Milan, May 15, 1998
 

to the kind attention of:

             Mr Luc HIERGENS [ INTAS Finance Manager, Brussels (BE) ]

and, cc :
                Mr Ruben VARDAPETIAN [ INTAS Officer, Brussels (BE) ]
                Mr Hermann ZEYEN [ UNI - Uppsala (SE), EU Partner ]
                Mr Yuri YUROV [ SPETSGEOFIZIKA - Moscow (RU), Russian Partner ]
                Mr Valentin GEYKO [ UAS - Kiev (UA), Ukrainian Partner ]
 
 
 

But, first of all, let me recall a brief but important point, especially useful for our Eastern Partners towards whom this work has been thought, planned and being carried out in this year. I don't know when and how the social and scientific situation in NIS Countries will come back to their high levels as before the '90s. But we all know that the Science Policy (and social too) can improve only through the development of some strategic and crucial points: one of them is collaboration: that means, among other things, good infrastructure actions and plans, and better communication tools. INTAS and the other European Co-operation Projects with third Countries (Meda, Urb-Al, Asia-Invest, Alure, Phare & Tacit, etc.) could become unique models for such collaboration actions. Of course, everybody must be aware of the global frame of the new Society we are rebuilding: let me use the words reported by J.E.Aubert (O.E.C.D.) on the Isconis Proceedings of the Vienna meeting of Dec.'97 [7] : "…(omissis) the long-term development is the main problem, and this can only be solved by the establishment of a proper legal and institutional framework which allows innovation and technological development to flourish, as these are the basis for the long-term development of the economy, by which the science reform can be supported". Nothing else to add.
 

Preface

It is difficult to try to summarise in few sheets the content of more than 4 kg of correspondence-papers collected since my first engagements in this work in Winter '96 (!!) without taking into account my outgoing mail sent to the other three Partners and/or Intas Offices. Has all this material been necessary to build up a steady Project? To start with sound roots, continue with careful elasticity, and finally hoping to end it with the last light touching up? In other words: to realise an Infrastructure Action of which to be proud? I don't know. Certainly many complications have set in, some choices made by our Russian Partner required more bureaucratic actions, and our primary plan has been a little modified (not substantially, however). But, after all, actions speak louder than words: and I'm sure that at the end of this '98 both Moscow and Kiev certainly will have their own EDP Centres. At the moment we are in a crucial point, and from our choices in the near future will depend much of the final reliability of the designed systems. Therefore, in the next two months, we all should have to improve our harmony, and well develop our best jobs in financial, technical and computing science aspects.

The main facts

During all 1997, we have been engaged in the compilation of the many formal procedures to assure to our Action a successful reception by Intas. The Intas Scientific Committee approved it on March 1997; then many other bureaucratic duties were solved until obtaining the Co-operation Agreement and other annexed documents on October 1997. A short history of our IA-96-03 Infrastructure Action is reported on my home-page http://daphne.irrs.mi.cnr.it/~mariano.

Here I report the most important dates and/or problems that came up:

1.  Communications with Moscow and Kiev
During the early steps of our collaboration, the communications with our NIS countries have been very limited: they had only one telephone line, occasionally switchable to a Fax-line. Now the situation has definitely improved, but still some lack of links does remain. The current addresses are follows:

 

Locality	Telephone	Fax	E-mail		www
Milan	+39 2 23699254	236 2946  266 80987	m.maistrello@irrs.mi.cnr.it	daphne.irrs.mi.cnr.it/ ~mariano
Uppsala	+46 18 4713781	501 110	hz@geofys.uu.se	www.geofys.uu.se/eprobe
Kiev	+380 44 4440112	450 2520	earth@igph.kiev.ua	Planned
Moscow	+7 095 264 8669                        0673	264 6710	Planned	planned

