Search Results (17)

This study provides a comparative analysis of the post-thaw sperm lipidomic profiles of Alpine and Spanish–Creole goat breeds to explore breed-specific differences in fatty acid composition and their implications for sperm function and reproductive efficiency. Lipids were extracted from cryopreserved semen samples of Alpine (n = 7) and Spanish–Creole (n = 4) mature bucks and subsequently analyzed by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS), with 21 fatty acids identified within the two breeds. Eight of these fatty acids, namely 13:0, 16:0, 18:0, 24:0, 14:1, 18:1 (cis-9), 24:1, and 18:2 showed significant differences (p < 0.05). The levels of 16:0, 18:0, 24:0, 18:1 (cis-9), 18:1, and 18:2 were higher in the Alpine breed, whereas the levels of 13:0, 14:1, and 24:1 were higher in the Spanish–Creole breed (p < 0.05). Of those, 16:0, 18:1 (cis-9), and 18:2 were both statistically and biologically significant (p < 0.05, FC > 2). Concentrations of the total fatty acids, total saturated fatty acids (Total-SFA), and total polyunsaturated fatty acids (Total-PUFA) were significantly higher in the Alpine breed, whereas the concentrations of the total cis-monounsaturated fatty acid (Total cis-MUFA) were significantly higher in the Spanish–Creole breed (p < 0.05). Network and pathway analyses revealed that 16:0, 18:1 (cis-9), and 18:2 contributed to the most central nodes of the lipidomic network, which may support membrane stability and cryotolerance. The lipidomic differences observed between breeds may be attributed to both genetic and environmental factors and may provide valuable tools for enhancing breeding strategies, artificial insemination programs, and sperm cryopreservation techniques. Full article

Given the critical role of fatherhood in child development and the significant challenges faced by fathers in underserved communities, there is a pressing need to better understand the specific barriers they encounter. This exploratory mixed-methods study examines the prevalence of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) among fathers, including English, Spanish, and Creole speakers, and explores how social determinants of health exacerbate these barriers. Quantitative data were collected from June 2022–2023 using REDCap survey software. Additionally, three focus groups were conducted with 18 fathers residing in Palm Beach County (PBC), each group based on the primary language spoken at home. The focus groups were conducted in person via the Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies Coalition (HMHB) outreach team at community centers within the PBC. Stated barriers to fatherhood were thematically classified according into three main themes: (1) limited access to and knowledge of resources in the community; (2) challenges in navigating new roles, resources, and fatherhood responsibilities; and (3) important values in parenting. Over 40% of the fathers reported barriers to being involved in their child’s life. The most frequent barriers included work (35.4%) and lack of transportation distance (12.5%). Bivariate analysis using the fisher’s exact test showed a significant association between scoring greater than 4 on the ACE criteria checklist and experiencing barriers to being involved in the child’s life (p-value = 0.013). Findings from this study aim to inform the development of culturally tailored interventions that address disparities in fatherhood support, ultimately contributing to improved outcomes for both fathers and their children. Full article

Florida’s Newborn Screening Program campaign aims to increase the awareness and participation of birthing facilities, providers, and parents. This evaluation aimed to determine the effectiveness and reach of the Newborn Screening Program (NBS) Statewide Educational Campaign to pregnant women through surveys and focus groups. The online survey, conducted throughout Florida in English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole, evaluated the reach and effectiveness of educational materials such as paid advertisements and brochures. The surveys also served to recruit participants for in-person focus groups throughout the state. The findings showed that 85.3% of the mothers had discussions with health professionals about the screening program, while others did not hear about it from health professionals. More than 50% of the respondents learned about the program through health facilities, with additional exposure from media platforms such as television, radio, and friends. This study shows the need for increased outreach of the campaign and better communication and education from medical professionals to increase awareness. Full article

The production of backyard chickens is an activity of great importance in the economy of rural families in Paraguay. The Rustipollos population was created through directed crosses between a commercial meat line and a local population belonging to non-specific breeds but phenotypically assimilated to Creole breeds. The aim of this study was to evaluate the genetic diversity, relationship, and structure of Rustipollos using 29 microsatellite markers. Analysis was performed on 50 Rustipollos animals and 926 other individuals as reference breeds/populations from Europe, Africa, South, and North America. A total of 318 alleles were detected, with a mean of 10.97 per locus. The polymorphic information content indicated that 80% of all loci were highly to moderately informative. Only two breeds/populations showed loci that did not deviate from the Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium. The results of genetic diversity indexes suggested moderate levels of genetic variability in Rustipollos population and low inbreeding level. The genetic differentiation index indicates a high genetic differentiation between populations. The results of the Neighbor-Net tree and STRUCTURE analyses indicate the existence of distinct gene pools, with some genetic relationships between Rustipollos, the commercial chicken strain, and south Spanish breeds. The Discriminant Analysis of Principal Components confirmed the observed genetic distances between breeds/populations. The results will be useful for sustainable use and official recognition of this population. Full article

