Search

This article examines the transformation of television serial fiction in Spain from deregulation and the early stages of private television to the dawn of the digital era (1990–2010). The adaptation of Latin-American telenovelas and English-speaking soap operas to the local context brought traditional Spanish costumbrismo in television fiction up to date. Using this as a starting point, the study identifies four stages of the long-running serial format in Spain that demonstrate its capacity to adapt to a double logic of transnationalization maintaining proximity to regional markets alongside a process of gradual adjustment to the changing social, cultural and economic context. The consolidation of democracy in Spain and successive Socialist administrations (1982–1990) favoured the renewal of themes from classical melodrama with the inclusion of issues until then barely addressed, including women's liberation, sexuality and the recovery of historical memory: topics that have become the mainstay of Spanish television serial fiction in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After advocating flexibilisation of non-standard work contracts for many years, some European and international institutions and several policy makers now indicate the standard employment relationship and its regulation as a cause of segmentation between the labour market of ‘protected’ insiders, employed under permanent contracts with effective protection against unfair dismissal, and the market of the ‘non-protected’ outsiders, working with non-standard contracts. Reforms of employment legislation are therefore being promoted and approved in different countries, supposedly aiming to balance the legal protection afforded to standard and non-standard workers. This article firstly argues that this approach is flawed as it oversimplifies reasons for segmentation and concentrates on an ‘insider–outsider’ discourse that cannot easily be transplanted into continental Europe. After reviewing current legislative changes in Italy, Spain and Portugal, I argue that lawmakers have focused on ‘deregulation’ rather than ‘balancing protection’ when approving recent reforms. I question the mainstream approach to segmentation and some of its derivative proposals, such as calls to introduce a ‘single permanent contract’, on the grounds that they neglect the essential role of job protection in underpinning the effectiveness of fundamental and constitutional rights at the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Primary immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) is a complex autoimmune disease whose hallmark is a deregulation of cellular and humoral immunity leading to increased destruction and reduced production of platelets. The heterogeneity of presentation and clinical course hampers personalized approaches for diagnosis and management. In 2021, the Spanish ITP Group (GEPTI) of the Spanish Society of Hematology and Hemotherapy (SEHH) updated a consensus document that had been launched in 2011. The updated guidelines have been the reference for the diagnosis and management of primary ITP in Spain ever since. Nevertheless, the emergence of new tools and strategies makes it advisable to review them again. For this reason, we have updated the main recommendations appropriately. Our aim is to provide a practical tool to facilitate the integral management of all aspects of primary ITP management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Hepsin is a serine protease whose deregulation leads to tumor invasion and metastasis in many tumor types. In colorectal cancer, the role of hepsin is unknown, so we aimed to study the correlations between its expression and clinical-histopathological variables of patients with this cancer. We recruited 169 patients with localized disease and 118 with metastatic cancer at diagnosis, and then, we measured hepsin staining from primary biopsy in order to correlate it with time-to-event variables, laboratory data, genetic alterations, histologic features, etc. Our results demonstrated hepsin was an independent prognosis factor for metastasis and thrombosis in patients with localized disease, whereas among metastatic subjects, lower levels of hepsin were associated with highest tumor dedifferentiation and spread to distant organs. These results point to hepsin as a potential biomarker for considerable complications in patients with colorectal cancer. In addition, this article brings to light new information about the implication of hepsin in colorectal cancer. Hepsin is a type II transmembrane serine protease whose deregulation promotes tumor invasion by proteolysis of the pericellular components. In colorectal cancer, the implication of hepsin is unknown. Consequently, we aimed to study the correlations between hepsin expression and different clinical-histopathological variables in 169 patients with localized colorectal cancer and 118 with metastases. Tissue microarrays were produced from samples at diagnosis of primary tumors and stained with an anti-hepsin antibody. Hepsin expression was correlated with clinical-histopathological variables by using the chi-square and Kruskal–Wallis tests, Kaplan–Meier and Aalen–Johansen estimators, and Cox and Fine and Gray multivariate models. In localized cancer patients, high-intensity hepsin staining was associated with reduced 5-year disease-free survival (p-value = 0.16). Medium and high intensity of hepsin expression versus low expression was associated with an increased risk of metastatic relapse (hazard ratio 2.83, p-value = 0.035 and hazard ratio 3.30, p-value = 0.012, respectively), being a better prognostic factor than classic histological variables. Additionally, in patients with localized tumor, 5-year thrombosis cumulative incidence increased with the increment of hepsin expression (p-value = 0.038). Medium and high intensities of hepsin with respect to low intensity were associated with an increase in thrombotic risk (hazard ratio 7.71, p-value = 0.043 and hazard ratio 9.02, p-value = 0.028, respectively). This relationship was independent of previous tumor relapse (p-value = 0.036). Among metastatic patients, low hepsin expression was associated with a low degree of tumor differentiation (p-value < 0.001) and with major metastatic dissemination (p-value = 0.023). Hepsin is a potential thrombotic and metastatic biomarker in patients with localized colorectal cancer. In metastatic patients, hepsin behaves in a paradoxical way with respect to differentiation and invasion processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The expansion of the platform economy has altered the spatial organization of work and employment relations, leading to deregulation and eroding workers' social power. However, despite the radical individualization and precarization of platform work, workers demonstrate agency. This article explores the political strategies employed by place-based platform workers, with a particular focus on the spatiality of their collective action. Using an ethnographic methodology, the article analyses the case studies of drivers' trade associations in Chile and the couriers' organization in Spain. The results show significant similarities between the two groups: (a) non-conventional forms of labour activism; (b) using social media to share experiences, foster solidarity and organize collectively; (c) organizing