Polydipsia-induced hyponatremia and status epilepticus in a schizophrenia patient: A case report from the emergency department

AbstractRelated to severe hyponatremia, various symptoms, such as confusion, vomiting, changes in mental state, status epilepticus, and a variety of conscious disturbances are sometimes seen in the emergency department (ED) but seldom recognized as water intoxication in the early stages. Status epilepticus is an emergent and life-threatening condition if not diagnosed and managed promptly and efficiently. The authors reported a case of a 31-year-old woman with history of schizophrenia with poor drug compliance. The compulsive drinking of more than 15,000mL of water per day for 4 days resulted in intermittent episodes of vomiting and seizures and she was sent to our ED by ambulance. Water intoxication with severe hyponatremia ([Na+]=112mEq/L) was diagnosed and hypertonic sodium supplements and airway protection were then offered. Detailed history taking and early detection of hyponatremia is crucial to prevent fatal complications of water intoxication. Emergency physicians should be suspicious of hyponatremia from water intoxication in psychiatric patients with neurologic symptoms during the observation period in the ED

Political Games of Users and MIS Professionals in the Information System Development Process

Information System Development (ISD) necessarily involves resource reallocation in the organization. Resistance to the development process often arises as a result of disagreements stemming from differing goals among various parties within the organization. Resistance usually appears in political forms, which means that users or the MIS professionals may exhibit some unnecessary, irrational behaviors purely out of self -interest. Such political behavior distorts resource allocations, misguides project goals, and plays havoc with schedules and budgets. This study focuses on the following areas. (1) In ISD, which political behavior typically takes place in which development stage, and by whom it is caused? (2) What kind of business characteristics, such as the organizational culture, would affect political behavior and to what degree? And (3) how do different political behavior, such as deviation from goals, dissipation of energies, and diversion of resources, affect the whole organization? By this detailed discussion, the study seeks to make system developers aware of what irrational behavior might appear in the course of development, so that they can reduce or prevent any negative consequences

HOW KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT INTENTION INFLUENCED BY ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT CULTURE

In the current knowledge economy era, knowledge has become an organization’s primary resource due to the fact that an organization is an extension of an information society. Therefore, firms that are able to effectively manage their knowledge resources can expect to reap a wide range of benefits. Due to the diversity of organizational culture (which include results-oriented, tightly controlled, job-oriented, closed system, solidarity, sociability and need for achievement), a significant issue is the way organizational culture impacts on KM intention in the KM process through the mediation of KM culture. Indeed, strong culture has a direct impact on KM culture and KM intention. This paper details our study findings, which indicate that while results-oriented, solidarity, sociability and strong cultures have significant positive effects on an organization’s ability to foster a KM culture in the KM process, a job-oriented culture has a significant negative effect. Moreover, both KM culture and strong culture have positive direct effects on an individual’s intention to manage knowledge. Also discussed in this paper are the implications of the study and its contribution to research and management practice

An Intelligent Approach to Semantic Query Processing

Semantic knowledge has often been employed to enforce relational database integrity. It also offers the opportunity to transform a query into a semantically equivalent query that is potentially more efficiently processed than the original query. This paper describes a knowledge-based transformation approach that utilizes semantic integrity constraints and transformation heuristics to reduce query processing costs. Implementation in the form of an intelligent system, QUOTA, is also presented

A Study of the Job Stress and its Effect of the Information Systems Professional in Taiwan

This study conducts a survey to investigate the information systems professional\u27s job stress and its outcomes in Taiwan\u27s companies. The analysis is based on an organizational stress model. The results of this study indicate that (1) statistically significant difference exists between most of the job stressor and some items of the outcomes, (2) some moderating variables, such as type A personality and SDLC stage, are statistically significant in affecting the job stressor and the outcomes, and (3) statistically significant positive correlation exists between job satisfaction and psychological effects of the job stress

User Resistance to the Implementation of Information Systems: A Psychological Contract Breach Perspective

The current study proposes an exploratory model to examine the antecedents of user resistance in information system (IS) implementations from the perspective of a psychological contract breach (PCB). The purpose of this study is to investigate PCBs between users and IS providers (ISPs), which extends IS theory in two ways: by elaborating on why some users psychologically resist the IS, and by more deeply exploring the social-psychological determinants of user resistance. Our results show that user-perceived PCBs can lead to user resistance and feelings of violation via reneging, high user vigilance, and incongruence between the users’ and the ISP’s understandings of the obligations. Our results also show that users’ interpretations—i.e., causal attribution of the breach and perceived fairness after the breach—moderate the relationship between user-perceived PCBs and feelings of violation. We discuss our findings and their academic and practical implications, and suggest directions for future research

How do Agency Problems Affect the Implied Cost of Capital?

We test the relationship between the implied cost of capital and two agency problems, free cash flows and overinvestment. We show that free cash flows have a significant negative impact on the implied cost of capital, but overinvestment has a significantly positive impact. In addition, the pay-for-performance sensitivity has a negative effect but the sensitivity of volatility has a significantly positive effect on the implied cost of capital. After taking the incentives into account, we find that the significance of the impact from both agency problems still exists. Finally, we conclude that well-designed executive compensation should focus on reducing overinvestment and the sensitivity of volatility

Empirical Study of Online Auction Seller Switching: The Case of Yahoo vs. Ruten in Taiwan

Most online auction platform providers (OAPPs) agree that the majority of their profits comes from users, i.e., their buyers and sellers. The major concern of OAPPs is how to gain and lock in users in order to maintain and enhance a competitive edge. Customer switching is one of the primary problems of all companies, including OAPPs. This study focused on online auction sellers and attempted to understand their switching behavior. We developed an integrated model that consisted of OAPP strategies (anti-switching and anti-lock-in), value-based factors (platform qualities and switching costs), lock-in factors (network effects), and perceived values to explore the switching intentions of online auction sellers. The model was tested using a field study of 248 sellers from two online auction websites. The results show that OAPP strategies will affect switching costs which affect perceived value which, in turn, impacts a seller’s switching behavior. Our findings indicate that value-based factors directly influence perceived value which could suitably explain a seller’s decision to switch from one OAPP to another. The study suggests that OAPPs should develop strategies and leverage the network effect to avoid customer switching