This study explores the extent to which Palenquero/Spanish bilinguals, a population that is said to have a residual high tone of African origin, keep their two languages temporally and intonationally distinct across statements. While creole languages that emerged from the contact of African and European languages, such as Palenquero, may develop hybrid prosodic systems with tones from substrate languages, and stress from the majority language, language-specific prosody might be expected to converge or simplify over the course of time. As prosodic convergence seems to be inescapable under Palenquero’s circumstances, which factors could support language-specific prosody in this population, if there are any? Two-hundred and thirty-four five-syllable statements were elicited through a discourse completion task, with the participation of ten Palenquero/Spanish bilinguals, in two unilingual sessions. Both phrase-final lengthening and F0 contours were assessed using linear mixed-effects models testing their association with final stress, language, and generation. F0 contours were dimensionally reduced using functional principal component analysis. Despite the strong similarities between the two languages, results indicate that both groups keep their two languages intonationally distinct using plateau-shaped contours in Palenquero initial rises followed by steeper declinations in Spanish. However, elderly bilinguals implement penultimate lengthening language-specifically, being more pronounced in Palenquero. Adults, in contrast, do not show this distinction. In addition to this, elderly speakers show hyperarticulation in Spanish intonation, increasing the difference between their languages. This leads us to believe that adults exhibit a more simplified prosodic system between their languages, relative to elderly bilinguals. In spite of such differences, both generations seem to have the same underlying process (perhaps a substrate effect) driving plateau-shaped intonation in Palenquero, which enhances language differentiation. Full article

This paper applies the Autosegmental Metrical (AM) model of intonation phonology and the Spanish Tones and Break Indices (Sp_ToBI) annotation conventions to compare the intonational contours of declarative sentences in two varieties of Puerto Rican Spanish: (1) San Juan Spanish, spoken in the capital city of San Juan, and (2) Loíza Spanish, an Afro-Hispanic vernacular spoken in Loíza. The geographical proximity between these two municipalities entails constant contact within a shared linguistic space. However, speakers from San Juan perceive Loíza as a municipality that has its own peculiar way of speaking. The acoustic and phonological analysis was carried out with PRAAT to verify whether pitch accents coincide in the spontaneous speech of the two analyzed varieties. The data we examined contain an overall predominance of the bitonal pitch accents L*+H and L+<H* in San Juan Spanish, and L+H* in Loíza Spanish. Findings show both similarities and differences within the two speech communities, as well as with intonational patterns in other (Afro-)Hispanic varieties. These results provide new information on spontaneous declarative intonation in (Afro-)Puerto Rican Spanish by offering a new perspective on the origin of a set of the prosodic phenomena found in these two varieties. Full article

This article analyzes the urban and architectural transformations in the Villa de Guadalupe, the site where the cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe originated, in present-day Mexico City, on behalf of Creole architects, urban planners, and clerics. The article argues that members of Mexico City’s Creole elite played a critical role in fabricating a fervent cult of a dark-skinned Madonna while orchestrating dramatic changes to the site of the apparitions, which transformed it from a humble Indigenous village into the religious and spiritual heart of New Spain. The essay focuses its attention on the town’s urban and architectural changes during the eighteenth century, which is when the village of Guadalupe was transformed into a veritable “villa”, a special designation for an urban establishment in the early modern Hispanic world, which vested it with certain legal autonomy. The story of the urban and architectural transformations and innovations at this site is fascinating, given the ambition on behalf of Mexico City’s Creoles to appropriate it and its success in promoting it as the source of Mexico City’s and New Spain’s claims to exceptionality by divine designation. The Virgin Mary’s appearances to a humble young Indigenous man in an impoverished Native village near Mexico City, which became the spiritual center of New Spain, became a potent narrative wielded by the Creole elite, as they sought to assert their political claims in the face of staunch opposition from Spanish-born administrators and clergy. At the Villa de Guadalupe, as this essay reveals, Creole elites tested their political, urban planning, and architectural skills, asserting their cultural and political relevance in 18th-century Mexico City. Full article

