Identifying and Evaluating the Demand Side Factors Influencing the Choice of Software-As A Service: An Integrative Framework

The ever increasing internet bandwidth and the fast changing needs of businesses for effectiveness and integration within and with the partners and the distributed /mobile employee force is leading organizations to adopt information systems infrastructures that are cost effective as well as flexible. The question seems to be: what is driving organizations to go in for SAAS rather than the SWS model of software provisioning? Some of the major drawbacks of SWS model of software provisioning are the high upfront and implementation costs. Also the software is difficult and costly to maintain and upgrade. Long lead times, high costs, complex planning sessions and deployment delays inherent to SWS, make SAAS a viable may to overcome these challenges and provide easy-to-use and cost-effective tools for system integration. Whereas there have been studies reporting technology, cost, quality ,network externalities and process as the main variables in the utility function of the user , but most of the studies have modeled either one or two in the their models . The study is an attempt to create an integrative framework with a comprehensive list of factors which affect choice of SAAS .The proposed framework is also tested on an initial sample of 15 respondents and the relative importance and the weights of the factors identified

Risk of malignancy index 4 in preoperative evaluation of patients with ovarian tumours

Background: Ovarian tumors usually presents as adnexal masses which may be benign or malignant. Accurate and timely diagnosis of an adnexal mass is a challenge for the gynecologists. Currently clinical examination, ultrasonographic assessment and ovarian tumour markers (CA 125, beta hCG, AFP, LDH) are routinely done at our centre to evaluate patients with ovarian tumours. The study was designed to evaluate the ability of RMI 4 to discriminate benign ovarian tumor from malignant ovarian tumor in patients attending Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, S.M.S. Medical College, Jaipur.Methods: 200 patients diagnosed to have ovarian tumours were included in the study after obtaining written consent. Ultrasonographic characteristic, menopausal status and serum CA 125 levels were documented preoperatively. Risk of malignancy index 4 was calculated and correlated with histopathological diagnosis.Results: At a cut-off point of 450, RMI 4 had a sensitivity of 67.5% (95% CI: 50.87-81.43%), specificity of 98.75% (95.56-99.85%), positive likelyhood ratio of 54, negative likelyhood ratio of 0.33, a positive predictive value of 93.1%, negative predictive value of 92.4% and diagnostic accuracy of 92.5%.Conclusions: RMI 4 is a simple, cost effective, reliable scoring system that is easily applicable method in primary evaluation of patients with ovarian tumours with a sensitivity of 67.5% and specificity of 98.75%

Nefropatia w przebiegu tocznia układowego i zespołu antyfosfolipidowego — opis przypadku

This article presents a clinical case of patient with systemic lupus erythematosus, lupus nephropathy and secondary antiphospholipid syndrome. The heterogeneous manifestations, early disease onset accompany severe disease course with multi organ involvement and resistance to therapy. The role of renal biopsy in diagnosis of lupus nephropathy coexisting with antiphospholipid syndrome nephropathy was underlined.W artykule przedstawiono przypadek kliniczny pacjenta z toczniem rumieniowatym układowym, nefropatią toczniową i wtórnym zespołem antyfosfolipidowym. Bogactwo objawów i wczesny początek choroby towarzyszą ciężkiej postaci klinicznej z zajęciem kluczowych narządów wewnętrznych, licznymi nawrotami i opornością na stosowaną terapię, zarówno pierwszego, jak i drugiego rzutu. Podkreślono również rolę biopsji nerki w diagnostyce nefropatii toczniowej współistniejącej z zajęciem nerek w przebiegu zespołu antyfosfolipidowego

Comparing supply chain risks for multiple product categories with cognitive mapping and Analytic Hierarchy Process

The risk management framework includes the practice of keeping safety stocks and safety lead time buffers. However, in today's high-tech and highly globalized world where competition is so fierce and paramount that managing and mitigating the risk by creating a more resilient supply chain has become indispensable for any organization. Assessing and managing the supply chain risks become very important in this context and one such risk assessing tool is Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). AHP supports managers in identifying the risk indicators, assessing the impact of undesired events and the varied cause and effect relationships along the chain, and thus prioritizing the objectives of the supply chain, hence arriving at the selection of the best supplier from various alternatives. Thus, the objective of this paper is to identify and assess supply chain risk across multiple product categories using cognitive maps and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) methodolog

Impact of Enterprise Mobile System implementation on Organizational Ambidexterity mediated through BPM customizability

This paper examines how frequent use of Enterprise Mobility System (EMS) positively impacts the organizational ambidexterity, which in turn affects the employees’ perceived internal locus of control. Our study also tests the mediation role of business process customizability on the relationship between frequent use of EMS by individuals and organizational ambidexterity. As an outcome, the study finds complete mediation between frequent use of EMS and organizational ambidexterity. Importantly, the study can lay a claim to a significant new contribution to literature with respect to interactions between enterprise mobile systems usage, business process customization due to enterprise mobile systems, and organizational ambidexterity. The impact on Organizational Ambidexterity in the context of enterprise mobile system usage is a significant contribution of this study, which was hitherto unexplored. Also, for the practitioners the study explores new opportunities to further progress in EMS implementation, given its positive effect on organizational ambidexterity

Adoption of Internet of Things in India: A test of competing models using a structured equation modeling approach

Internet of Things based applications for smart homes, wearable health devices, and smart cities are in the evolutionary stage in India. Adoption of Internet of Things is still limited to a few application areas. In developing countries, the usefulness of IOT's adoption is recognized as a key factor for economic and social development of a country by both academicians and practitioners as well. Currently, there are still very few studies that explore the adoption of Internet of Things from a multiple theory perspective, namely, The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) and The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). This research aims to satisfy a clear gap in the main field of research by proposing a Structured Equation Model (SEM) approach to test three competing models in the context of Internet of Things in India. With respect to previous literature, this research sets the stage for extensive research in a broad domain of application areas for the Internet of Things, like healthcare, elderly well- being and support, smart cities and smart supply chains