When IT Evolves Beyond Community Needs: Coevolution of Bottom-Up IT Innovation and Communities

This paper examines how innovative uses of IT artifacts and their repurposing to fulfill emerging or unsatisfied user needs (bottom-up innovation, BUI) develop in community settings. Based on a longitudinal analysis of “HomeNets,” communities that developed residential internet access in Belarus over a 20-year period, we illustrate that the development of community BUI is driven not only by the needs of the innovating members but also by the interplay between the innovating members’ community context and technology and the interplay between the BUI technology and context. We demonstrate how these dynamics trigger community BUI development that goes beyond the needs and expectations of the innovating actors and impacts community evolution and long-term survival. Based on our findings, we develop a model of community BUI development. We discuss the theoretical implications of our findings, highlighting the role of technology and context in community BUI and its processual unfolding beyond the needs and intentions of the innovating members

SENSE-MAKING TECHNIQUES IN EDUCATIONAL PROCESS AND THEIR IMPACT ON THE PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF STUDENTS

This study looks into psychotechnics used in education and contributing to initiating logic among students, their personal growth and characterizes psychological features of “sense-deducting”. Here you will find a review of the sense-making techniques considering as one of the categories of psychotechnics. The described techniques are based on the human psychology, they improve the quality of instruction, create a favorable and unique system of values, take into account the individual characteristics of all types of education, and influence the sense-making process development among children. Sense-making techniques are stated in the author’s classification and extended by practical methods. The study of psychological features of influence of sense-making techniques on the personality of a student lets us see new patterns in personal, subjective and “meta-subjective” results of acquiring of the school program via transformation and development of value/logic consciousness of a child. The work emphasizes that the use of sense-making techniques is effective in the educational and after-school activities of the educational organization. The achieved results make it possible to understand, to substantiate the naturalness and relevance of the sense-technical approach according to personal and academic indicators of students. In the process of competent and correct use of the semantic techniques, we see the possibility of conveying the best, productive and quality pedagogical experience, as well as the perspective of innovative developments in the psychological and pedagogical sciences. For children and adolescents, information, thanks to sense-techniques, starts to be personal in nature, knowledge is objectified, learning activity becomes an individual need

Sea-level and climatic controls on Aptian depositional environments of the Eastern Russian Platform

© 2015 Elsevier B.V. On the basis of a high-resolution chronostratigraphic framework of the Eastern Russian Platform, a comparison between Late Barremian-Aptian global and regional sea-level trends was performed. The detailed evaluation of the long-term (3rd order) Aptian sea-level cycle results in the recognition of sea-level and climate as controlling factors on depositional environments in the basin. The rising part of the Aptian sea-level cycle lasted from the Deshayesites tenuicostatusis Zone to the Deshayesites deshayesi Zone, and transgression is responsible for the local development of anoxia on the Eastern Russian Platform. The Lower Aptian bituminous shales and sheeted calcite concretions associated with the Eastern Russian Platform are interpreted as being a regional manifestation of Oceanic Anoxic Event OAE 1a. The Late Aptian "cold snap" that occurred during the Early Cretaceous greenhouse world coincided with a simultaneous global and regional sea-level lowstand, peak shallowing of the basin, and the almost complete absence of sediments due to subaerial exposure in the studied region. The global distribution of the lowstand gives clear evidence for sea-level fluctuations, and intrinsic climate control on sequences in the study area

Eustatic, tectonic, and climatic signatures in the Lower Cretaceous siliciclastic succession on the Eastern Russian Platform

© 2014 Elsevier B.V. A methodical approach to identifying major abiotic events in the siliciclastic succession accumulated in the shallow epicontinental basin on the Eastern Russian Platform during the Early Cretaceous is presented. On the basis of a reliable chronostratigraphic framework a comparison between global and regional sea level curves was undertaken. The intervals during which the global and regional sea level curve trends are similar correspond to a predominance of eustasy in the particular basin. Alternatively, tectonic activity dominates during intervals when there is no similarity between the trends of the global and regional sea level curves. Three intervals of noncoincidences of trends of these two curves matched with major tectonic events that took place within the Eastern Russian Platform in the Early Cretaceous: the Early Hauterivian tectonic uplift, subsequent Late Hauterivian subsidence and the Late Albian uplift. The main consequences of the tectonic activity were two large regional unconformities and hiati. The comparison of main global and regional sea level trends also reveals major climatic events. "The cold snaps" that occurred during the Early Cretaceous greenhouse world (Hu et al., 2012) coincided with simultaneous global and regional sea level lowstands, peak shallowing of the basin and the almost complete absence of sediments. "The cold snap" is identified in the Late Aptian sedimentary sequences on the Eastern Russian Platform

Sedimentation regime and accommodation space in the Middle Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous on the eastern Russian Plate

