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From the point of view of the book chain, self-publishing is becoming increasingly common and it is doing so faster in the commercial world than in science. This study aims to analyse the phenomenon of self-publishing from the point of view of the research being done on it. Thus, in addition to studying the subject, it is going to be possible to analyse the viability of this methodology as an analysis technique.

The methodology is based on a combination of traditional bibliometric studies and analysis of social networks applied.

Self-publishing is a phenomenon that is being studied by the scientific community. But the research on this topic has a low rate of co-authorship and a low relationship between the most prolific authors and their relevance. The combination of techniques used has proven to be a very good choice for analyzing the data.

There are not enough works analyzing the research in self-publishing. Because of the peculiarities of the topic, a combination of various techniques will provide a better approach to its study, so, this paper contains some results using bibliometrics and others using social network analysis applied.

The aim of this work is to determine the average surface temperature of a conical antenna. Its cooling is ensured by means of a nanofluid-saturated porous structure. The volume fraction of the H₂O–Cu nanofluid ranges between 0% (pure water) and 5%, whereas the ratio between the thermal conductivity of the used porous materials and that of water (fluid base) varies in the wide 4–41.2 range. The antenna is contained in a coaxial conical closed cavity with a variable distance between the cones, leading to an aspect ratio varying between 0.2 and 0.6. The axis of the assembly is also inclined with respect to the gravity field by an angle varying between 0° (a vertical axis with top of the cone oriented upwards) and 180° (a vertical axis with top of the cone oriented downwards).

Simulations have been done by means of the volume control method based on the SIMPLE algorithm.

Results of the numerical approach show that the cavity’s aspect ratio and inclination with respect to the gravity field significantly affect the thermal behavior of the active cone. Otherwise, the work confirms that the Maxwell and Brinkman models used to determine the nanofluid’s effective thermal conductivity and viscosity, respectively, are adapted to the considered assembly.

A new correlation is proposed, allowing the determination of the average surface temperature of the active cone and its correct thermal sizing. This correlation could be used in various engineering fields, including electronics, examined in the present study.

The purpose of this study is to determine the thermal behavior of a hemispherical electronic device contained in a concentric hemispherical enclosure, cooled by means of free convection through a porous medium saturated with a water–copper nanofluid. Influence of various parameters on the thermal state of this device is processed in this work. The high power generated by the dome leads to a Rayleigh number varying in the 5.2 × 10⁷-7.29 × 10¹⁰ range. The volume fraction of the monophasic nanofluid varies between 0 (pure water) and 10 per cent while the base of the hemispherical cavity (disc) is inclined between 0° (horizontal disc with dome facing upward) and 180° (horizontal disc with dome facing downward).

The three-dimensional numerical approach is carried out by means of the volume control method associated to the SIMPLE algorithm.

The work shows that the average temperature of the active component increases with the Rayleigh number according to a conventional law of the power type. The increase in the angle of inclination also goes with a systematic rise in the average temperature. However, increasing the ratio of the solid–fluid thermal conductivities decreases the average temperature of the component, given the respective contributions of the conductive and natural convective phenomena occurring through the nanofluid saturated porous media. The values of this ratio vary in this work between 0 (interstice between the two hemispheres without porous medium) and 70.

The correlation proposed in this work allows to calculate the temperature of the active electronic component for all the combinations of the four influence parameters which vary in wide ranges.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of political presence on profitability in Spanish savings banks. Together with political connections, the paper analyzes the effects of chairmen’s banking experience on the efficiency of the savings banks.

Information was collected from all the savings banks in the sample for the period 2002-2009. The database used combines time series with cross-section data to give a panel of data to be estimated with this methodology.

After differentiating between municipal and regional participation, the results show that regional participation causes lower efficiency in a savings bank. There is no evidence that the financial experience of the chairman is an aspect that improves savings banks’ profitability.

The analyses undertaken in this paper help to detect whether certain corporate governance practices affect stakeholders' interests and the economy as a whole, through their effects on economic and financial interests, like the efficiency of savings banks. The paper lends support to the recent legal reforms aimed at reducing political presence on the boards of savings banks.

El principal objetivo de este trabajo es analizar la influencia de la presencia política en la rentabilidad de las cajas de ahorro españolas. También se estudia el efecto de la experiencia bancaria del presidente en la eficiencia de las cajas.

