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Studies of innovation management effectiveness pinpoint specific practices that will allow companies to increase customer satisfaction and pursue a strategy of speedy R&D-without compromising profitability. The two practices that accomplish this end, when used moderately (although not universally), are Quality Function Deployment for project selection and Stage-Gate Tracking for controlling development. Companies that use Internal Rate of Return as a criterion for project selection have also been found to be move profitable.

The present study compared work commitments, overall job satisfaction, intrinsic and extrinsic rewards satisfactions, and organizational and professional turnover intentions of 718 male and female accounting professionals at different career stages. Career stage was measured by professional tenure. The results indicate that there are some differences in work attitudes across career stages for male accounting professionals. Job involvement, organizational commitment, and intrinsic and extrinsic rewards satisfaction are positively related to professional tenure. Organizational turnover intentions are negatively related to professional tenure for male accounting professionals. There are no significant differences in work attitudes across career stages for female accounting professionals, An examination of reasons for differences in work attitude patterns between male and female accountants suggests the need for research to determine whether later career stages (advancement and maintenance) differ for men and women. The results also suggest that future research should consider defining career stage in terms of the overlap between stages defined using alternate career stage measures.

Survey research on measuring customer satisfaction using an index, market share and a lead user confirms that satisfaction must be with the firm as an innovator well as with the innovative service or product. The customer is defined as not only the end user or consumer but as a downstream counterpart of R&D in the same company or in other parts of the distribution chain. For an overall indication of customer satisfaction, measure the firm's responsiveness, its technology (capabilities and products) and product quality/reliability.

As companies increasingly try to do more with less, one of the key prescriptions in the literature has been to employ practices that shorten time to market, including the time taken in R&D. This article reports on survey research that links cycle times and financial performance, and records executives reactions to the results. The main finding is that the reduced costs of faster cycles fail to show up in improved earnings, and suggests several reasons why this occurs. For companies forced by competition to speed up their cycles, several management methods are given for reducing time with minimal financial impairment.

Chatbots emulate human dialogue to provide a more intuitive user interface to applications or simply provide entertainment. Chatbots rely on technology to function and new and emerging technologies such as NLP (Natural Language Processing) and AI (Artificial Intelligence) can be used to increase the ability of chatbots to emulate a more natural and free flowing conversation. As more and more mobile device users transition to increased use of texts and messaging chatbots can be used to provide consumers with multilingual support and services. While some chatbots have been developed in other languages, currently most converse only in English, and only a few can communicate in multiple languages. If configured correctly multilingual chatbots have the potential of providing a digital communication option that transcends language barriers. For our research we focused on the use of a chatbot that links the English-speaking Tutor Mike system with Google Translate, thus providing conversational capability in 103 languages, which is more than any other artificial multilingual agent is currently capable of. Two humans communicated with the system using German, Spanish, and Korean, and a group of undergraduate students reviewed the English translations of the chatbot’s replies. Results show that the responses from German and Spanish were cogent and natural, but those from Korean were less understandable. As a caveat, Asian languages lack much of the linguistic nuances of European languages. For example, there may be no plural form or gender in the Asian language. Unlike German where nouns and adjectives constantly change endings depending on what they are doing in a sentence and, unlike Spanish, which have numerous verb conjugations, Asian languages require no such changes. This might impact the translation ability and quality of a multilingual chatbot. Additional research and enhancements can improve chatbots used for European to Asian language translations and vice-versa. Regardless, our research shows promising results in the future use of multilingual chatbots to allow communication across the globe with business potential in the use of such chatbots to provide customer service and online live interaction with customers across the world.

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"Poetry's natural habitat is one of detail, radiant or tarnished, an intimate geography that draws us close to where presence is an act of perception: world into word. In Maps for Jackie, Jason Labbe navigates a terrain of singular encounters and incidents, tactile, luminous and animated by the sensuous abrasions and comforts of the heartmind as they touch down on his, and our, present: white leaf is like a moth / wing I'd fix to her shoulder.--Ann Lauterbach"--The back cover

Objective: To compare the effects of behavioral interventions targeting decreased sedentary behavior versus increased moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical ac...

