The University of La Rioja (UR) is a public institution of higher education based in Logroño, La Rioja, Spain. Inaugurated during 1992-1993 from various existing schools and colleges, it currently teaches Grades 19 adapted to the European Higher Education, and a varied program of masters, summer courses and courses of Spanish language and culture for foreigners. It has earned the Campus International Excellence for the project "Iberus" presented together with the public universities of Zaragoza, Navarra, and Lledia.The campus of the University of La Rioja is located in Logroño. Teaching, research and culture are activities conducted in the roughly 200,000 square meters it covers. The shield of the University of La Rioja is composed of the initials "U" and "R" removed from the calligraphy of emilianenses codices, written and kept in the Monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla, considered 'the cradle of the Spanish' and a Heritage Site.In 1996, the University of La Rioja was the first campus to create and teach Spanish in the Bachelor of Oenology, according to the tradition of winemaking in the region, while in 1999 it began offering studies in History and Bachelor of Science Music, the first given at a Spanish public campus entirely through the Internet and is now offered by the Bachelor of Science in Labour and much of the master's program and graduate courses.The staff at the University of La Rioja is composed of about 450 members of teaching and research staff and 250 other members of the Administration and Services. The ratio remains at 15 students per teacher. In eighteen years of history, University of La Rioja has taught more than 14,000 students.The UR is part of Group 9 of Universities, which brings together the nine public campuses that are unique in their autonomous region, and Tordesillas Group, a network of Latin American campus has its origins in the First Meeting of Rectors of Universities in Brazil, Spain and Portugal, which was held in June 2000 for the commemoration of 500 years of Brazil, in the Houses of the Treaty in Tordesillas (Valladolid).In 1999 it received the Medal of the Government of La Rioja, in a ceremony in San Millan de la Cogolla. It runs Dialnet, a bibliographic database.
Poplar wood is an important bioresource used in the manufacture of plywood, fibreboard, paper pulp, and a wide range of other products. The accumulation of poplar sawdust in industrial environments represents a significant hazard when exposed to hot surfaces. Despite the widespread use of this material, fire and explosion safety data for poplar dust remain notably scarce. The Minimum Ignition Temperature of a dust layer (MITL) is a key parameter for assessing its susceptibility to ignition. In this study, a series of hot plate experiments was conducted on different fractions of poplar sawdust to investigate the influence of particle size, layer thickness and bulk density on the ignition temperature. The results indicate that MITL decreased with increasing layer thickness, whereas particle size had little influence on ignition behaviour. The latter finding was not observed for samples of pine pellet dust, which followed the trend commonly reported in the literature. Compaction of the poplar samples reduced MITL by 10 degrees C, thereby increasing their susceptibility to ignition, although one sample did not follow this trend. The results suggest that the process is heat-limited and that bulk porosity -or compaction- may play an important role, potentially explaining the contrasting behaviour of the two materials. In addition, the Frank-Kamenetskii thermal explosion model was applied to the experimental results to estimate the activation energy and extrapolate the MITL values to thicker dust layers. The prediction for 50 mm-thick layers deviated significantly from the general recommendations for dust layers provided in the EN 60079-14 standard.
This paper advances the study of echoic language by demonstrating its greater structural complexity and functional breadth than is commonly recognized. Based on examples found in a naturally occurring exchange of comments on an online blog about the strangler fig, we analyse a text underpinning a multilayered network of echoes. The productivity of these novel echoic categories is validated through additional naturally running examples from diverse Internet sources. While commonly associated with reported speech and irony, echoes also facilitate discourse cohesion, assert stance, and bolster persuasive arguments. Our conceptual framework expands upon existing typologies of echoic configurations by positing two further patterns: dual-source echoic compounding, whereby two dissimilar echoes—one denotational and the other attitudinal—are integrated within a single syntagmatic slot; and echoic amalgams, which entail the convergence of two related, implicit echoes into one inferentially rich unit. A new category of hyperbole, the compound hyperbolic construction, is also proposed. Finally, our analysis empirically substantiates the existence of a multifunctional echo governing the interplay of five distinct phenomena (fictive motion, metonymy, metaphor, irony, and oxymoron), thereby surpassing the complexity of previously documented composites. The present findings motivate a more comprehensive framework capable of encompassing the pervasive implicitness, structural heterogeneity, and functional versatility of echoing. We present echoic amalgams, dual-source compounded echoes, and compound hyperbolic constructions as productive typological categories, providing complementary replicable diagnostic criteria and explicit predictions to assist in identifying potential instances in large-scale corpus studies across genres and languages.
Semantic fluency, the ability to retrieve words within a category, relies on lexical knowledge, semantic memory and executive control mechanisms. A richer, interconnected semantic memory and optimal executive control, as seen in creative individuals, enhance fluency through broad associative searches and quicker access to remote concepts. However, the extent to which this creativity-related advantage in the first language (L1) extends to second language (L2) remains largely unexplored. Using a combination of inferential analyses, we examined how productive vocabulary knowledge and creativity relate to L2 semantic fluency in a sample of 60 Spanish 12th-grade English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. L2 semantic fluency was measured using two semantic fluency tasks. Findings suggest that vocabulary provides the necessary basis for creativity to operate and that although creativity enhances L2 semantic fluency in semantically broad domains, verbal flexibility serves a compensatory function in more constrained categories. Further analyses of lexical production patterns and retrieval strategies lent support to these findings.
Abstract Empirical evidence has demonstrated the power of AI to influence human decisions and the risk of humans acquiring AI biases. Therefore, there is a clear need to develop strategies to mitigate such threat. In three experiments, set in a medical context, we tested whether warning individuals about AI biases and errors could mitigate the negative impact of AI biases on their decisions and reduce the transmission of AI biases to humans. In Experiment 1, participants received explicit information about the percentage of erroneous AI recommendations but with two different framings: in terms of AI accuracy or AI risk of error. Our results showed that emphasising the risk of AI errors, more than its accuracy, reduced people’s tendency to follow incorrect AI suggestions and to acquire biases from AI. In Experiment 2, a more general warning message alerting of possible AI errors and biases was also effective in reducing bias acquisition. Experiment 3 showed that, although the warning message provided some protection against bias, participants who received AI support still made more errors than participants who completed the classification task without any assistance. Experiments 2 and 3 also investigated whether the type of error made by the AI, a false positive or a false negative, influenced participants’ tendency to adhere to its suggestions, and the effect of the warning message. However, no significant effects were found. Overall, our results highlight the importance of informing users about the risk of AI error rather than focusing solely on accuracy.
This study examines digital gamified museum experiences through the lens of affordance theory using a mixed-methods design. Two research questions guided the work: (1) which affordances, visitor experiences and outcomes characterise a gamified digital museum interaction, and (2) how these affordances shape different experience dimensions and related outcomes. Interviews with visitors engaging with a projection-mapping interactive table - depicting the harsh working conditions of a 19th-century factory - identified four affordances (rewards, competition, immersion, empathy), three experience dimensions (flow, learning perception, enjoyment) and three outcomes (perceived memorability, attitude reinforcement, intention to donate). The proposed model was tested with 252 museum visitors using PLSc-SEM. Findings show that specific affordances give rise to distinct experiences and outcomes. Theoretically, the study advances affordance theory in the context of gamified museum experiences. Practically, the results provide insights for exhibit design and museum management.HighlightsThe affordance theory is highly dependent on the experience and setting providedMuseums offer specific gamification affordances for better visitor experiencesGamification in museums need to focus on enjoyment and learningDigital gamification can strengthen the sense of empathy felt with historical facts
