This study explores the motivation and attitudes of heritage speakers (HSs) of Spanish, focusing on the influence of their social networks. Previous research highlighted variations in HS motivation, ...attributed to social, cultural, and contextual factors. The study investigates how HS communities shape motivation and attitudes towards learning the heritage language (HL). Employing personal network analysis, the research surveyed 26 Spanish HSs in a Spanish heritage language program. Results revealed that HS networks primarily consisted of emotionally close family members. Positive and negative factors within these networks, such as language support, confidence, shame, and expectations, significantly influenced HS motivation and attitudes. Language attitudes within the network positively impacted individual attitudes, indicating a process of internalizing shared values. The study emphasizes the importance of considering the context surrounding HSs and suggests that addressing language expectations and fostering language support in communities may positively transform perceptions of Spanish in the United States. The findings underscore the effectiveness of a personal network approach in recreating the external environment beyond the language classroom.
Silence, self-interruptions, or hesitations in spontaneous speech are often interpreted as markers of oral disfluency as they lead to difficulties in delivering a message and in processing it. The ...main purpose of this study is to examine how such markers of discourse structure factor into the overall oral fluency of 58 US Spanish heritage language learners enrolled in Spanish classes at the college level. Participants were grouped according to age of onset of bilingualism (i.e., sequential or simultaneous) and the order in which they acquired each language (i.e., English first or Spanish first). After completing a semi-controlled oral production task, in both Spanish and English, breakdown pauses and repair pauses were extracted and then analyzed in terms of quantity, quality, and mean duration. Our findings revealed (i) that all groups produced shorter pauses in English, their dominant language; and (ii) that all experimental groups behaved very similarly in Spanish despite having had different experiences with bilingualism growing up. Albeit tentatively, given the sample size and the nature of the present study, we take these findings to suggest that type of heritage bilingualism and the order in which each language was acquired does not seem to play a significant role in terms of production of breakdown and repair pauses.
Silence, self-interruptions, or hesitations in spontaneous speech are often interpreted as markers of oral disfluency as they lead to difficulties in delivering a message and in processing it. The ...main purpose of this study is to examine how such markers of discourse structure factor into the overall oral fluency of 58 US Spanish heritage language learners enrolled in Spanish classes at the college level. Participants were grouped according to age of onset of bilingualism (i.e., sequential or simultaneous) and the order in which they acquired each language (i.e., English first or Spanish first). After completing a semi-controlled oral production task, in both Spanish and English, breakdown pauses and repair pauses were extracted and then analyzed in terms of quantity, quality, and mean duration. Our findings revealed (i) that all groups produced shorter pauses in English, their dominant language; and (ii) that all experimental groups behaved very similarly in Spanish despite having had different experiences with bilingualism growing up. Albeit tentatively, given the sample size and the nature of the present study, we take these findings to suggest that type of heritage bilingualism and the order in which each language was acquired does not seem to play a significant role in terms of production of breakdown and repair pauses.
En el presente trabajo reportamos nociones fundamentales para comprender los sistemas lingüísticos de los hablantes de herencia del español. Presentamos los aspectos más característicos de estos ...hablantes: sus sistemas lingüísticos, posibles explicaciones teóricas, identitarias, sociales y la evolución en la educación para el español de herencia en Estados Unidos. Con esta información, nuestro objetivo es fomentar aproximaciones pedagógicas en la educación superior mexicana que satisfagan las necesidades particulares lingüísticas y socioafectivas de un perfil de hablante que hasta la fecha se ha equiparado con hablantes monolingües y aprendices de español como segunda lengua. Es necesario reflexionar al respecto y proveer a los hablantes de herencia que se encuentran en las instituciones formativas de México con una pedagogía particular que les permita ser incluidos tanto en la vida educativa como laboral del país para así evitar, por un lado, la discriminación estructural a la que se ven expuestos cotidianamente por su condición bilingüe y, por otro, la estigmatización relacionada con su variante dialectal del español.
