Service innovation framework

The purpose of this study is to identify critical success factors and important approaches that service companies can utilize in the design of products, services, and programs. It is common for service companies to have design teams that are responsible for facilitating the innovation process. However, these design teams might not benefit from a systematic training and knowledge transfer process. Therefore, it is important to translate critical success factors and important approaches into a model that will serve as a common framework for both training and facilitating the innovation process. Both qualitative and quantitative research approaches were utilized in this study that included interviews, literature searches, and an e-mail survey. The research process commenced by interviewing a diverse group of organizations to identify challenges and key factors for implementing innovation. The second step of the study was comprised of a literature search to further explore the themes and approaches identified through the interview process. The final phase of the research process involved an e-mail survey that was administered to active senior and fellow members of the American Society for Quality (ASQ) to quantify the findings from the qualitative research to include the key themes and approaches. The findings from the both the qualitative and quantitative findings suggest that innovation principles, methods, and tools have a broad application for service organizations in the design of products, services, and programs. Although there was directional alignment between service organizations and all other industries, certain approaches might be more important for service organizations. The service dominant key findings were used to construct a framework comprised of design phases, design processes, analytical and ideation methods, critical success factors, and environmental factors

Does eWOM Affect Demand for Mobile Device Applications?

Electronic Word of Mouth (eWOM) is a powerful instrument that marketers can use to more effectively spread the message about their products. Reviewing and rating systems attached to product sites allow consumers to be able to convey their experiences with products and represent a form of eWOM. Understanding how eWOM affects consumer behavior can help marketers better calibrate their promotional activities. The focus of this paper is to assess the relationship between the ratings and reviews associated with Apple apps, as a case in point, and its number of downloads as a test case from which to speculate about the effectiveness of the rating and review system’s influence on consumption

Intraduodenal sarcoma recurrence of retroperitoneal origin: an unusual cause for a duodenal obstruction.

Soft tissue sarcomas are uncommon tumors, and intraduodenal soft tissue sarcoma manifestation is even more rare. Only three cases of intraduodenal sarcomas have been reported in the literature thus far. Here, we report a case of an intraduodenal recurrence of a retroperitoneal sarcoma causing bowel obstruction. This unusual recurrence pattern likely relates to the patient's previous resection and radiation treatment, and highlights the benefits, limitations and follow-up strategies after multimodality treatment

Development of a ‘Universal’ Rubric for Assessing Undergraduates’ Scientific Reasoning Skills Using Scientific Writing

We developed a rubric for measuring students’ ability to reason and write scientifically. The Rubric for Science Writing (Rubric) was tested in a variety of undergraduate biology laboratory courses (total n = 142 laboratory reports) using science graduate students (teaching assistants) as raters. Generalisability analysis indicates that the Rubric provides a reliable measure of students’ abilities (g = 0.85) in these conditions. Comparison of student performance in various biology classes indicated that some scientific skills are more challenging for students to develop than others and identified a number of previously unappreciated gaps in the curriculum. Our findings suggest that use of the Rubric provides three major benefits in higher education: (1) to increase substance and consistency of grading within a course, particularly those staffed by multiple instructors or graduate teaching assistants; (2) to assess student achievement of scientific reasoning and writing skills; and (3) when used in multiple courses, to highlight gaps in alignment among course assignments and provide a common metric for assessing to what extent the curriculum is achieving programmatic goals. Lastly, biology graduate students reported that use of the Rubric facilitated their teaching and recommended that training on the Rubric be provided to all teaching assistants

Effect of Proton Diffusion, Electron Conductivity, and Charge-Transfer Resistance on Nickel Hydroxide Discharge Curves

