Stressing affordances: Towards an appraisal theory of technostress through a case study of hospital nurses' use of electronic medical record systems

Nurses use electronic medical record (EMR) systems to accomplish a variety of care-related tasks. Nurses, therefore, encounter a range of stressful situations and events related to using EMR systems, a phenomenon known as technostress. Previous research suggests that individuals appraise technostress differently. However, not much is known about the appraisal process of technostress. By integrating the literature on technostress, affordances, and appraisal theory, this paper introduces the appraisal theory of technostress, which is developed empirically through an interpretive case study involving interviews with hospital nurses. The appraisal theory of technostress explains how individuals process and appraise information about how to potentially act on technology-related stressful events through a system's features. Information about the event, and information about the action potential afforded by the system's features, is evaluated through an appraisal process that includes three appraisal checks: goal relevance, goal conduciveness, and value compatibility. The appraisal checks verify whether the action possibilities of the system's features align or misalign with an individual's goals and values related to action, and shape how the event and the system's features are appraised as challenge or hindrance techno-stressors. Overall, the study offers a novel theoretical perspective and methodological approach to conceptualizing and investigating technostress. More detailed contributions to research and practice are also discussed.     

Operational planning of vehicles for rescue and relief operations considering the unavailability of the relocated vehicles

Rapid urbanization has led to increasing fire incidents and false alarms, increasing the response time of fire departments. When a call arrives, the current technology deploys and relocates the vehicles based on their immediate impact on the system's preparedness. However, the unavailability of the relocated vehicles is often ignored during the relocation, thus the system's preparedness is overestimated. This paper presents a novel mixed-integer programming (MIP) model developed for the relocation and deployment of emergency/fire vehicles. The proposed model incorporates the unavailability element, and estimates system preparedness for future incidents more accurately than current models. To confirm the efficiency of the proposed approach, the required simulations were conducted in Mashhad, Iran. The results demonstrated the ability of the proposed model to improve the performance of the fire department in several performance metrics. We also provide sensitivity analysis over the critical parameters to demonstrate the robustness of the model.     

The World Bank and Poverty: A Review of the Evidence on Whether the Agency Has Diminished Emphasis on Aid to the Poor

Abstract . The World Bank's loan patterns in recent years are examined to see if there is any empirical evidence of a diminution of interest in poverty alleviation programs. Four very different concepts on what poverty alleviation is are used to categorize the international agency's loans: the share of lending going to (1) poor countries; (2) programs targeting direct aid to poor individuals; (3) certain sectors deemed to be intrinsically beneficial in meeting basic human needs, and (4) overall country programs which make poverty a key element of their goals. Each of the concepts has different criteria and standards. Analysis of the data indicates that the Bank seems to be doing at least as well today in the struggle against poverty as in previous decades. In some ways the Bank's current program is more poverty-oriented than are bilateral aid programs financed by the United States and other major donor countries.     

A systems approach to health insurance policy information: a preliminary taxonomy of health insurance issues, program options, problems and solutions.

A methodology is proposed for assisting health insurance policy analysts by developing a systems approach to health insurance information and literature. The general approach is to supply a link between the quantitative and qualitative information available, and the analytic needs of policy analysts. There is a great deal of information available, but traditional cataloging and indexing techniques do not adequately meet the policy researcher's and analyst's information needs. The most important of these once goals and limitations are identified, is knowledge of the interrelationships between program options in terms of expected results (problems, solutions) in a wide range of settings.The key element of the approach used is the concept of an information frame, based on considering health insurance as systems of issues, program options, problems, and solutions with interrelationships explicitly defined. This approach would provide initially qualitative identification of these interrelationships and make them available via a machine readable taxonomy of the components. With substantiating literature references, preliminary work on the building of the taxonomy is based on seven major health insurance issues, and over 70 program options, 325 problems, and 350 solutions so far identified for 170 of the problems. The implementation of this methodology would provide analytically structured information for policy analysts in a format not presently available. The multi-country information to be included would allow consideration of alternatives which might otherwise be neglected. The result would improve an important element of the analytic process, and reduce the lead time required for inquiries by health insurance policy analysts, legislators, health planners and administrators.     

