Dialog Development Manager

This chapter shows how software development professionals use the provided flow charts and pseudo-code to create the Dialog Development Manager. Analysts then use the Dialog Development Manager to create the problem-specific knowledge needed by a natural language processor to support the conversation between Socrates DigitalTM and end users. The Dialog Development Manager guides the analysts through design and development of the Understand, Explore, Materialize, and Realize phases to create the conversational interface for Socrates DigitalTM.

Cognitive disabilities and web accessibility: a survey into the Brazilian web development community

Cognitive disabilities include a diversity of conditions related to cognitive functions, such as reading, understanding, learning, solving problems, memorization and speaking. They differ largely from each other, making them a heterogeneous complex set of disabilities. Although the awareness about cognitive disabilities has been increasing in the last few years, it is still less than necessary compared to other disabilities. The need for an investigation about this issue is part of the agenda of the Challenge 2 (Accessibility and Digital Inclusion) from GranDIHC-Br. This paper describes the results of an online exploratory survey conducted with 105 web development professionals from different sectors to understand their knowledge and barriers regarding accessibility for people with cognitive disabilities. The results evidenced three biases that potentially prevent those professionals from approaching cogni-tive disabilities: strong organizational barriers; difficulty to understand user needs related to cognitive disabilities; a knowledge gap about web accessibility principles and guidelines. Our results confirmed that web development professionals are unaware about cognitive disabilities mostly by a lack of knowledge about them, even if they understand web accessibility in a technical level. Therefore, we suggest that applied research studies focus on how to fill this knowledge gap before providing tools, artifacts or frameworks.

Factors Related to Profitability of Agritourism in the United States: Results from a National Survey of Operators

Agritourism is a growing area of the tourism sector with many positive social and economic benefits for farmers, their communities, and for tourists. While researchers have been studying the phenomenon for several decades, factors that lead to profitable outcomes for agritourism operators are still not well understood, hindering the effectiveness of agritourism development and the systems of support available to farmers. Using a survey of 1834 farms and ranches open to visitors in the United States, the goal of this study is to identify the factors that influence the profitability of agritourism operations. This study shows that several factors have positive associations with increased agritourism profitability, such as the number of years of experience of the operator, farm scale (acreage and total farm revenue), providing on-farm product sales, and offering events and entertainment. Off-farm product sales and being a female operator have a negative association with profitability in agritourism. We discuss the implications of our findings on agritourism operators, suggest their utility for tourism planning and rural community development professionals, and offer suggestions for future research.

DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGIES FOR ACCOUNTING OF THE FUTURE

Disruptive technologies in accounting represent a new evolutionary phase of accounting impacted by emerging technologies that are part of industrial revolution 4.0. The relevance of emerging technologies, their potential and the opportunities they offer for the accounting profession attract both academia and professionals with accelerated research efforts. Academia and scientific researchers must research and provide an appropriate theoretical basis to help practitioners better adapt and increase their awareness and trust in technology. This paper provides early quantitative research data on publication trends related to most disruptive technologies in accounting such as big data, data analytics, cloud, artificial intelligence and blockchain. We identified these five emerging technologies through literature review and elaborated in detail how they can change and advance the accounting profession. The research was conducted using bibliometric analysis to examine the level of coverage of each of the technologies in the period from 2016 to 2020 by analyzing the published articles by the Big Four accounting firms, professional accounting associations and institutions and high-ranking academic journals. The purpose of the research was to identify a potential gap in research preferences related to selected technologies between academia and development professionals and experts in the field. The findings highlight that there are no significant discrepancies or different views of academia and practitioners. It is a positive result indicating that academia and scientific researchers exploit in the same direction as practitioners, thus providing support for adaptation and alignment to technology trends.

Sri Lankan Fashion Designers: Self-Directed Learning in the Apparel Industry

The Sri Lankan apparel industry is currently in transition from apparel assembly to manufacturing original designs as a value addition. Design teams work closely with Western brands, buyers and designers to offer advanced creative and technical design services. The purpose of this article is to investigate how Sri Lankan designers acquire personal, high-value fashion knowledge and design skills in this crucial time of industry transition. The study adopts a qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews conducted with 28 fashion design and product development professionals in the industry. Based on an inductive thematic analysis, the study finds that Sri Lankan designers’ acquisition of high-value fashion knowledge and skills comes primarily through their self-directed learning. This study proposes the Designers’ Self-Directed Learning Cycle to illustrate how designers’ learning happens and is applied in their professional practice. The findings are significant in understanding the designers’ practice in the export-oriented apparel value chain.

