Spanish Case Research Articles

Experimental Study of Indoor Air Quality in Educational Buildings: A Spanish Case Study

Ensuring good indoor air quality in the spaces within educational centres is essential for the health and academic performance of students. In this sense, studying the evolution of health pollutants and their relationship with the environmental parameters of indoor humidity and temperature presents a challenge for the design of more efficient and comfortable buildings with a lower risk of virus infection. In this work, the relationship between pollution levels and SARS-CoV-2 virus infections in the academic year 2021/22 is shown, comparing the pollution values measured on-site with the value of the official measuring stations of the Community of Madrid. In addition, the impact of ventilation measures implemented during this period is assessed, aiming to establish guidelines for ensuring a safer and healthier school environment. It was found that during winter months, when there is less outdoor ventilation, pollution levels exceeded the recommended limits, according to reference regulations. This highlights the need for interior conditioning strategies in educational spaces. Thus, this multidimensional approach, considering both airborne pollutants and weather conditions, provides a comprehensive perspective on indoor air quality in school buildings in the central area of a metropolitan city, such as the Community of Madrid.

Addressing lung cancer screening eligibility in Spain using 2013 and 2021 US Preventive Service Task Force criteria: cross-sectional study

ObjectivesThe aim of the study was to ascertain the percentage of Spanish lung cancer cases that would fulfil the lung cancer screening inclusion criteria recommended by the United States Preventive Service Task Force (USPSTF) in 2013 and 2021.MethodsA cross-sectional study was carried out. All lung cancer cases registered in the Thoracic Tumor Registry with data on date of birth, date of diagnosis, smoking habit, number of pack-years and time elapsed since smoking cessation were included.ResultsThe study included 15 006 patients diagnosed with lung cancer in Spain between 2016 and 2022. Eligibility to participate in screening increased from 53.7% to 63.5% (an increase of 9.8%) according to the 2013 and 2021 recommendations, respectively. The percentage of eligible men rose by 9.2 percentage points with the 2021versus2013 recommendations, whereas this rise was 11.5 percentage points in women. Under the 2021 recommendations, 36.6% of women and 5.3% of men would not have fulfilled the screening inclusion criteria due to being never-smokers; 14.9% of women and 11.0% of men would not have fulfilled the age criterion; and 27.0% of ex-smokers among women compared to 35.6% among men would not have been eligible due to >15 years having elapsed since smoking cessation.ConclusionsIn Spain, over one-third of lung cancer cases could not be detected through screening, by virtue of not meeting the most recent inclusion criteria stated by the USPSTF. The degree of fulfilment in a potential nationwide screening programme should be analysed, with the aim of establishing inclusion criteria in line with each country's context.

Novel Pathogenic Variants in the Gene Encoding Stereocilin (STRC) Causing Non-Syndromic Moderate Hearing Loss in Spanish and Argentinean Subjects.

Non-syndromic hearing impairment (NSHI) is a very heterogeneous genetic condition, involving over 130 genes. Mutations in GJB2, encoding connexin-26, are a major cause of NSHI (the DFNB1 type), but few other genes have significant epidemiological contributions. Mutations in the STRC gene result in the DFNB16 type of autosomal recessive NSHI, a common cause of moderate hearing loss. STRC is located in a tandem duplicated region that includes the STRCP1 pseudogene, and so it is prone to rearrangements causing structural variations. Firstly, we screened a cohort of 122 Spanish familial cases of non-DFNB1 NSHI with at least two affected siblings and unaffected parents, and with different degrees of hearing loss (mild to profound). Secondly, we screened a cohort of 64 Spanish sporadic non-DFNB1 cases, and a cohort of 35 Argentinean non-DFNB1 cases, all of them with moderate hearing loss. Amplification of marker D15S784, massively parallel DNA sequencing, multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification and long-range gene-specific PCR followed by Sanger sequencing were used to search and confirm single-nucleotide variants (SNVs) and deletions involving STRC. Causative variants were found in 13 Spanish familial cases (10.7%), 5 Spanish simplex cases (7.8%) and 2 Argentinean cases (5.7%). In all, 34 deleted alleles and 6 SNVs, 5 of which are novel. All affected subjects had moderate hearing impairment. Our results further support this strong genotype-phenotype correlation and highlight the significant contribution of STRC mutations to moderate NSHI in the Spanish population.