La información se ha obtenido de las cajas de ahorro españolas durante el periodo 2002-2009. La base de datos utiliza datos temporales con información cross-seccional, permitiendo el uso de datos de panel como metodología principal.

Tras diferenciar entre participación política municipal y regional, los resultados muestran que es la presencia regional la que causa menor eficiencia en las cajas. No hay evidencia de influencia de la experiencia bancaria del presidente.

Los análisis realizados en el trabajo ayudan a detector si ciertas prácticas de gobierno afectan los intereses de los stakeholders y la economía como un todo, analizando sus efectos es aspectos económicos, como la eficiencia de las cajas. El documento apoya las recientes reformas legales, tendentes a reducir la presencia política en los consejos de las cajas de ahorro.

Practitioner research is now widely used in different programs of teacher preparation. It is expected that teachers conducting research on their own work will become more reflective and develop the skills required to become life-long learners. Even though many programs for teacher preparation include some form of teacher research it is not common to find tools to assess teachers and to allow for peer- and self-assessment. In this chapter, we present a pedagogy that uses heuristic diagrams as a mean to assess teachers’ research. We have used such heuristics with teachers participating in a Research Methods Course in a Master Degree and have found that it allows teachers to engage in a constant interplay between the theoretical and the practical and encourages the development of better research questions. Teachers have systematically found this tool very useful in advancing their research projects in the different scenarios where teachers are trying to improve their practice through research.

In Spain, recent experiences by publishing houses are related to the new market of electronic books and they will change the current publishing scene in no time. The paper aims to discuss some of them and to give an outlook of future developments in the sector and in the libraries.

In order to develop the current situation of electronic publishing and the research on the initiatives of production and sales of electronic books, the authors used statistical and business sources, as well as bibliographic and reference databases. They assessed the experiences that have been developed in the libraries regarding the lending and use of electronic books, by means of a survey that considers these points.

There are several working experiences with electronic books, mainly through the subscription of collections in university and research libraries. However, the latest innovation is represented by the appearance of initiatives for the production and creation of publishing contents in Spain. The publication of electronic books in Spain has gone from being a mid‐term possibility, calmly accepted by the publishing sector, to being an unstoppable reality that has forced the main actors in this field to take their positions and to adopt immediate initiatives.

This is the first time that an analysis of the sector of electronic books in Spain and their implications for library and publishing sector is done.

The aims of the present paper is electronic publishing has transformed the business model of publishing houses in Spain in such a way that two models currently coexist. The specificities of each of these models were studied and the consequences of each model for the future of electronic publishing in Spain were analysed.

The first stage of this study consisted in locating studies that would allow the authors to obtain useful indicators and statistic data regarding publication in Spain. The second stage of this study consisted of extracting from the sources cited above all data relevant to the study. To wit, these were the number of electronic books published, the major publishing houses offering electronic publications, the major platforms currently selling electronic books, presently available electronic reading devices, the rates of reading on all devices, reading rates itemized by age and educational background and general tendencies in digital publishing and e-reading.

There are traditional publishers of mostly paper-based volumes, whose business models are based on having large catalogues of titles and large print-runs, though print-runs are increasingly smaller and bookseller returns increasingly larger. Intermediary agents operating under this model, for instance booksellers, are subject to ever-greater economic pressures, especially in the current crisis

In the study that follows, the authors attempt to analyse the characteristics behind these changes and learn to what extent these changes will affect the future models of publication and reading in Spain.

The aim of this paper is to propose a model for understanding a complex management issue – the customer loyalty in a public sports service.

Customer loyalty is discussed through the methodology of system dynamics. The proposed model considers the dynamic, non‐linear, asymmetric, and reciprocal relationships between its elements, and permits the analysis of the evolution of the system under hypothesized conditions.

The model reproduces historical data of abandonment and consumers' attitude toward the service (ATS). The achieved simulations showed how the future entry of new competitors can severely threaten public service performance. Furthermore, it was also found that the consumers' ATS was not a very good predictor of the consumers' behavior.

System dynamics methodology can also be applied to understand the loyalty in the remaining services offered by the public institution. Other services, such as fitness, aerobics, martial arts, can be analyzed by considering their respective different competitive environments.