3.  Zurich small-meeting
In Zurich (October '97), on the occasion of an EUROPROBE Workshop (Georift), we had a small preliminary meeting. In this occasion Mr Zeyen, Mr Yurov and myself discussed the way to guarantee the best success to our Project. Also Prof. Gee was present, and he was very kind in calling the Finance Intas Officer and verifying that the requested funds were really available at the General Bank in Brussels. The main conclusions of this meeting have been:

• Spetsgeofizika (Mr Yurov) asks the EU Partners to be comprehensive with regard to the current situation of the Russian scientific network: even the simplest things (as, for instance, the logistic requirements for the planned EDP) cold become difficult; but the situation is improving, and he's optimistic. Furthermore, he will be engaged on help in looking for the local hardware and software providers, and also for the necessary auxiliary personnel to build a stable team specialised in DSS data processing;
• The Intas members assure that the work-Programme has been realistically designed, and wish to go deeper in the collaborating-style; the Co-ordinator assures that he will transmit to Intas the request of transfer of the available funds, as soon as all the necessary bureaucratic documentation from each Part shall be completed; finally everybody agree to evaluate the possibility to have a first general Meeting (4 Partners + Brussels Intas Officer) in the near months.

5.  Funds 'travels'
In the meantime, while I was making the 1^st request to Intas to transfer the funds from the General Bank to the 4 Partners Banks (after having followed carefully the Intas 'Transfer of funds' Official Guide), our Moscow Partner was looking for a local Reseller for the necessary instruments. There were no problems for Uppsala, Milan and Kiev. The Moscow 'story', instead, must be reported, because it was the main reason of the current delay in our time-schedule. In December '97 the 1^st part of the Moscow funds (68,000 ECU) regularly arrived in the selected Bank in Moscow (Mosbusinessbank - Sverdlovskoe, one of those that have an agreement with Intas). But in the meantime our local Partner signed a Contract with the chosen Vendor: the Roy International inc. I was wrong in thinking that the local instruments could have been paid using the local funds just available in the Bank! Because of the Intas-Mosbusiness agreement (the Bank can pay only cash and wholly and inside Russia, outside only towards the General Bank of Intas, in Brussels) and of the choice of the reseller (who had a foreign Bank account, precisely in the USA) the negotiation has been quite difficult! In fact, and thanks again to the kind assistance and experience of Prof. D.Gee who was in Moscow for an Europrobe Workshop and met Dr, Yurov, a fast solution was found together: the amount of the purchase Contract had to return in Brussels, and from there the General Bank should have transmit the order of payment to the Roy's American Bank. Now we are still waiting for the arrival of the instrumentation which seems to be soon arriving to my Partner office, in Moscow (see annexed doc. #2).
So, we must learn something from this story. At least to be very precise in looking for the local vendors, and become well informed on their way of payments, BEFORE MAKING ANY TRANSFER OF FUNDS FROM AN EU BANK, to be used also to buy instruments there (I only recall here that, as Intas rules say, computers are considered 'small' equipment and it should be better purchase them locally). Also: the local Partner has to feel really responsible for that, and he must be quick end efficient in the communications with the other Partners, especially with his Co-ordinator. This is, among other things, the style, the criteria of an Action like our, isn't it?
 

The current state and near future
The actual situation at the two sites is well described in the annexed papers: [2.: Moscow and 3.: Kiev], where the two Partners illustrate their own states and perspectives. We are very near to the real beginning of the work at Spetsgeofizika, where the instrumentation should be available at the end of May. So after the proper installations made by the vendors, I plan to go there in June to carry out the proper Programme jobs; if we'll be lucky, the whole EDP could be finished in 3 weeks of work. In the meantime, with the 2^nd 'Periodic Payment' of 54,000 ECU, as stated in the Co-operation Agreement, the technical hw and sw needs for the two EDP will be completed: Moscow will obtain the remaining few parts, and Kiev could complete the purchasing of their own instrumentation and software (with much less problems than Moscow had). So the framework should be quite well defined, now: the next two months (June and July '98) we'll make acquisition, check, test, and first experiments on seismic-data processing which must be finished with at least an entire successful tour on the whole software chain, from raster acquisition to a test digital-section, both in Moscow and Kiev. In next September and October we'll explore and go deeper in the processing procedure definition and eventual modifications; also the network technology requirements will be activated, and possibly realised. Finally a real improvement and/or a final product of the workgroup will be the design of a future seismic database, linked strongly to other local partners (Government Institutions, Academies, Networking Research Agencies, etc.)

