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It is increasingly more interesting to the bank managers to understand what is important to customers when it comes to Internet banking, and especially banking conducted by the customers themselves. Corporate customers and Internet banking have been studied very modestly in the past, especially the decision-making factors that drive customers to go online. The purpose of this research is to identify the factors that influence corporate customer's adoption of Internet banking services in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda. The hypotheses are empirically evaluated by the use of Trade Finance customers of an East African bank that serves as a target sample. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is the primary basis for the study. The information gathered from former studies that are mainly concentrating on private customers, acts as a foundation for the development of an extension of TAM that is suitable for corporate customers. The study involves 137 respondents from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda. Due to the quantitative nature of the study, the results are analysed with statistical measures which include the use of SPSS in order to carry out regression analysis. Silvance O. Abeka is a lecturer at Kampala International University- Dar es Salaam College where he works in the Department of Computer Studies. He holds a master's degree in Business Administration (Information Technology), and currently, he is undertaking a PhD in Management Information System (MIS). His research interests include IT innovation adoption, open source software, IT offshoring, management information systems, principles of statistics, web- design and e- commerce.

Systems and complexity theory plays critical roles in such varied fields as computer science, the physical sciences, meteorology, and economics--and yet health care has yet to take full advantage of what it has to offer. What the theory offers is on rich display as the Handbook of Systems and Complexity in Healthpresents a revolutionary approach to reforming basic practice and large-scale care delivery, based on the concept of health care as a complex, self-organized, and self-interactive system. The book's opening section provides readers with a thorough grounding in systems and complexity theory from scientific, historical, epistemological, and technical perspectives, complete with the principles and mathematics behind it. From there, contributors offer models of innovation and improvement in service delivery, disease prevention and health promotion, cost-effectiveness, communication, quality control--in short, a more efficient and equitablefuture for health care. And one particularly intriguing chapter suggests opportunities for complexity theory in refining the drug prescription process. A sampling of the coverage: Understanding health and illness from a complexity perspective.A methodology for analyzing medical data. Modeling illness and recovery with nonlinear dynamics.Clinical applications: inflammation, diabetes, panic disorder, pain, domestic violence, cardiovascular disorders, and the art of the consultation. Complexity science at the bedside: continuous multiorgan variability monitoring in critically ill patients. Primary care as a complex adaptive system. Researchers in health services research, health policy, and health administration will find in the Handbook of Systems and Complexity in Healtha new way of viewing health and illness, and potentially a new way to organize health care delivery

Title -- Preface -- Abstracts -- Contents -- Part I Introductory Chapters -- Fuzziness, Philosophy, and Medicine -- Fuzzy Logic and Medicine -- The Structuralist View -- More Impressions from the Handbook -- References -- The Construction of Fuzziness -- Introduction -- The Nature of Fuzzy Logic -- Pure Science, Applied Science, and Practical Science -- What Does "Fuzzy Logic" Mean? -- What Kind of Science Is Fuzzy Logic? -- The Nature of Vagueness -- The Nature of Fuzziness -- Concluding Remarks -- References -- A "Goodbye to the Aristotelian Weltanschauung'' and a Handbook of Analytical Philosophy of Medicine -- Introduction -- The Systems View on Science -- Iatrophilosophy - A System View on Medicine -- From the Systems View to the "New View'' of Fuzzy Systems -- The "State" in System Theory -- The Fuzzification of Systems -- Fuzzy Sets and Systems in Medicine -- From Fuzzy Control to Fuzzy Medicine -- Medical Decision-Making -- Computer-Supported Medical Diagnostics -- The Geometry of Fuzzy Sets as Points in a Hypercube -- The Fuzzy Hypercube and Structures -- Fuzzy Entropy -- Fuzzy Health, Patienthood, Illness and Diseases -- The Fuzzification of the State of Health -- On Nosology - The Fuzzification of Diseases -- Concepts, Categories, and Prototypes -- Human Conditions -- Fuzziness of Human Conditions -- Similarity of Diseases -- The Prototype Resemblance Theory of Diseases -- Prototype Resemblance Structures -- Outlook: A Fuzzy Structuralist View on Scientific Theories -- References -- Specificities and Vagaries of Medicine from the Viewpoint of Hard Sciences -- Introduction -- Medicine as a Peculiar Science -- Fuzziness and the Art and Science of Medicine -- Conclusions -- References -- Part II Ethics, Philosophy, and Medicine -- Medical Ethics, Fuzzy Logic and Shared Decision Making -- Introduction

