How do various maize crop models vary in their responses to climate change factors?

Comments This article is a U.S. government work, and is not subject to copyright in the United States. Abstract Potential consequences of climate change on crop production can be studied using mechanistic crop simulation models. While a broad variety of maize simulation models exist, it is not known whether different models diverge on grain yield responses to changes in climatic factors, or whether they agree in their general trends related to phenology, growth, and yield. With the goal of analyzing the sensitivity of simulated yields to changes in temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations [CO2], we present the largest maize crop model intercomparison to date, including 23 different models. These models were evaluated for four locations representing a wide range of maize production conditions in the world: Lusignan (France), Ames (USA), Rio Verde (Brazil) and Morogoro (Tanzania). While individual models differed considerably in absolute yield simulation at the four sites, an ensemble of a minimum number of models was able to simulate absolute yields accurately at the four sites even with low data for calibration, thus suggesting that using an ensemble of models has merit. Temperature increase had strong negative influence on modeled yield response of roughly 0.5 Mg ha 1 per °C. Doubling [CO2] from 360 to 720 lmol mol 1 increased grain yield by 7.5% on average across models and the sites. That would therefore make temperature the main factor altering maize yields at the end of this century. Furthermore, there was a large uncertainty in the yield response to [CO2] among models. Model responses to temperature and [CO2] did not differ whether models were simulated with low calibration information or, simulated with high level of calibration information.

Copyright and patents for inventions.

v.1. Essay on the origin & progress of literary property, by Lord Dreghorn. Evidence given to the Royal commission on copyright in favour of royalty re-publishing. Extracts, notes, & tables illustrating these subjects, copyright of design, etc.-v.2. Exposure of the patent system by M.M. Chevalier. Evidence from blue-books, 1829, 1851, 1864, 1865, 1871, 1872. Extracts & notes illustrating patents and copyright.

The History of the pirates, : containing the lives of those noted pirate captains, Mission, Bowen, Kidd, Tew, Halsey, White, Condent, Bellamy, Fly, Howard, Lewis, Cornelius, Williams, Burgess, North, and their several crews. : Also, and account of the piracies and cruelties of John Augur, William Cunningham, Dennis Mackarthy, William Dowling, William Lewis, Thomas Morris, George Bendall, and William Ling, who were tried, condemned, and executed at Nassau, New Providence, on the tenth of December, 1718. : To which is added, a correct account of the late piracies committed in the West Indies; and the expedition of Commodore Porter.

Later editions published under title: The history of the lives and bloody exploits of the most noted pirates.

Attitudes to language in literary sources:beyond post-colonialism in nigerian literature

All societies display attitudes to (varieties of) languages that tell us about the relative status of the groups that are associated to them. One method to document these is the systematic study of public discourses, including literary production. How (varieties of) languages are used, mentioned and characterised in a literary work tells us about their social status, and any change in this status should therefore be followed by changes in judgements on languages. This is demonstrated by the present paper with reference to the language attitudes in Nigeria, on the basis of two iconic Nigerian novels 2004 Purple Hibiscus and in 1958 classic postcolonial Things Fall Apart, separated by nearly fifty years. Ibo as well as Pidgin, Nigerian and European Englishes are presented in Purple Hibiscus in nuanced complementary configurations. A strong axiological polarisation is by contrast offered in Things Fall Apart between Ibo speakers and Ibo interpreters who are presented as cruel and ridiculous traitors siding with the English colonising power whose language, curiously, is not commented upon. Showing how a replicable method applied to language judgements can document social organisation and change, these results validate the view that the Nigerian society and culture has moved beyond the historically situated postcolonialist movement to embrace a globalised paradigm. © 2010 Taylor & Francis.

The Life of an Author: Samuel Egerton Brydges and the Copyright Act 1814

The history of literary copyright in nineteenth century Britain is dominated - understandably perhaps - by a preoccupation with the passing and impact of the Copyright Amendment Act 1842, so ably lobbied for by Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd. This article, however, draws attention away from the 1842 Act towards the Copyright Act 1814, the first legislative provision within British copyright law to introduce a lifetime term of protection for the author. Why and on what basis did the legislature do so?
In bringing a renewed attention to this often overlooked legislative measure, we consider the context and logic that underpinned to grant of a copyright term that was tethered to the life of the author. In doing so, we might also find a useful prism through which to look afresh at current copyright debates concerning the appropriate nature and scope of copyright protection in the 21st century.