Social Innovation for the Socio-Labour Integration of Refugees in New Host Countries: The Spanish Case

In recent years, southern European countries have experienced a surge in the arrival of refugees and asylum seekers, which has intensified due to the war in Ukraine. In this scenario, the public sector and non-profit and voluntary organisations (NPVOs) play a leading role by introducing new initiatives to respond to the vast number of applicants and facilitating their socio-labour integration into these new host societies. This article aims to identify and analyse social innovations developed by the public sector and NPVOs while paying particular attention to the new governance regarding the collaboration between these two types of institutions. Having taken Spain as our case study, we focus on the leading organisations of the National Asylum System, composed of three NPVOs and one public institution. Our findings show that the oversaturated situation in the new host countries has stimulated social innovation, especially within NPVOs, albeit with close collaboration with the public sector and other local actors.

Perception of Sports Science Students in Higher Education on Basic Digital Competences: Spanish Case

In order to improve the teaching–learning process at the university level, it is essential to consolidate students’ digital competences (DCs) during their initial training. This development is analysed in the area of sports management as part of the physical activity and sports science (CAFyD) bachelor’s degree. Students (n = 236) from private (n = 120) and public (n = 116) universities participated by completing the COBADI questionnaire (registered trademark: 2970648®), structured into three dimensions: (I) Competences in knowledge and use of ICTs in social communication and collaborative learning; (II) competences in the use of ICT for information search and processing; and (III) virtual and social communication tools of the university. Likert scale responses ranged from 1 to 4 points. The results show significant differences in terms of the type of university. In terms of gender, females have a better digital perception, with a significant difference (… I know how to use programs…). This pioneering research is of relevance for higher education professors in the field of sports, as it helps to detect areas where students lack DCs and engages them in the enhancement of their learning.

Adaptation strategies for dealing with global atmospheric change in Mediterranean agriculture: a triple helix approach to the Spanish case study

Adaptation strategies for dealing with global atmospheric change in Mediterranean agriculture: a triple helix approach to the Spanish case study

A methodological approach for assessing flexibility and capacity value in renewable-dominated power systems: A Spanish case study in 2030

Maintaining the security of supply is one of the challenges that system operators face. Variability and uncertainty increase due to the penetration of variable renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, while flexible technologies such as traditional thermal units are phased out to reduce emissions. The current methods for assessing power system adequacy are based on historical operations and are generally intended to be applied to thermal-dominated electricity systems. Therefore, it is necessary to improve current adequacy assessment methods since they usually neglect the flexibility of power systems. This paper presents a methodological approach for jointly assessing the adequacy and flexibility of power systems. The methodology’s usefulness is demonstrated through its application to the Spanish power system. For the case study, results show that new closed-looped pumped storage hydro technology provides 25% flexibility while contributing to adequacy due to higher installed capacity and round-trip efficiency. Due to shorter storage duration, batteries only contribute to flexibility, supplying 16% of the total operating reserves. Therefore, this study shows that metrics of flexibility and individual contribution to the power system adequacy complement each other and simultaneously enable the scarcities of power systems to be observed.

Boosting Holistic Cybersecurity Awareness with Outsourced Wide-Scope CyberSOC: A Generalization from a Spanish Public Organization Study

Public sector organizations are facing an escalating challenge with the increasing volume and complexity of cyberattacks, which disrupt essential public services and jeopardize citizen data and privacy. Effective cybersecurity management has become an urgent necessity. To combat these threats comprehensively, the active involvement of all functional areas is crucial, necessitating a heightened holistic cybersecurity awareness among tactical and operational teams responsible for implementing security measures. Public entities face various challenges in maintaining this awareness, including difficulties in building a skilled cybersecurity workforce, coordinating mixed internal and external teams, and adapting to the outsourcing trend, which includes cybersecurity operations centers (CyberSOCs). Our research began with an extensive literature analysis to expand our insights derived from previous works, followed by a Spanish case study in collaboration with a digitization-focused public organization. The study revealed common features shared by public organizations globally. Collaborating with this public entity, we developed strategies tailored to its characteristics and transferrable to other public organizations. As a result, we propose the “Wide-Scope CyberSOC” as an innovative outsourced solution to enhance holistic awareness among the cross-functional cybersecurity team and facilitate comprehensive cybersecurity adoption within public organizations. We have also documented essential requirements for public entities when contracting Wide-Scope CyberSOC services to ensure alignment with their specific needs, accompanied by a management framework for seamless operation.