Constant-current discharge curves for the nickel hydroxide electrode are simulated assuming resistances due to diffusion of protons and conduction of electrons through the nickel hydroxide film, and charge-transfer resistance at the film/electrolyte interface contribute to the polarization losses of the electrode. Good qualitative agreement is observed between the model predictions and experimental discharge curves. The results suggest that polarization losses due to diffusional limitations of protons is a critical factor in determining the characteristics of the discharge curve. Ohmic resistance has a significant effect on the discharge curves at the end of discharge, and charge-transfer resistance is a minor contributor to the polarization losses. These findings indicate that accurately measuring the diffusion coefficient of protons, the thickness of the hydroxide film, the initial state-of-charge, and the electronic conductivity as a function of state-of-charge towards the end of discharge are critical in accurately predicting the discharge characteristics of nickel hydroxide. Physical constants which were shown to have minor influence on the discharge curves are the film conductivity at the beginning of discharge, and the exchange current density and cathodic transfer coefficient for the reaction. The time-dependent, one-dimensional diffusion equation has been solved analytically which should provide a computationally efficient means of accounting for proton diffusion and variable electronic conductivity in a macrohomogeneous battery model without sacrificing accuracy

Augustine State: The Information Technology Component of Going Online

Finding cases appropriate for teaching information technology courses is a persistent problem for instructors. This article is written as a teaching case and is intended for use by instructors in educating students about information technology. The case information is factual and deals with genuine information technology situations at a real-world educational institution. The case offers the opportunity to generate student discussion in the areas of corporate and IT governance, IT infrastructure, IT architecture, open source software, outsourcing and other topics

The association between early-onset schizophrenia with employment, income, education, and cohabitation status : nationwide study with 35 years of follow-up

Purpose Individuals with schizophrenia have been reported to have low employment rates. We examined the associations of schizophrenia with employment, income, and status of cohabitation from a work life course perspective. Methods Nationwide cohort study including all individuals (n = 2,390,127) born in Denmark between 1955 and 1991, who were alive at their 25th birthday. Diagnosis of schizophrenia (yes/no) between ages 15 and 25 was used as an exposure. Employment status, annual wage or self-employment earnings, level of education, and cohabitant status from the age of 25–61 (years 1980–2016) were used as outcomes. Results Schizophrenia diagnosis between ages 15 and 25 (n = 9448) was associated with higher odds of not being employed (at the age of 30: OR 39.4, 95% CI 36.5–42.6), having no secondary or higher education (7.4, 7.0–7.8), and living alone (7.6, 7.2–8.1). These odds ratios were two-to-three times lower and decreasing over time for those individuals who did not receive treatment in a psychiatric inpatient or outpatient clinic for schizophrenia after the age of 25. Between ages 25–61, individuals with schizophrenia have cumulative earning of $224,000, which is 14% of the amount that the individuals who have not been diagnosed with schizophrenia earn. Conclusions Individuals with schizophrenia are at high risk of being outside the labour market and living alone throughout their entire life, resulting in an enormous societal loss in earnings. Individuals with less chronic course of schizophrenia had a gradual but substantial improvement throughout their work life.Peer reviewe

Visualising interactions in bi- and triadditive models for three-way tables

This paper concerns the visualisation of interaction in three-way arrays. It extends some standard ways of visualising biadditive modelling for two-way data to the case of three-way data. Three-way interaction is modelled by the Parafac method as applied to interaction arrays that have main effects and biadditive terms removed. These interactions are visualised in three and two dimensions. We introduce some ideas to reduce visual overload that can occur when the data array has many entries. Details are given on the interpretation of a novel way of representing rank-three interactions accurately in two dimensions. The discussion has implications regarding interpreting the concept of interaction in three-way arrays

Inhibin interferes with activin signaling at the level of the activin receptor complex in Chinese hamster ovary cells

To gain more insight in the mechanism of action of inhibin, we studied the effect of inhibin on activin signaling in Chinese hamster ovary cells. Inhibin specifically counteracted activin-induced expression of a plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 promoter element (3TP) and of the junB gene, but was ineffective when the responses were induced by transforming growth factor-beta. This indicates that inhibin acts only on the activin-specific part of these signaling cascades. Using a constitutively active activin type IB receptor we determined whether inhibin acted at the level of the activin-receptor complex or downstream of it. The mutant activin receptor stimulated the expression of the 3TP promoter in the absence of activin. This stimulation was insensitive to inhibin