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Abstract: We examine variations in financial and economic performance as a function of organizational form, and, over time. The forms we consider include Spanish commercial banks, savings banks, and financial cooperatives. We decompose multilateral variation in operating profit, our measure of financial performance, into price and quantity effects. We then decompose the latter into a margin effect and productivity change. Our measure of economic performance, productivity variation, is subsequently disaggregated into technical, cost efficiency, and scale. We find that deregulation and liberalization have acted to narrow performance gaps among organizational forms; this, despite less-than compelling evidence that increased competition has contributed to this convergence. For the Spanish banking system as a whole, the margin effect appears to deliver twice as much financial benefit as do improvements in productivity. Importantly, this finding does not vary across organizational form. Such regularity has an important implication: Incentives for growth are apparently provided by a positive margin rather than by the more elusive benefits of economies of scale and improved cost efficiency. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In new deregulated electricity market, price forecasts have become a fundamental input to an energy company’s decision making and strategy development process. However, the exclusive characteristics of electricity price such as non-stationarity, non-linearity and time-varying volatile structure present a number of challenges for this task. In spite of all performed research on this area in the recent years, there is still essential need for more accurate and robust price forecast methods. Besides, there is a lack of efficient feature selection technique for designing the input vector of electricity price forecast. In this paper, a new two-stage feature selection algorithm composed of modified relief and mutual information (MI) techniques is proposed for this purpose. Moreover, cascaded neural network (CNN) is presented as forecast engine for electricity price prediction. The CNN is composed of cascaded forecasters where each forecaster is a neural network (NN). The proposed feature selection algorithm selects the best set of candidate inputs which is used by the CNN. The proposed method is examined on PJM, Spanish and Ontario electricity markets and compared with some of the most recent price forecast techniques. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

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 Toxic Oil Syndrome (TOS) was a toxic epidemic disease, related to the consumption of rapeseed oil denatured with aniline that affected more than 20,000 people in Spain and resulted in more than 330 deaths after its sudden appearance in 1981. It has been reported that the fatty acid esters of 3-(N-phenylamino)-1,2-propanediol (PAP) have shown a strong association with TOS. These PAP-esters could be absorbed and metabolized in a similar way than phospholipids. This is of interest because some products of phospholipid metabolism are important mediators in downstream pathways involved in the regulation of different nuclear factors. In particular, phospholipase D activity is involved in the activation of c-fos. Thus, we have investigated the effect of different PAP-esters in the induction of c-fos in lung fibroblasts. Results indicate that PAP-esters rapidly induced the expression of c-fos in a dose–dependent manner. In addition, both butanol and propranolol prevent this induction pointing to the involvement of phospholipase D in this activation. These results suggest that deregulation of some nuclear factors such as AP-1 could be involved in the pathogenesis of TOS. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The aim of the European Commission''s Single European Sky initiative is to promote a series of structural changes within Air Transport to help improve its efficiency, continuity and sustainability. One of the key elements of the air transport system is Air Traffic Services (ATSs), which must guarantee safe and fluid operations. The Single European Sky initiative puts in place a series of mechanisms to replace the existing public monopolies with free market models. Taking advantage of this new framework, Spain has initiated a process of liberalisation of ATS Services, which may provide a business opportunity for operators with an interest in the area of air transport, and European providers who wish to expand their markets. This document sets out the new legal framework that has been put in place in Spain to promote this process, indicating the motives of these actions and the main implications the process will have, whilst maintaining the objective of guaranteeing continuity of service, and avoiding any barriers to entry, which changes of this type can give rise to. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]