Since the 1967 riots that ripped apart the city, Detroit has traditionally been viewed either as a place in ruins or a metropolis on the verge of rejuvenation. In Digital Detroit: Rhetoric and Space in the Age of the Network, author Jeff Rice goes beyond the notion of Detroit as simply a city of two ideas. Instead he explores the city as a web of multiple meanings which, in the digital age, come together in the city's spaces to form a network that shapes the writing, the activity, and the very thinking of those around it. Rice focuses his study on four of Detroit's most iconic places-Woodward Avenue, the Maccabees Building, Michigan Central Station, and 8 Mile-covering each in a separate chapter. Each of these chapters explains one of the four features of network rhetoric: folksono(me), the affective interface, response, and decision making. As these rhetorical features connect, they form the overall network called Digital Detroit. Rice demonstrates how new media, such as podcasts, wikis, blogs, interactive maps, and the Internet in general, knit together Detroit into a digital network whose identity is fluid and ever-changing. In telling Detroit's spatial story, Rice deftly illustrates how this new media, as a rhetorical practice, ultimately shapes understandings of space in ways that computer applications and city planning often cannot. The result is a model for a new way of thinking and interacting with space and the imagination, and for a better understanding of the challenges network rhetorics pose for writing.

Toy of the Year, Toy of the Century, Greatest Toy of All Time . . . there aren't many titles that haven't been bestowed on LEGO toys, and it's not hard to see why. From its inception in the early 1930s right up until today, the LEGO Group's history is as colorful as the toys it makes. Few other playthings share the LEGO brand's creative spirit, educative benefits, resilience, quality, and universal appeal. The LEGO name is now synonymous with playtime, but it wasn't always so. This history charts the birth of the LEGO Group in the workshop of a Danish carpenter and its steady growth as a small, family-run toy manufacturer to its current position as a market-leading, award-winning brand. The company's ever-increasing catalogof products--including the earliest wooden toys, plastic bricks, play themes, and other building systems such as DUPLO, Technic, and MINDSTORMS--are chronicled in detail, alongside the manufacturing process, LEGOLAND parks, licensed toys, and computer games. Learn all about how LEGO pulled itself out of an economic crisis and embraced technology to make building blocks relevant to twenty-first-century children and discover the vibrant fan community of kids and adults whose conventions, websites, and artwork keep the LEGO spirit alive. As nostalgic as it is contemporary, A Million Little Bricks will have you reminiscing about old Classic Space sets, rummaging through the attic for forgotten Minifigure friends, and playing with whatever LEGO bricks you can get your hands on (even if it means sharing with your kids).

"The shadow war between Israel and Iran has been raging for more than three decades, ever since the Iranian revolution of 1979 ushered in a fundamentalist regime whose sworn enemies have consistently included, first and foremost, Israel and the United States. Israel, especially, has borne the brunt of attacks from Iran's two most powerful proxies-Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iran's nuclear ambitions raise the stakes immeasurably. Israel vs. Iran evaluates the threat to Israel's security posed by a nuclear Iran, including competing perceptions of the threat, and analyzes Israel's military and diplomatic options.Drawing on in-depth research and invaluable access to the Israeli defense establishment, including interviews with key decision makers, Israeli military correspondent Yaakov Katz and Israeli military historian Yoaz Hendel describe behind-the-scenes Israeli strategic military deliberations and intelligence analysis since the Second Lebanon War of 2006. The authors focus on pivotal military events in this shadow war with Iran, including the Syrian reactor bombing and Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, as well as assassinations of key Hezbollah operatives, Iranian nuclear scientists, and Syrian officials.Assassinations, computer viruses, and Western sanctions might not be enough to stop Iran, the authors argue. They outline the choice Israel faces: launch a military strike, which could lead to an all-out regional war, or tacitly accept a nuclear Iran, which would lead to a new balance of power in the Middle East. In 2012 Israel appears closer than ever to making a decision.".

