The labour market in the Basque Country: University Employment Centers

This project is a study of the Labour Market in the Basque Country. First of all, we have analysed the position of the Basque Country in the European Union employment situation by gender and age. Secondly, we have studied the educational level of the Basque Country from the European Union perspective. Thirdly, we have showed the importance of labour orientation in educational level, especially in higher education. Finally, the design of new employment policies to promote the creation of jobs and stability of the labour market depends on: new industries and university employment policies.

Wage factors in the Basque Economy

[EN] This project aims to determine the factors which influence workers’ wages in the Basque Country, taking data from the INE (Spanish Statistical Office). In first place, I will decide which variables to choose and describe them. Then they will be used to build a wage model. At this point I will observe their behaviour according to their values and the possible differences between them. Once these variables are described, they will be used to develop an econometric model that will allow to see the different effects of the variables on the endogenous variable, in this case the gross annual wage. Finally, all the analysed data will be taken and examined to draw the final conclusions and see how workers’ age, training or gender affect their salary. [EN]

Integrated assessment of environmental pollution using diverse sentinel organisms within Basque marine environments

294 p.

Ebaluatoia: crowd evaluation of English-Basque machine translation

[EU]Lan honetan Ebaluatoia aurkezten da, eskala handiko ingelesa-euskara itzulpen automatikoko ebaluazio kanpaina, komunitate-elkarlanean oinarritua. Bost sistemaren itzulpen kalitatea konparatzea izan da kanpainaren helburua, zehazki, bi sistema estatistiko, erregeletan oinarritutako bat eta sistema hibrido bat (IXA taldean garatuak) eta Google Translate. Emaitzetan oinarrituta, sistemen sailkapen bat egin dugu, baita etorkizuneko ikerkuntza bideratuko duten zenbait analisi kualitatibo ere, hain zuzen, ebaluazio-bildumako azpi-multzoen analisia, iturburuko esaldien analisi estrukturala eta itzulpenen errore-analisia. Lanak analisi hauen hastapenak aurkezten ditu, etorkizunean zein motatako analisietan sakondu erakutsiko digutenak.

Basque legacy in the New World: on the surnames of Latin American presidents

[EN] In this article we explain the etymology of the surnames of Basque origin that some presidents of Latin American countries have or have had in the past. These family names were created in the language called Euskara, in the Basque Country (Europe), and then, when some of the people who bore them emigrated to America, they brought their surnames with them. Most of the family names studied here are either oiconymic or toponymic, but it must be kept in mind that the oiconymic ones are, very often, based on house-nicknames, that is, they are anthroponymic in the first place. As far as possible, we have related the surname, when its origin is oiconymic or toponymic, to its source, i.e. to the house or place where it was created.

Etymological notes on Aleut (III). With methodological notes on (Eskimo-Aleut) historical linguistics

[EN] The goal of this contribution is twofold: on the one hand, to review two relatively recent contributions in the field of Eskimo-Aleut historical linguistics in which it is proposed that Eskimo-Aleut languages are related genealogically to Wakashan (Holst 2004) and?/or Nostratic (Krougly-Enke 2008). These contributions can be characterized by saying that their authors have taken little care to be diligent and responsible in the application of the comparative method, and that their familiarity with the languages involved is insufficient. Eskimo-Aleut languages belong to a very exclusive group of language families that have been (and still are) used, sometimes compulsively, in the business of so-called “long-range comparisons”. Those carrying out such studies are very often unaware of the most basic facts regarding the philological and linguistic traditions of those languages, as a result of what mountains of very low quality works with almost no-relevancy for the specialist grow every year to the desperation of the scientific community, whose attitude toward them ranges from the most profound indifference to the toughest (and most explicit) critical tone. Since Basque also belongs to this group of “compare-with-everything-you-come- across” languages, it is my intention to provide the Basque readership with a sort of “pedagogical case” to show that little known languages, far from underrepresented in the field, already have a very long tradition in historical and comparative linguistics, i.e. nobody can approach them without previous acquaintance with the materials. Studies dealing with the methodological inappropriateness of the Moscow School’s Nostratic hypothesis or the incorrectness of many of the proposed new taxonomic Amerindian subfamilies (several of them involving the aforementioned Wakashan languages), that is to say, the frameworks on which Krougly-Enke and Holst work, respectively, are plenty (i.a. Campbell 1997: 260-329, Campbell & Poser 2008: 234-96), therefore there is no reason to insist once more on the very same point. This is the reason why I will not discuss per se Eskimo-Aleut–Wakashan or Eskimo-Aleut–Nostratic. On the contrary, I will focus attention upon very concrete aspects of Krougly-Enke and Holst´s proposals, i.e. when they work on “less ambitious” problems, for example, dealing with the minutiae of internal facts or analyzing certain words from the sole perspective of Eskimo-Aleut materials (in other words, those cases in which even they do not invoke the ad hoc help of Nostratic stuff). I will try to explain why some of their proposals are wrong, demonstrate where the problem lies, and fix it if possible. In doing so, I will propose new etymologies in an attempt at showing how we may proceed. The main difference between this and handbook examples lies in the reality of what we are doing: this is a pure etymological exercise from beginning to end. I will try to throw a bit of light on a couple of problematic questions regarding Aleut historical phonology, demonstrating how much work should be done at the lowest level of the Eskimo-Aleut pyramid; it is technically impossible to reach the peak of the pyramid without having completed the base. As far as Aleut is regarded, I will mainly profit not only from the use of the traditional philological analysis of Aleut (and, eventually, of Eskimo) materials, but also of diachronic typology, bringing into discussion what in my opinion seems useful, and in some cases I think decisive, parallels. It is worth noting that this paper makes up yet another part of a series of exploratory works dealing with etymological aspects of the reconstruction of Proto-Eskimo-Aleut, with special emphasis on Aleut (vid. i.a. Alonso de la Fuente 2006/2007, 2008a, 2008b, 2010a), whose main goal is to become the solid basis for an etymological dictionary of the Aleut language, currently in progress.