in large cities; (d) starting locally and progressing to higher scales, and (e) building national and international alliances. The article concludes that workers respond to the spatial organization of work by platforms in a multi-scalar way that is strongly influenced by both their imaginaries and the political and regulatory context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional wisdom has it that the food economy has transitioned from organized to disorganized capitalism. An era of extensive state intervention between around 1930 and 1980 would have been followed by an era of deregulation and increasing coordination through markets after around 1980. This article uses the case of Spain's dairy chain to propose an alternative view. In the case under study, there certainly were elements of state‐coordinated capitalism between 1952 and 1986, as well as elements of deregulation and liberalization from 1986 onwards. However, the structure of economic coordination involved some combination of market and nonmarket mechanisms all the way through. The organized capitalism of the first period was not really so tightly organized, whereas much of its later "disorganization" was in fact a transition towards a different mode of "organization": one in which the control of nonmarket coordination shifted from political to corporate hierarchies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integration of the residential function beyond the limits of the urban and developable land in the legislative frameworks has had a distinct and incomplete character. Faced with an identical phenomenon in general, called urban sprawl, the competent governments in this matter within the Iberian Peninsula have opted for a dissimilar assimilation of it, materialized in different legal and instrumental mechanisms. The objective of this paper is to present the different ways of understanding and regulating this new urban model by the Portuguese state government and the regional autonomous governments in Spain. To do this, a comparative analysis is carried out on the criteria for the classification of undeveloped land and a review of the most paradigmatic tools for the management of periurban and rurban development. The works indicate a position that is still indeterminate and, sometimes, contradictory. In spite of this, there is a tendency towards the regulated inclusion of the residential function outside the geographical contexts that have traditionally supported it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focus on a critical analysis of a discursive formation in Spanish academic libraries: social responsibility and sustainability. The concepts that make up the discourse are historically contextualized in order to clarify their origin and social affiliation. Although the enunciation of social responsibility and sustainability content is formulated ambiguously, its articulation as a discursive practice within the framework of the new corporate management university libraries leads us to infer bias in their rhetorical formulation. We consider that, from a fuzzy concept and its integration into technocratic practices, the discourse can be used as a tool for legitimizing the deregulation of public educational institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of financialisation is being widely used to describe certain structural changes in advanced capitalist economies. The main approaches to this concept are discussed in this paper. Firstly, the causes of the financial expansion that are synthesised in innovation, liquidification and deregulation processes are identified; secondly, the indicators concerning these processes relative to the structure of the balance sheet and profit and loss account of the main economic actors are empirically analysed for the Spanish case. The results of the analysis show a trend consistent with all capitalist economies, in which financial capital gains increase not only when the net profits of companies rise, but also when they collapse in a context of severe economic crisis and high unemployment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented which explores the struggles of evicted homeowners in Barcelona, Spain. It notes that the collapse of the real estate sector in 2008 has resulted in many foreclosed communities in Spain where daily evictions reached an average of 184 in 2013. It attributes the failure of Spain's housing market to the government's emphasis on home ownership as a status symbol of professional success, deregulation of credit and lending, and overvaluing of property prices.

Telomere length has been associated with the development of cancer. Studies have shown that shorter telomere length may be related to a decreased risk of cutaneous melanoma. Furthermore, deregulation of the telomere-maintaining gene complexes , has been related to this oncogenic process. Some variants in these genes seem to be correlated with a change in telomerase expression. We examined the effect of 10 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the TERT gene (encoding telomerase), one SNP in the related TERT-CLPTM1L locus and one SNP in the TRF1 gene with telomere length, and its influence on melanoma risk in 970 Spanish cases and 733 Spanish controls. Genotypes were determined using KASP technology, and telomere length was measured by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) on DNA extracted from peripheral blood leucocytes. Our results demonstrate that shorter telomere length is associated with a decreased risk of melanoma in our population (global p -value, 2.69 × 10 −11 ), which may be caused by a diminution of proliferative potential of nevi (melanoma precursor cells). We also obtained significant results when we tested the association between rs401681 variant ( TERT-CLPTM1L locus ) with melanoma risk (Odds ratio, OR; 95% confidence interval, CI = 1.24 (1.08–1.43); p -value, 3 × 10 −3 ). This is the largest telomere-related study undertaken in a Spanish population to date. Furthermore, this study represents a comprehensive analysis of some of the most relevant telomere pathway genes in relation to cutaneous melanoma susceptibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The deregulation of the electricity markets in the European Union and the transformation caused by digital technologies and customer-centric strategies have altered the industry ecosystem, forcing companies to adapt to the new scenario. This research study aims to give a global overview of the digital transformation and channel integration of free-market electricity retailers in Spain from a consumer's perspective. The analysis includes all free-market electricity retailers that operate at the national scale, explores the level of digital transformation and channel integration of these companies based on a structured set of indicators, and measures them using the mystery shopper technique. The results show important differences between leading retailers and the rest of companies, evidence an important lag of the sector when compared to other retail markets and an overall lack of multichannel and omnichannel strategies, show a strong effort of retailers in online billing and self-service customer data management, and reveal shortcomings in the availability of communication channels with customers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]