International Business Email Communication in ELF (English as Lingua Franca)

E-mail correspondence has become one of the most useful ways for global communication, and more precisely for international business communication. As it is explained in the introductory section diverse studies of global communication in English have been carried out concerning ELF (English as lingua franca) and BELF (Business English as lingua franca). The purpose of this research is to bring to the forth the latest variation patters in business email communication in English. The study aims to analyze an authentic corpus of 90 emails written in English by business managers of different chemical companies set up in 14 different countries around the world, including native and non-native speakers of English who use this language as lingua franca for commercial and distribution purposes. The central research targets are to observe: first, the main register patterns of variation towards a more informal and conversational nature; secondly, the main communicative strategies to achieve the required communicative competence in BELF for international business purposes; and third, the prototypical move structure fluctuation from the standard structure of, for instance, business letters to a more relaxed pattern. The conclusions reveal an inclination towards a more informal, co-operative and goal-oriented international business email communication

Relevance of Social, Economic, and Environmental Impacts on Residents’ Satisfaction with the Public Administration of Tourism

Those in charge of tourism destinations face the need to create tourism development models compatible with the essence of the localities that they manage. These models have to be sustainable, both environmentally and socially, and also must become drivers of the local economy. However, tourists also generate negative impacts in the locality which, when they are perceived by the residents, can give rise to a rejection of visitors. Hence, improving the tourism management is necessary. This is why to know the residents’ perceptions about the impacts of tourism is essential. Moreover, measuring the impact effects on their satisfaction with the public administration of the destination can be of great usefulness. This study falls into this research line, as it proposes a model to measure these impacts and their effect on satisfaction. To do so, an empirical study is performed among residents in the city of Seville (southern Spain, one of the most visited destinations in the world), based on subjective economic, social, and environmental indicators. The results show that the citizens value three types of impacts, the social impact coming after the economic impact as to its influence on their satisfaction with the administration. Based on this, we postulate that the efforts made to attract events to the city, or to improve connections to access a broader market, must be approached as public procurements in which selection criteria that are compatible with the destination’s positioning and strategy prevail. Social and environmental criteria should be considered among these criteria

Learning to Avoid Risky Actions

When a reinforcement learning agent executes actions that can cause frequent damage to itself, it can learn, by using Q-learning, that these actions must not be executed again. However, there are other actions that do not cause damage frequently but only once in a while, for example, risky actions such as parachuting. These actions may imply punishment to the agent and, depending on its personality, it would be better to avoid them. Nevertheless, using the standard Q-learning algorithm, the agent is not able to learn to avoid them, because the result of these actions can be positive on average. In this article, an additional mechanism of Q-learning, inspired by the emotion of fear, is introduced in order to deal with those risky actions by considering the worst results. Moreover, there is a daring factor for adjusting the consideration of the risk. This mechanism is implemented on an autonomous agent living in a virtual environment. The results present the performance of the agent with different daring degrees.The funds provided by the Spanish Government through the project called “A New Approach to Social Robotics” (AROS), of MICINN (Ministry of Science and Innovation) and through the RoboCity2030-IICM project (S2009/DPI-1559), funded by Programas de Actividades I+D en la Comunidad de Madrid and cofunded by Structural Funds of the EU

Spanish adaptation and validation of the Cultural Competence Assessment Tool (CCATool) for undergraduate nursing students

Aim To analyse and validate a contextually adapted version of the Papadopoulos’ Cultural Competence Assessment Tool (CCATool) for Spanish undergraduate nursing students Background Globalization has driven and intensified international migration. Thus, nurses must treat patients of many different cultural origins. Accordingly, both cultural competence and an appropriate tool with which to evaluate it are required. Methods The CCATool questionnaire was adapted for use in a Spanish context and was evaluated through a questionnaire completed by 262 undergraduate nursing students. Seven days later, the same students completed the questionnaire, without any intervention, and a subgroup of 144 students completed the questionnaire for a third time after taking a course in Transcultural Care. The reliability, sensitivity and stability of the questionnaire were assessed. Results The reliability of the questionnaire obtained an adequate Cronbach's alpha of 0.81. Stability was assessed at seven days, using the intraclass correlation coefficient, which showed good/excellent results. Moreover, the questionnaire was able to detect the changes related to the nursing educative programme, thus highlighting a good sensitivity of the tool. Conclusion Cultural competence is an essential element of nurses’ education, and instruction in this area should begin as soon as possible. In addition, an appropriate evaluation system is required. For this purpose, the present study describes and analyses a valid, reliable tool for use with undergraduate nursing students in Spain. (...)The project was funded by the University of Malaga as part of the Teaching Innovation Project (PIE19-045). Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málag

