Indiana University East

Although the verbal components of service encounters have been investigated, the nonverbal aspects of employee‐customer interactions have remained virtually unexplored in the marketing literature. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to explore the importance of service employees’ nonverbal communication during service interactions. Specifically, a conceptual model is presented that links nonverbal communication (kinesics, paralanguage, proxemics, and physical appearance), customer affect, and consumers’ evaluations of service providers (with respect to credibility, friendliness, competence, empathy, courtesy, and trustworthiness). Further, the importance of nonverbal elements is discussed and managerial implications are given.

As the core driving force of the new round of informatization development and industrial revolution, the disruptive achievements of artificial intelligence (AI) are rapidly and comprehensively infiltrating into various fields of human activities. Although technologies and applications of AI have been widely studied and factors that affect AI adoption are identified in existing literature, the impact of success factors on AI adoption remains unknown. Accordingly, this paper proposes a framework to explore the impacts of success factors on AI adoption in telecom industry by integrating the technology, organization, and environment (TOE) framework and diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory. Particularly, this framework consists of factors regarding external environment, organizational capabilities, and innovation attributes of AI. The framework is empirically tested with data collected by surveying telecom companies in China. Structural equation modeling is applied to analyze the data. The study provides support for firms’ decision-making and resource allocation regarding AI adoption.

We invoke the person–environment fit paradigm to examine on a daily basis follower affective, attitudinal, and behavioral responses to transformational leadership needed and received. Results from two experience sampling method (ESM) studies suggested that positive affect was higher on days when transformational leadership received fit follower needs (compared to days when the amount received was deficient or in excess of follower needs) and on days when absolute levels of fit was higher. We also found that positive affect mediated the within-person effects of transformational leadership needed and received on subordinates’ daily work attitudes (Studies 1 and 2) and organizational citizenship behaviors (Study 2). Supplemental analyses in Study 2 revealed that subordinates need more transformational leadership when they experience more challenge stressors, face greater uncertainty at work, and perform more meaningful work.

The latter part of the 20th century was a period characterized by a fundamental transition in scholarship on activity and the aging process. Theory emphasizing the inevitable decline of human capacity was gradually replaced with concepts stressing positive, multidimensional views of aging. In this article, we highlight the key contributors and trace the origins and overlapping themes of successful aging, productive aging, and civic engagement in later life: 3 examples of scholarship representing a "positive" gerontology. Rowe and Kahn's model of successful aging highlights the interplay between social engagement with life, health, and functioning for a positive aging experience. Productive aging, led by Robert Butler, recognizes the previously underappreciated participation of older adults in activities such as volunteering, paid work, and caregiving, and generates interest in the individual and societal barriers to and benefits of participation. Civic engagement in later life raises public awareness about the need to involve older adults in the community, creates opportunities for participation, and generates further interest in the mutual benefit of participation for community beneficiaries and participants. Successful aging, productive aging, and civic engagement represent important contributions to the field of gerontology through applications to policy, advocacy, and theory development.

The acreage planted in corn and soybean crops is vast, and these crops contribute substantially to the world economy. The agricultural practices employed for farming these crops have major effects on ecosystem health at a worldwide scale. The microbial communities living in agricultural soils significantly contribute to nutrient uptake and cycling and can have both positive and negative impacts on the crops growing with them. In this study, we examined the impact of the crop planted and soil tillage on nutrient levels, microbial communities, and the biochemical pathways present in the soil. We found that farming practice, that is conventional tillage versus no-till, had a much greater impact on nearly everything measured compared to the crop planted. No-till fields tended to have higher nutrient levels and distinct microbial communities. Moreover, no-till fields had more DNA sequences associated with key nitrogen cycle processes, suggesting that the microbial communities were more active in cycling nitrogen. Our results indicate that tilling of agricultural soil may magnify the degree of nutrient waste and runoff by altering nutrient cycles through changes to microbial communities. Currently, a minority of acreage is maintained without tillage despite clear benefits to soil nutrient levels, and a decrease in nutrient runoff-both of which have ecosystem-level effects and both direct and indirect effects on humans and other organisms.

This study investigates the online shopping continuance intentions of older adults in the United States, focusing on two characteristics of this demographic (perceived lack of shopping mobility and perceived social isolation) based on the Technology Acceptance Model and the Theory of Planned Behavior. Structural equation modeling was conducted with a sample of 366 U.S. adults born in or before 1965. Perceived lack of shopping mobility was positively related to the perceived usefulness of online shopping, which was also positively related to attitudes and intentions to continue online shopping. Perceived social isolation was positively related to subjective norms but negatively to perceived behavioral control. Perceived behavioral control was positively related to online shopping continuance intentions, but subjective norms were not. The findings of this study will help e-retailers understand the factors influencing older adults’ perceptions, attitudes, and online shopping continuance intentions.

