An empirical investigation of Technology Readiness among medical staff based in Greek hospitals

Technology readiness (TR) represents an individual’s mental readiness to accept new technologies. Although the TR scale has been used in many studies, its application in the healthcare context is limited. This paper focuses on identifying the TR profiles of medical staff and to model preference TR variations with respect to computer use, computer knowledge and computer feature demands. The study reports results from a nationwide study conducted in Greece, during a three-year period, which sampled responses from 604 physicians and nurses working in 14 Greek hospitals. Exploratory Structural Equation Modelling analysis is used in order to confirm the structure of the Technology Readiness Index. The results confirm the five groups of the TR taxonomy. Statistical differences were found between classes in information and communication technology (ICT) knowledge, ICT feature demands, hours of use per week as well as ICT use performance, but not in the general use of ICT. The results facilitate comprehension of the factors, which influence the use of ICT by medical staff and, in addition, they convey important policy and managerial implications. In conclusion, medical staff should be treated according to its TR taxonomy classes in order to expedite the acceptance and use of an ICT system.     

基于连续缓存和二级缓存的DFTL改进算法

DFTL(demand-based FTL)是一种根据负载访问特点动态加载映射项到缓存中的知名FTL(flash translation layer)算法,但是它没有考虑到请求的空间局部性,而且缓存中的一个映射项剔除就可能会导致翻译页的更新,缓存中映射项的频繁剔除又会导致额外的擦除操作.在DFTL的基础上,提出了SDFTL(sequential/second cache DFTL)算法.SDFTL新设置连续缓存和二级缓存,连续缓存通过预取映射信息,利用请求的空间局部性,提高了FTL对连续负载的处理性能;二级缓存通过暂存从一级缓存中剔除的、发生更新的映射项,并采取批量更新策略回写到闪存,减少了闪存的翻译页写回次数和擦除次数.利用实际负载做的实验结果显示,SDFTL相比DFTL缓存命中率平均提高41.57%,擦除次数平均减少23.08%,响应时间平均减少17.74%.     

The longitudinal impact of enterprise system users’ pre-adoption expectations and organizational support on post-adoption proficient usage

Although enterprise systems (ES) are ubiquitous, many firms report less than stellar payoffs from these costly investments, with underutilization often attributed to failures in the implementation process. Unfortunately, research has not provided sufficient insights into these failures, in part because it has focused on actual usage, as opposed to proficient usage, as the benchmark for successful implementation. Moreover, research has not generally examined how the adoption process unfolds over time, thus overlooking potential underlying mechanisms that may help explain how adopters achieve proficiency. To begin addressing these shortcomings, we study how adopters’ pre-adoption expectations, enacted over time, can influence their post-adoption proficiency, by shaping how and why they spend time using the system during the adoption period. We analyzed time-lagged survey data from 153 financial analysts, required to adopt new ES-based software, at a multinational bank. We found that adopters who hold pre-adoption expectations reflecting greater internal and external motives to adopt the system as well as systematically integrate it into their work routines are more apt to use the system in ways that enhance their cumulative knowledge of it, and subsequently develop higher levels of proficiency post-adoption. Moreover, greater organizational support enhanced the impact of adopters’ expectations on proficiency, except when their actual use is low in which case organizational support had an adverse effect.     

IT capability and organizational performance: the roles of business process agility and environmental factors

The business value of information technology (IT) has been one of the top concerns of both practitioners and scholars for decades. Numerous studies have documented the positive effects of IT capability on organizational performance but our knowledge of the processes through which such gains are achieved remains limited due to a lack of focus on the business environment. Such a linkage therefore remains the subject of debate in the information systems literature. In this study, we fill this gap by investigating the mediating role of business process agility and the moderating roles of environmental factors. On the basis of matched survey data obtained from 214 IT and business executives from manufacturing firms in China, our analyses show that even though firm-wide IT capability presents the characteristics of rarity, appropriability, non-reproducibility, and non-substitutability, its impact on organizational performance is fully mediated by business process agility. Our results also show that the impact of the environment is multifaceted and nuanced. In particular, environmental hostility weakens the effect of IT capability on business process agility, while environmental complexity strengthens it. The theoretical and practical implications of this study, and its limitations, are also discussed.     

