Software contracts

No documentation is available to show that either internal quality audits or an evaluation of the contract software developer had ever been performed. [FDA Warning Letter, 2001]... 

The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) was originally developed as a tool for objectively assessing the ability of government contractors processes to perform a contracted software project. The CMM is based on the Process Maturity Framework first described in Managing the Software Process by Watts Humphrey and later published in its full form as a book named The Capability Maturity Model Guidelines for Improving the Software Process in 1994 by Mark Paulk, Charles Weber, Bill Curtis, and Mary Beth Chrissis. 

Reed (ed.), 2000. Computer law, 4th edn. Blackstone Press (especially the chapters on hardware contracts, software contracts and liability). 

An older, but still used, notation specihes how many contractions are present. For example, the acronym TZV stands for triple-zeta valence, meaning that there are three valence contractions, such as in a 6—311G basis. The acronyms SZ and DZ stand for single zeta and double zeta, respectively. A P in this notation indicates the use of polarization functions. Since this notation has been used for describing a number of basis sets, the name of the set creator is usually included in the basis set name (i.e., Ahlrichs VDZ). If the author s name is not included, either the Dunning-Hay set is implied or the set that came with the software package being used is implied. 

The contracted basis set created from the procedure above is listed in Figure 28.3. Note that the contraction coefficients are not normalized. This is not usually a problem since nearly all software packages will renormalize the coefficients automatically. The atom calculation rerun with contracted orbitals is expected to run much faster and have a slightly higher energy. 

Most tolls involve the transfer of proprietary information from one party to the other, typically from the client company to the toller. Each party should have maintained a log of transferred documents or software code to make the return of proprietary documents a simple matter. An initial list of the documents should have been referenced in the contract or as part of the technology package. Keeping records of additional documents transferred during the course of the toll will help eliminate confusion at the end of the project. The toller may need to retain documents appropriate for their process safety system needs. 

The drive for these additional requirements has come not from the suppliers but from users, such as the automotive, utilities, telecommunications, software, and aerospace industries which purchase millions of products and services used to produce the goods and services they provide to the consumer. Rather than invoke customer-specific conditions in each contract, the larger purchasers perceive real benefits from agreeing common quality system requirements for their industry sector. Quite often a supplier will be supplying more than one customer in a particular sector and hence costs increase for both the supplier and the customer if the supplier has to meet different requirements that serve the same objective. All customers desire products and services that consistently/ meet their requirements. While the physical and functional requirements for the product or service will differ, the requirements governing the manner in which their quality is to be achieved, controlled, and assured need not differ. Differences in quality system requirements may arise between industry sectors where the technology, complexity, and risks are different. 

In many cases these requirements will not apply but in some contractual situations the customer may provide products or services for use by the supplier in connection with the contract. This clause of the standard specifies requirements that apply in such situations. The product being supplied may have been produced by a competitor, by the customer, or even by your own firm under a different contract. These requirements apply to any product supplied to you by your customer and not only to what is to be incorporated into supplies. The customer may in fact supply facilities, equipment, software, or documentation for use in conjunction with the contract, which may be provided on loan, to be returned on completion of the contract or to be retained. Customer-owned tooling and returnable packaging also constitutes customer supplied product. If you use the customer s facilities, such use should be governed by the regulations imposed in the contract rather than these requirements. If the customer supplies documentation, unless it is required to be returned, you should assume it is yours to keep. Such documentation is not governed by these requirements although, if the customer requires the documents to be returned, you should assume that these requirements do apply, but apply them with discretion. 

Hardware, software, documentation, or information owned by the customer which is provided to a supplier for use in connection with a contract and which is returned to the customer either incorporated in the supplies or at the end of the contract. 

LIMS as rented service— The application service provision provider (ASP) is a means of obtaining access to software applications without the need to acquire expensive licenses and hardware or employ high-cost support resources [7]. The application is hosted on a third-party site with system maintenance, backup, and recovery provided by a third party. Products and services can be rented for a contract period on a fixed cost per user/per month basis. The advantages of obtaining LIMS in this fashion include reduced cost in initial investment and reduced requirement of resources for maintaining the LIMS. The continued security and integrity of the data transferred over the Internet is a major concern for this type of LIMS. 