Quantitative Methods in Supply Chain Management presents some of the most important methods and tools available for modeling and solving problems arising in the context of supply chain management. In the context of this book, "solving problems" usually means designing efficient algorithms for obtaining high-quality solutions. The first chapter is an extensive optimization review covering continuous unconstrained and constrained linear and nonlinear optimization algorithms, as well as dynamic programming and discrete optimization exact methods and heuristics. The second chapter presents time-series forecasting methods together with prediction market techniques for demand forecasting of new products and services. The third chapter details models and algorithms for planning and scheduling with an emphasis on production planning and personnel scheduling. The fourth chapter presents deterministic and stochastic models for inventory control with a detailed analysis on periodic review systems and algorithmic development for optimal control of such systems. The fifth chapter discusses models and algorithms for location/allocation problems arising in supply chain management, and transportation problems arising in distribution management in particular, such as the vehicle routing problem and others. The sixth and final chapter presents a short list of new trends in supply chain management with a discussion of the related challenges that each new trend might bring along in the immediate to near future. Overall, Quantitative Methods in Supply Chain Management may be of particular interest to students and researchers in the fields of supply chain management, operations management, operations research, industrial engineering, and computer science

"The shadow war between Israel and Iran has been raging for more than three decades, ever since the Iranian revolution of 1979 ushered in a fundamentalist regime whose sworn enemies have consistently included, first and foremost, Israel and the United States. Israel, especially, has borne the brunt of attacks from Iran's two most powerful proxies--Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iran's nuclear ambitions raise the stakes immeasurably. Israel vs. Iran evaluates the threat to Israel's security posed by a nuclear Iran, including competing perceptions of the threat, and analyzes Israel's military and diplomatic options. Drawing on in-depth research and invaluable access to the Israeli defense establishment, including interviews with key decision makers, Israeli military correspondent Yaakov Katz and Israeli military historian Yoaz Hendel describe behind-the-scenes Israeli strategic military deliberations and intelligence analysis since the Second Lebanon War of 2006. The authors focus on pivotal military events in this shadow war with Iran, including the Syrian reactor bombing and Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, as well as assassinations of key Hezbollah operatives, Iranian nuclear scientists, and Syrian officials. Assassinations, computer viruses, and Western sanctions might not be enough to stop Iran, the authors argue. They outline the choice Israel faces: launch a military strike, which could lead to an all-out regional war, or tacitly accept a nuclear Iran, which would lead to a new balance of power in the Middle East. In 2012 Israel appears closer than ever to making a decision."

Cover -- Contents -- CHAPTER 1 -- Design Matters for Public Managers -- Paradise lost: tales from the trenches -- The strange history of the ICS: a cautionary tale -- Theoretical interlude -- Paradise regained: there is an alternative -- Technomagic -- The sociology of magic -- Magical thinking and the ICS -- Design - the rescue remedy -- CHAPTER 2 -- Managing, Designing and Public Sector Reform -- Historical prologue -- (Re)enter the manager-as-designer -- The reform of public services -- New Public Management -- NPM and managerialism: RIP? -- Managing to improve public services -- Public Sector Reform: designing services for public value -- Design in the Big Society -- Grass-roots innovation -- A case study from the trenches -- Theoretical coda: design as bricolage, leaders as tricksters -- CHAPTER 3 -- The Knowledge-Base of Design -- Evidence-based management - the very idea! -- Examples: Goal setting theory and IT strategic alignment -- Sociotechnical design -- Principles of sociotechnical design -- Two examples of STSD -- Post-script: STSD and the ICS -- Soft Systems Methodology -- Systems thinking - Senge and Seddon -- Borrowing from software engineering: user-centred design -- Homo Faber and the abundance of technique -- CHAPTER 4 -- Design in Action -- IT - commodity or competitive weapon? -- Business Process Reengineering -- BPR in the public sector -- Redesigning public services: A tale of two cities -- A brief history of the GMAS computer project -- Evaluation -- Comparisons with LAS: management lessons -- Epilogue -- SPRINT: a design and innovation methodology -- An overview of SPRINT -- Case Studies -- Reflections on innovation at Salford: a curate's egg -- Small is beautiful -- CHAPTER 5 -- Implications for Education, Research and Policy -- Learning design and building organisational capacity.

