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The main focus of this analysis is the historical forms through which the social elites exert their power and influence in local areas. The organization analyzed is the Chamber of Production and Commerce of the southern city of Concepción between the years 1957 and 1971; the main focus is on the Chamber's social and political strategies which made possible its influence and actions in the defence of the main economic and entrepreneurial interests of its members. At a time of decisive changes in the role of the State in the economy, of intense debates about the country's economic and social development this article analyzes the ways and means through which local entrepreneurs, themselves part of the local elite, displayed their actions in the regional realm in order to preserve their own condition as elite. ; Las formas históricas en que las elites sociales ejercen el poder y la influencia en los espacios locales es el centro de atención de este análisis. Tomamos como actor la Cámara de la Producción y el Comercio de Concepción, para analizar entre los años 1957 y 1971, las distintas estrategias políticas y sociales que permitieron el ejercicio de la influencia en función de los intereses empresariales y económicos de sus asociados. En un período histórico de transformaciones del rol del Estado en la economía, de discusiones sobre el desarrollo económico y social del país, analizamos cómo los empresarios locales, que forman parte de las elites locales, actúan en los espacios regionales para mantener su propia condición de elite.

ABSTRACTThis paper studies the effectiveness of taxes, subsidies and cash incentives in reducing unhealthy food consumption. Using an inter‐temporal rational choice model with habit, we calibrate and simulate the effect of those policies to US and UK data. Our findings suggest that cash incentives may be the most effective policy in reducing unhealthy food consumption. However, when comparing the reduction in costs for the social security system with the implementation costs, cash incentives can lead to significant monetary losses. Taxes are relatively ineffective in reducing unhealthy food consumption. Finally, subsidies have the best balance between effectiveness and monetary benefits to society.

We analyze a committee of voters who take a decision via a two‐stage process. In a discussion stage, voters share non‐verifiable information about a private signal concerning what is the best decision. In a voting stage, a decision is taken by voting. We introduce the possibility of leadership whereby a certain voter, the leader, is more influential than the rest at the discussion stage even though she is not better informed. We study the effects of leadership on information transmission and the quality of the choice made by the committee, and how these effects depend on the specific voting rule employed. We find that how truthful voters are at the discussion stage depends non‐monotonically on how influential the leader is. Moreover, when the leader's influence is relatively high, supermajority voting rules may increase the probability of choosing the best option when compared with the majority voting rule.

Este artículo desarrolla un marco analítico para explicar la exitosa tasa de adhesión que alcanzó el capitalismo popular en la Siderúrgica Huachipato durante la privatización de la Compañía de Aceros del Pacífico (cap) en la década de 1980, de la cual Siderúrgica Huachipato era parte. Se propone que en el ciclo privatizador confluyeron el deterioro de los salarios reales con un explosivo aumento de las acciones en el mercado bursátil, lo que pudo representar un estímulo coyuntural para que los trabajadores accedieran a convertirse en accionistas de la empresa bajo las condiciones del capitalismo popular. Se plantea que dicho factor coyuntural confluyó además con la existencia de una cultura previa entre los trabajadores, marcada por altas expectativas de ingreso y consumo, lo cual coadyuvó en su incorporación en la modalidad de capitalismo popular practicado en la empresa.

[Background]: Biological pathways are subsets of the complex biomolecular wiring that occur in living cells. They are usually rationalized and depicted in cartoon maps or charts to show them in a friendly visible way. Despite these efforts to present biological pathways, the current progress of bioinformatics indicates that translation of pathways in networks can be a very useful approach to achieve a computer-based view of the complex processes and interactions that occurr in a living system. [Results]: We have developed a bioinformatic tool called Path2enet that provides a translation of biological pathways in protein networks integrating several layers of information about the biomolecular nodes in a multiplex view. Path2enet is an R package that reads the relations and links between proteins stored in a comprehensive database of biological pathways, KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes, http://www.genome.jp/kegg/ ), and integrates them with expression data from various resources and with data on protein-protein physical interactions. Path2enet tool uses the expression data to determine if a given protein in a network (i.e., a node) is active (ON) or inactive (OFF) in a specific cellular context or sample type. In this way, Path2enet reduces the complexity of the networks and reveals the proteins that are active (expressed) under specific conditions. As a proof of concept, this work presents a practical >case of use> generating the pathway-expression-networks corresponding to the NOTCH Signaling Pathway in human B- and T-lymphocytes. This case is produced by the analysis and integration in Path2enet of an experimental dataset of genome-wide expression microarrays produced with these cell types (i.e., B cells and T cells). [Conclusions]: Path2enet is an open source and open access tool that allows the construction of pathway-expression-networks, reading and integrating the information from biological pathways, protein interactions and gene expression cell specific data. The development of this type of tools aims to provide a more integrative and global view of the links and associations that exist between the proteins working in specific cellular systems. ; We acknowledge the funding provided to Dr. J. De Las Rivas group by the Local Government, "Junta de Castilla y Leon" (JCyL, Valladolid, Spain, grant number BIO/SA08/14); and by the Spanish Government, "Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad" (MINECO) with grants of the ISCiii co-funded by FEDER (grant references PI12/00624 and PI15/00328). We also acknowledge a PhD research grant to Conrad Droste ("Ayudas a la Contratación de Personal Investigador") provided by the JCyL with the support of the "Fondo Social Europeo" (FSE). ; Peer Reviewed

