The influence of CMMI on establishing an architecting process

A large IT company is creating a generic architecting process. Since the company has set an objective to achieve Maturity Level 3 of the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), the process needs to comply with the relevant requirements set by the CMMI. This paper presents the elicitation of such requirements, and the resulting set of requirements. It analyzes their potential impact on generic architecting processes found in literature. It turns out that many key architectural concepts are at best loosely defined in the CMMI. CMMI is strong in support of the development-related architecting activities, but gives only indirect support for other architecting activities, particularly in a product development context

Primorsky rift shoulder uplift and migration of Lake Baikal outlet: effects of rifting on surface processes

The Primorsky range developed along the northwestern side of the Lake Baikal rift basin, at the margin of the Siberian Platform. Morphological investigations revealed that the outlet of Lake Baikal changed several times since the Mid-Pleistocene. Lake Baikal was previously connected to the Lena River across the Primorsky Range. Analysis of digital topography suggests that this connection migrated southwestwards along the trend of the range, as the result of more intense uplift of the northeastern part of the range, relative to the lake level. This can be due to either more rapid vertical movements or an earlier initiation of vertical movements. These vertical movements are controlled by the Late Quaternary development of the Baikal rift basin, and also reflect the diachronous long-term evolution of the individual subbasins. In particular, the uplift of the Primorsky Range is accommodated by the activity of the border faults of the rift basins. The linking modes of the different fault segments also played a major role in the development of the sub-basins in Central Baikal. Recent surface deformation affected also the more internal part of the Siberian Plate, controlling its morphology. A belt of shallow active sedimentary basins formed along the external flank of the Primorsky Range. The more internal part of the Siberian platform was deformed in a large domal uplift (the Lena Dome), with its summits lying 1000 m above the basal altitude of the platform. Formation of the Lena Dome might have had a major role in the development of the Kovykta gas field

Regional and local geothermal conditions in the northern Black Sea

Abstract More than 100 new heat flow measurements have been collected in recent years (2002)(2003)(2004) in different tectonic environments of the northern Black Sea. The northern periphery of the Black Sea is characterized by strong geodynamic and seismic activity, high sedimentation rates, diapiric structures, mud volcanism, and fluid and gas escape at the sea floor. We present new thermal data from the shelf, continental slope and deep-water basin, measured off-shore using a marine thermo-probe and onshore in drill holes. Heat flow density ranges from 20 to more than 2,000 mW/m 2 . For two local areas (the Dnieper gas seeps and the Dvurechenski mud volcano area), we discuss the relation between heat flow variability and the geological and physical processes in the near-bottom sediment layer. The Dnieper gas seeps area is characterized by strong small-scale heat flow variability and is controlled by fluid and gas migration. In the Dvurechenski active mud volcano, the near-bottom temperature in sediments is anomalously elevated because additional heat is carried out by mass flows of fluids and clay minerals. Away from the mud volcano heat flow quickly decreases to background values

Flexible copyright: the law and economics of introducing an open norm in the Netherlands