电网工程造价控制对策研究

电网工程是电力行业发展不可或缺的一个部分,如何控制好电网工程造价将直接影响到电力系统供电的稳定性,还将影响到人民的日常的生产和生活。本篇文章的写作目的就是对电网工程造价控制工作中存在主要问题进行一下分析,并针对这些问题提出相应的解决办法。     

浅谈电网谐波危害与消除措施

随着科学技术的发展,工业生产水平和人民生活水平的提高,非线性用电设备在电网中大量投运,造成了电网的谐波分量占的比重越来越大。它不仅增加了电网的供电损耗,而且干扰电网的保护装置与自动化装置的正常运行,造成了这些装置的误动与拒动,直接威胁电网的安全运行。因此,我们对非线性用电设备产生的谐波必须进行治理,使谐波分量不超过国家标准。文中分析了电力系统中谐波的来源及其产生的影响与危害,并总结了相应的消除对策和抑制的方法措施等。     

省级电网公司优化农网物资供应方式的研究

农村电网工程具有点多、面广、工期紧急、物资种类繁多、交货集中的特点,特别是10千伏及以下电压等级工程,存在物资招标采购周期长、合同履约困难、产品质量管理分散以及结余物资利用难度较大等问题,如何做好农网工程物资供应,是保障农网工程建设工作正常开展的关键.文章分析了目前农村电网建设中物资供应存在的问题,并提出了涵盖需求计划、招标采购、实物仓储以及配送调度等供应链管理全环节的解决办法和措施,对农网物资供应方式进行全方位的优化,缩短了农网物资供应周期,提升了农网物资供应保障能力,为农网项目的实施提供了有力的保障.     

Drifting technologies and multi-purpose networks: the case of the Swedish cashcard

In this paper, we combine two theories of the dynamics of a large socio-technical system — technology drift and actor-network theory — to address how and why information technologies often need to change, relative to their initial conceptions, during implementation. We analyze the failure of the first introduction of electronic cash in Umeå, Sweden as an example of what happens when drift does not occur: the lack of drift resulted in the socio-technical system's failure to stabilize. Lack of flexibility is identified as an important reason for the card's poor public acceptance. Banks ignored the critical comments of merchants, thus refusing to negotiate about the intended role of the technology. The cards were perceived as serving only the needs of the banks, while ignoring the needs of merchants and card users. Based on the findings in this case study, we argue that in order for a socio-technical system to stabilize it must drift from a single-purpose network, reflecting the interest and agenda of its designers/originators, to a multi-purpose network that reflects the interests of all involved social actors. In addition, we argue that a network-building process can be successful only if the network is flexible enough to serve the multiple purposes of its constituent actors.     

数据网格技术在税务发票管理中的应用研究

税务系统发票数据电子信息分散存放在全国各个省市的服务器数据库中,数据量达到了海量数据,而各省市之间税务发票电子信息却相互隔离,在税务系统内部形成了一个个的税务发票电子信息"孤岛",对于跨地区使用的税务发票的大部分脱离了税务机关的监控;海量的发票数据信息没有得到充分的利用;社会公众缺乏统一的税务发票真假辨别平台,数据网格技术的引入给解决这一问题提供了新的解决方案。论文首先对当前阶段国内外税务系统信息化与发票管理的现状作对比,对税务发票实际管理的现状进行了分析,论述了数据网格技术在税务系统发票管理中应用的现实意义。其次,在研究了目前网格技术理论及成果的基础上,提出构建基于Globus和OGSA-DAI的税务发票网格系统(TIG)。最后论文对进行了异构数据库连接进行了模拟测试。     

Why do firms set environmental performance goals?: Some evidence from organizational theory