Fast 3D cluster tracking for a mobile robot using 2D techniques on depth images

User simultaneous detection and tracking is an issue at the core of human-robot interaction (HRI). Several methods exist and give good results; many use image processing techniques on images provided by the camera. The increasing presence in mobile robots of range-imaging cameras (such as structured light devices as Microsoft Kinects) allows us to develop image processing on depth maps. In this article, a fast and lightweight algorithm is presented for the detection and tracking of 3D clusters thanks to classic 2D techniques such as edge detection and connected components applied to the depth maps. The recognition of clusters is made using their 2D shape. An algorithm for the compression of depth maps has been specifically developed, allowing the distribution of the whole processing among several computers. The algorithm is then applied to a mobile robot for chasing an object selected by the user. The algorithm is coupled with laser-based tracking to make up for the narrow field of view of the range-imaging camera. The workload created by the method is light enough to enable its use even with processors with limited capabilities. Extensive experimental results are given for verifying the usefulness of the proposed method.Spanish MICINN (Ministry of Science and Innovation) through the project ‘‘Applications of Social Robots=Aplicaciones de los Robots Sociales.’’Publicad

Cultural adaptation and validation of the Transcultural Self-Efficacy Tool for use with undergraduate nursing students in Spain.

BACKGROUND: The provision of culturally competent care helps reduce healthcare inequalities. There is a positive association between the cultural competence of nursing professionals and patient satisfaction, and also between nurses' self-efficacy and patients' adherence to treatment. While training in this respect is important, the self-assessment of skills should also be addressed. AIMS: To produce a culturally-validated Spanish-language version of the Transcultural Self-Efficacy Tool (TSET) for use in undergraduate nursing studies, and to evaluate its implementation within the Spanish educational system. METHODS: This cultural adaptation and psychometric validation study was carried out with student nurses from two universities. International standards were followed for the translation and cultural adaptation of the questionnaire. All students completed the questionnaire twice, the second time 14days after the first. Those who took the Transcultural Care course at the University of Malaga also completed the questionnaire a third time, after concluding this study subject. The reliability, discriminatory capacity, stability and sensitivity to change of the questionnaire were tested and confirmed, and a confirmatory factor analysis was performed. RESULTS: A total of 286 students took part in this study. Overall, the TSET obtained a reliability score of 0.978, according to Cronbach's alpha test. In relation to nationality of origin, the discriminatory capacity of the questionnaire was -1.067 (-1815 a -0,320)=0.005. Stability, assessed at 14days using the intraclass correlation coefficient, was 0.901 (0.873 a 0.923) <0.001. The before-after sensitivity to change for those who took the Transcultural Care course was 1.820 (1558 a 2083) <0.001. CONCLUSIONS: This Spanish-language version of the TSET is culturally suitable for the educational context of undergraduate nursing students in Spain, and its psychometric validation was performed with satisfactory results. Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved

An autonomous social robot in fear

Currently artificial emotions are being extensively used in robots. Most of these implementations are employed to display affective states. Nevertheless, their use to drive the robot's behavior is not so common. This is the approach followed by the authors in this work. In this research, emotions are not treated in general but individually. Several emotions have been implemented in a real robot, but in this paper, authors focus on the use of the emotion of fear as an adaptive mechanism to avoid dangerous situations. In fact, fear is used as a motivation which guides the behavior during specific circumstances. Appraisal of fear is one of the cornerstones of this work. A novel mechanism learns to identify the harmful circumstances which cause damage to the robot. Hence, these circumstances elicit the fear emotion and are known as fear releasers. In order to prove the advantages of considering fear in our decision making system, the robot's performance with and without fear are compared and the behaviors are analyzed. The robot's behaviors exhibited in relation to fear are natural, i.e., the same kind of behaviors can be observed on animals. Moreover, they have not been preprogrammed, but learned by real interactions in the real world. All these ideas have been implemented in a real robot living in a laboratory and interacting with several items and people.The funds have been provided by the Spanish Government through the project called "A new approach to social robotics" (AROS), of MICINN (Ministry of Science and Innovation) and through the RoboCity2030- II-CM project (S2009/DPI-1559), funded by Programas de Actividades I+D en la Comunidad de Madrid and cofunded by Structural Funds of the EU

Learning the selection of actions for an autonomous social robot by reinforcement learning based on motivations

Autonomy is a prime issue on robotics field and it is closely related to decision making. Last researches on decision making for social robots are focused on biologically inspired mechanisms for taking decisions. Following this approach, we propose a motivational system for decision making, using internal (drives) and external stimuli for learning to choose the right action. Actions are selected from a finite set of skills in order to keep robot's needs within an acceptable range. The robot uses reinforcement learning in order to calculate the suitability of every action in each state. The state of the robot is determined by the dominant motivation and its relation to the objects presents in its environment. The used reinforcement learning method exploits a new algorithm called Object Q-Learning. The proposed reduction of the state space and the new algorithm considering the collateral effects (relationship between different objects) results in a suitable algorithm to be applied to robots living in real environments. In this paper, a first implementation of the decision making system and the learning process is implemented on a social robot showing an improvement in robot's performance. The quality of its performance will be determined by observing the evolution of the robot's wellbeing.The funds provided by the Spanish Government through the project called “Peer to Peer Robot-Human Interaction” (R2H), of MEC (Ministry of Science and Education), the project “A new approach to social robotics” (AROS), of MICINN (Ministry of Science and Innovation), and the RoboCity2030-II-CM project (S2009/DPI-1559), funded by Programas de Actividades I+D en la Comunidad de Madrid and cofunded by Structural Funds of the EU

English as an Academic Lingua Franca in Spanish Tertiary Education: An Analysis of the use of Pragmatic Strategies in English-Medium LectureS.