Cost statements

Updated at May 18, 1998, and taken into account

• the delay of our Project, for the above mentioned reasons;
• the INTAS 'advance Payment' of 108,000 ECU duly occurred on December 1997;
• the Plan of subdivision for such funds as reported in [1] and here summarised:
Milan and Uppsala: 6,000 ECU each; Moscow: 68,000 ECU; Kiev: 28,000 ECU;
• the original Reports from the single Participants [2] & [3]

(1): the full original of 6,000x2 (Milan and Uppsala) ECU transformed in a mean value USD (22.5.'98)
(2): the Contract-cost with Roy Int. Inc. is changed, since OCE' scanner mod. 4720 A0 is no more produced; so we ordered the model 4715 A0 (same model as in Kiev) which is cheaper;
(3): 19,686.96 = 3,115.00+6,224.00+10,347.96
      3,115.00 = dept of ROY inc. which will be returned to me in cash, or sent to the General Bank in Brussels
      6,224.00 = 61,000.00 (returned to the General Bank) - 54,776.00 (the 1^st Contract cost); I expect to buy sw in the same way as hw, with these funds;
      10,347.96 = available in the Moscow's bank
 

This is the end of our periodic progress Report; I'd like to thank all the Participants to our IA-96-03 Action, especially the two Eastern Partners, who read in advance and helped me in writing this document. So, also this represents a sort of a new agreed step forward the Co-operation style we'd like to improve, with our common effort.

      The Scientific Officer                                           the Co-ordinator

  …………………………….                                  …………………………….
      (Mariano Maistrello)                                    (Prof. Eng. Vincenzo Petrini)
 

List of the Annexed papers:

1. agreed subdivision budget (advance Payment of 108,000 ECU)
2. the Moscow progress Report (by Yuri Yurov, Spetsgeofizika)
3. the Kiev progress Report (by Valentin Geyko, Geophysical Institute of the UAS)
4. the request of TRANSFER OF FUNDS of the periodic payment of 54,000 ECU to the Intas Finance Manager (with the original 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 compiled Forms for each Partner's site - not published in this web-reporting file, author's note -)
5. useful LINKS table.

 (abstract from the original document distributed to all the Participants on November 1997)

payment steps:

A )  Intas 'advance' Payment (already done)
B )  'periodic' Payment (this request)
C )  'final' Payment (10% within two months following the approval of the final Report)

Research Group of SPETSGEOFIZIKA

• The Group

• Spetsgeofizika

1. Spetsgeofizika has carried out in 1960-'70 a considerable amount of the DSS continuous profiling in different regions of the former USSR;
2. At present it carries out modern crustal CDP and wide-angle observations on the East European Platform;
3. Spetsgeofizika plans to do crustal CDP measurements along the DSS profile XX, which will be the first profile to be digitised with the proposed system.

As a result of his interest, Spetsgeofizika does a real financial support to the funds obtained by the Intas infrastructure Action INTAS-IA-96-03, as payments for Labour Costs and some additional instruments, renovation of working room, new equipment (like telephone, telefax, etc.) More details about Spetsgeofizika can be found in a special brochure available on request.

