The Role of Confirmation on IS Continuance Intention in the Context of On-Demand Enterprise Systems in the Post-Acceptance Phase

The research project examines expectations as well as organizational and technological cognitive beliefs influencing a company’s intention to continue using on-demand enterprise systems in the post-acceptance phase. Expectation-confirmation theory from behavior literature is integrated with Delone & McLean’s model of IS success to theorize a model of IS continuance on company level. The decision making process to continue using an information system in small and middle enterprises as main target customer group of cloud-based enterprise systems is modeled by re-introducing the attitude construct from adoption literature. Additionally, post-purchase expectations are included as influence factor of attitude and intention in the continuance context. To prevent cloud-washing, attention is drawn to the substantive differences between service and application quality of on-demand enterprise systems

Using Virtual Reality as a Tool in the Rehabilitation of Movement Abnormalities in Schizophrenia.

Movement abnormalities are prevalent across all stages of schizophrenia contributing to poor social functioning and reduced quality of life. To date, treatments are scarce, often involving pharmacological agents, but none have been shown to improve movement abnormalities effectively. Virtual reality (VR) is a tool used to simulate virtual environments where behavioral performance can be quantified safely across different tasks while exerting control over stimulus delivery, feedback and measurement in real time. Sensory information is transmitted via a head mounted display allowing users to directly interact with virtual objects and bodies using gestures and body movements in the real world to perform different actions, permitting a sense of immersion in the simulated virtual environment. Although, VR has been widely used for successful motor rehabilitation in a variety of different neurological domains, none have been exploited for motor rehabilitation in schizophrenia. The objectives of this article are to review movement abnormalities specific to schizophrenia, and how VR can be utilized to restore and improve motor functioning in patients with schizophrenia. Constructing VR-mediated motor-cognitive interventions that can help in retaining and transferring the learned outcomes to real life are also discussed

Public Opinions of Unmanned Aerial Technologies in 2014 to 2019: A Technical and Descriptive Report

The primary purpose of this report is to provide a descriptive and technical summary of the results from similar surveys administered in fall 2014 (n = 576), 2015 (n = 301), 2016 (ns = 1946 and 2089), and 2018 (n = 1050) and summer 2019 (n = 1300). In order to explore a variety of factors that may impact public perceptions of unmanned aerial technologies (UATs), we conducted survey experiments over time. These experiments randomly varied the terminology (drone, aerial robot, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), unmanned aerial system (UAS)) used to describe the technology, the purposes of the technology (for economic, environmental, or security goals), the actors (public or private) using the technology, the technology’s autonomy (fully autonomous, partially autonomous, no autonomy), and the framing (promotion or prevention) used to describe the technology’s purpose. Initially, samples were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, required to be Americans, and paid a small amount for participation. In 2016 we also examined a nationally representative samples recruited from Qualtrics panels. After 2016 we only used nationally representative samples from Qualtrics. Major findings are reported along with details regarding the research methods and analyses

An Investigation of Organizational Level Continuance of Cloud-Based Enterprise Systems

Cloud-based enterprise systems are a growing trend in today’s business software market. With a steadily expanding number of implementations, cloud service providers are now turning their attention from adoption issues towards retaining their existing customer base. The difficulties even established cloud players, like e.g. Salesforce.com, face in retaining their customers have been emphasized by tech bloggers, where the subscriptions of cloud-based enterprise systems are cancelled even at an early stage of adoption. This discontinuance of enterprise systems at an early stage is a rather new phenomenon, which is related to the subscription-based payment model of cloud services, which (theoretically) allows service cancellation without the customers having to fear financial penalties. In contrast, traditional on-premise systems (e.g. SAP ERP) are on a long term license base, where customers are contractually bound. Therefore the research question of the thesis is as follows: What factors influence the organizational level continuance intention of cloud-based enterprise systems? In an effort to answer this research question, the thesis presents five inter-related papers. The first paper develops a conceptual model to study the continuance of cloud-based enterprise systems. Building on this, paper two develops a formative measurement instrument to assess the success of operational cloud-based enterprise systems. The third paper quantitatively explores the influence of the variables identified in the conceptual model. Building on these findings, paper four conducts a stakeholder analysis to solve the problem of broad samples. Finally, the fifth paper uses the formative measurement instrument to test the final research model, which is a revision of the conceptual model developed in the first paper. The results show that continuance intention is influenced both, by information systems success variables, as well as continuance inertia. In addition, behavioral variables, such as attitude towards usage also explained a decent amount of variance in the dependent variable

Erregungsmuster der Unterarmmuskulatur während Fingerflexion und Fingerextension sowie beim Greifen: eine Multikanal-Oberflächenelektromyographie-Studie

Die menschliche Hand ermöglicht die Benutzung von Werkzeugen, ist ein Kommunikationsmittel und dient zur Aufnahme zahlreicher Informationen. Die extrinsischen Fingerflexoren und -extensoren ermöglichen zusammen mit den intrinsischen Fingermuskeln viele verschiedene Fingerpositionen und -bewegungen. Dementsprechend vielseitig haben sich Innervation und zentrale Aktivitätsmuster motorischer Einheiten der Fingermuskeln entwickelt. Um diese differenzierten Muskelaktivitäten des Unterarmes besser zu verstehen, wurden in dieser Studie vielkanalig die EMG-Aktivitäten der Unterarmmuskeln registriert, visualisiert, verglichen und interpretiert. Dazu wurden am rechten Unterarm 48 Oberflächenelektroden in drei Elektrodenringen mit je 16 Elektroden angeordnet und myoelektrische Aktivitäten von 26 gesunden Probanden während Fingerflexion, Fingerextension und verschiedener Greifbewegungen registriert. Im Oberflächen-EMG des Unterarmes lassen sich während der Fingerextension und der Fingerflexion unterschiedliche Kraftstufen deutlich voneinander unterschieden. Mit der Erhöhung der Kraft nimmt die EMG-Aktivität zu. Zudem haben die verschiedenen Unterarmhaltungen Einfluss auf die myoelektrische Aktivität der beteiligten Muskeln und führen trotz gleich kräftiger Fingerflexion zu unterschiedlich hohen EMG-Aktivitäten. Die EMG-Aktivitäten der verschiedenen Fingermuskeln unterscheiden sich im Verlauf von proximal nach distal. Je nachdem, welcher Finger bewegt wird, zeigen sich intramuskulär differenzierte EMG-Aktivitätsmuster. Die deutlichen EMG-Aktivitätsunterschiede zwischen den einzelnen Fingerbewegungen weisen auf eine fingerspezifische Rekrutierung motorischer Einheiten innerhalb der zwei Fingerextensoren (M. extensor digitorum und M. extensor digiti minimi) und der zwei Fingerflexoren (M. flexor digitorum superficialis und M. flexor digitorum profundus) hin