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Cystic fibrosis (CF), an autosomal recessive disease, is caused by variants in both alleles of the CF transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene. A new assay based on allele-specific polymerase chain reaction and high-resolution melting analysis was developed for the detection of 18 CF-causing CFTR variants previously identified in Cuba and Latin America. The assay is also useful for zygosity determination of mutated alleles and includes internal controls. The reaction mixtures were normalized and evaluated using blood samples collected on filter paper. The evaluation of analytical parameters demonstrated the specificity and sensitivity of the method to detect the included CFTR variants. Internal and external validations yielded a 100% agreement between the new assay and the used reference tests. This assay can complement CF newborn screening not only in Cuba but also in Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The West Indies can be considered as a laboratory of biogeography and evolution, and the Caribbean Islands constitute one of the planet's biodiversity hotspots. Within the region, Cuba is the largest island and is crucial to gaining an understanding of the origin and evolutionary history of Caribbean flora and fauna. This paper provides an introduction to a Special Issue of the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society on current Cuban plant and animal biodiversity, with an emphasis on evolutionary biology and biogeography. The present issue includes 10 contributions and addresses a wide diversity of species and taxonomic groups, study levels, and research tools. This collection of articles not only provides an integrative vision of Cuba's biodiversity and the potential patterns and processes involved in its evolutionary history, but could also provide food for future research on its biodiversity from an evolutionary perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In nineteenth-century Cuba, the increasing and uneven use of passports for maritime travel generated confusion about their authority and encouraged their falsification. This essay explores the forgery and misuse of travel papers alongside the fabrications of an official colonial record that concealed the illegal transatlantic slave trade as it implemented documentary procedures for legal travel. Cuban officials pursued individuals who traveled without passports, with other people's passports, or lacked other papers, with a disproportionate focus on the circulation of free people of African descent. At the same time, the limited reach of government decrees and policies complicated strict determinations of transgression. Rather than taking this as evidence of a broken system, recognizing how various actors created the conditions for a collective susceptibility both to the authority conferred by passports and to plausible falsehoods lets us view borders, individual identity, and Caribbean mobility in new light. The essay calls on historians to approach the archival record of passports and mobility by balancing our retrospective recognition of falsifications with an awareness of fluctuating estimations of documentary veracity in the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing number of emerging economies (among others China, India, Russia, South Africa, and Brazil) have recently introduced R&D tax credit schemes to support the innovative activities of their domestic firms. Drawing insights from these international experiences, this paper proposes a new R&D fiscal incentive system in Cuba. We argue that, to take the specific characteristics of a transition economy like that of Cuba into account, the new program should have a mixed character: it should be volume-based for large State-owned enterprises and incremental for the emerging group of smaller private companies. The fiscal incentive system should allow firms to receive relatively high super-deductions in order to provide an effective stimulus to their innovation and imitation activities. The new R&D policy would contribute to addressing the structural weaknesses which characterize the Cuban national innovation system, and thus enable firms to reap the opportunities provided by the changing international context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]