© 2014. This study presents new data on transgressive-regressive and accommodation-sedimentation regimes in the eastern Russian Plate during the Middle Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous. The proposed generalized scheme illustrating the combined effects of three major factors (eustasy, tectonic "noise", and depositional gradient) controlling the deposition of sequences with different stratal architecture allowed us to quantify the parameters of sedimentation (5S) and accommodation (5A) for second- and third-order cycles. A distinctive feature of the evolution of the Middle Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous sedimentary basin is the excess of accommodation space over sediment supply, which was not conducive to creation of clinoforms. The difference between stacking patterns in individual time intervals and the estimated values of 5A/5S may be indicative of the presence of unidentified stratigraphic breaks in the Bathonian and Late Tithonian-Berriasian, which were accompanied by erosion and reworking of sand strata. The stepwise regressive-transgressive deepening during the Oxfordian-Early Tithonian and transgressive-regressive shallowing during the Late Tithonian-Berriasian were probably caused by short-term manifestations of local tectonic "noise", and depositional hiatuses accompanied by the erosion of missing elements in the structure of third-order cycles. The Lower Cretaceous succession exhibits no mismatch between transgressive-regressive and retrogradational-progradational cycling, which provides another supporting evidence for a quiet tectonoeustatic and sedimentation regime during the Early Cretaceous compared to that of Middle-Late Jurassic time

Mineralogical composition of the Lower and Upper Kazanian (Mid-Permian) rocks and facies distribution at the Petchischi region (Eastern Russian Platform)

© 2015, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.Abstract: The mineral composition proportions of carbonate rocks of Kazanian (Mid-Permian) age in the Petchischi region (eastern part of the Russian Platform) was identified by X-ray powder diffraction, ICP-MS and optical microscopy. The Lower Kazanian deposits are presented predominantly by bio-dolomicrites with changing terrigenous component and the lack of gypsum-bearing layers in the succession. Dolomicrites are prevalent in the Upper Kazanian succession, which is composed of alternation of gypsum-bearing dolomites, clayey dolomites and pure dolomites. The discovered bentonite-bearing component in marls and bentonite clays are proposed as evidence of volcanic activity in the Urals in the Kazanian stage. Two marine facies on the Eastern Russian Platform in the Kazanian: peritidal shallow flat and coastal sabkha agree well with the trends of δ18O and δ13C ratios

Middle Jurassic-lower cretaceous tectonic-eustatic cyclites of the Southern East European Craton

A methodical approach to assessment of the role played by vertical tectonic movements in the of tectonic-eustatic cyclicity and the facial appearance of the Middle Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous deposits on the eastern part of the East European Craton has been suggested. Resulting from comparison between the global and regional eustatic curves, the modeling of probable versions of the lithological composition for sediments during eustatic oscillations, and the comparison of modeling results with the chronostratigraphic scheme, the global eustatic component and regional "tectonic noise" have been identified. It has been found that the vertical tectonic movements formed the boundaries of the most distinguished cyclites on the eastern part of the East European Craton. The spatial-temporal uniformity in the material composition of cyclites, related to the long periods of stable high-stand sea level, caused their mineralogenic specialization for a broad range of non-ore mineral resources. © Pleiades Publishing, Ltd., 2012

Early Cretaceous sea level fluctuations in the eastern part of the East European Platform

© 2016, Pleiades Publishing, Ltd.The quantitative sea-level curve in the eastern part of the East European Platform during the Early Cretaceous first compiled for this region is based on the results of analysis of the corresponding deposits and the bathymetric distribution of benthic foraminifers in their sections. This quantitative curve is correlated with the sea-level curve constructed for central areas of the East European Platform [9]. According to [9], the basin in the central part of the platform was as deep as 110 m, while in its eastern areas the depth amounted to 350 m. It is revealed that tectono-eustatic cycles defined previously in the central part of the platform and cycles (megasequences) in its eastern areas are asynchronous and are characterized by different orders. Such asynchrony is determined by the different tectonic trends in these regions during the Early Cretaceous

Comment on “Danian/Selandian unconformity in the central and southern Western Desert of Egypt” by S. Farouk and A. El-Sorogy [J. Afr. Earth Sci. 103 (2015) 42–53]

© 2015 Elsevier LtdIn their recent paper, Farouk and El-Sorogy (2015) present a reconstruction of the Danian–Selandian relative sea-level changes for the Western Desert of Egypt and an interpretation of eustatic versus tectonic controls on the latter. However, the relative sea-level changes should be distinguished from the shoreline shifts (also for the purposes of inter-regional comparisons). From three alternative global curves, two confirm the authors’ conclusions, although it is questionable whether these curves are suitable for the purposes of such an analysis. It cannot be excluded that the relative sea-level fall in the late Danian was caused by the same regional tectonic uplift that resulted in the hiatus at the Danian/Selandian boundary. More research (including quantitative palaeobathymetric modelling) is necessary to understand the relative importance of the eustatic and tectonic controls on the sea-level changes established in the Western Desert of Egypt