The Way of Saint James, tourism, and local community

Tourism clearly conditions people’s daily lives in a double sense: certainly, because of the inputs it constitutes, via human (and other) resources it mobilizes, and the goods and expenses it generates; but also, in many communities, because of the social, spatial, temporal and/or cultural reorganization that its operation implies in the community social space. Santiago de Compostela is one of the communities most impacted by the phenomenon of the Way, which is, in turn, one of the most relevant phenomena of tourism today and which increasingly affects many other realities. The example of Compostela can serve as a privileged comparison and contrast with other social realities that are beginning to experience or are already significantly feeling the impact of this phenomenon at the cultural, social, economic and environmental dimension.Esta edición contó con la ayuda del Grupo Galabra, GI-1811, de la Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, procedente de la Xunta de Galicia para Grupos de Potencial Crecimiento, Ref. ED431B 2020/40. Contó con la colaboración para la traducción del Centro de Estudos Humanísticos de la Universidade do Minho (CEHUM), el Grupo de Estudos Territoriais de la Universidade da Coruña (GET-UDC, código G-000361) y el Grupo Galabra (GI-1811) de la Universidade de Santiago de Compostela

META-NET Strategic Research Agenda for Multilingual Europe 2020

In everyday communication, Europe’s citizens, business partners and politicians are inevitably confronted with language barriers. Language technology has the potential to overcome these barriers and to provide innovative interfaces to technologies and knowledge. This document presents a Strategic Research Agenda for Multilingual Europe 2020. The agenda was prepared by META-NET, a European Network of Excellence. META-NET consists of 60 research centres in 34 countries, who cooperate with stakeholders from economy, government agencies, research organisations, non-governmental organisations, language communities and European universities. META-NET’s vision is high-quality language technology for all European languages. “The research carried out in the area of language technology is of utmost importance for the consolidation of Portuguese as a language of global communication in the information society.” — Dr. Pedro Passos Coelho (Prime-Minister of Portugal) “It is imperative that language technologies for Slovene are developed systematically if we want Slovene to flourish also in the future digital world.” — Dr. Danilo Türk (President of the Republic of Slovenia) “For such small languages like Latvian keeping up with the ever increasing pace of time and technological development is crucial. The only way to ensure future existence of our language is to provide its users with equal opportunities as the users of larger languages enjoy. Therefore being on the forefront of modern technologies is our opportunity.” — Valdis Dombrovskis (Prime Minister of Latvia) “Europe’s inherent multilingualism and our scientific expertise are the perfect prerequisites for significantly advancing the challenge that language technology poses. META-NET opens up new opportunities for the development of ubiquitous multilingual technologies.” — Prof. Dr. Annette Schavan (German Minister of Education and Research

Timebanking: Case Study Report

Theme [ssh.2013.3.2-1][Social Innovation- Empowering People, changing societies]. Project Full Title: “Transformative Social Innovation Theory project”First full draft: 13 February 2015Versión resumida disponible en: http://www.transitsocialinnovation.eu/resource-hub/transformative-social-innovation-narrative-timebanking[Abstract] This case study report focuses on how timebanking initiatives are organised both through networks and, sometimes, as stand-alone initiatives. The transnational network organisation under study is the hOurworld organisation. The case study also has two local cases: the UK and Spain. The study was guided by four empirical research questions based upon a preliminary conceptual framework of the TRANSIT-project. The four questions concern: 1 the overall development of the local cases and the transnational network(ing); 2 how they relate to different types of change and innovation (incl. social innovation, system innovation, game- changers, narratives of change and societal transformation); 3 how actors are empowered and/or disempowered in and by the local cases and the transnational network(ing), including topics such as governance, learning, resourcing and monitoring; 4 what are other relevant emergent issues with regard to understanding the dynamics of transformative social innovation.This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 613169http://hdl.handle.net/2183/3006