"Twelve scientists from diverse backgrounds and disciplines demonstrate that it is indeed possible for profound intellectuals to integrate the life of science with the life of faith. In honest and inspiring interviews, they describe the difficult though rewarding process of reconciling their faith with their science and reveal the ways in which the two spheres can not only coexist but also mutually enhance each other." "Jane Goodall begins the conversation by emphasizing the importance of recognizing the "spark of spirit" that runs through all creatures, human and animal. Robert Pollack discusses his motivations for opening a major center for the study of science and religion at Columbia University. Khalil Chamcham, a Moroccan astrophysicist and devout Muslim, moves from the study of galaxy formation to a new dialogue between Islam and the West. Thomas Odhiambo, a Kenyan entomologist, helps to bring sustainable agriculture to sub-Saharan Africa by uniting African animist and Christian traditions, and Henry Thompson, a computer scientist, utilizes his Quaker practice in both his science and his work as a mediator." "These and other scientists recount a rich integration of science and religion in their practice, their experience, and their approach to their work. Some find a deep harmony between the life of faith and the practice of science, whereas others struggle with the ongoing tensions. These original interviews range across the metaphysical, ethical, and religious implications of cutting-edge research. Taken together, they offer a unique picture of how scientists make peace with their work and their spirituality."--Jacket

The convergence of mobile technologies and ubiquitous computing is creating a world where information-rich environments may be mapped directly onto urban topologies. This book tracks the history and genesis of locative and wearable media and the ground-breaking work of pioneer artists in the field. It examines changing concepts of space and place for a wide range of traditional disciplines ranging from Anthropology, Sociology, Fine Art and Architecture to Cultural and Media Studies, Fashion and Graphic design. Mobile and Pervasive media are beginning to proliferate in the landscape of computer mediated interaction in public space through the emergence of smartphone technologies such as the iPhone, cloud computing extended wifi services and the semantic web in cities. These dispersed forms of interaction raise a whole series of questions on the nature of narrative and communication, particularly in relation to an audience's new modes of mobile participation and reception. These issues are explored through a series of focused essays by leading theorists, seminal case studies and practitioner interviews with artists at the cutting edge of these technologies, who are extending the potential of the medium to enhance and critique technological culture. By emphasizing the role of the audience in this nomadic environment, the collection traces the history and development of 'ambulant' artistic practice in this new domain, creating an essential handbook for those wishing to understand the dominant global technology of the 21st Century and its implications for Art, Culture and Audience.

Knowledge is a key resource to reach and sustain competitive advantage. Therefore, over the last years, organisations have made several efforts to enhance the creation, storage and leverage of knowledge. Yet, despite vast budgets, several Knowledge Management initiatives have turned out to be fruitless because of the staff´s recurrent reluctance to share knowledge. The extent to which such reluctance takes place in organisations is determined to a great amount by two phenomena: (1) organisational culture, which determines whether the staff prefer to share or to hoard knowledge and (2) Darwiportunism, which explains the dynamic of two trends in organisations: competition among organisations and opportunism among their staff. With the aim of finding a way to overcome the reluctance to share knowledge, this research analyses the impact of Micro-Bargaining processes on an organisational environment which fosters Knowledge Management. In order to better analyse the cultural influence, this research adopts a cross-cultural approach and compares the causality of Darwiportunism and Micro-Bargaining on Knowledge Management in two countries: Mexico and Germany. Dr. Atl Rodolfo Marsch Martínez (1976) graduated as computer systems engineer (1997) and as master in administration of information technologies (2000) at Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Mexico. After seven years of professional experience in the fields of information and process management, he moved to Germany to pursue his Ph.D. at the chair of Business Administration - Organisation, Human Resource Management and Information Management (Univ.-Prof. Dr. Christian Scholz) at Saarland University.