The new competitive environment can dramatically affect the number of consumers per year if a public institution does not differentiate its service. In addition, the entry of new competitors will affect the evolution of the system, as the customer satisfaction rates will be modified.

Understanding customer loyalty is one of the most important concerns for academics and practitioners in the areas of management and marketing. The system dynamics approach is an under‐utilized methodology in the field of sports management, which overcomes simplistic linear approaches. The paper shows how system dynamics can provide attractive insights into the field of sports management.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether International Organisation for Standards (ISO) certification affects consumer perceptions of the service provider.

Data from a questionnaire survey of 204 Spanish consumers of insurance services is used to investigate whether differences exist in consumer perceptions of the services provided by ISO 9000‐certified firms and non‐certified firms in terms of: quality; satisfaction; and corporate image. Mean and covariance structure analysis (MACS) is employed to provide reliable analysis of any differences detected.

The paper finds that ISO certification improves consumers' perceptions with regard to all three variables (quality, satisfaction, and corporate image). This was especially the case with respect to perceived service quality and perceived corporate image. The results therefore suggest that ISO 9000 certification enables companies to realise marketing benefits as a result of enhanced evaluation of service by consumers.

An acknowledged limitation of the study is the high variability of the effect size estimates for the three variables. Future studies should use larger samples to reduce such variability.

The paper shows that previous studies of the ISO 9000 standards have tended to focus on management and expert opinion rather than the opinion of customers. The present study addresses this deficiency in the extant literature by seeking the perspective of the customer, which is of critical importance in assessments of quality and marketing benefits.

This paper aims to show data about Spanish higher-education students’ usage, habits and perceptions regarding reading on new digital media to show the potential future of electronic books (e-books) and reading mobile devices (e-readers, tablets, cell phones, etc) in academia. It explores whether demographics and academic factors might influence e-book reading habits and attitudes and university students’ opinions about e-books vs print books. REWIL 2.0, a purpose-built research tool, was applied to measure students’ opinions about digital reading in different media and formats, considering their academic context, at the confluence of analog and digital materials and learning. Likewise, REWIL 2.0 detects who are e-book readers (eBR) and who are not and produces a statistics indicator to identify five categories of eBRs by their frequency of e-book reading. This research gathered 745 online surveys between April and July 2010 in 15 degree programs at the University of Granada: Spanish philology, English philology, history, mathematics, chemistry, environmental sciences, education, library and information science, law, medicine, biology, dentistry, computer systems, architecture and civil engineering.

This present study is a transversal applied research, where 745 students were surveyed from 15 different academic disciplines offered at the University of Granada (Spain), representing the five main discipline areas. The survey was carried out by means of a structured online survey, with REWIL 2.0 research tool. To ensure internal consistency of correlation between two different survey items designed to measure e-book reading frequency, Pearson’s r reliability test was applied. Likewise, Persons’ chi-squared statistics were applied to test the hypotheses and to detect if significant correlation existed between academic disciplines and e-book reading frequency measured through a Likert scale.

The present research is motivated by our interest in discovering what effect the current technological maelstrom and the rapid growth of new portable digital reading devices in the Spanish university environment are having on students’ lives, and the extent to which students have adopted new reading technologies. Their first aim is to establish who is reading e-books in the University? A second aim is to answer the following question: is the academic discipline a determinant factor in e-book reading habits and students’ attitudes about it? The authors began by considering the following hypotheses: University students’ attitudes to e-book reading and the way they use them will be determined by the scientific discipline they study. Students of humanities, social sciences and law will prefer to read traditional format books (printed paper), while students of experimental sciences, health and technical courses will prefer reading e-books. Students’ preferences will be determined by their previous reading experiences.

The main objective of the present study is to learn whether there are any notable differences among university students from distinct disciplines with regard to their attitude and behavior toward e-books. The authors, therefore, set out to identify the segment of the student population that does not read e-books yet (non-eBRs) from those who have already read at least one (eBRs), and within this segment, the readers that have read e-books recently (recent eBRs); find out how frequently university students are reading in different formats (paper and digital), document types (book, written press, etc.) and languages (textual, multimodal, etc.) identify what channels are used to access e-books; find out university students’ opinions on the advantages and disadvantages of reading e-books as compared to traditional print books; and identify the types of improvements or changes to the design–production–distribution–reception chain that students consider might help extend e-book reading.