Player agency in interactive narrative: audience, actor & author

The question motivating this review paper is, how can computer-based interactive narrative be used as a constructivist learn- ing activity? The paper proposes that player agency can be used to link interactive narrative to learner agency in constructivist theory, and to classify approaches to interactive narrative. The traditional question driving research in interactive narrative is, ‘how can an in- teractive narrative deal with a high degree of player agency, while maintaining a coherent and well-formed narrative?’ This question derives from an Aristotelian approach to interactive narrative that, as the question shows, is inherently antagonistic to player agency. Within this approach, player agency must be restricted and manip- ulated to maintain the narrative. Two alternative approaches based on Brecht’s Epic Theatre and Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed are reviewed. If a Boalian approach to interactive narrative is taken the conflict between narrative and player agency dissolves. The question that emerges from this approach is quite different from the traditional question above, and presents a more useful approach to applying in- teractive narrative as a constructivist learning activity

The impact on and responses of viewers to product placement: a study of mainstream films.

Product placement is a promotional tool within the discipline of marketing whereby branded items feature in entertainment vehicles such as video games, television programmes, stage plays, music videos, books and films. This thesis investigates this practice in relation to mainstream, commercial films. The nature of this research gives it a multidisciplinary approach across two key themes, namely Celebrity Status and Product Placement - with Marketing Communications being the element that links them. Determining which product placements in films make the most impact upon consumers for the commercial benefit of the stakeholders is, primarily, this focus of this thesis. In total eighty-six individuals were interviewed, and the researcher used a qualitative approach, informed with a grounded theory methodology. This yielded an abundance of responses with participants providing a wealth of mixed and, at times, contradictory feedback relating to the acceptance, rejection and ethical concerns regarding product placements. As part of the research process, close attention was paid to the attraction and fascination that actors hold for research participants and how this celebrity-focus, combined with having an audience in a relaxed and receptive frame of mind, informs outcomes in terms of brand recall, enhanced brand values and eventual sales. The study concludes that film placements remain an elusive practice to assess despite it being a long-established marketing technique that has a growing, multi-billion dollar annual spend. This thesis provides insights into the practice and suggests that key variables such as the placement presentation styles and the diversity of consumers, make the commercial assessment of placements hard to determine. Thus, any measures of the success of product placement in mainstream films appear to be limited and difficult to predict

Problem space of modern society: philosophical-communicative and pedagogical interpretations. Part II

This collective monograph offers the description of philosophical bases of definition of communicative competence and pedagogical conditions for the formation of communication skills. The authors of individual chapters have chosen such point of view for the topic which they considered as the most important and specific for their field of study using the methods of logical and semantic analysis of concepts, the method of reflection, textual reconstruction and comparative analysis. The theoretical and applied problems of modern society are investigated in the context of philosophical, communicative and pedagogical interpretations

Accessibility of Health Data Representations for Older Adults: Challenges and Opportunities for Design

Health data of consumer off-the-shelf wearable devices is often conveyed to users through visual data representations and analyses. However, this is not always accessible to people with disabilities or older people due to low vision, cognitive impairments or literacy issues. Due to trade-offs between aesthetics predominance or information overload, real-time user feedback may not be conveyed easily from sensor devices through visual cues like graphs and texts. These difficulties may hinder critical data understanding. Additional auditory and tactile feedback can also provide immediate and accessible cues from these wearable devices, but it is necessary to understand existing data representation limitations initially. To avoid higher cognitive and visual overload, auditory and haptic cues can be designed to complement, replace or reinforce visual cues. In this paper, we outline the challenges in existing data representation and the necessary evidence to enhance the accessibility of health information from personal sensing devices used to monitor health parameters such as blood pressure, sleep, activity, heart rate and more. By creating innovative and inclusive user feedback, users will likely want to engage and interact with new devices and their own data

FLARR Pages: Volume 2, Pages 44-68

FLARR Pages is the journal of The Foreign Language Association of the Red River of the North, an organization consisting of regional public school and private school faculty as well as faculty from Minnesota State University Bemidji, Concordia College, Minnesota State University Moorhead, North Dakota State University, the University of Minnesota Morris, the University of North Dakota, and the University of Winnipeg