Defense Expenditure: Central America and The Dominican Republic

It is often speculated that the high allocation of funds to retirement pension systems has influenced the capacity of Central American and Dominican Republic military to modernize. Yet, the comparative study of the allocation of pension and social funds in these particular countries suggest that there is not direct linkage between the poor funding of military modernization plans and the allocation of funds to military pension systems. The research conducted on this subject shows the following results: 1. The Dominican Republic is the only country that has embarked on a considerable procurement of modern equipment and still reports the largest proportion of social expenditures. 2. El Salvador’s defense budget allocates minimal funding to Social Welfare Institute, which as alternative sources of funding. In 2009, El Salvador increased 15 percent funding to the military to respond to increased role in domestic security issues. 3. The Guatemalan defense expenditure on social programs is fairly low, but it has grown during the past six years due to processes of demobilization. However, the Military Social Welfare Institute is administered by a decentralized institution funded directly by the Ministry of Finance. If it were to be considered as a part of the defense budget, its social expenses would account for almost 16% of it. 4. The Honduran Defense Budget has faced a considerable enlargement during the past four years, with social spending expenses taken precedence over modernization efforts. 2 5. The Nicaraguan system of military pensions is administered by a decentralized entity (IPSM) through a system of salary deductions. Information on the funding of this entity is inconclusive. The Nicaraguan Defense spending on social services has reported a drastic 90% drop since the year 2007.

Climate Change and Regions at Risk: A Look at Central America

Climate change has been a security issue for mankind since Homo sapiens first emerged on the planet, driving him to find new and better food, water, shelter, and basic resources for survival and the advancement of civilization. Only recently, however, has the rate of climate change coupled with man’s knowledge of his own role in that change accelerated, perhaps profoundly, changing the security paradigm. If we take a ―decades‖ look at the security issue, we see competition for natural resources giving way to Cold War ideological containment and deterrence, itself giving way to non-state terrorism and extremism. While we continue to defend against these threats, we are faced with even greater security challenges that inextricably tie economic, food and human security together and where the flash points may not provide clearly discernable causes, as they will be intrinsically tied to climate change. Several scientific reports have revealed that the modest development gains that can be realized by some regions could be reversed by climate change. This means that climate change is not just a long-term environmental threat as was widely believed, but an economic and developmental disaster that is unfolding. As such, addressing climate change has become central to the development and poverty reduction by the World Bank and other financial institutions. In Latin America, poorer countries and communities, such as those found in Central America, will suffer the hardest because of weaker resilience and greater reliance on climatesensitive sectors such as agriculture. The US should attempt to deliver capability to assist these states to deal with the effects of climate change.

“Never Give up:” The Strengths and Strategies Used Among Undocumented College Students From Central America to Access and Persist in U.S. Higher Education

The purpose of this study was to identify the strengths and strategies that undocumented college students from Central America used to access and persist in United States higher education. A multiple-case study design was used to conduct in-depth, semi-structured interviews and document collection from ten persons residing in Illinois, Maryland, Ohio, Texas, and Washington. Yosso’s (2005, 2006) community cultural wealth conceptual framework, an analytical and methodological tool, was used to uncover assets used to navigate the higher education system. The findings revealed that participants activated all forms of capital, with cultural capital being the least activated yet necessary, to access and persist in college. Participants also activated most forms of capital together or consecutively in order to attain financial resources, information and social networks that facilitated college access. Participants successfully persisted because they continued to activate forms of capital, displayed a high sense of agency, and managed to sustain college educational goals despite challenges and other external factors. The relationships among forms of capital and federal, state, and institutional policy contexts, which positively influenced both college access and persistence were not illustrated in Yosso’s (2005, 2006) community cultural wealth framework. Therefore, this study presents a modified community cultural wealth framework, which includes these intersections and contexts. In the spirit of Latina/o critical race theory (LatCrit) and critical race theory (CRT), the participants share with other undocumented students suggestions on how to succeed in college. This study can contribute to the growing research of undocumented college students, and develop higher education policy and practice that intentionally consider undocumented college students’ strengths to successfully navigate the institution.