Organizational goal setting is considered a critical strategic first step for corporations as it provides the basis for developing a roadmap for organizational activity as well as guidance for establishing the metrics to measure progress. Yet despite significant research interest in the environmental performance of corporations, environmental goal setting has received little attention. For example, it is not known why firms set environmental goals. Understanding this goal setting behavior is necessary to develop mechanisms to improve organizations' environmental management and performance. This study uses organizational change models of institutionalism, stakeholder management, natural selection, strategic choice and organizational learning to examine why firms set environmental performance goals. First, propositions related to environmental goal setting are developed from the models. The goal setting propositions use the goals of the US EPA's 33/50 programme, a national voluntary pollution prevention effort which aimed for a 33% reduction in releases by 1993 and a 50% reduction by 1995, as a basis for comparison to individual company goal setting. Next, the toxic release reduction goals of the 118 US corporations who set goals are analysed to determine which organizational change model propositions they support. All five models of organizational change examined here–institutionalism, stakeholder management, natural selection, strategic choice and organizational learning–show some promise in explaining corporate environmental goal setting. The combination of these models leads to the following depiction of the motivation for toxic release reduction. Firms will set goals to reduce toxic releases in an effort to respond to regulators and other factors in the institutional and stakeholder environment. This goal setting is likely to be enhanced if it can be more directly tied to economic benefits such as cost savings or if it is chosen by natural selection. This in turn will promote organizational learning with the end result of better environmental and economic performance. These findings provide some empirical evidence on which to base strategies for improving corporate environmental management. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Beyond the enclave? Break-outs into mainstream markets and multicultural hybridism in ethnic firms

The literature on immigrant entrepreneurship has richly described the characteristics and peculiarities of ethnic businesses catering to enclave markets. However, several indications suggest that immigrant-owned firms are increasingly entering mainstream markets and changing both their internal structures and their external networks with resource providers. One of the most substantial changes, which has been overlooked by researchers, consists of the appearance of what we define as ‘multiculturally hybrid firms’, which are firms that rely on inter-ethnic managerial or labour resources to carry out their activities. Therefore, in this paper we provide an understanding of the variables that affect the recourse to solutions of multicultural hybridism in the entrepreneurial teams and personnel of immigrant-owned firms. We conduct our empirical analyses on data collected through interviews on a sample of 130 immigrant entrepreneurs in Italy. Our results show that multicultural hybridism is mainly driven by the size of the founding team, the business's maturity, the entrepreneurs' host-country language competence and by entrepreneurs' motivation by individual goals rather than community goals. This research advances our knowledge about immigrant entrepreneurship by focusing on firm-level dimensions such as the diversity of entrepreneurial teams and employees, which are increasingly relevant in our multicultural societies.     

我国发展特高压输电工程若干问题分析

当前特高压输电正在进入快速发展的阶段。本文立足于特高压输电工程研究和应用的现状,在充分分析的基础上,提出特高压电网的发展目标及其技术经济优势,并就发展特高压需要注意的技术问题进行了探讨。     

Secure smart grid communications and information integration based on digital watermarking in wireless sensor networks

As more and more wireless sensor nodes and networks are employed to acquire and transmit the state information of power equipment in smart grid, we are in urgent need of some viable security solutions to ensure secure smart grid communications. Conventional information security solutions, such as encryption/decryption, digital signature and so forth, are not applicable to wireless sensor networks in smart grid any longer, where bulk messages need to be exchanged continuously. The reason is that these cryptographic solutions will account for a large portion of the extremely limited resources on sensor nodes. In this article, a security solution based on digital watermarking is adopted to achieve the secure communications for wireless sensor networks in smart grid by data and entity authentications at a low cost of operation. Our solution consists of a secure framework of digital watermarking, and two digital watermarking algorithms based on alternating electric current and time window, respectively. Both watermarking algorithms are composed of watermark generation, embedding and detection. The simulation experiments are provided to verify the correctness and practicability of our watermarking algorithms. Additionally, a new cloud-based architecture for the information integration of smart grid is proposed on the basis of our security solutions.     

电力调度自动化系统网络建设研究

现如今的网络发展极为迅速,网络已经不断的普及到人们的日常生活之中。网络技术在电力自动化系统中的应用和电力系统中的自动化网络建设与运行也是顺应网络信息发展的必然趋势。电力调度自动化系统网络建设让电力系统的工作效率得到提高,尽可能的减少人工劳动力的投入,这就为企业降低生产成本,增强自身的竞争力提供了条件。本文主要就构建电力调度自动化网络建设与实现的几个主要方面进行简要的分析,并在此基础上提出相应的解决措施。     