Cover -- Copyright -- Contents -- Authors for this volume -- Preface -- Guidance Report II.1: Improving integrated assessment in model-supported river basin management -- Preface -- Keywords -- 1. Integrated Assessment - Issues Addressed -- 2. Supporting River Basin Management with Computer-based Modelling Tools -- 2.1. The role of modelling in water resources management: expectations and reality -- 2.2. Modelling and decision making in water resources management: (dis-)entangling two processes -- 2.3. Confidence in modelling tools: a matter of uncertainty? -- 2.4. Looking at the interface: communication and user-friendliness -- 2.5. Participatory approaches: acknowledging the human dimension in modelling and management -- 3. Recommendations for Improving the Structure of the Science-policy Interface -- 3.1. Communication -- 3.2. Incentives for interaction: recommendations for funding -- 3.3. Managing of expectations-reflections on the role of research -- 4. Content-related Issues for a Future Research Agenda -- 4.1. Issues to be addressed by models to support the WFD -- 4.2. Economic aspects of the WFD -- 4.3. Data availability, accessibility and use in modelling -- 5. Summary and Conclusion -- 6. References -- 7. Annex: Research Directions Identified in Harmoni-CA/WP5 Workshops -- Participatory Research Processes and Research Directionsfrom 1st Methods Workshop -- Recommendations of 2nd Harmoni-CA/WP5 Policy Workshop on Models Supporting the Interaction of Agricultural and Water Management -- Summary and Conclusions from 4th Harmoni-CA/WP5 Policy Workshop: Elements of a Future Research Agenda -- Guidance Report II.2: Data availability and accessibility in view of model-based water management -- Preface -- Keywords -- Executive Summary -- 1. Data for Modelling - What are the Problems?.

"As the United States continues to debate reform of its healthcare system, this book argues that providing health insurance for all without improving the delivery system will not improve the current problems of access, affordability, and quality. The US healthcare system has many excellent components; strong scientific input, extraordinary technology for diagnosis and treatment, dedicated staff and top-class facilities among them. But the system has evolved haphazardly over time and although it has not failed entirely, the authors argue that like any system where attention is paid to individual components at the expense of the system as a whole, it can never hope to succeed. Above all, they point out that the US system does not provide high value healthcare; it has the highest costs in the world and yet many other countries have lower infant mortality rates and better life expectancy. Together with a team of highly regarded thought leaders, the authors of this publication advocate a complete re-thinking of healthcare from a systems perspective - an engineering approach to healthcare - and they then describe how to set about it. Covering a wide range of subjects including: health care costs and economics, barriers to change, integrated health systems, electronic records and computer-based patient support as well as patient safety and palliative and chronic care, this book will be of interest to all those involved in healthcare provision whose goal is affordable care to promote healthy, high quality lives."--Publisher's description

2012 Honorable Mention from the Association of Internet Researchers for their Annual Best Book Prize Outstanding Academic Title from 2011 by Choice MagazineThis book about America's romance with computer communication looks at the internet, not as harbinger of the future or the next big thing, but as an expression of the times. Streeter demonstrates that our ideas about what connected computers are for have been in constant flux since their invention. In the 1950s they were imagined as the means for fighting nuclear wars, in the 1960s as systems for bringing mathematical certainty to the messy complexity of social life, in the 1970s as countercultural playgrounds, in the 1980s as an icon for what's good about free markets, in the 1990s as a new frontier to be conquered and, by the late 1990s, as the transcendence of markets in an anarchist open source utopia.The Net Effect teases out how culture has influenced the construction of the internet and how the structure of the internet has played a role in cultures of social and political thought. It argues that the internet's real and imagined anarchic qualities are not a product of the technology alone, but of the historical peculiarities of how it emerged and was embraced. Finding several different traditions at work in the development of the internet-most uniquely, romanticism-Streeter demonstrates how the creation of technology is shot through with profoundly cultural forces-with the deep weight of the remembered past, and the pressures of shared passions made articulate