Pivot-RP

Pivot-RP is a source of research funding opportunities, facilitating research collaborations, and offering insight into the funding landscape as well as internal benchmarks. Pivot-RP addresses the needs of researchers and research development professionals alike.

Examination Of Health Literacy Levels Of Mothers: An Interdisciplinary Study With A Child Developmental Perspective

Introduction and aim: When health literacy is considered in terms of family and especially mother, its importance increases even more. Because the health literacy of the mother and the health of the child are related to each other, the probability of the children of mothers with high health literacy to be healthy is also high. Considering this situation, it is emphasized that health literacy is an important concept for child development professionals, who are one of the health professionals working with children. Because child development professionals involve families and especially mothers in the process while working with children, health literacy can also affect mothers' involvement in the process. Determining the health literacy of mothers and handling it with a child development perspective; It is thought that it will also guide interdisciplinary research on health literacy. In this study, it is aimed to determine the health literacy of mothers and to discuss them with a child development perspective. Method: In the study, residing in Mamak district of Ankara were included 100 mothers. Mixed method was used in the research. Quantitative data were collected with the “Adult Health Literacy Scale”, and qualitative data were collected through the “Questionnaire Form”. Ethics committee approval was obtained before starting to collect data in the study. Afterwards, the participants were given detailed information about the research and consent forms were signed. The research was conducted on a voluntary basis. After the quantitative data were collected, they were processed into the SPSS package program, and whether the data showed normal distribution was examined with the kolmogrov smirnov test. Since the data showed a normal distribution, Anova and t tests, which are parametric tests, were used in the analysis of quantitative data. Qualitative data were analyzed by descriptive analysis method. Results: As a result of the research, it was found that the health literacy levels of the mothers differed significantly according to the variables of education level, education level of the spouse and having a chronic disease. It has been determined that mothers consult physicians for health issues, receive support from health professionals about their children's health problems, and explain the concept of health as physical, mental, social well-being and protection of health. Conclusions and recommendations: In line with the results obtained from the research; preparing early intervention programs as child developers to increase mothers' health literacy levels, conducting health literacy screening in clinical settings and including the assessment of mothers' health literacy in the child's assessment process, it may be recommended to plan studies involving fathers on health literacy.

Responding to Career Development Uncertainties and Successfully Navigating Career Journeys

The Problem The COVID-19 pandemic has forced employees and organizational leaders to consider the reality of its impact on career goals. Individuals have been forced to reconsider or readjust their career goals as being achievable, deferred, or even eliminated. Organizational leaders or those in strategic positions have been forced to consider how individual career goals could impact the organization’s capacity to survive. The Solution Career development theories are useful for examining the role of human resource development professionals in helping employees achieve career goals as they attempt to adjust to the COVID-19 pandemic. Re-emphasizing career development as a core component of HRD highlights the significance of career development theories in adjusting to pandemics and crises that impact individual career goals and organizational strategic goals and opportunities. The Stakeholders HRD researchers, scholar/practitioners, professionals, and others who research and practice career development and use career development theory.

Leveling Up: Connected Mentor Learning in a Digital Media Production After-School Space

This article introduces mirrored practice of leveling up as a model for educator learning grounded in connected learning and the connected mentor framework. Our purpose is to introduce this model and share examples of how it can be enacted. We argue that the model is a rich and successful way for youth development professionals to expand their capacities as educators and to support expansive possibilities for young people’s learning. The model supports all educators’ learning and growth, but it is particularly applicable to mentors working in interest-driven, informal learning environments like makerspaces and YOUmedia learning labs. The model is drawn from our analysis of 2 years of ethnographic observations in an after-school digital design studio housed in an urban public high school in Chicago. We describe mirrored practice as the mentors using the same principles and tools to learn that their students utilized. In the model, leveling up means that both students and mentors are supported in constantly moving towards progressively complex tasks, knowledge, and understanding. Methods of data collection include video- and audio-taped observations and interviews with digital media mentors.