Does bank branch density reduce income inequality in the Spanish provinces?

This paper analyzes whether the density of bank branches is affecting income inequality in the Spanish provinces in the post-crisis years (2015–2019). The results show a non-significant impact for the analyzed period, and hold for a variety of scenarios, estimation methods and different types of bank. Then, although most previous literature suggests that bank branches reduce inequality, especially in advanced economies, that finding does not hold for the Spanish case. The advance of digitalization and the emergence of new forms of banking are potential candidates that might explain our results.

The end of the ‘Iberian exception’: religion and the new Spanish far right in the European Parliament

ABSTRACT This contribution analyses the role of religion in the attitudes, beliefs, and discourses of Spanish members of the European Parliament (MEPs). The aim is to show how MEPs relate to religion in their activity, against the background of the transformations experienced by the Spanish political party system in the last decade. One of the most important changes has been the emergence of Vox, a far-right political group, in 2018. The contribution discusses the main results of the Religion in the European Parliament and in European multilevel governance II (RelEP2) survey for the Spanish case and, together with other qualitative data, analyses how religion is an issue on the political agenda of Spanish MEPs, focusing on Vox and how other parties have reacted to the emergence of the far right. The contribution identifies two fields in which religion is mobilised as a symbolic resource for political activity: a) identity politics and EU external action, and b) morality policies and issues related to gender.

Understanding the Impact of Intangible Capital on Entrepreneurship at the Regional Level

AbstractThis paper uses new data for the Spanish case on investment in intangible assets broken down by regions and by type of assets to calibrate the importance of intangible capital for entrepreneurship as a main concern but also to understand which region-specific factors drive entrepreneurship. These new data allow to fill a gap in the literature and contribute to the field of technological entrepreneurial intent by linking entrepreneurship to digitalization and intangible assets of the economy. To this end, the paper presents an index obtained by Principal Component Analysis to measure the regional endowment of intangible capital and analyzes whether the determinants of regional entrepreneurship are driven differently in large and small firms. Using different econometric approaches, the paper finds that for small firms, entrepreneurship is directly related to a prosperity-pull context and the expectation of economic gain. For large firms, the rate of entrepreneurship is also explained by the resources available to firms, such as endowment of intangible capital, stage of technological development, and human capital, as well as the demographic composition of each region.

Assessing the energy recovery potential at district metered areas inlets of water supply systems: A Spanish case study

The energy required for various processes in the water cycle can have significant economic and environmental impacts. Therefore, efficient energy management in urban water supply systems is crucial for a sustainable operation. By installing energy recovery technologies in these facilities, it is possible to reap the benefits of the infrastructure design by saving energy. In this study, a new methodology to assess the energy recovery at the inlets of district metered areas is presented, considering the city of Murcia (Spain) as case study. This methodology is based on creating a detailed model of city water supply system and calibrating such model with an experimental campaign of measurements. Then, the assessment of the hydraulic potential recovery is analysed through two different energy estimators, one considering the minimum available net head and the other assuming a variable net head. Results show that there are several points where turbines could be installed, most of them recovering in between 1000–5000 kWh, which could be used to cover the yearly energy consumption of about 24–120 m2 of a school or 10–50 traffic lights of such area. Moreover, in some points it could be recovered up to 14500 kWh. Even though these values are not high, the energy recovered could be used for self-consumption of nearby electrical loads, at the time that reduces the pressure in the system, thus leading to leak reductions. Moreover, this kind of energy recovery does not reduce the potential of other proposals for upstream energy recovery, such as replacing pressure reduction valves with turbines instead. The scripts developed to apply the proposed methodology are available in EPANET-Octave file exchange for the researcher community.

