Halocinese e tectônica de rafts na bacia emersa de Benguela (Angola): dados de campo, modelagem física e restauração estrutural

Este trabalho foi feito com dados de campo da Bacia de Benguela, na costa sul de Angola. Nesta área aflora uma plataforma carbonática de idade albiana, análoga às formações produtoras de petróleo de mesma idade na Bacia de Campos. Duas unidades principais compõem a seção albiana na área: uma unidade inferior caracterizada por carbonatos de águas rasas com intercalações de conglomerados e arenitos na base, totalizando 300 m de espessura total, e uma unidade superior formada por sedimentos carbonáticos de águas mais profundas com espessura de 100 m. Esta seção se apresenta em dois domínios estruturais. O norte é caracterizado por uma plataforma de cerca de 5 km de largura, 35 km de comprimento na direção NE e que se encontra próxima ao embasamento. No domínio sul, essa plataforma se apresenta em fragmentos de menos de 10 km de comprimento por até 5 km de largura, alguns deles afastados do embasamento. Dado que há evaporitos sob essa plataforma, fez-se este trabalho com o objetivo de se avaliar a influência da tectônica salífera na estruturação das rochas albianas. A utilização de imagens de satélite de domínio público permitiu a extrapolação dos dados pontuais e a construção de perfis topográficos que possibilitaram a montagem das seções geológicas. Os dados de campo indicam que a estruturação na parte norte, onde há menos sal, é influenciada pelas estruturas locais do embasamento. Já na parte sul, onde a espessura de sal é maior, a deformação é descolada das estruturas do embasamento. Foi feita uma seção geológica em cada domínio e a restauração dessas duas seções mostrou que a unidade albiana na parte sul sofreu uma distensão de 1,25 (125%) e a de norte se distendeu em 1,05 (105%). Essa diferença foi causada por uma maior espessura original de sal na parte sul, que fez com que a cobertura albiana se distendesse mais em consequência da fluência do sal mergulho abaixo, em resposta ao basculamento da bacia em direção a offshore. A intensidade da deformação na parte sul foi tal que os blocos falhados perderam os contatos entre si, formando rafts. Este efeito foi reproduzido em modelos físicos, indicando que a variação na espessura original de sal tem grande influência na estruturação das rochas que o cobrem. As variações de espessura de sal são controladas por zonas de transferência do embasamento e estas mesmas estruturas controlam os limites dos blocos que sofrem soerguimento diferencial no Cenozoico.

Integrated taphonomy in an open-marine platform: The Lower Cretaceous of Sierra Helada (Betic Cordillera, SE Spain)

A detailed taphonomic analysis was carried out on the lower Albian deposits of the Sierra Helada section (Alicante, Betic Cordillera, southeastern Spain). Ten taphonomic characters were studied and ten skeletal concentrations were defined on the basis of taphonomic features and the dominant taxa. Cluster analysis was performed on the dataset represented by the abundance of the taphonomic characters in each skeletal concentration. This enabled the definition of four different taphonomic categories: 1) skeletal concentrations characterized by the presence of fossils preserved in life position, 2) skeletal concentrations showing very little physical reworking, 3) skeletal concentrations related to high-energy background conditions, and 4) skeletal concentrations produced by medium- to high-energy events. Four taphofacies were defined on the basis of the main sedimentological features and the most representative skeletal concentrations. Taphofacies A represents the low energy outer platform, rich in skeletal concentrations with echinoids in life position and only slightly reworked. The second taphofacies (taphofacies B) is very rich in reworked echinoid tests and calcarenitic beds and records the transition to shallower areas, while taphofacies C shows abundant thick-bedded calcarenites and skeletal concentrations produced by sediment transport and rapid deposition. Finally, cross-bedded grainstone beds, which are rich in fine-grained fragmented, locally reoriented bioclasts (taphofacies D), record the existence of shifting sandy dunes in the shallow inner part of the platform.

Co-creative media : theorising digital storytelling as a platform for researching and developing participatory culture

This paper considers the question, ‘what is co-creative media, and why is it a useful idea in social media research’? The term ‘co-creative media’ is now used by Creative Industries researchers at QUT to describe their digital storytelling practices. Digital storytelling is a set of collaborative digital media production techniques that have been used to facilitate social participation in numerous Australian and international contexts. Digital storytelling has been adapted by Creative Industries researchers at QUT as a platform for researching the potential of vernacular creativity in a variety of contexts, including social inclusion of marginalized and disadvantaged groups; inclusion in public histories of narratives that might be overlooked; and articulation of voices that otherwise remain silent in the formulation of social and economic development strategies. The adaption of digital storytelling to different contexts has been shaped by the reflexive, recursive, and pragmatic requirements of action research. Amongst other things, this activity draws attention to the agency of researchers in facilitating these kinds of participatory media processes and outcomes. This discussion serves to problematise concepts of participatory media by introducing the term ‘co-creative media’ and differentiating these from other social media production practices.