Commentary on Copyright Act 1814

Legislation replacing the Statute of Anne 1710 (uk_1710) and providing that copyright in a literary work would last for twenty-eight years from the time of publication, but that ‘if the author shall be living' at the end of that period then the work was to be protected ‘for the residue of his natural life'.
The commentary explores the background to the legislation, and in particular the controversy over the library deposit provision in the wake of the decision in Beckford v. Hood (1798) (uk_1798a). The commentary suggests that the introduction of the reversionary lifetime copyright term had more to do with the opportunistic and timely intervention of one Member of Parliament (Samuel Egerton Brydges) than with any principled or considered position adopted on the part of the legislature.

El acceso abierto al conocimiento científico

[cat] En aquest document es descriuen i s'analitzen els conceptes fonamentals relacionats amb l'accés obert al coneixement científic. En primer lloc, es presenta una breu història dels drets d'autor i del copyright (tots esl drets reservats) fins avui. Avui la digitalització ha donat pas a un nou model de llicències copyleft (alguns drets reservats). S'ofereixen respostes a les preguntes més freqüents sobre l'aplicació dels drets d'autor en e l'àmbit acadèmic i la investigació. Es presenten dos models de llicències copyleft: Creative Commons i les llicències d'Universitat (Harvard). A través de diferents declaracions (Budapest, Bethesda i Berlín) es defineixen els principis i acords internacionals en matèria d'accés obert a la comunitat científica i acadèmica en la darrera dècada. Finalment, es defineix el concepte d'"Educació OOberta" i es descriu el paper dels Repositoris Institucionals en l'enmagatzament i difusió del coneixement científic i acadèmic.

A web ontologies framework for digital rights management

In order to improve the management of copyright in the Internet, known as Digital Rights Management, there is the need for a shared language for copyright representation. Current approaches are based on purely syntactic solutions, i.e. a grammar that defines a rights expression language. These languages are difficult to put into practise due to the lack of explicit semantics that facilitate its implementation. Moreover, they are simple from the legal point of view because they are intended just to model the usage licenses granted by content providers to end-users. Thus, they ignore the copyright framework that lies behind and the whole value chain from creators to end-users. Our proposal is to use a semantic approach based on semantic web ontologies. We detail the development of a copyright ontology in order to put this approach into practice. It models the copyright core concepts for creation, rights and the basic kinds of actions that operate on content. Altogether, it allows building a copyright framework for the complete value chain. The set of actions operating on content are our smaller building blocks in order to cope with the complexity of copyright value chains and statements and, at the same time, guarantee a high level of interoperability and evolvability. The resulting copyright modelling framework is flexible and complete enough to model many copyright scenarios, not just those related to the economic exploitation of content. The ontology also includes moral rights, so it is possible to model this kind of situations as it is shown in the included example model for a withdrawal scenario. Finally, the ontology design and the selection of tools result in a straightforward implementation. Description Logic reasoners are used for license checking and retrieval. Rights are modelled as classes of actions, action patterns are modelled also as classes and the same is done for concrete actions. Then, to check if some right or license grants an action is reduced to check for class subsumption, which is a direct functionality of these reasoners.

Les droits économiques dans l'environnement numérique : portrait de notions en mutation

L'accès généralisé à Internet a remis en question le droit d'auteur. Au milieu des années 90, il s'en trouvait plusieurs pour annoncer la mort de cette institution vieille de quelques siècles. Force est aujourd'hui de constater que le droit d'auteur est toujours bien vivant bien qu'il ait changé. Les droits économiques, qui ont rapidement été appliqués dans l'environnement numérique, témoignent de ces changements. L'analyse de la transmission numérique des fichiers audio expose les mutations qui affectent deux droits économiques en particulier: le droit de reproduction et le droit de communication au public par télécommunication. Ces mutations résultent tantôt de l'intervention du législateur, tantôt de la façon dont on choisit d'appliquer ces droits dans ce nouvel environnement. Elles ont souvent pour effet d'étendre la portée traditionnelle de ces droits économiques. Cela se fait parfois au détriment des rationalités qui en justifient l'existence. De plus, la nouvelle interaction entre ces droits mutés entraîne des effets sur les différents acteurs du droit d'auteur qui sont parfois discutables. Le droit d'auteur a toujours sa raison d'être. Reste à savoir si la forme actuelle des droits économiques est toujours le meilleur véhicule pour atteindre les objectifs sous-jacents. À l'heure où le législateur envisage une simplification du droit d'auteur, une réflexion s'impose au sujet de la forme des droits économiques. Il est grand temps, du moins dans l'environnement numérique, d'adopter une approche qui se fonde plus sur les effets des actes posés que sur leur nature. L'examen des mutations qui affectent les droits économiques dans cet environnement fait d'ailleurs prendre conscience des limites de notre façon positiviste d'envisager ces droits.