Durante la última década, un cambio lingüístico ha sido especialmente notable en los contextos de educación superior debido al creciente uso del inglés como medio de instrucción (EMI) en las universidades europeas. Por ello, existe una innegable necesidad de saber más sobre las prácticas diarias de quienes participan en actividades académicas internacionales usando el inglés como vehículo de comunicación. Numerosos estudios se han realizado previamente en relación al inglés utilizado como lengua franca (ELF) en el ámbito académico. Sin embargo, existe una relativa falta de estudios empíricos sobre este uso del inglés en las universidades españolas en comparación con estudios similares en instituciones académicas europeas (Mauranen, 2006b; Björkman, 2010, 2011b, 2013). Esta investigación pretende estudiar las prácticas de inglés como medio de instrucción en diferentes disciplinas en la Universidad de Zaragoza (España), centrándose en el tipo de estrategias pragmáticas que utilizan los participantes para facilitar la comprensión. Estas prácticas lingüísticas son analizadas en este estudio con el fin de arrojar luz sobre el impacto que tiene el inglés en la eficacia comunicativa en estos entornos de enseñanza-aprendizaje.Los resultados derivan del análisis de un corpus de 12 clases magistrales impartidas en inglés como medio de instrucción que fueron grabadas en dos titulaciones diferentes. Estas se complementan con entrevistas semiestructuradas con los profesores y un pequeño corpus de diapositivas de presentaciones en formato PowerPoint que los mismos profesores utilizaron para impartir sus clases. Para analizar estos tres conjuntos de datos se ha utilizado un enfoque discursivo-pragmático y una metodología de orientación etnográfica. Por lo tanto, en este estudio se utiliza la triangulación de datos y la triangulación metodológica, ambas derivando en resultados tanto cuantitativos como cualitativos. Los resultados del estudio muestran 13 estrategias pragmáticas diferentes utilizadas en las sesiones magistrales grabadas para cumplir funciones comunicativas tales como potenciar la explicitud, aclarar y negociar el significado y/o el uso aceptable del lenguaje. El análisis de datos revela que las estrategias pragmáticas observadas en el corpus se utilizan principalmente para evitar posibles problemas comunicativos, pero también para remediar problemas de producción que obstaculizan abiertamente la comunicación y para co-construir la comprensión. Respaldando los estudios existentes sobre el inglés utilizado como lengua vehicular para la instrucción, los resultados revelan un uso altamente contextual y situacional de estrategias pragmáticas.<br /

Complementary music therapy for cancer patients in at-home palliative care and their caregivers: protocol for a multicentre randomised controlled trial

Background Patients with advanced cancer, receiving at-home palliative care, are subject to numerous symptoms that are changeable and often require attention, a stressful situation that also impacts on the family caregiver. It has been suggested that music therapy may benefit both the patient and the caregiver. We propose a study to analyse the efficacy and cost utility of a music intervention programme, applied as complementary therapy, for cancer patients in palliative care and for their at-home caregivers, compared to usual treatment. Method A randomised, double-blind, multicentre clinical trial will be performed in cancer patients in at-home palliative care and their family caregivers. The study population will include two samples of 40 patients and two samples of 41 caregivers. Participants will be randomly assigned either to the intervention group or to the control group. The intervention group will receive a seven-day programme including music sessions, while the control group will receive seven sessions of (spoken word) therapeutic education. In this study, the primary outcome measure is the assessment of patients' symptoms, according to the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System, and of the overload experienced by family caregivers, measured by the Caregiver Strain Index. The secondary outcomes considered will be the participants' health-related quality of life, their satisfaction with the intervention, and an economic valuation. Discussion This study is expected to enhance our understanding of the efficacy and cost-utility of music therapy for cancer patients in palliative care and for their family caregivers. The results of this project are expected to be applicable and transferrable to usual clinical practice for patients in home palliative care and for their caregivers. The approach described can be incorporated as an additional therapeutic resource within comprehensive palliative care. To our knowledge, no previous high quality studies, based on a double-blind clinical trial, have been undertaken to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of music therapy. The cost-effectiveness of the project will provide information to support decision making, thereby improving the management of health resources and their use within the health system