Can We Detect Bias in Political Fact-Checking? Evidence from a Spanish Case Study

ABSTRACT Political fact-checkers evaluate the truthfulness of politicians’ claims. This paper contributes to an emerging scholarly debate on whether fact-checkers treat political parties differently in a systematic manner depending on their ideology (bias). We first examine the available approaches to analyze bias and then present a new approach in two steps. First, we propose a logistic regression model to analyze the outcomes of fact-checks and calculate how likely each political party will obtain a truth score. We test our model with a sample of fact-checks from Newtral, a prominent Spanish fact-checker. Our model would signal bias under two assumptions: (a) all political parties are on average equally accurate in their statements; (b) the verification method gives precise instructions and is implemented systematically. We investigate this second assumption with a series of interviews with Newtral fact-checkers. We show that standard verification protocols are loosely implemented and therefore fact-checks reflect a set of journalistic decisions, rather than a bias in the statistical sense. We call for a more rigorous definition of verification methods as a pre-requisite for an unbiased assessment of politician’s claims.

Visual Self-Representations of Households Living in Situations of Economic Vulnerability

ABSTRACT Negative social representations of poverty and people living in situations of economic difficulty are still highly prevalent in society. Poor people are commonly viewed as passive, lazy, morally deviant, and, as distinct from the general population, undeserving of social assistance. These representations are grounded in individualistic explanations of social phenomena that ignore structural factors and make the subject responsible for their circumstances. This, in turn, impedes the development and implementation of social processes that might reduce exclusion. Although research on self-representations of poverty is limited, they tend to express far greater complexity and depth of meaning. These counter-representations can be understood as a reaction to negative social images, as a reconstruction of an alternative positive image, and as a claim to dignity as full members of society. Carried out within the framework of a European project, this study analyses the self-representations of households living in situations of economic vulnerability in two Spanish case studies (one urban and the other rural). The study employed an ethnographic methodology and is based on photographs taken by the study participants (21 households) and in-depth interviews. The fieldwork was conducted between 2014 and 2015. The results show that the study participants’ representations of themselves and their social world diverges greatly from social stereotypes. On the one hand, photographs taken in the intimate and private space of the home represent significant economic vulnerability. On the other, images taken in public spaces show people going about their everyday lives in a way that emphasizes resilience, normality and dignity, as well as a sense of belonging to the local community and a vindication of their rights as citizens. The findings have clear implications for social policy and manifest the importance of giving space to the voice of people living in situations of economic vulnerability.

Backward and forward linkages in electricity consumption. The influence of supply factors

A higher energy efficiency is a vital component of the decarbonised energy transition. In the current geopolitical context, it also increases the resilience of those economies which do not have meaningful energy resources, particularly in a context of high fossil fuel prices. Identifying the sectors which are mostly responsible for electricity consumption in the production system is relevant to design policies which enhance the efficiency of such consumption. Input-output analysis is an appropriate analytical framework to address this objective, since it allows a deep analysis of the relationships between sectors and between sectors and final demand. Backward and forward effects can be calculated using, respectively, the demand and supply multipliers in the input-output models. Past contributions have not been able to fully capture the electricity consumption of a sector related to its intermediate product demand, including the feedback effects. Therefore, this paper proposes a model which identifies the intersectoral links which are relevant from an electricity consumption point of view, taking into account the total direct and indirect requirements of the products which are used to obtain a final demand and an intermediate demand. This methodology is applied to the Spanish case. The results show that a few sectors concentrate many effects which lead to electricity consumption, suggesting that they should be the focus of energy policies. Policy measures are identified to tackle different effects in distinct types of sectors in order to increase the efficiency in electricity consumption.