Menopause in Central America: attitudes, symptoms and treatment.

UCR::Investigación::Unidades de Investigación::Ciencias Básicas::Centro de Investigaciones en Productos Naturales (CIPRONA)

Tectonics of Central and Eastern California, Late Cretaceous to Modern

The Late Cretaceous to Modern tectonic evolution of central and eastern California has been studied for many decades, with published work generally focusing on specific geographic areas and time periods. The resulting literature leaves the reader, whether graduate student, faculty member, or layperson, wondering what a coherently integrated tectonic evolution might look like, or if it would be at all possible to undertake such a task. This question is the common thread weaving together the four studies presented in this work. Each of the individual chapters is targeted at a specific location and time period which I have identified as a critical yet missing link in piecing together a coherent regional tectonic story. In the first chapter, we re-discover a set of major west down normal faults running along the western slope of the southern Sierra, the western Sierra fault system (WSFS). We show that one of these faults was offset by roughly a kilometer in Eocene time, and that this activity directly resulted in the incision of much of the relief present in modern Kings Canyon. The second chapter is a basement landscape and thermochronometric study of the hanging wall of the WSFS. New data from this study area provide a significant westward expansion of basement thermochronometric data from the southern Sierra Nevada batholith. Thermal modeling results of these data provide critical new constraints on the early exhumation of the Sierra Nevada batholith, and in the context of the results from Chapter I, allow us to piece together a coherent chronology of tectonic forcings and landscape evolution for the southern Sierra Nevada. In the third chapter, I present a study of the surface rupture of the 1999 Hector Mine earthquake, a dextral strike slip event on a fault in the Eastern California Shear Zone (ECSZ). New constraints on the active tectonics in ECSZ will help future studies better resolve the enigmatic mismatch between geologic slip rates and geodetically determined regional rates. Chapter IV is a magnetostratigraphic pilot study of the Paleocene Goler Formation. This study provides strong evidence that continued investigation will yield new constraints on the depositional age of the only fossil-bearing Paleocene terrestrial deposit on the west coast of North America. Each of these studies aims to provide important new data at critical missing links in the tectonic evolution of central and eastern California.