Integrated clinical pathway management for medical quality improvement – based on a semiotically inspired systems architecture

Clinical pathway is an approach to standardise care processes to support the implementations of clinical guidelines and protocols. It is designed to support the management of treatment processes including clinical and non-clinical activities, resources and also financial aspects. It provides detailed guidance for each stage in the management of a patient with the aim of improving the continuity and coordination of care across different disciplines and sectors. However, in the practical treatment process, the lack of knowledge sharing and information accuracy of paper-based clinical pathways burden health-care staff with a large amount of paper work. This will often result in medical errors, inefficient treatment process and thus poor quality medical services. This paper first presents a theoretical underpinning and a co-design research methodology for integrated pathway management by drawing input from organisational semiotics. An approach to integrated clinical pathway management is then proposed, which aims to embed pathway knowledge into treatment processes and existing hospital information systems. The capability of this approach has been demonstrated through the case study in one of the largest hospitals in China. The outcome reveals that medical quality can be improved significantly by the classified clinical pathway knowledge and seamless integration with hospital information systems.     

基于梯度的受限空间安全定位方法

现有的无线传感器网络定位技术消耗了大量的计算和处理资源,并且受到了环境因素以及对手攻击等干扰,在受限空间中定位精度较低,无法满足定位需求。为了提高受限空间中的定位精度,提出了一种基于梯度的安全定位算法,算法在双曲线定位模型基础上,引入梯度的概念,降低了算法的计算复杂度,使算法能够适应受限空间的环境要求,实现高效高精度的定位;为了提高算法的安全性,增加了对不一致性测量的选择性剪枝过程,增强了算法对恶意攻击的抵抗能力。最后,以室内走廊为实验环境进行了仿真验证,通过主频计时策略,提高了算法的定位精度。分析结果表明,在室内受限空间中,提出的算法在定位精度、能量消耗和抗干扰能力上优于现有算法。     

一种基于背景声音识别的移动社会活动推荐系统

随着智能手机和移动互联网的快速发展,人们的生活方式正在发生着变革。目前,智能手机终端集成了不同种类的传感器,如GPS、Wi-Fi、摄像头、麦克风等。通过内置传感器,可以搜集用户的相关信息,利用这些信息能有效地理解和识别用户行为,并为用户提供更好的个性化服务。文中主要面向大型工作或生活社区(如大学校园),提出基于背景声音识别的社会活动推荐系统MSSAR(Mobile Sound Sensing and Activity Recommender)。该系统通过音频传感器采集用户的背景声音,实时感知用户所处环境,并对用户实时活动(如在咖啡厅、在开会等)进行识别。MSSAR还能结合用户在线交互历史数据计算其偏好及社会关系亲密度,并据此为用户进行活动推荐。本系统基于以人为本的计算理念,对增强用户间社会联系、促进社区成员间活动交流具有积极意义。     

基于SCP模式建立高校管理模式SHCP

社会对人才需求变化对高校的管理模式具有较强的冲击力,要适应这种变化,应把重点集中在学科布局和人才竞争的发展方面,打破原有的SCP(结构-行为-绩效)模式,引入人才竞争的概念,建立起新型的SHCP(结构-人才-行为-绩效)模式.本文从我国高校管理的现实背景出发,研究实施SCP分析框架在高校的作用,并针对高校管理系统背景提出新型的SHCP管理模式.     

捣固炼焦在中国焦化工业发展中的前景与展望

介绍了我国炼焦煤源的现状、捣固炼焦的理论依据,并将捣固炼焦技术与常规炼焦方法进行了比较,指出捣固炼焦应向大型化方向发展,并提高捣固和装煤的自动化水平,发展捣固炼焦可促进我国焦化工业的可持续发展。     

基于流形正则化的非光滑非负矩阵分解

经典的非光滑非负矩阵分解方法只能发现数据中的全局统计信息,对于非线性分布数据无能为力,而流形学习方法在探索高维非线性数据集真实几何结构方面具有明显优势。鉴于此,基于流形正则化思想,提出了一种新颖的基于流形正则化的非光滑非负矩阵分解方法。该方法不仅考虑了数据的几何结构,而且对编码系数矩阵和基矩阵同时进行稀疏约束,并将它们整合于单个目标函数中。构造了一个有效的乘积更新算法,并在理论上证明了算法的收敛性。标准数据集上的实验表明了MRnsNMF的有效性。