Optimal scheduling and management of pumped hydro storage integrated with grid-connected renewable power plants

Pumped hydro-energy storage will become a fundamental element of power systems in the coming years by adding value to each link in electricity production and the supply chain. The growth of these systems is essential for improving the integration of renewables and avoiding dependence on fossil fuel sources, such as gas or oil. This paper presents the modeling and application of an optimal hourly management model of grid-connected photovoltaic and wind power plants integrated with reversible pump-turbine units to maximize the monthly operating profits of the energy system and meet electricity demand. The techno-economic dispatch model is formulated as a mixed-integer optimization problem. To assess the proposed model, it is applied to a Spanish case study system, and the results are obtained for an entire year. The combination of renewable energy and pumped hydro energy storage reduces energy dependence by decreasing energy costs by 27 % compared with a system without storage to satisfy the required electricity demand. The findings confirm that storage plays a key role in energy transition to ensure the security and stability of power systems with a higher share of renewable generation.

Enhancing the Assessment of Coercive Control in Spanish Femicide Cases: A Nationally Representative Qualitative Analysis

AbstractPurposeCoercive control is a power dynamic central to intimate partner violence (IPV) and consists of tactics to limit one’s partner’s autonomy through constraint, regulation of everyday life, isolation, pursuit, and intimidation and physical force. Such tactics may potentially signal a risk for future lethal or near lethal violence; hence, proper evaluation may enhance the utility of clinical femicide risk assessments. The goal of this study is to explore coercive control behaviors preceding partner femicides in Spain with the intention to provide guidance for its assessment by first responders and law enforcement.MethodsResearchers from the Department of State for Security of the Ministry of Interior collected a nationally representative sample of 150 femicides (2006–2016). Qualitative data included 958 semi-structured interviews with victims and offenders’ social networks, which provided information about relationship dynamics leading up to the murders. Additionally, 225 interviews with law enforcement and occasionally offenders were used to corroborate and contextualize victim and offender social networks.ResultsQualitative analysis indicated four indicators of coercive control (i.e., microregulation and restriction, victim isolation, surveillance and pursuit, and physical violence), which were present in 85% of the cases. While these indicators were commonly present, their manifestation varied based on relationship history and victims’ responses.ConclusionThe findings suggest that incorporating coercive control indicia into clinical femicide risk assessments is useful and may enhance their accuracy.

Spanish guides and code specifications on concrete bridges inspection and maintenance: an overview

AbstractThe maintenance needs of bridges have often resulted in costly interventions, not only due to the lack of an adequate inspection and maintenance plan, but also due to a common practice in the design‐building process focused on solving requirements under “instantaneous” economic conditions. This situation is not compatible with the new paradigm of environmental, social and economic sustainability. Aspects related to durability, service life, life cycle, circular economy, etc. are increasingly present in codes and practice guides, so the inspection and maintenance take special relevance by considering economic factors of “deferred” scope. To contextualise the Spanish case, this paper presents a practical overview of the main documentary references that, in the form of regulations and guides, establish mandatory specifications and/or provide tools to facilitate the inspection and maintenance of concrete bridges. From a historical perspective, the changes introduced by the evolutions of main rules are highlighted, starting from the double conception of reinforced concrete and prestressed concrete, passing through the integration towards structural concrete, and reaching our days with the recent appearance of the Structural Code contextualized in the framework of the Eurocodes.

Evaluating the impact of energy efficiency strategies on households’ energy affordability: A Spanish case study

Evaluating the impact of energy efficiency strategies on households’ energy affordability: A Spanish case study

Análisis jurídico-económico de la cuestión de género: costes, fallos y paradojas

This is a critical review on gender issue, to understand and to evaluate the impact of the gender interven-tionism, with its costs, failures, paradoxes and other unwanted effects. This review uses the theoreticaland methodological frameworks from New-Institutional approach (Law & Economics, Public Choice,Constitutional Economic, etc.), to build bridges between Economy, Law and Politics, without confusionamong the social spheres and under the principle of reality, which rejects economic thaumaturgy, politicalromanticism and state paternalism. There is a historical-comparative review on the development of coerciveimplementation based on gender perspective and its agenda, from a macro-view to a micro level, focusingthe attention on the Spanish case. There is a final statement of its results, to clarify what kind of incentiveshave been given the gender bills and policies, the level of efficiency and institutional quality to solve socialproblems, the risks of an endless agenda and other unwanted effects, but foreseeable according to the principleof reality.