The acquisition of gender agreement in L3 English by Basque/Spanish bilinguals

211 p.

Two new species of Zospeum Bourguignat, 1856 from the Basque-Cantabrian Mountains, Northern Spain (Eupulmonata, Ellobioidea, Carychiidae)

Two new species of the genus Zospeum Bourguignat, 1856 are described from caves in the Sierra de Aitzgorri (Gipuzkoa) and the Sierra Salvada (Burgos) in Northern Spain. The taxa Z. vasconicum sp. n. and Z. zaldivarae sp. n. have recently, without a formal name, been included in a molecular study of worldwide members of the Carychiidae. In the present paper, the shell morphology and variation of these species is described and illustrated.

In vivo study on the effects of microcystin extracts on the expression profiles of proto-oncogenes (c-fos, c-jun and c-myc) in liver, kidney and testis of male Wistar rats injected i.v. with toxins

Microcystins (MCs) are a potent liver tumor promoter, possessing potent tumor-promoting activity and weak initiating activity. Proto-oncogenes are known to be involved in the tumor-promoting mechanisms of microcystin-LR. However, few data are available on the effects of MCs oil proto-oncogenes in the whole animal. To investigate the effects of MCs on the expression profile of the proto-oncogenes in different organs, male Wistar rats were injected intravenously with microcystin extracts at a dose of 86.7 mu g MC-LR eq/kg bw (MC-LR eq, MC-LR equivalents). mRNA levels of three proto-oncogenes c-fos, c-jun and c-myc in liver, kidney and testis were analyzed using quantitative real-time PCR at several time points post-injection. Significant induction of these genes at transcriptional level was observed in the three organs. In addition, the increase of mRNA expression of all three genes was much higher in liver than in kidney and testis. Meanwhile, the protein levels of c-Fos and c-Jun were investigated by western blotting. Both proteins were induced in the three organs. However, elevations of protein levels were Much lower than those of mRNA levels. These findings suggest that the expression of c-fos, c-jun and c-myc might be one possible mechanism for the tumor-promoting activity and initiating activity of microcystins. (c) 2008 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Deconfinement phase Transition including perturbative QCD corrections in (proto)neutron star matter

Deconfinement phase transition and neutrino trapping in (proto)neutron star matter are investigated in a chiral hadronic model (also referred to as the FST model) for the hadronic phase (HP) and in the color-flavor-locked (CFL) quark model for the deconfined quark phase. We include a perturbative QCD correction parameter alpha(s) in the CFL quark matter equation of states. It is shown that the CFL quark core with K-0 condensation forms in neutron star matter with the large value of alpha(s). If the small value of alpha(s) is taken, hyperons suppress the CFL quark phase and the HP is dominant in the high-density region of (proto)neutron star matter. Neutrino trapping makes the fraction of the CFL quark matter decrease compared with those without neutrino trapping. Moreover, increasing the QCD correction parameter alpha(s) or decreasing the bag constant B and the strange quark mass m(s) can make the fraction of the CFL quark matter increase, simultaneously, the fraction of neutrino in protoneutron star matter increases, too. The maximum masses and the corresponding radii of (proto)neutron stars are not sensitive to the QCD correction parameter alpha(s).

Properties of proto-neutron star and effect of three-body forces

Within the Brueckner-Hartree-Fock framework, the equation of state and the properties of newborn neutron stars are investigated by adopting a realistic nucleon-nucleon interaction AV(18) supplemented with a microscopic three-body force or a phenomenological three-body force. The maximum mass of newborn neutron star and the proton fraction in the newborn beta-stable neutron-star matter are calculated. The neutrino-trapping and the three-body force effects are discussed, and the interplay between the effects of the trapped neutrino and the three-body force are especially explored. It is shown that neutrino trapping considerably affects the proton abundance and the equation of state of the newborn neutron star in both cases with and without the three-body forces. The effect of neutrino trapping remarkably enhances the proton abundance, and the contribution of the three-body force makes the equation of state of the newborn neutron star much stiffer at high densities and consequently increases the proton abundance strongly. The trapped neutrinos significantly reduce the influence of the three-body force on the proton abundance in newborn neutron stars.

Coordinated activation of candidate proto-oncogenes and cancer testes antigens via promoter demethylation in head and neck cancer and lung cancer.

BACKGROUND: Epigenetic alterations have been implicated in the pathogenesis of solid tumors, however, proto-oncogenes activated by promoter demethylation have been sporadically reported. We used an integrative method to analyze expression in primary head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) and pharmacologically demethylated cell lines to identify aberrantly demethylated and expressed candidate proto-oncogenes and cancer testes antigens in HNSCC. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We noted coordinated promoter demethylation and simultaneous transcriptional upregulation of proto-oncogene candidates with promoter homology, and phylogenetic footprinting of these promoters demonstrated potential recognition sites for the transcription factor BORIS. Aberrant BORIS expression correlated with upregulation of candidate proto-oncogenes in multiple human malignancies including primary non-small cell lung cancers and HNSCC, induced coordinated proto-oncogene specific promoter demethylation and expression in non-tumorigenic cells, and transformed NIH3T3 cells. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Coordinated, epigenetic unmasking of multiple genes with growth promoting activity occurs in aerodigestive cancers, and BORIS is implicated in the coordinated promoter demethylation and reactivation of epigenetically silenced genes in human cancers.