A Multivariate Probit Analysis of Selected Factors Influencing Electronic Commerce Adoption in Organizations

This study investigates factors leading to the go/no go decision on organizational innovations, with particular reference to Electronic Commerce (E-Commerce). The goal is to explore important antecedents promoting the adoption of technological innovations and to extend the frontiers of knowledge in this area, by integrating two major research paradigms - basic and applied. Randomly selected organizations in the IT area participated in the study. Variables pertaining to organizations. Information Technology, and users of the technology were assessed and analyzed using an omnibus instrument and probit analysis respectively. This study provides a tentative elucidation of contemporary unresolved issues, and also broadens understanding in the assimilation of emerging technologies into organizations

Relationships of Learning Styles to Bloom’s Taxonomy of Gen Z

This research investigates a cohort of Gen Z students’ learning attributes to understand their learning styles. In this study, we applied Bloom’s Taxonomy as a framework to understand the cognitive learning strategies of Gen Z students and explore the development of corresponding and effective learning and appropriate assessment approaches for their academic success. A survey of Business students at a medium-sized southeastern (US) university was conducted. The results indicate a significant positive relationship between the dependent variable, taking information apart, and exploring relationships to some of the Bloom Taxonomy attributes as independent variables

A Cost-Effective Approach for Migrating Enterprise Electronic Mail Systems

Electronic mail (E-mail) is one of the most utilized application software systems in modern-day organizations. The major messaging application programs used in the enterprise are IBM Lotus Notes also known as Domino, Microsoft Exchange Servers, and Novel GroupWise. For various reasons – such as high cost of maintenance, undeliverable e-mail issue and loss of attachments, companies find it necessary to either migrate to newer versions of their messaging software or to an entirely different software. In either case, the process must be carefully planned, well designed and properly implemented to avoid disaster. In this paper, we present a cost-effective approach for migrating a particular messaging software. The approach was implemented and tested for the migration of GroupWise 5.5 to Exchange Server 2003. We present our success story and lessons learned from the case. A six-week and one-year post migration system-audits indicated that the organization derived several benefits including significant cost savings as a result of this particular approach. Chief information/technology officers and e-mail administrators will benefit immensely from the "best practice" strategy hereby presented

Synthesis of Silver Nanoparticles by Plant-Mediated Green Method: Optical and Biological Properties

In this study, silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) were successfully synthesized by plant-mediated green route. The leaf extracts of locally sourced Canna indica and Senna occidentalis acted as the reducing agents/capping agents instead of toxic chemicals leading to unprecedented bioreduction which promoted nucleation and particle growth within 2 minutes of reaction. Optical measurements were characterized by high intensities of absorption revealed by narrow absorption peaks indicating confinement of excitons, with surface Plasmon resonance (SPR) bands of silver nanoparticles at 340–380 nm (S. occidentalis-stabilized Ag NPs) and 400–430 nm (C. indica-stabilized Ag NPs). Morphological characterization with scanning electron microscope coupled with energy dispersed spectrometer (SEM-EDS) and transmission electron microscope (TEM) revealed quasi-spherical, cubic and truncated edge Ag NPs with mean sizes of 9.10 ± 1.12 nm and 9.4 ± 1.95 nm. Formation of crystalline Ag NPs was also supported by X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern and selected area electron diffraction (SAED) showing peak broadening. FTIR analysis revealed some characteristic vibrational bands of O–H, C=O, C=N functional groups at 3306, 1647 and 1246 cm–1 respectively in the organically capped silver nanoparticles. The mechanism of reaction in both syntheses was considered to be diffusion controlled Ostwald ripening process. The antimicrobial activity of the synthesized nanoparticles was tested against clinically isolated Gram positive bacteria: Staphylococcus aureus , Streptococcus pyogenes and clinically isolated fungus-Candida albicans. Significant growth inhibitions were found using analysis of variance (ANOVA), SPSS statistical tool at P < 0.05. The highest activity of C. indica-synthesized Ag NPs was against C. albicans, while S. occidentalis-derived Ag nanoparticles were most active against S. aureus and S. pyogenes. Hence, the findings of this research suggest potential applications of the bionanoparticles as optical materials, electronically conductive adhesives (ECA), and as a candidate for therapeutic drugs because of their biogenic nature

Quality service: estimating software reliability for global system for mobile communications (GSM) Funtone

In this paper, we examined the reliability of Funtone software and its impact on quality service to the user. As Global System for Mobile (GSM) software is relatively new in the market and the level of awareness of its quality service is low; the need for quality assessment of these services cannot be overemphasised. We have estimated the distribution of time interval between failures variable to follow a Poisson process with the parameter, λ. The intervals between failures follow an exponential distribution and from this, we estimated the reliability of the software indirectly the quality service of Funtone. Furthermore, we carried out a Monte Carlo simulation; the result is in total agreement with what has been predicted by Poisson and exponential distributions.Funtone; ringtones; failog; SMS; short message service; GSM; mobile communications; MTTF; mean time between failures; MTTR; mean time to repair; NVP; N-version programming; recovery block; quality services; software reliability; service quality; Monte Carlo simulation; text messaging.