Actin filament arrays are constantly remodeled as the needs of cells change as well as during responses to biotic and abiotic stimuli. Previous studies demonstrate that many single actin filaments in the cortical array of living Arabidopsis thaliana epidermal cells undergo stochastic dynamics, a combination of rapid growth balanced by disassembly from prolific severing activity. Filament turnover and dynamics are well understood from in vitro biochemical analyses and simple reconstituted systems. However, the identification in living cells of the molecular players involved in controlling actin dynamics awaits the use of model systems, especially ones where the power of genetics can be combined with imaging of individual actin filaments at high spatial and temporal resolution. Here, we test the hypothesis that actin depolymerizing factor (ADF)/cofilin contributes to stochastic filament severing and facilitates actin turnover. A knockout mutant for Arabidopsis ADF4 has longer hypocotyls and epidermal cells when compared with wild-type seedlings. This correlates with a change in actin filament architecture; cytoskeletal arrays in adf4 cells are significantly more bundled and less dense than in wild-type cells. Several parameters of single actin filament turnover are also altered. Notably, adf4 mutant cells have a 2.5-fold reduced severing frequency as well as significantly increased actin filament lengths and lifetimes. Thus, we provide evidence that ADF4 contributes to the stochastic dynamic turnover of actin filaments in plant cells.

Phanerochaete chrysosporium strain ME446 produced laccase when grown in a medium with high nitrogen (24 mM), glucose, acetate buffer and high copper (0.4 mM CuSO4). Copper appeared to serve as an inducer. The highest amount of laccase activity was found in 2–3 day old cultures. Both intracellular and extracellular laccases eluted as four peaks (L1–L4) on a MonoQ (anion exchange) column. All four peaks from intracellular fluid appear to comprise multiple polypeptides that gave rise to a ∼400 kDa peak on a gel filtration column. Extracellular laccases had a non-denaturing Mr of 100 kDa.

The effectiveness of content-based image retrieval can be enhanced using heterogeneous features embedded in the images. However, since the features in texture, color, and shape are generated using different computation methods and thus may require different similarity measurements, the integration of the retrievals on heterogeneous features is a nontrivial task. We present a semantics-based clustering and indexing approach, termed SemQuery, to support visual queries on heterogeneous features of images. Using this approach, the database images are classified based on their heterogeneous features. Each semantic image cluster contains a set of subclusters that are represented by the heterogeneous features that the images contain. An image is included in a semantic cluster if it falls within the scope of all the heterogeneous clusters of the semantic cluster. We also design a neural network model to merge the results of basic queries on individual features. A query processing strategy is then presented to support visual queries on heterogeneous features. An experimental analysis is conducted and presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed approach.

Despite decades of effort toward reducing nitrogen and phosphorus flux to Chesapeake Bay, water-quality and ecological responses in surface waters have been mixed. Recent research, however, provides useful insight into multiple factors complicating the understanding of nutrient trends in bay tributaries, which we review in this paper, as we approach a 2025 total maximum daily load (TMDL) management deadline. Improvements in water quality in many streams are attributable to management actions that reduced point sources and atmospheric nitrogen deposition and to changes in climate. Nutrient reductions expected from management actions, however, have not been fully realized in watershed streams. Nitrogen from urban nonpoint sources has declined, although water-quality responses to urbanization in individual streams vary depending on predevelopment land use. Evolving agriculture, the largest watershed source of nutrients, has likely contributed to local nutrient trends but has not affected substantial changes in flux to the bay. Changing average nitrogen yields from farmland underlain by carbonate rocks, however, may suggest future trends in other areas under similar management, climatic, or other influences, although drivers of these changes remain unclear. Regardless of upstream trends, phosphorus flux to the bay from its largest tributary has increased due to sediment infill in the Conowingo Reservoir. In general, recent research emphasizes the utility of input reductions over attempts to manage nutrient fate and transport at limiting nutrients in surface waters. Ongoing research opportunities include evaluating effects of climate change and conservation practices over time and space and developing tools to disentangle and evaluate multiple influences on regional water quality.

With the increasing popularity of online learning in higher education comes a need to examine students’ perceptions about classroom climate in these environments. This two-part study proposes the online learning climate scale (OLCS) for doing so. Informed by both instructional communication and education, the scale consists of several variables related to teacher role(s) and behaviors, student characteristics, and course-specific structural issues to explain how students perceive climate within a computer-mediated classroom. Ultimately, this two-part study (a) constructed the OLCS and (b) established its factor structure and convergent validity.