浅谈教练员的指导能力

教练员的指导行为是教练与运动员之间的心理沟通,是在训练和比赛、实现目标关系中的表现形式。团队的教练员,要领导好全体运动员内部的团结,全队上下能求同存异,相互理解和支持,心理上相容,是决定一个团队凝聚力和战斗力的关键因素。因此,作为教练员必须全面地发展运动员身体机能,提高运动员的专项运动技术水平,并使运动员心悦诚服地去接受教练员的领导,对其要求与指令认真地执行,这是运动员或团队实现目标的保证。     

Using dynamic programming with adaptive grid scheme for optimal control problems in economics

The study of the solutions of dynamic models with optimizing agents has often been limited by a lack of available analytical techniques to explicitly find the global solution paths. On the other hand, the application of numerical techniques such as dynamic programming to find the solution in interesting regions of the state was restricted by the use of fixed grid size techniques. Following Grüne (Numer. Math. 75 (3) (1997) 319; University of Bayreuth, submitted, 2003), in this paper an adaptive grid scheme is used for finding the global solutions of discrete time Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equations. Local error estimates are established and an adapting iteration for the discretization of the state space is developed. The advantage of the use of adaptive grid scheme is demonstrated by computing the solutions of one- and two-dimensional economic models which exhibit steep curvature, complicated dynamics due to multiple equilibria, thresholds (Skiba sets) separating domains of attraction and periodic solutions. We consider deterministic and stochastic model variants. The studied examples are from economic growth, investment theory, environmental and resource economics.     

Operational performance of U.S. public rail transit and implications for public policy

In today's tough economic environment, governments at all levels face significant budget shortfalls and public rail transit systems must compete with other public services for government subsidies. It is critical that public rail transit systems be concerned with their operational performance and efficient use of resources. In this paper, we develop a methodology that measures a rail transit system's performance relative to that of other rail transit systems, compares its performance to an appropriate efficient benchmark system, and identifies the sources of its inefficiency. We analyze the relationship between public subsidies and operational performance of public rail systems and show an inverse relationship between subsidization and efficiency.     

The Environmental Outcome of Emissions-intensive Economic Growth: A Critical Look at Official Growth Projections for Sweden up to the Year 2000

Implications for carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emissions from the Swedish government's medium-term economic projections are assessed, considering Sweden's environmental goals. Data from the first environmental accounting matrix of Sweden are exploited within the framework of the interindustry model to give emission multipliers for various components of aggregate demand. In view of these emission multipliers, it is evident that the outlined macro-economic development does not conform with Sweden's environmental goals. The oil price and the structural changes assumed in the economic projections stress still further the need for strong environmental policy measures to attain the emission goals. The allocation of total expenditure is shown here to be a critical factor for bringing down the emissions to accepted levels.     

强弱电干扰与电网接地方式

伴随着世界科技的飞速发展,遍布世界各地的有线通讯和无线通讯技术,已经构成了一个密集的网络系统。同时,为了与国民经济的发展相协调,电力网进行了扩建,建设了很多变电站,无论是在地下还是地上,都构成了一个复杂的电网系统。强电和弱电这两大网络与国民的生活紧密相连。这势必将导致电网和道路之间的干扰,本文就此干扰的矛盾进行了相关的分析,以期为解决它们之间的问题提供帮助。     

Re-Engineering the Sense of Self: the Manager and the Management Guru*

Conventional explanations of the enormous popularity of management gurus have centred on the need for managers to find relatively quick and simple solutions to their organizations' complex problems and the gurus' adeptness with marketing technology to promote these solutions. A few writers have also recognized the role that management gurus play in responding to managers' needs to make sense of themselves. Management gurus appeal to the manager's social or externally directed esteem needs by legitimating and celebrating the manager's role in society. the spiritual and charismatic quality of the gurus' work resonates with the manager's personal or internally driven needs by providing a sense of hope and purpose. The relationship between the management guru and manager is further explored with an analysis of the rhetorical techniques employed by the two leaders of the re-engineering movement, Michael Hammer and James Champy. Adopting a dramatistic or dramaturgical perspective, I describe how these writers skilfully manipulate the managers'sense of themselves to provide a compelling rationale for launching or supporting a re-engineering initiative within their organizations. the inherent dramatic appeal of the re-engineering process is an important reason for the movement's phenomenal popularity and, paradoxically, its lack of universal success.