An experimental study was carried out to assess the thermal performance of a few evacuated tube solar collectors (ETSCs) for water heating. The thermal performance of two kinds of ETSC (heat pipe ETSC and direct-flow ETSC) was investigated using an indoor experimental apparatus in lab testing conditions with a solar simulator. Several experimental tests were carried out for the heat pipe ETSC system under different operating conditions, such as the solar intensity (300, 500, and 1000 W/m²) and the tilt angle (0°, 30° and 90°) of the ETSC and the water flow rate (0.6, 1.2, and 2.4 LPM). Moreover, four configurations of direct-flow ETSC (U tube, double U tubes, coaxial tubes, and helical tube) were examined and compared to the conventional heat pipe ETSC. The results of the experiment proved that the ETSC system presents a great performance at higher solar irradiance and lower water flow rates, and the experiments indicated that with a 30° tilt angle, the ETSC reaches the maximum thermal efficiency of 36%. Furthermore, compared to the conventional heat pipe ETSC and the other proposed configurations of direct-flow ETSCs, the helical tube-based ETSC has a better thermal efficiency, 69%, and can be considered a greater potential heat exchanger that can be integrated in ETSCs. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first time this helical tube type been integrated into the ETSC and tested under these conditions. Full article

Background and Objectives: Cerebral aneurysms can cause disability or death during rupture, but information on the etiology of cerebral aneurysms is currently lacking. Periodontal disease causes both systemic inflammation and local inflammation of the oral cavity. Systemic inflammation is a major cause of cerebral aneurysms. The aim of our study was to determine whether the presence of periodontal disease is related to the occurrence of unruptured cerebral aneurysms in a nationwide population-based cohort. Materials and Methods: We analyzed data on demographics, previous medical history, and laboratory test results of 209,620 participants from the Korean National Health Insurance System-Health Screening Cohort. The presence of periodontal disease and oral hygiene parameters, including the number of lost teeth, tooth brushing frequency per day, dental visits for any reason, and expert teeth scaling, were investigated. The occurrences of unruptured cerebral aneurysms (I67.1) were defined according to the International Statistical Classification of Diseases Related Health Problems-10. Results: The mean age of the participants was 53.7 ± 8.7 years, and 59.4% were male. Periodontal disease was found in 20.9% of the participants. A total of 2160 (1.0%) cases of unruptured cerebral aneurysms developed after 10.3 years of median follow up. In multivariate analysis, the presence of periodontal disease was significantly associated with an increased risk of unruptured cerebral aneurysms (hazard ratio: 1.21, 95% confidence interval: 1.09–1.34, p < 0.001). Conclusion: The presence of periodontal disease could be associated with the occurrence of unruptured cerebral aneurysms. It should be noted that when periodontal diseases are present, the risk of aneurysms is increased in the future. Full article

In the third quarter of the eighteenth century, Santo Domingo archbishop Isidoro Rodríguez Lorenzo (s. 1767–1788) issued a decree officializing the day of the cult for the Virgin of Altagracia as January 21 and made it a feast of three crosses for the villa of Salvaleón de Higüey and its jurisdiction, meaning all races (free and enslaved) were allowed to join the celebrations in church. Unrelated to the issuance of this decree and approximately during this time (c. 1760–1778), a series of painted panels depicting miracles performed by the Virgin of Altagracia was produced for her sanctuary of San Dionisio in Higüey, in all likelihood commissioned by a close succession of parish priests to the maestro painter Diego José Hilaris Holt. Painted in the coarse style of popular votive panels, they gave the cult a unifying core foundation of miracles. This essay discusses the significance of the black bodies pictured in four of the panels within the project’s implicit effort to institutionalize the regional cult and vis-à-vis the archbishop’s encouragement of non-segregated celebrations for her feast day. As January 21 was associated with a renowned Spanish creole battle against the French, this essay locates these black bodies within the cult’s newfound patriotic charisma. I examine the process by which people of color were incorporated into this community of faith as part of a two-step ritual that involved seeing images while performing difference. Through contrapuntal analysis of the archbishop’s decree, I argue the images helped model black piety and community membership within a hierarchical socioracial order. Full article

Creole sheep in México have undergone crossbreeding, provoking the loss of genetic variability. The objective of the present study is to determine the intra-racial genetic diversity, the genetic relationship with other genotypes, and the populational substructure of the Oaxacan Creole sheep. Twenty-nine blood samples were obtained of Creole sheep of the Oaxaca Mixteca region in México. A genetic analysis was made with 41 microsatellites recommended for studies of genetic diversity in sheep. An analysis was made of genetic diversity, populational structure, and genetic distance with 27 other sheep populations. The study found 205 alleles with a range of 2 to 9 by locus and an effective number of 3.33. The intra-racial analysis showed a moderate genetic diversity with values of expected heterozygosity of 0.686 and observed of 0.756, a mean polymorphic information content of 0.609, and a mean coefficient of consanguinity of −0.002. In interracial genetic diversity for the coefficients of consanguinity, the values were F_IS = 0.0774, F_IT = 0.16993, and F_ST = 0.10028, showing an elevated genetic distance with other creole breeds, but close to Argentine Creole, to another Creole of México and the Spanish Merino. Its genetic structure showed that it does not have any populational subdivision nor mixes with the others analyzed. It is concluded that it is a distinct and isolated population and is proposed as the creole breed “Chocholteca” for its conservation. Full article