• The Hardware

Sun Ultra 30 model 250, UltraSPARC-II proc., 21" colour monitor, creator, series 3 graphics, 128-MB, 4.2 GB internal Fast/Wide SCSI-2 disk	19,125.00
128 MB memory expansion	1,722.00
36.4 GB (=4x9.1) MultiPack	12,054.00
Tape 14 GB/8mm UniPack 50/68	2,645.00
OCE' colour plotter mod. 5125C, A0 format	3,815.00
OCE' scanner mod. 4715, A0 format, with connection kit	12,300.00
TOTAL	51,661.00

• The Software

• Synapse will supply to Spetsgeofizika all the digitising and processing software, with the User's Guide;
• Synapse will do the necessary technical support and training of our team;
• Synapse agrees to improve the program according to our offers.

---------------------------------------------------------
(*) note from the Scientific-Officer: the original HW list, already sent to INTAS on February'98, was of 54,776.00 USD. I received a first news about this modification on May, 22, and the final list and agreement between Spetsgeofizika and Roy International Consultancy inc only on May, 24, just the days I was writing this Report! Of course I soon transmitted the necessary new Forms to Intas (FORM 1 and annexed) to allow the possible instrumentation transfer to the Russian Federation.

• the DATA

• the Financial problems

From Kiev, we send the following information.

• The Infrastructure Action IA-96-03 is very important for Ukrainian geophysicists from scientific and technical point of view, since:
• DSS photographic records obtained in the period 1961-1982 need a digital conversion and storage, since they are deteriorating, and no assistance could be guaranteed in their analogue storage;
• The digital acquisition of such DSS data, their vectorisation, graphical and numerical processing, and a final seismic Database creation will allow us to make new interpretation of the geophysical crustal models, by means modern methods and techniques.
• Our Geophysical Institute controls about 80% of the Ukrainian DSS data (almost 8000 seismograms). The Dnepropetrovsk State Enterprise of State Geology Committee of Ukraine controls the other 20% (about 2500). The seismic DSS profiles criss-cross all the Ukrainian main tectonic structures: the Ukrainian Shield and its flanked structures, the Voronezh Massif, the Dnieper-Donetsk depression, Crimea, and other. These DSS data will be very seful for our best researches in the frame of the international EUROPROBE Project: the key projects PANCARDI (Eastern Carpathian, the Eastern Carpathian Foredeed, the Trans-Carpathian Depression) and GEORIFT (the Dnieper-Donetsk Depression and the Donetsk Basin), the major Project EUROBRIDGE (the Northern and Central parts of the Ukrainian Shield) and the planned Project DOBRE (the Donetsk Basin).
• We tested the Demo version of VP studio, VP max and the other R2V. From my viewpoint the package R2V has some advantages, especially for custom vectorisation, but I can't make the final choice.

On 24 Jan. 1998 I obtained from Intas the 'advance Payment' of 28,000 ECU, that means 29,550.75 US$. At present we made the following:
 

Where the (*) purchased equipment have been:

After have obtained this first payment, we are waiting for the 2^nd periodic Payment from Intas Finance Manager of 44,000 ECU, as agreed in the Co-operation Agreement document. That means (adding the available rest) a total of about 56,000 US$. According to the plan studied and accepted in Kiev, our expected costs will be:

Where the (**) New equipment will be as follow:

To the kind attention of Mr Luc HIERGENS
                                          Intas Finance Manager
                                          58, Rue des Arts, box 8
                                          B - 1000 Brussels

Dear Mr Hiergens,

In the frame of our Intas Infrastructure Action INTAS-IA-96-03, please find enclosed the 4 completed forms for the requests of the 'periodic payment'. They regard respectively to:

• the IRRS Institute of CNR - Milan - Italy - (the Co-ordinator site);
• the Geophysical Institute of Uppsala University (the 2^nd Intas member);
• the Geophysical Institute of Ukrainian national Academy of Sciences (the Ukrainian Partner);
• the Spetsgeofizika enterprise (Russian Federation Ministry of Natural Resources, the RU Partner)

All the IA-96-03 Group thanks you in advance for your kind attention; best regards.
 

The Scientific Officer                                the Director of IRRS
 

……………………………                     ……………………………...
(Dr. Mariano Maistrello)                    (Prof. Eng. Vincenzo Petrini)