A potentiometric electronic tongue (ET) for the analysis of well and ditch irrigation water samples is herein proposed. The sensors’ array is composed of six ion-selective electrodes based on ...plasticized polymeric membranes with low selectivity profiles, i.e., the membranes do not contain any selective receptor. The sensors differ between them in the type of ion-exchanger (sensors for cations or anions) and the plasticizer used in the membrane composition, while the polymeric matrix and the preparation protocol were maintained. The potentiometric response of each sensor towards the main cations (Na+, K+, Ca2+, Mg2+) and anions (HCO3−, Cl−, SO42−, NO3−) expected in irrigation water samples was characterized, revealing a fast response time (<50 s). A total of 19 samples were analyzed with the sensor array at optimized experimental conditions, but, also, a series of complementary analytical techniques were applied to obtain the exact ion composition and conductivity to develop a trustable ET. The principal component analysis of the final potential values of the dynamic response observed with each sensor in the array allows for the differentiation between most of the samples in terms of quality. Furthermore, the ET was treated with a linear multivariate regression method for the quantitative determination of the mentioned ions in the irrigation water samples, revealing rather good prediction of Mg2+, Na+, and Cl− concentrations and acceptable results for the rest of ions. Overall, the ET is a promising analytical tool for irrigation water quality, exceeding traditional characterization approaches (conductivity, salinity, pH, cations, anions, etc.) in terms of overhead costs, versatility, simplicity, and total time for data provision.
BACKGROUND: Cognitive dysfunction is a frequent stroke sequela, but its pathogenesis and treatment remain unresolved. Involvement of aberrant hippocampal neurogenesis and maladaptive circuitry ...remodeling has been proposed, but their mechanisms are unknown. Our aim was to evaluate potential underlying molecular/cellular events implicated. METHODS: Stroke was induced by permanent occlusion of the middle cerebral artery occlusion in 2-month-old C57BL/6 male mice. Hippocampal metabolites/neurotransmitters were analyzed longitudinally by in vivo magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Cognitive function was evaluated with the contextual fear conditioning test. Microglia, astrocytes, neuroblasts, interneurons, γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), and c-fos were analyzed by immunofluorescence. RESULTS: Approximately 50% of mice exhibited progressive post–middle cerebral artery occlusion cognitive impairment. Notably, immature hippocampal neurons in the impaired group displayed more severe aberrant phenotypes than those from the nonimpaired group. Using magnetic resonance spectroscopy, significant bilateral changes in hippocampal metabolites, such as myo-inositol or N-acetylaspartic acid, were found that correlated, respectively, with numbers of glia and immature neuroblasts in the ischemic group. Importantly, some metabolites were specifically altered in the ipsilateral hippocampus suggesting its involvement in aberrant hippocampal neurogenesis and remodeling processes. Specifically, middle cerebral artery occlusion animals with higher hippocampal GABA levels displayed worse cognitive outcome. Implication of GABA in this setting was supported by the amelioration of ischemia-induced memory deficits and aberrant hippocampal neurogenesis after blocking pharmacologically GABAergic neurotransmission, an intervention which was ineffective when neurogenesis was inhibited. These data suggest that GABA exerts its detrimental effect, at least partly, by affecting morphology and integration of newborn neurons into the hippocampal circuits. CONCLUSIONS: Hippocampal GABAergic neurotransmission could be considered a novel diagnostic and therapeutic target for poststroke cognitive impairment.
Cross-language studies suggest more similarities than differences in how dysarthria affects the speech of people with Parkinson's disease (PwPD) who speak different languages. In this study, we aimed ...to identify the relative contribution of acoustic variables to distinguish PwPD from controls who spoke varieties of two Romance languages, French and Portuguese.
This bi-national, cross-sectional, and case-controlled study included 129 PwPD and 124 healthy controls who spoke French or Portuguese. All participants underwent the same clinical examinations, voice/speech recordings, and self-assessment questionnaires. PwPD were evaluated
and
optimal medication. Inferential analyses included Disease (controls vs. PwPD) and Language (French vs. Portuguese) as factors, and random decision forest algorithms identified relevant acoustic variables able to distinguish participants: (a) by language (French vs. Portuguese) and (b) by clinical status (PwPD
and
medication vs. controls).