Approximately 60% of college students report sleep disturbances. Sleep disturbances, such as insomnia, negatively influence physical energy, cognitive resources, and affective states that might inhibit executive functioning. To better delineate the variables that alter the college student insomnia and executive functioning relationship we examined sleepiness, sleep debt, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptomatology. We expected insomnia to predict executive dysfunction, with a stronger relationship observed at higher levels of the focal moderator (i.e., sleepiness, sleep debt, or ADHD symptoms). Undergraduate participants (n = 472) completed a cross-sectional survey assessing insomnia, state sleepiness, sleep debt, ADHD symptomatology (inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity), and executive dysfunction. Hierarchical linear regressions showed that poor sleep had a negative influence on executive function when college students also had high levels of impulsivity, state sleepiness, or sleep debt. These results partially support our expectations and further the academic sleep-related literature while providing insight for counselors, academic advisors, or other professionals working with college student populations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)

The results of speckle-interferometric observations at the 4.1 m Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope in 2019 are given, totaling 2555 measurements of 1972 resolved pairs with separations from 15 mas (median 0.″21) and magnitude difference up to 6 mag, and non-resolutions of 684 targets. We resolved for the first time 90 new pairs or subsystems in known binaries. This work continues our long-term speckle program. Its main goal is to monitor orbital motion of close binaries, including members of high-order hierarchies and Hipparcos pairs in the solar neighborhood. We give a list of 127 orbits computed using our latest measurements. Their quality varies from excellent (25 orbits of grades 1 and 2) to provisional (47 orbits of grades 4 and 5). © 2020 The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.

We report 370 measures of 170 components of binary and multiple-star systems, obtained from speckle imaging observations made with the Differential Speckle Survey Instrument at Lowell Observatory's Discovery Channel Telescope in 2015 through 2017. Of the systems studied, 147 are binary stars, 10 are seen as triple systems, and 1 quadruple system is measured. Seventy-six high-quality nondetections and 15 newly resolved components are presented in our observations. The uncertainty in relative astrometry appears to be similar to our previous work at Lowell, namely, linear measurement uncertainties of approximately 2 mas, and the relative photometry appears to be uncertain at the 0.1-0.15 mag level. Using these measures and those in the literature, we calculate six new visual orbits, including one for the Be star 66 Oph and two combined spectroscopic-visual orbits. The latter two orbits, which are for HD 22451 (YSC 127) and HD 185501 (YSC 135), yield individual masses of the components at the level of 2% or better, and independent distance measures that in one case agrees with the value found in the Gaia DR2 and in the other disagrees at the 2σ level. We find that HD 22451 consists of an F6V+F7V pair with orbital period of 2401.1 ± 3.2 days and masses of 1.342 ± 0.029 and 1.236 ± 0.026M⊙. For HD 185501, both stars are G5 dwarfs that orbit one another with a period of 433.94 ± 0.15 days, and the masses are 0.898 ± 0.012 and 0.876 ± 0.012M⊙ . We discuss the details of both the new discoveries and the orbit objects. © 2020. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved..

We report the detection of a transiting super-Earth-sized planet (R = 1.39 ± 0.09 R⊕ ) in a 1.4-day orbit around L 168-9 (TOI-134), a bright M1V dwarf (V = 11, K = 7.1) located at 25.15 ± 0.02 pc. The host star was observed in the first sector of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission. For confirmation and planet mass measurement purposes, this was followed up with ground-based photometry, seeing-limited and high-resolution imaging, and precise radial velocity (PRV) observations using the HARPS and Magellan/PFS spectrographs. By combining the TESS data and PRV observations, we find the mass of L 168-9 b to be 4.60 ± 0.56 M⊕ and thus the bulk density to be 1.74-0.33+0.44 times higher than that of the Earth. The orbital eccentricity is smaller than 0.21 (95% confidence). This planet is a level one candidate for the TESS mission's scientific objective of measuring the masses of 50 small planets, and it is one of the most observationally accessible terrestrial planets for future atmospheric characterization. © ESO 2020.