BACKGROUND: There is little empirical evidence regarding lifetime exposure to suicide or identification of those impacted by suicide deaths. Studies previously conducted used only convenience samples. AIMS: To determine the prevalence of suicide exposure in the community and those affected by suicide deaths. METHODS: A random digit dial sample of 302 adults. RESULTS: 64% of the sample knew someone who had attempted or died by suicide, and 40% knew someone who died by suicide. No demographic variables differentiated exposed versus unexposed, indicating that exposure to suicide cuts across demographics. Almost 20% said they were a "survivor" and had been significantly affected by a suicide death. Demographic variables did not differentiate groups. The relationship to the decedent was not related to self-identified survivor status; what did differentiate those individuals impacted by the death from those who did not was their perception of their relationship with the decedent. CONCLUSIONS: Kinship proximity and relationship category to the deceased appeared to be unrelated to survivor status, but perceived psychological closeness to the deceased showed a robust association with self-identified survivor status. We need an expanded definition of "suicide survivor" to account for the profound impact of suicide in the community.

Necrotizing meningoencephalitis (NME) is a disorder of Pug Dogs that appears to have an immune etiology and high heritability based on population studies. The present study was undertaken to identify a genetic basis for the disease. A genome-wide association scan with single tandem repeat (STR) markers showed a single strong association near the dog leukocyte antigen (DLA) complex on CFA12. Fine resolution mapping with 27 STR markers on CFA12 further narrowed association to the region containing DLA-DRB1, -DQA1 and, -DQB1 genes. Sequencing confirmed that affected dogs were more likely to be homozygous for specific alleles at each locus and that these alleles were linked, forming a single high risk haplotype. The strong DLA class II association of NME in Pug Dogs resembles that of human multiple sclerosis (MS). Like MS, NME appears to have an autoimmune basis, involves genetic and nongenetic factors, has a relatively low incidence, is more frequent in females than males, and is associated with a vascularly orientated nonsuppurative inflammation. However, NME of Pug Dogs is more aggressive in disease course than classical human MS, appears to be relatively earlier in onset, and involves necrosis rather than demyelination as the central pathobiologic feature. Thus, Pug Dog encephalitis (PDE) shares clinical features with the less common acute variant forms of MS. Accordingly, NME of Pug Dogs may represent a naturally occurring canine model of certain idiopathic inflammatory disorders of the human central nervous system.

Ten homes were monitored at regular intervals from June 1994 through April 1995 as part of a Public Health Assessment in Southeast Chicago for exposure to volatile organic compounds (VOCs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and elements. Simultaneous 24-h indoor and outdoor samples were collected. VOCs were and analyzed using USEPA Method TO-14 with Selected Ion Monitoring Mass Spectrometry (GC/MS). PAHs were analyzed using USEPA Method TO-13 with GC/MS. Elements were collected on quartz fiber filters and analyzed by Inductively Coupled Argon Plasma (ICP) spectroscopy or Graphite Furnace Atomic Absorption (GFAA). Continuous measurements of CO2 and temperature were recorded for each indoor sample. Twenty-four h total CO2 emissions were determined from occupancy and estimated gas stove usage and were moderately correlated (R2 = 0.19) with 24 h average indoor CO2 concentrations. Modeled 24-h air exchange rates ranged from 0.04 to 3.76 air changes h-1 (ACH), with mean of 0.52 ACH. Median particle penetration was 0.89. Emission rates were calculated for each pollutant sampled. Using a detailed housing survey and field sampling questionnaires, it was possible to evaluate associations between housing characteristics and source activities, and pollutant source rates. The data indicate that several predictor variables, including mothball storage, air freshner use, and cooking activities, are reasonable predictors for emission rates for specific pollutants in the homes studied.

Drawing on a sample of 798 Ohio criminal justice professionals (police, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges), the authors examine respondents' perceptions regarding the frequency of system errors (i.e., professional error and misconduct suggested by previous research to be associated with wrongful conviction), and wrongful felony conviction. Results indicate that respondents perceive system errors to occur more than infrequently but less than moderately frequent. Respondents also perceive that wrongful felony conviction occurs in their own jurisdictions in .5% to 1% of all felony cases, and in the United States in 1% to 3% of all felony cases. Respondents, however, specify an acceptable rate of wrongful conviction to be less than .5%. Findings thus indicate that criminal justice professionals perceive an unacceptable frequency of wrongful conviction and associated system errors and suggest that programs aimed at reducing system errors and improving professional conduct would be broadly accepted among criminal justice professionals.

As the number of diagnosed cases of ASD increases, school professionals must consider not only efficacious teaching approaches for improving academic goals, but also what systems must be in place to address one of the most important jobs of the school systems: preparing capable citizens. For more than 160 years, schools have been tasked with preparing good citizens who are capable of contributing to society through work. Given the fact that schools have been required to provide appropriate educational programming to students with disabilities for decades and that this includes planning for the transition to adulthood, the staggeringly poor employment outcomes of individuals on the autism spectrum should be a cause for concern. The present article reviews the significant problem of unemployment as well as employment supports for individuals with ASD. These supports include both the natural supports (scaffolding to enhance success in obtaining and maintaining employment) as well as technological advances that may minimize ostracization in the workplace. Lastly, recommendations for school psychologists who seek to play a vital role in this critical area are offered.

