Misalignment with the external light environment drives metabolic and cardiac dysfunction

Most organisms use internal biological clocks to match behavioural and physiological processes to specific phases of the day-night cycle. Central to this is the synchronisation of internal processes across multiple organ systems. Environmental desynchrony (e.g. shift-work) profoundly impacts human health, increasing cardiovascular disease and diabetes risk, yet the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we characterise the impact of desynchrony between the internal clock and the external light-dark (LD) cycle on mammalian physiology. We reveal that even under stable LD environments, phase misalignment has a profound effect, with decreased metabolic efficiency and disrupted cardiac function including prolonged QT interval duration. Importantly, physiological dysfunction is not driven by disrupted core clock function, nor by an internal desynchrony between organs, but rather the altered phase relationship between the internal clockwork and the external environment. We suggest phase misalignment as a major driver of pathologies associated with shift-work, chronotype and social jetlag

Radio frequency identification (RFID) adoption: a cross-sectional comparison of voluntary and mandatory contexts

Understanding the adoption factors of a technological innovation is crucial. However, it is a wild assumption that these factors are of similar importance for mandatory and voluntary adoption. Hence, understanding the distinction is critical because, more than often an innovation is adopted with different organizational objectives—though operate in a same industry for a same application. The purpose of this study is to compare the organizational adoption factors of a technological innovation in mandatory and voluntary setting, taking Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology as the case innovation. The results indicate that perceptions of the adopters differ significantly on technological, organizational, and environmental characteristics and expectation when the contexts are different. Multi-group analysis confirms that, among the technological factors, compatibility is the major concern in amandatory setting whereas cost and expected-benefits are the main for voluntary adoption; organization’s attitude is more important than organizational resources—in both contexts;and, external pressure is important both in mandatory as well as voluntary environment

Developing and validating a model explaining the assimilation process of RFID: An empirical study.

In this research we studied the assimilation process of a technological innovation (i.e. technovation) called Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). Like many other technovations, RFID is considered as a revolutionary one, but its assimilation is an evolutionary process. Here, we extended the conventional assimilation theories and initiated an intellectual argument by introducing extension as an important stage of assimilation, which is contextual and highly relevant for RFID assimilation process. Data for the empirical tests were collected via survey from 221 livestock farms in Australia that are using RFID for livestock identification and tracing. We examined ten Technology-Organization-Environmental (TOE) factors on four stages of RFID assimilation process. Empirical results, based on Partial Least Square (PLS)-based Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), suggest that assimilation of RFID technovation does involve four stages: initiation, adoption, routinization, and extension. We also found that one single factor may have different effect on different stages of assimilation, which may even be different directioned. For instance, external environmental uncertainty has a positive impact on RFID adoption while it has a negative impact on RFID extension. The paper discusses the results and practical implications in detail. © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York