Americans on the Internet: Utilitarian and Social Participation Perspectives

The Internet is a versatile technology that can be interpreted and used in many different ways. IS researchers and practitioners in both the private and public sectors need clearly to grasp the perspectives from which people make sense of the Internet. In this study, we present two contrasting perspectives in which people see and use the Internet—the utilitarian and social participation perspectives. In the utilitarian perspective, people see the Internet primarily as an efficient marketplace and as a convenient source of information. In the social participation perspective, the Internet is seen primarily as a conduit of communication that facilitates social interaction. We argue that these two perspectives represent two distinct modes of thinking that influence people’s decision to use the Internet and the purposes for which they use it. We examine the pervasiveness of these two perspectives in a survey study of a demographically representative sample of approximately 20,000 U.S households. Findings suggest that both the utilitarian and the social participation perspectives play important roles in acceptance and use of the Internet. In particular, we found that income levels affect the perspective in which people make sense of their on-line activities. People of high income tend to take the utilitarian perspective on Internet use, while others are more likely to use the Internet in the social participation perspective. For example, high-income users focus on taking advantage of the Internet’s diverse information sources. On the other hand, low-income persons tend to use the Internet to participate in on-line social contexts and to make new friends. In this paper, we discuss research and practical significance of these findings

CBCV: A CAD-based vision system

Journal ArticleThe CBCV system has been developed in order to provide the capability of automatically synthesizing executable vision modules for various functions like object recognition, pose determinaion, quality inspection, etc. A wide range of tools exist for both 2D and 3D vision, including not only software capabilities for various vision algorithms, but also a high-level frame-based system for describing knowledge about applications and the techniques for solving particular problems?

A Typology of Interorganizational Relationships: Implications for IS Design

We are currently witnessing an explosion in the number and variety of interorganizational relationships reported in the business press that are often described using buzzwords such as \u27partnership\u27 and strategic alliance\u27. Unfortunately, theory lags practice in the examination of this phenomenon that is increasingly becoming the model for success in many industries. From the perspective of Transaction Cost Economics, a dominant theoretical anchor, these interorganizational relationships are considered to fall between the well described extremes of market exchange and hierarchically controlled exchanges and belong to a less understood type termed the \u27hybrid\u27 (Clemons, Reddi, Row 1993, Hennart 1994). Information Technology (IT) is often the fundamental enabler of these non traditional forms of organizing (Quinn 1992) and a theoretical understanding of the phenomenon is indispensable to enable the effective exploitation of IT capabilities in such relationships. In an exploratory study to derive a process based understanding of interorganizational relationships in the distribution channel, we find evidence that interorganizational relationships can be classified into four distinct types. The four types differ significantly in the processes of operational control and boundary management as well as in the nature of information exchange and the role of information technologies. The results provide a greater understanding of action in interorganizational relationships and have implications for the design of interorganizational information systems (IOS)

The mammalian midbrain and isthmus regions. Part II. Fiber connections of the superior colliculus. B. Pathways concerned in automatic eye movements

No Abstract.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/49946/1/900880103_ftp.pd

Gaps That Matter: The Influence of Perspectives on IS Service Quality

It is now well established that firms need to make significant changes to organizational processes to derive advantages from the deployment of Information Technologies (IT). The strength of the interface between Information Systems providers (the IS group) and their users in organizations is a critical determinant of the firm\u27s ability to visualize, design and deploy appropriate IT solutions and make the necessary organizational design changes to utilize the investments in IT (Davenport 1992). While the creation of partnerships between IS groups and their users has often been highlighted as important to ensure effective IT implementation (Lasher, Ives, Jarvenpaa 1991), the critical dimensions along which the two groups need to be convergent and the impact of convergence on outcomes for users has received little attention. Using the theoretical lens of role theory, we examine the impact of convergence in perspectives on six key issues between IS groups and the users that they serve in three large organizations. Our results provide empirical support for the view that convergence in the perspectives of IS and user groups is associated with increased levels of Service Quality. One contribution of this study is the explication of key issues on which convergence of perspectives between IS and User groups is central to the improvement of the quality of services provided by the IS group

Struggling to a monumental triumph : Re-assessing the final stages of the smallpox eradication program in India, 1960-1980

The global smallpox program is generally presented as the brainchild of a handful of actors from the WHO headquarters in Geneva and at the agency's regional offices. This article attempts to present a more complex description of the drive to eradicate smallpox. Based on the example of India, a major focus of the campaign, it is argued that historians and public health officials should recognize the varying roles played by a much wider range of participants. Highlighting the significance of both Indian and international field officials, the author shows how bureaucrats and politicians at different levels of administration and society managed to strengthen—yet sometimes weaken—important program components. Centrally dictated strategies developed at WHO offices in Geneva and New Delhi, often in association with Indian federal authorities, were reinterpreted by many actors and sometimes changed beyond recognition