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The article introduces a new strategic and operational method to organize customer relationships in an outsourcing IT company. Customers are classified into long-term active clients, long-term passive clients, and short-term clients, i.e., according to their project involvement and interaction scope. Such components as Communication and Business serve as strategic characteristics, while Communication, Project, and Initial Data are operational characteristics. These components have the greatest impact on the way companies plan their relationships with customers in operational and strategic aspects. Based on their empirical experience in the field of IT outsourcing, the authors propose a priority of metrics that characterize these components. The new methodology allows IT companies to increase the efficiency of their project activities of by monitoring the maximal coefficients, as well as to plan their optimization. This method is especially efficient for projects that last longer than one year. It can be applied together with other project assessments and relevant metrics.

The article touches upon topical issues of the development of the Russian segment of the web services market in online environment in the global economic space. The study of the modern market of IT companies seems extremely relevant today. More and more firms need to start working in digital in order to expand business opportunities, optimize ways of interacting with customers, as well as increase competitiveness and economic efficiency indicators. The use of information technologies in business processes is becoming extremely necessary in the conditions of coronavirus restrictions, which increases the demand for IT companies’ services. In this regard, it is important to understand their basic strategies and assess their tendency to monopolize. “Previously, economists assumed that competitive markets for digital services are less prone to monopolization than markets for standard products. Now, monopolization, information asymmetry, and external (network) effects can be observed in digital markets” [1]. The purpose of the study is to identify the type of structure of the Russian segment of the web services market online in the global economic space and to assess the intensity of competition. To achieve this goal, the following tasks were solved: the relevant market was identified, its main characteristics and composition of participants were analyzed, the trends of its transformation in the conditions of COVID-19, the choice of criteria for analyzing the structure of the Russian market segment on the Upwork online exchange platform was justified. The results are based on an empirical study of statistical information on Novosibirsk companies operating on the Upwork platform. Such market parameters as a large number of firms, the insignificant height of barriers to entry into the industry, the predominance of non-price competition make it possible to identify it as a market of monopolistic competition. The article identifies the problems of antimonopoly regulation of the market of web services operating on digital platforms, namely: the complexity of their analysis and identification of the «relevant» market, the “blurring” of geographical and product boundaries, growing demand. The factors determining the competitive advantages of firms in the web services market and clients’ package, which, in turn, indirectly influence the choice of strategy, are systematized. The authors attempt to describe the motives of buyers’ behavior in the web services market when remotely selecting sellers in an online environment.

Four impact structures are known from the Republic of Kazakhstan, most of which have been poorly studied. This includes the Shili impact structure, an ~1.5-km-wide circular feature visible in satellite imagery. It is located in the western part of Kazakhstan, in the Aktobe Region, where the structure is centered at 49°10.5′N and 57°50′E. While the structure was first considered to be a salt diapir, its impact origin was confirmed in 1989 based on the findings of rare shocked quartz grains and a few poorly developed “shatter cones.” In this contribution, we report the results of a field campaign and a detailed petrographic investigation of 15 quartz sandstone samples. We confirm the presence of rare shocked quartz grains with planar fractures (PFs) and planar deformation features (PDFs). The characterization of shocked quartz allows us to not only confirm the impact origin of the structure, but also to estimate a shock pressure of at least 16 GPa (with a local peak-shock pressure of at least 20 GPa) for some of the rocks now outcropping at the surface. Signs of postimpact hydrothermal alteration include the decoration of many of the PDFs and the occurrence of fractures filled with secondary silica in a few samples. The name and some statistics commonly reported for this structure are also discussed. We suggest the structure be referred as “Shili,” after the name of a nearby river and also that of a phytonym. The minimum original diameter of the Shili impact crater is estimated at ~4–5 km based on a minimum central uplift diameter of 1 km. An early Eocene to Pliocene age for the formation of the Shili impact structure is inferred based on stratigraphy.

This volume represents the proceedings of the homonymous international conference on all aspects of impact cratering and planetary science, which was held in October 2019 in Brasília, Brazil. The volume contains a sizable suite of contributions dealing with regional impact records (Australia, Sweden), impact craters and impactites, early Archean impacts and geophysical characteristics of impact structures, shock metamorphic investigations, post-impact hydrothermalism, and structural geology and morphometry of impact structures—on Earth and Mars. Many contributions report results from state-of-the-art investigations, for example, several that are based on electron backscatter diffraction studies, and deal with new potential chronometers and shock barometers (e.g., apatite). Established impact cratering workers and newcomers to the field will appreciate this multifaceted, multidisciplinary collection of impact cratering studies.

The article deals with topical issues of the practice of teaching specialty language to law students. The authors of the article work with students of different specialties and teach such disciplines as: Russian as a foreign language, Russian in professional activities of international lawyers, the basics of rhetoric and communication, Russian in the field of jurisprudence, Russian and the culture of speech, the oratory of a lawyer.