This study analyses the law and economics of introducing flexibility in the system of exceptions and limitations in Dutch copyright law. Such flexibility would exist in an open norm, on the basis of which the courts can decide whether certain uses of copyrighted material are permissible or not, instead of explicitly defining this in the law. First, it assesses problem areas where the lack of flexibility creates legal disputes and potential barriers to innovation and commercialisation. Second, it analyses the economic rationale and economic effects of introducing flexibility. The study was commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture & Innovation. Research methods used are literature review and in-depth interviews. The study includes a case study of Israel, where a fair use exception was introduced in the Copyright Act in 2007. Exceptions and limitations in the current copyright system are meant to balance the protection granted to rights owners with the public interest’s need to make certain unauthorized uses. However, this report identified a number of situations that do not fit well within the current set of exceptions and limitations and attributes this to a lack of flexibility. Among these uses are the activities of search engines, the use of works in User Created Content, cloud computing, data mining, distance learning, and transformative uses by, for instance, documentary filmmakers. Several of these problem areas have given rise to court proceedings with varying outcomes. The interpretation given by courts to existing exceptions and limitations - such as the quotation right, the exception for transient and incidental copying, the private copying exception, and the incidental use exception - is usually too narrow to respond to new technological developments, new developments in the creation process, or new commercialisation models. These types of uses generally do not ‘fit’ the narrowly defined exceptions and limitations and therefore lack legal basis. The same is true for things not yet invented. Because the law is not flexible in itself, courts have increasingly found inventive ways to create legal space for uses that are not covered by the exhaustive list of exceptions. In these cases flexibility with specific evaluation criteria could have been more satisfactory from a legal perspective. Flexibility could be obtained by introducing an open norm in the copyright system. This report defines such an open norm for the purpose of analysing the effects of more flexibility in copyright law. The norm has two main properties. First, it would coexist with the exhaustive list of exceptions and limitations in the current Dutch Copyright Act. Second, a use of a work would only benefit from the open norm if it passes the so-called three-step test, which takes the interests of the author or right holder into account. The first category of economic effects of introducing an open norm is that for some known uses that otherwise require licensing, the open norm would allow unlicensed use. Thispotentially reduces the reward to the creator of a work and therefore decreases the incentive to create. By contrast, it is also likely to reduce the creator’s costs of using another work as an input when producing a new work, and therefore to increase the incentive to create. It is difficult to predict which of these two opposing effects ultimately turns the scale in specific markets. Traditional creators generally worry about the negative effect on their reward and seem to believe that the first effect dominates. For businesses that use large numbers of protected works as an input for their services, such as Google, the opposite is true. They emphasise the benefits of reduced input costs and are likely to improve their legal position with an open norm. Collective rights management organisations in turn fear that their bargaining power vis-à-vis users like UCC-platforms, such as YouTube, would suffer from an open norm. However, given the design of the open norm, it is unlikely that rewards for creators are significantly affected. The application of the open norm by the courts tests for adverse effects on the business model of the rights holder (the previously mentioned three-step test). In case of severe adverse effects on the rights holder, the open norm does not apply. The shift in bargaining power from rights holders to user (platforms) is limited to cases that are currently licensed and where parties are sufficiently confident that the use benefits from the open norm. The second category of economic effects of introducing an open norm is that the legal delineation between infringement and permissible use becomes capable of accommodating developments in technology and society. This enables entrepreneurs to develop new products and services that rely on currently unforeseen use of protected material. On the downside, flexibility may reduce legal certainty in the short run, until jurisprudence on the practice of flexible copyright has developed. The countries that have recently introduced an open norm in their copyright laws have not produced any ex-ante or ex-post studies on the magnitude of these economic effects. The case study of fair use in Israel shows that the change may decrease legal certainty in the short run (as case law needs time to develop), but improve legal certainty in the longer run, as the legal position of acts that do not ‘fit’ a rigid system with an exhaustive list of static exceptions is being clarified. In sum, the main effects of introducing an open norm seem to be of a legal nature: it changes the legal position of some businesses and therefore affects the costs these businesses make to comply with copyright. ‘Tomorrow’s inventions’ are likely to be facilitated by an open norm. Since most businesses seem currently not chilled by the lack of flexibility, the effect on products and services available in the market is likely to be secondary to the legal effects

Mouse visual cortex contains a region of enhanced spatial resolution.

The representation of space in mouse visual cortex was thought to be relatively uniform. Here we reveal, using population receptive-field (pRF) mapping techniques, that mouse visual cortex contains a region in which pRFs are considerably smaller. This region, the "focea," represents a location in space in front of, and slightly above, the mouse. Using two-photon imaging we show that the smaller pRFs are due to lower scatter of receptive-fields at the focea and an over-representation of binocular regions of space. We show that receptive-fields of single-neurons in areas LM and AL are smaller at the focea and that mice have improved visual resolution in this region of space. Furthermore, freely moving mice make compensatory eye-movements to hold this region in front of them. Our results indicate that mice have spatial biases in their visual processing, a finding that has important implications for the use of the mouse model of vision