The Afro-Hispanic creole, Palenquero, has been spoken (together with Spanish) in the village of San Basilio de Palenque, Colombia, for centuries. Until recently, Palenquero was endangered due to prejudice, but language revitalization efforts are underway, and younger speakers are learning Palenquero, but with little reinforcement out of school. The school instruction involves no grammatical explanations, almost no student production, or critical feedback. Adult speakers usually do not address younger speakers in Palenquero, thus leaving school-acquired forms suspended without reinforcement. This represents a unique scenario of heritage acquisition of a language with no bidirectional communication between younger and adult speakers. The present study focuses on the use of preverbal particles and prenominal plural marker by heritage speakers of Palenquero before and after explicit instruction. Communication activities explicitly presented the prenominal plural ma and preverbal particles, such as zero morpheme (simple present), asé (habitual), ta (progressive), a (perfective/simple past) and tan (future). Participants performed better at the post-test and results suggest that explicit explanation of grammatical rules, practice, repetition, and corrective feedback improved the usage of ma and tan. This result lines up with previous studies that posit the amount of time and exposure that learners need in order to acquire complex morphology. Full article

The genetic origins and diversity of Creole sheep from five regions of Colombia were investigated based on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variations across 89 sequences from five breeds: one wool Creole sheep (CL) and four hair Creole sheep, including Ethiopian (OPC_E), Sudan (OPC_S), Pelibuey (OPC_P) and Wayúu (OPC_W). A global comparison was done using 62 haplotypes from Iberian, African, Indian, Caribbean, Mexican, Caucasian and European sheep based on sequences retrieved from GenBank. This study aimed to identify the maternal origin of Colombian Creole sheep and their genetic relationships at a global level. The results showed 31 different haplotypes from Colombian Creole sheep, which can be assigned to maternal lineage B, the most common lineage found in European sheep breeds and the only one found in several Iberian breed (e.g., Churra, Spanish Merino) that most likely participated in the Creole formation. Additional analyses showed that wool and hair sheep retained a broad genetic identity despite being geographically separated. The global-level phylogenetic analysis revealed that Colombian Creole sheep belong to a distinct and defined genetic lineage that is likely the result of a founder effect with ecotypes of Iberian descent and the subsequent introduction of foreign breeds. This is consistent with historical reports on the presence of sheep in South America and, particularly, Colombia. Full article

The aim of this study is to determine whether Spanish-like gender agreement causes interference in speakers of Papiamentu (a Western Romance-lexified creole language) who also speak Spanish. Papiamentu and Spanish are highly cognate languages in terms of their lexicons. However, Papiamentu lacks grammatical gender assignment and agreement, leading to cognate words with major morpho-syntactic differences. A total of 41 participants with different linguistic profiles (Papiamentu-dominant, Dutch-dominant, Spanish-dominant, and Spanish heritage speaker-Papiamentu bilinguals) listened to 82 Papiamentu sentences, of which 40 contained a Spanish-like gender-agreeing element on the Determiner, Adjective, or Determiner + Adjective and with half of the experimental items marked with overtly masculine (i.e., -o) or feminine (i.e., -a) gender morphology. Participants performed a forced-choice acceptability task and were asked to repeat each sentence. Results showed that Spanish-dominant speakers experienced the greatest interference of Spanish gender features in Papiamentu. This suggests that in cases where speakers must suppress gender in their second language (L2), this is not easy to do. This is especially the case in highly cognate languages that differ in whether they realize gender features. Full article

Latin American Creole chickens are generally not characterized; this is the case in Ecuador, where the lack of scientific information is contributing to their extinction. Here, we developed a characterization of the genetic resources of Ecuadorian chickens located in three continental agroecosystems (Pacific coastal, Andean, and Amazonian). Blood samples of 234 unrelated animals were collected in six provinces across Ecuador: Bolívar, Chimborazo, Cotopaxi, Guayas, Morona Santiago, and Tungurahua, in order to perform a genetic characterization and population structure assessment using the AVIANDIV project microsatellites panel (30 loci) and D-loop sequences of mitochondrial DNA and comparing with reference data from other breeds or genetic lines. The results indicate that Ecuadorian Creole chickens are the result of the admixture of different genetic groups that occurred during the last five centuries. While the influence of South Spanish breeds is demonstrated in the colonial age, genetic relationships with other breeds (Leghorn, Spanish fighter cock) cannot be discarded. The geographical configuration of the country and extreme climate variability have influenced the genetic isolation of groups constituting a homogeneous genetic status into the whole population. This is not only a source of genetic variation, but also a critical point because genetic drift produces a loss of genetic variants. Full article