French-speaking and Portuguese-speaking individuals were distinguished from each other with over 90% accuracy by five acoustic variables (the mean fundamental frequency and the shimmer of the sustained vowel /a/ production, the oral diadochokinesis performance index, the relative sound level pressure and the relative sound pressure level standard deviation of the text reading). A distinct set of parameters discriminated between controls and PwPD: for men, maximum phonation time and the oral diadochokinesis speech proportion were the most significant variables; for women, variables calculated from the oral diadochokinesis were the most discriminative.
Acoustic variables related to phonation and voice quality distinguished between speakers of the two languages. Variables related to pneumophonic coordination and articulation rate were the more effective in distinguishing PwPD from controls. Thus, our research findings support that respiration and diadochokinesis tasks appear to be the most appropriate to pinpoint signs of dysarthria, which are largely homogeneous and language-universal. In contrast, identifying language-specific variables with the speech tasks and acoustic variables studied was less conclusive.
Importance: Assessing people's executive function (EF) during addiction treatment makes it possible to design individualized occupational goals. Objective: To determine the reliability and validity ...of the Spanish version of the Executive Function Performance Test (EFPT) in the occupational assessment of people being treated for substance addiction. Design: Cross-sectional, observational study to determine the EFPT's internal consistency as well as its convergent and discriminant validity with complementary tests. Setting: A public, free addiction treatment center operated by Madrid Salud (Madrid City Council, Spain). Participants: Fifty-two people referred to an occupational therapy department for evaluation and intervention. Inclusion was based on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed., text revision) criteria for substance abuse or dependence; the exclusion criterion consisted of any circumstances that made it difficult for a person to understand or perform the test. Outcomes and Measures: The EFPT, other occupational tests (Allen Cognitive Level Screen-5, Lowenstein Occupational Therapy Cognitive Assessment), and a battery of neuropsychological EF tests. Results: The EFPT had an unequivocal unifactorial structure and showed strong correlations between its components and adequate consistency with the scales and the complete test. As expected, the EFPT correlated with the neuropsychological tests with a considerable effect size (-.40 < r < -.60). Conclusions and Relevance: The EFPT's psychometric properties are adequate to assess the EF of people being treated for substance addiction from an occupational perspective using real activities of daily living (ADLs). What This Article Adds: The results show that the EFPT can be used to assess performance of ADLs without needing to use tests from disciplines other than occupational therapy. Further studies in different sociocultural settings are needed to generalize the results.
The thermal analysis of stratospheric balloon payloads is still a complex task due to the variable thermal environment during the flight phases as well as due to the convective effects during the ...ascent. An experiment named HERCCULES has been successfully launched from Esrange Space Centre (Kiruna, Sweden) in September 2023 as part of the REXUS/BEXUS programme. This experiment aimed of serving as a heat transfer and thermal environment characterization platform that allow to validate previously developed methodologies for the worst-case thermal environmental conditions’ selection and the thermal analysis of these platforms. The experiment has been developed in an academic environment and the design, manufacturing, integration and test activities were mainly performed by Bachelor, Master and Ph.D. students with the mentorship of the European Space Agency. A low-cost design was achieved by using Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) without compromising its performance capabilities. The obtained measurements show a colder behavior of the external elements with regard to the worst-case analysis during the first part of the ascent phase. In addition, radiative fluxes measured during the flight show a deviation in the infrared downward flux of about -50Wm−2 at 5km of altitude and a maximum fluctuation of about the 20% in the solar fluxes measurements. Significant advancements have been made for similar missions in terms of mechanical standardization, the use of COTS sensors and electronic components, the improvement of the reliability of the thermal analysis and the development of a software design adhered to standards and recommendations for critical systems.
•A university experiment for a stratospheric balloon flight has been design using COTS.•The heat transfer and thermal environment characterization experiments on board HERCCULES are described.•An overview of the mechanical, electronic, thermal and software design and tests is included.•Preliminary results of the flight on board BEXUS 32 are presented.
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