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This article develops an empirically grounded model of antecedents and effects of green information systems (IS) initiatives. The model is empirically based on an in-depth case of the Nordic financial institution. The authors' study examines the effect of several organizational factors, and characteristics of Green IS initiatives themselves on organizations' intention to adopt Green IS initiatives. Their study finds that employees' attitudes toward these initiatives affect their participation in the initiatives, as well as the success of Green IS initiatives. The adoption of the initiatives was seen to affect individual and organizational level outcomes, with positive experiences enabling employees to continue to use/support the initiatives, and organizations also often realizing improvements in practice.

In global supply chains information about transactions resides in fragmented pockets within business and government systems. The lack of reliable, accurate and complete information makes it hard to detect risks (such as safety, security, compliance, commercial) and at the same time makes international trade inefficient. The introduction of digital infrastructures that transcend organizational and systems domains is driven by the prospect of reducing information fragmentation, thereby enabling improved security and efficiency in trade process. The potential of such digital trade infrastructures has been showcased in demonstrator settings, but in practice adoption and growth has been slow. In order to understand the problem at hand and build cumulative knowledge about its resolution, we need a way to conceptualize the different infrastructure initiatives. This paper therefore develops the Digital Trade Infrastructure Framework that aims to identify the structural components (anatomy) of the digital infrastructures in the trade area. The framework is developed through an empirically grounded analysis of four digital infrastructures in the trade domain within the conceptual lens of digital infrastructure. The framework can be used to position digital trade infrastructure initiatives to allow for cumulative knowledge building about its challenges as well as to articulate forward-looking agendas covering to development of instruments to oversee its resolution., Information and Communication Technology

The dopamine (DA) and serotonin (5-HT) neurotransmission systems are of fundamental importance for normal brain function and serve as targets for treatment of major neuropsychiatric disorders. Despite central interest for these neurotransmission systems in psychiatry research, little is known about the regulation of receptor and transporter density levels. This lack of knowledge obscures interpretation of differences in protein availability reported in psychiatric patients. In this study, we used positron emission tomography (PET) in a twin design to estimate the relative contribution of genetic and environmental factors, respectively, on dopaminergic and serotonergic markers in the living human brain. Eleven monozygotic and 10 dizygotic healthy male twin pairs were examined with PET and [C-11]raclopride binding to the D-2- and D-3-dopamine receptor and [C-11]WAY100635 binding to the serotonin 5-HT1A receptor. Heritability, shared environmental effects and individual-specific non-shared effects were estimated for regional D-2/3 and 5-HT1A receptor availability in projection areas. We found a major contribution of genetic factors (0.67) on individual variability in striatal D-2/3 receptor binding and a major contribution of environmental factors (pairwise shared and unique individual; 0.70-0.75) on neocortical 5-HT1A receptor binding. Our findings indicate that individual variation in neuroreceptor availability in the adult brain is the end point of a nature-nurture interplay, and call for increased efforts to identify not only the genetic but also the environmental factors that influence neurotransmission in health and disease.

Sex-hormone fluctuations may increase risk for developing depressive symptoms and alter emotional processing as supported by observations in menopausal and pre- to postpartum transition. In this double-blinded, placebo-controlled study, we used blood-oxygen level dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate if sex-steroid hormone manipulation with a gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist (GnRHa) influences emotional processing. Fifty-six healthy women were investigated twice: at baseline (follicular phase of menstrual cycle) and 16 ± 3 days post intervention. At both sessions, fMRI-scans during exposure to faces expressing fear, anger, happiness or no emotion, depressive symptom scores and estradiol levels were acquired. The fMRI analyses focused on regions of interest for emotional processing. As expected, GnRHa initially increased and subsequently reduced estradiol to menopausal levels, which was accompanied by an increase in subclinical depressive symptoms relative to placebo. Women who displayed larger GnRHa-induced increase in depressive symptoms had a larger increase in both negative and positive emotion-elicited activity in the anterior insula. When considering the post-GnRHa scan only, depressive responses were associated with emotion-elicited activity in the anterior insula and amygdala. The effect on regional activity in anterior insula was not associated with the estradiol net decline, only by the GnRHa-induced changes in mood. Our data implicate enhanced insula recruitment during emotional processing in the emergence of depressive symptoms following sex-hormone fluctuations. This may correspond to the emotional hypersensitivity frequently experienced by women postpartum.