Several of the software tools used most frequently today include Beilstein Crossfire (information at www.mdli.com) and SciFinder from the Chemical Abstracts Service (www.cas.org/scifinder/) for structure-based reaction searches. Reagent availability information is often searched with MDL s ACD and CAS s SciFinder. Special compound collections and contract services offered by new companies such as ChemNavigator (www.chemnavigator.com)... 

Johnson [17] identifies several topics related to liability, and she offers an important distinction as well. Among the topics related to liability and computer use in general are legal liability, the duty of honesty, the nature of contracts, misrepresentation, express and implied warranties, and negligence [17]. The relevant distinction concerns the nature of software as either a product or a service. Many of these topics hold little interest for the ethicist investigating computer ethics. For instance, legal liability is less important to philosophy than to jurisprudence. 

The formal parts are not necessarily readable on their own by the end users of a software product. But the purpose of formal description is not necessarily to be a contract... 

The people who will use your product need to see the requirements, although not the design. How this works depends on what sort of clients they are. If they are another design team using your software component, you can expect them to understand the documents directly. Still, it is essential that you clearly separate the external view from the internal workings. The requirements documents form part of the client s contract with you. 

Predefined context design. Throughout this study, we conjecture that we re concerned with building a computer System that will work within some human context. Of course, many of the contracts that software designers have with their clients or employers are about building components within a larger piece of software or a system embedded within a complex design of many pieces of hardware. 

Marquez, AC, Blanchar C (2004) The procurement of strategic parts. Analysis of contracts with suppliers using a system dynamics simulation model. International Journal of Production Economics 88 (1) 29-49 Mason S (2002) Simulation software buyer s guide. HE Solutions May 45-51 McAfee R, McMillan J (1987) Auctions and Bidding. Journal of Economic Literature 25 699-738... 

It is not possible to use normal AO basis sets in relativistic calculations The relativistic contraction of the inner shells makes it necessary to design new basis sets to account for this effect. Specially designed basis sets have therefore been constructed using the DKH Flamiltonian. These basis sets are of the atomic natural orbital (ANO) type and are constructed such that semi-core electrons can also be correlated. They have been given the name ANO-RCC (relativistic with core correlation) and cover all atoms of the Periodic Table.36-38 They have been used in most applications presented in this review. ANO-RCC are all-electron basis sets. Deep core orbitals are described by a minimal basis set and are kept frozen in the wave function calculations. The extra cost compared with using effective core potentials (ECPs) is therefore limited. ECPs, however, have been used in some studies, and more details will be given in connection with the specific application. The ANO-RCC basis sets can be downloaded from the home page of the MOLCAS quantum chemistry software (http //www.teokem.lu.se/molcas). 

Sklarew, R. C., A. J. Fabrick, and J. E. Prager. A Particle-in-Oll Method for Numerical Solution of the Atmospheric Diffusion Equation, and Applications to Air Pollution Problems. Final Report 3SR-844. Vol. 1. (Prepared for the Environmental Protection Agency under Contract 68-02-(X)06) La Jolla, Calif. Systems, Science and Software, 1971. 173 pp. 

For HCS to be fully accepted by academia, several conditions will need to be fulfilled. Current HCS instruments are closed black boxes and their expensive maintenance contracts do not allow any hardware or software modifications for adaptation to the diverse needs of academic research. Academic research is typically more diversified than pharmaceutical industry research and the instruments need to be more customizable than they are now. In addition, the image and data formats need to be accessible and open. In academia data is shared between collaborators and will be analyzed with various, partly custom-made software. Therefore the data needs to be accessible and open. Lastly, the yearly costs of maintenance contracts and licenses are particularly difficult to finance in academic research that relies heavily on grants. Grants typically do not cover licensing costs or if they do, when the grant runs out, new sources of funding must be found. In reality, those costs must generally be covered by institutional funds. 

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