La brevetabilité des logiciels

Mémoire présenté à la Faculté des études supérieures en vue de l'obtention du grade de Maîtrise en droit (L.LM.)

A demonstration of 'broken' visual space

It has long been assumed that there is a distorted mapping between real and ‘perceived’ space, based on demonstrations of systematic errors in judgements of slant, curvature, direction and separation. Here, we have applied a direct test to the notion of a coherent visual space. In an immersive virtual environment, participants judged the relative distance of two squares displayed in separate intervals. On some trials, the virtual scene expanded by a factor of four between intervals although, in line with recent results, participants did not report any noticeable change in the scene. We found that there was no consistent depth ordering of objects that can explain the distance matches participants made in this environment (e.g. A > B > D yet also A < C < D) and hence no single one-to-one mapping between participants’ perceived space and any real 3D environment. Instead, factors that affect pairwise comparisons of distances dictate participants’ performance. These data contradict, more directly than previous experiments, the idea that the visual system builds and uses a coherent 3D internal representation of a scene.

Gestão coletiva de direitos autorais da execução pública musical no Brasil: o processo de reforma do sistema ECAD pela lei 12.853 de 2013

Este trabalho se propõe a fazer uma análise do processo da reforma legislativa trazida pela lei 12.853/13 ao sistema brasileiro de gestão coletiva de direitos autorais da execução pública musical, centralizado na figura do Escritório Central de Arrecadação e Distribuição. Para tanto, é feita uma descrição de como esse sistema funcionava anteriormente, quais as críticas a ele apresentadas e quais mudanças a nova lei trouxe. Aborda-se o conceito de gestão coletiva, a organização deste setor no Brasil, a CPI do Senado Federal sobre o Ecad, o julgamento deste órgão por ilícitos antitruste pelo Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica, o processo legislativo da reforma e as ADIs propostas no Supremo Tribunal Federal contra ela. Assim é exposto como o discurso de autonomia na gestão coletiva é substituído pelo da regulação, que se mostra mais adequado à realidade brasileira para sanar grande parte dos problemas encontrados no setor e melhorar a situação de titulares e usuários de direitos autorais. Neste campo eivado de conflitos e disputas, agora está nas mãos do Supremo Tribunal Federal decidir pela constitucionalidade da nova lei.

A proteção dos direitos autorais a partir da realidade Internet: a perspectiva brasileira

Pós-graduação em Ciência da Informação - FFC

La traduction des textes de théatre. Analyse comparée des réalités contemporaines française et italienne

The aim of the present study is to address contemporary drama translation by comparing two different scenarios, namely France and Italy. For each country, the following areas are described: publications of translated drama texts, their promotion and dissemination, the legal framework concerning copyright in publication and performance contracts. Moreover, the analysis highlights that the translation process of drama texts is part of a working cycle networking different professional figures, such as dramatic authors, directors, actors and publishers. Within this cycle, the translator is in a middle and central position at the same time, a sort of border zone between different contexts, i.e. the source language and culture and the target language and culture. As regards translation-related issues, on the basis of theoretical approaches that can be applied to drama translation, a number of translators’ opinions, statements, positions and practices are compared, thus highlighting an idea of drama translation wavering between translation and adaptation. Drama translators seem to follow these two orientations simultaneously, in compliance with translation ethics and the functional needs of target texts. Such ambivalence is due to the desire and difficulty of translating the specific nature of drama texts, i.e. translating textual elements that are linked, eventually, to stage performance. Indeed, the notion of text or form fidelity is replaced by the notion of fidelity to the theatrical value of a text, in terms of fidelity to its theatrical nature and rhythmical tension. The analysis reveals that drama translators work together with theatre operators, and that in many cases translators are authors, directors or actors themselves. These drama skills enable translators to apply relevant strategies when translating elements that generate rhythm, thus choosing from deleting, reproducing or recreating.