged. The Defenders offers clear illustrations of the ways in which popular narratives not only depict juridical roles but also perform them, specifying when and where “law” begins and ends