Purpose This study aims to investigate the relationships between customer perceptions of luxury companies’ brand pages (i.e. brand page value and self-expressive brands) and customers’ affective (i.e. brand page satisfaction and brand love) and behavioral (i.e. word-of-mouth [WOM] and attitudinal loyalty intentions) responses. Design/methodology/approach Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data of 290 social media users in the USA who followed at least one luxury brand on social media. Findings The results demonstrated that consumers’ brand page satisfaction, influenced by the brand page’s information and entertainment value, was related to brand love and WOM intentions. Meanwhile, brand love – defined as emotional devotion to a brand – was influenced by self-expressive brands and was positively related to both WOM and attitudinal loyalty intentions. Originality/value This study identifies a set of customer perceptions that drive consumers’ affective and behavioral responses and that can be used to guide luxury brands to best use their brand pages on social media. By developing and testing a dual-impact model consisting of brand page satisfaction and brand love, this study provides practical directions for luxury brand managers and marketers who wish to transform their followers into both brand advocates who elevate the brand through WOM communications and loyal customers who are committed to affiliating with and supporting the brand.

BACKGROUND: Vector-transmitted microorganisms in the genera Ehrlichia, Anaplasma, Rickettsia, Bartonella, and Borrelia are commonly suspected in dogs with meningoencephalomyelitis (MEM), but the prevalence of these pathogens in brain tissue and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of dogs with MEM is unknown. HYPOTHESIS/OBJECTIVES: To determine if DNA from these genera is present in brain tissue and CSF of dogs with MEM, including those with meningoencephalitis of unknown etiology (MUE) and histopathologically confirmed cases of granulomatous (GME) and necrotizing meningoencephalomyelitis (NME). ANIMALS: Hundred and nine dogs examined for neurological signs at 3 university referral hospitals. METHODS: Brain tissue and CSF were collected prospectively from dogs with neurological disease and evaluated by broadly reactive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for Ehrlichia, Anaplasma, Spotted Fever Group Rickettsia, Bartonella, and Borrelia species. Medical records were evaluated retrospectively to identify MEM and control cases. RESULTS: Seventy-five cases of MUE, GME, or NME, including brain tissue from 31 and CSF from 44 cases, were evaluated. Brain tissue from 4 cases and inflammatory CSF from 30 cases with infectious, neoplastic, compressive, vascular, or malformative disease were evaluated as controls. Pathogen nucleic acids were detected in 1 of 109 cases evaluated. Specifically, Bartonella vinsonii subsp. berkhoffii DNA was amplified from 1/6 dogs with histopathologically confirmed GME. CONCLUSION AND CLINICAL IMPORTANCE: The results of this investigation suggest that microorganisms in the genera Ehrlichia, Anaplasma, Rickettsia, and Borrelia are unlikely to be directly associated with canine MEM in the geographic regions evaluated. The role of Bartonella in the pathogenesis of GME warrants further investigation.

This article reports the findings of a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) services demonstration project that used a mobile case management team to serve homeless mentally ill clients. The project examined three issues: (1) factors associated with client engagement in case management, (2) clients' perceptions of how case management affected their quality of life, and (3) significant differences between clients who remained engaged in case management services and those who discontinued involvement. The results indicated that clients who received more frequent case management contact, had higher assessed independent living skills, were older, were less likely to be substance abusers, and had experienced fewer periods of homelessness and fewer prior psychiatric hospitalizations were more likely to remain engaged in case management services. After six months of case management, clients perceived significant improvement in their global well-being, living situation, use of leisure time, finances, and physical health. Implications for providing case management services to homeless mentally ill people are presented.

Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR) gatekeeper suicide prevention training on individuals’ ability to recognise the warning signs of suicide, intention to question someone they think is suicidal, persuade the suicidal person to stay alive, and know how and where to get help for the person. We also examined whether QPR training increased an individual’s intention to intervene with a suicidal individual. Design: A pretest–posttest online survey, based on the theory of planned behaviour, was employed before and after the face-to-face QPR training. Setting: The study was conducted on a small regional college campus in the Midwest USA. Method: Faculty, staff, and students at a regional campus completed two online questionnaires (pretest, n = 108, and posttest, n = 79) answering questions about attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control regarding suicide intervention, as well as their intention to intervene with someone who was suicidal. They also completed a 1-hour QPR gatekeeper training event. Results: QPR training significantly improved attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control regarding suicide intervention, and intention to intervene. It was also effective at increasing intention to question, persuade and refer (the three core goals of QPR). Conclusions: QPR training has been shown to be effective in the short-term at increasing intention to intervene within a US college community.