Sex-hormone fluctuations may increase risk for developing depressive symptoms and alter emotional processing as supported by observations in menopausal and pre- to postpartum transition. In this double-blinded, placebo-controlled study, we used blood-oxygen level dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate if sex-steroid hormone manipulation with a gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist (GnRHa) influences emotional processing. Fifty-six healthy women were investigated twice: at baseline (follicular phase of menstrual cycle) and 16 +/- 3 days post intervention. At both sessions, fMRI-scans during exposure to faces expressing fear, anger, happiness or no emotion, depressive symptom scores and estradiol levels were acquired. The fMRI analyses focused on regions of interest for emotional processing. As expected, GnRHa initially increased and subsequently reduced estradiol to menopausal levels, which was accompanied by an increase in subclinical depressive symptoms relative to placebo. Women who displayed larger GnRHa-induced increase in depressive symptoms had a larger increase in both negative and positive emotion-elicited activity in the anterior insula. When considering the post-GnRHa scan only, depressive responses were associated with emotion-elicited activity in the anterior insula and amygdala. The effect on regional activity in anterior insula was not associated with the estradiol net decline, only by the GnRHa-induced changes in mood. Our data implicate enhanced insula recruitment during emotional processing in the emergence of depressive symptoms following sex-hormone fluctuations. This may correspond to the emotional hypersensitivity frequently experienced by women postpartum.

Essential for detection of relevant external stimuli and for fear processing, the amygdala is under modulatory influence of dopamine (DA). The DA transporter (DAT) is of fundamental importance for the regulation of DA transmission by mediating reuptake inactivation of extracellular DA. This study examined if a common functional variable number tandem repeat polymorphism in the 3' untranslated region of the DAT gene (SLC6A3) influences amygdala function during the processing of aversive emotional stimuli. Amygdala reactivity was examined by comparing regional cerebral blood flow, measured with positron emission tomography and [O-15] water, during exposure to angry and neutral faces, respectively, in a Swedish sample comprising 32 patients with social anxiety disorder and 17 healthy volunteers. In a separate US sample, comprising 85 healthy volunteers studied with blood oxygen level-dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging, amygdala reactivity was assessed by comparing the activity during exposure to threatening faces and neutral geometric shapes, respectively. In both the Swedish and the US sample, 9-repeat carriers displayed higher amygdala reactivity than 10-repeat homozygotes. The results suggest that this polymorphism contributes to individual variability in amygdala reactivity.

An Information Systems (IS) design research project is in many aspects fundamentally different from that of traditional behaviorist research. IS design research projects with the ambition to provide socio-technical solutions to real world problems require the contribution of external stakeholders to the development, testing, and implementation of the design contribution. This article analyzes socio-technical IS design research from a resource dependency perspective. Our objective is to identify and describe critical resources that need to be secured for completion of the research. We investigate three socio-technical IS design research projects. The first project is a small-scale project on design of eLearning courses, the second is a medium-scale industry-driven project on IS integration in corporate mergers and acquisitions, and the third is a large collaborative research project with the ambition to redesign European customs using IT. The most prominent resources are human (knowledge and skills) and organizational (reputation and trust). The main strategy to deal with dependencies is incorporation of resource controllers, which create reciprocal and sequential dependencies internally. Our study shows the importance of extending the existing view of IS design research, when applied to socio-technical research, with an “initiation phase” and an “impact phase,” which are especially important in large-scale design research projects., QC 20120112

Design science research involves creating and evaluating innovative methods and approaches to be used in design practice. We present an approach to be used in the process of designing Management Support Systems (MSS). The nature of managerial work makes the design, development, and implementation of MSS a major challenge. The MSS literature suggests that determining MSS requirements and specification of MSS are the most critical phases in MSS design and development. We present an approach that can be used as a guide for MSS design, with a primary focus on MSS requirements determination and how requirements can be fulfilled using information and communication technologies (ICT). The approach builds on Quinn and associates competing values model (CVM) of organizational effectiveness. The approach can guide MSS designers in designing MSS that support different managerial roles, i.e., the development of MSS that support managerial cognition, decision, and action., QC 20120111

Design science research is an essential part of IS research since the field should not only try to understand how the world is but also how to change it. We argue that the aim of IS design science research should be to develop practical knowledge not only for the design and improvement of IS but also for IS use and management. Whereas substantial methodological support exists for researchers engaged in behavioral IS research, only limited methodological support exists for researchers with the ambition to develop new IS design theories and new IT artifacts. For the development of design theories for IS use and management the methodological support is even weaker. To overcome this shortcoming we suggest an approach for design research on IS use and management. We give three examples of the proposed approach in use by applying it to the areas of knowledge management systems, e-learning and IS integration., QC 20120111

Meeting abstract (Biol. Psychiatry 63, 173S-173S)

[No abstract available]