The open kimono: How Intel balances trust and power to maintain platform leadership

A small group of companies including Intel, Microsoft, and Cisco have used "platform leadership" with great effect as a means for driving innovation and accelerating market growth within their respective industries. Prior research in this area emphasizes that trust plays a critical role in the success of this strategy. However, many of the categorizations of trust discussed in the literature tend to ignore or undervalue the fact that trust and power are often functionally equivalent, and that the coercion of weaker partners is sometimes misdiagnosed as collaboration. In this paper, I use case study data focusing on Intel's shift from ceramic/wire-bonded packaging to organic/C4 packaging to characterize the relationships between Intel and its suppliers, and to determine if these links are based on power in addition to trust. The case study shows that Intel's platform leadership strategy is built on a balance of both trust and a relatively benevolent form of power that is exemplified by the company's "open kimono" principle, through which Intel insists that suppliers share detailed financial data and highly proprietary technical information to achieve mutually advantageous objectives. By explaining more completely the nature of these inter-firm linkages, this paper usefully extends our understanding of how platform leadership is maintained by Intel, and contributes to the literature by showing how trust and power can be used simultaneously within an inter-firm relationship in a way that benefits all of the stakeholders.

Maintaining centralised application systems : a cross-country, cross-sector, cross-platform comparison

Past studies of software maintenance issues have largely concentrated on the average North American firm. While they have made a substantial contribution to good information system management practice, it is believed that further segmentation of sample data and cross-country comparisons will help to identify patterns of behaviour more akin to many less average organizations in North America and elsewhere. This paper compares the Singapore maintenance scene with the reported North American experience. Comparisons are also made between: Government organizations, Singapore corporations and multinational corporations (MNCs); mainframe and minicomputer installations; and fourth-generation language (4GL) and non-4GL computer installations. Study findings, while in many cases were similar to earlier US studies, do show the importance of Singapore's young application portfolio, the widespread usage of 4GLs and the severe maintenance personnel problems.

Adopting building information modeling (BIM) as collaboration platform in the design industry

This paper discusses the preliminary findings of an ongoing research project aimed at developing a technological, operational and strategic analysis of adopting BIM in AEC/FM (Architecture-Engineering-Construction/Facility Management) industry as a collaboration tool. Outcomes of the project will provide specifications and guidelines as well as establish industry standards for implementing BIM in practice. This research primarily focuses on BIM model servers as a collaboration platform, and hence the guidelines are aimed at enhancing collaboration capabilities. This paper reports on the findings from: (1) a critical review of latest BIM literature and commercial applications, and (2) workshops with focus groups on changing work-practice, role of technology, current perception and expectations of BIM. Layout for case studies being undertaken is presented. These findings provide a base to develop comprehensive software specifications and national guidelines for BIM with particular emphasis on BIM model servers as collaboration platforms.

Design and evaluation of an image analysis platform for low-power, low-bandwidth camera networks

We describe the design and evaluation of a platform for networks of cameras in low-bandwidth, low-power sensor networks. In our work to date we have investigated two different DSP hardware/software platforms for undertaking the tasks of compression and object detection and tracking. We compare the relative merits of each of the hardware and software platforms in terms of both performance and energy consumption. Finally we discuss what we believe are the ongoing research questions for image processing in WSNs.

secFleck: A Public Key Technology Platform for Wireless Sensor Networks

We describe the design and implementation of a public-key platform, secFleck, based on a commodity Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip that extends the capability of a standard node. Unlike previous software public-key implementations this approach provides E- Commerce grade security; is computationally fast, energy efficient; and has low financial cost — all essential attributes for secure large-scale sen- sor networks. We describe the secFleck message security services such as confidentiality, authenticity and integrity, and present performance re- sults including computation time, energy consumption and cost. This is followed by examples, built on secFleck, of symmetric key management, secure RPC and secure software update.

Poster Abstract : A public key technology platform for wireless sensor networks

Communication security for wireless sensor networks (WSN) is a challenge due to the limited computation and energy resources available at nodes. We describe the design and implementation of a public-key (PK) platform based on a standard Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip that extends the capability of a standard node. The result facilitates message security services such as confidentiality, authenticity and integrity. We present results including computation time, energy consumption and cost.