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License. ; Mapping and understanding of the protein interaction networks with their key modules and hubs can provide deeper insights into the molecular machinery underlying complex phenotypes. In this article, we present the basic characteristics and definitions of protein networks, starting with a distinction of the different types of associations between proteins. We focus the review on protein-protein interactions (PPIs), a subset of associations defined as physical contacts between proteins that occur by selective molecular docking in a particular biological context. We present such definition as opposed to other types of protein associations derived from regulatory, genetic, structural or functional relations. To determine PPIs, a variety of binary and co-complex methods exist; however, not all the technologies provide the same information and data quality. A way of increasing confidence in a given protein interaction is to integrate orthogonal experimental evidences. The use of several complementary methods testing each single interaction assesses the accuracy of PPI data and tries to minimize the occurrence of false interactions. Following this approach there have been important efforts to unify primary databases of experimentally proven PPIs into integrated databases. These meta-databases provide a measure of the confidence of interactions based on the number of experimental proofs that report them. As a conclusion, we can state that integrated information allows the building of more reliable interaction networks. Identification of communities, cliques, modules and hubs by analysing the topological parameters and graph properties of the protein networks allows the discovery of central/critical nodes, which are candidates to regulate cellular flux and dynamics. ; This work was supported by the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC) [project iLINK0398]; the Spanish Government (ISCiii) [project PS09/00843]; and the European Commission [project FP7-HEALTH-2007-223411]. ; Peer Reviewed

8 páginas, 3 figuras, 1 tabla.-- This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. ; This work has been supported by funds provided by the Local Government Junta de Castilla y León (JCyL, ref. project: CSI07A09), by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN - ISCiii, ref. projects: PI061153 and PS09/00843) and by the European Commission Research Grant PSIMEx (ref. FP7-HEALTH-2007-223411). ; Peer Reviewed

El pdf del artículo es la versión post-print.-- et al. ; [Purpose]: Osteosarcoma is the most prevalent bone tumor in children and adolescents. At present, the mechanisms of initiation, maintenance, and metastasis are poorly understood. The purpose of this study was to identify relevant molecular targets in the pathogenesis of osteosarcoma. [Experimental Design]: Tumor chemonaive osteoblastic populations and paired control normal osteoblasts were isolated and characterized phenotypically from seven osteosarcoma patients. Global transcriptomic profiling was analyzed by robust microarray analysis. Candidate genes were confirmed by real-time PCR and organized in molecular pathways. EBF2 and osteoprotegerin (OPG) levels were determined by real-time PCR and OPG protein levels were assessed by ELISA. Immunohistochemical analysis was done in a panel of 46 osteosarcoma samples. Silencing of EBF2 was achieved by lentiviral transduction of short hairpin RNA. Apoptosis was determined by caspase-3/7 activity. [Results]: A robust clustered transcriptomic signature was obtained in osteosarcoma. Transcription factor EBF2, a known functional bone regulator, was among the most significantly overexpressed genes. Immunohistochemical analysis showed that osteosarcoma is expressed in ~70% of tumors analyzed. Because EBF2 was shown previously to act as a transcriptional activator of OPG, elevated levels of EBF2 were associated with high OPG protein levels in osteosarcoma samples compared with normal osteoblastic cells. Knockdown of EBF2 led to stunted abrogation of OPG levels and increased sensitivity to tumor necrosis factor¿related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL)-induced apoptosis. [Conclusions]: These findings suggest that EBF2 represents a novel marker of osteosarcoma. EBF2 up-regulation may be one of the mechanisms involved in the high levels of OPG in osteosarcoma, contributing to decrease TRAIL-induced apoptosis and leading to TRAIL resistance. ; Spanish Ministry of Health/FIS grant PI040010 and Government of Navarra grant 17/2004 (A. Patiño-García); "UTE project FIMA" agreement; Spanish Ministry of Health/FIS Feder (RTICCC C03/10) grant PI070031 (F. Lecanda); and Spanish Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce grant FIT-090100-2005-46. F. Lecanda is an investigator from I3 Program. ; Peer Reviewed