WHEN GLOBAL CONSERVATION MEETS LOCAL LIVELIHOODS: PEOPLE AND PARKS IN CENTRAL AMERICA

SummaryNational park and related forest conservation efforts tend to emanate from core areas of the world and are often imposed on rural people living on forest fringes in the least developed regions of lesser developed countries. We address the social and cultural processes that ensue when center-originatingconservation meets local people with their resource-dependent livelihoods, and how these vary under different circumstances. We examine and compare local people’s environmental andforest-related values and behaviors, using cultural models, after the establishment of national parks in two countries with very different social and environmental histories—Costa Rica and Honduras. We find that external cultural models were widely adopted by local people—hegemonic to the extent of structuring even discourse opposing conservation. Local people often expressed environmental values, but used formulaic language that suggested that these values were not well integrated with other aspects of their life and often not motivating. We pay particular attention to relationships between environmental values and livelihood values, and the varying ways that new, local environmental discourses and values emerge that mediate between these often conflicting value spheres.The recent international increase in national parks is a phenomenon of globalization, and often imposes new conservation practices and environmental values onto local people. While these new national parks have some broad public benefits that can be thought of as global, e.g. their role in preventing biodiversity loss and climate change, it is also true that few concrete benefits accrue to local people and that parks often impose great costs on local people in the form of lost land, diminished access to resources, and diminished autonomy as national governments and internationalorganizations extend into local life in new ways.These changes have serious repercussions for local people, often threatening their livelihoods and well-being in significant ways. Yet our results suggest that local people may be willing to work with park managers to co-inhabit landscapes when park managers are able to accommodate local livelihood needs.Keywords: National parks, Central America, Costa Rica, Honduras, forest conservationResumenLos parques nacionales y otros esfuerzos de conservación forestal tienden a surgir en las principales áreas núcleo del mundo, y por lo general son impuestos a los pobladores de espacios rurales que habitan franjas forestales de los países en vías de desarrollo.Este artículo se enfoca en los procesos sociales y culturales que se originan a partir de la imposición de estas áreas de conservación y sobre cómo se ve afectada la subsistencia de los pobladores que dependen de los recursos naturales de dichas áreas. También se evalúan y comparan los valores y comportamientos relacionados con el ambiente, percibidos por los pobladores con el establecimiento de parques nacionales, en dos países con historias sociales y ambientales muy diferentes como lo son Costa Rica y Honduras; para lo cual se utilizaron modelos culturales. Al respecto, se encontró que varios modelos culturales externos, que fueron ampliamente adoptados por los pobladores locales, han llegado a ser hegemónicos, afectando la conservación. Los habitantes del lugar estaban disconformes con respecto a los nuevos valores ambientales, porque estos, por un lado, no estaban adecuadamente integrados con otros aspectos de su vida, y por la escasa motivación en materia de conservación ambiental.De esta forma, se resalta la relación entre los valores ambientales y los valores de sus forma de vida;entre las nuevas formas de ruptura y los valores emergentes que median entre la esfera de valores conflictivos.El reciente aumento internacional de parques naciones es un fenómeno de globalización, y en consecuencia, impone nuevas prácticas de conservación y valores ambientales a los habitantes de estas localidades. Mientras estos nuevos parques nacionales generan algunas ventaja públicas, que pueden ser pensadas como globales (p.ej. su papel en la prevención de la pérdida de diversidad biológica y el cambio de clima), también ocasionan escasos beneficios para las comunidades, al imponer elevados costos para los pobladores locales como lo son: la pérdida de tierras, la disminución en el acceso a los recursos y la reducción de la autonomía, ya sea ante el gobierno nacional u organizaciones internaciones que extienden sus acciones políticas a la vida local en todas sus nuevas formas. Estos cambios repercuten drásticamente en los habitantes del lugar, lo cual a menudo amenaza, en general, el sustento y el bienestar, de modo significativo.Los resultados sugieren que los habitantes del lugar podrían estar dispuestos a trabajar con los gerentes del parque para co-habitar paisajes cuando éstos sean capaces de priorizar las necesidades de sobrevivencia de las formas de vida de los habitantes.Palabras clave: parques nacionales, América Central, Costa Rica, conservación forestal

Implementation Guide for Surveillance of Central Line Associated Bloodstream Infection -- [Consultation Edition]

The implementation guide for the surveillance of CLABSI in intensive care units (ICU) was produced by the Healthcare Associated Infection (HAI) Technical Working Group of the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care(ACSQHC), and endorsed by the ACSQHC HAI Advisory Committee. State surveillance units, the ACSQHC and the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society (ANZICS) have representatives on the Technical Working Group, and have provided input into this document.

Plants of Central Queensland: Identification and Uses of Native and Introduced Species

Conservation and sustainable productivity are vital issues for Australia. In order to manage vegetation well from an agricultural, recreational or conservation point of view, an understanding of individual plant species is important. Plants of Central Queensland provides a guide for identifying and understanding the plants of the region so that pastoralists and others can be better equipped to manage the vegetation resource of our grazing lands. Central Queensland straddles the Tropic of Capricorn, although many of the plants in the book will also be found outside this area, as shown by their distribution maps. The book provides information on the habit, distribution, foliage and fruits of 525 plant species. Informative notes highlighting declared, poisonous, weed and medicinal plants are included, and plants useful for bees and bush tucker are also noted. These are the most important plants you might see if you live in or travel through central Queensland. This book has an easy-to-read, non-botanical format, with helpful photographs and distribution maps that greatly aid anyone interested in the vegetation of central Queensland. It is based on a previous work of the same title but is greatly expanded, incorporating information on an additional 285 plant species.

Effect of some "strong" excitants of central neurones on the uptake of L-glutamate and L-aspartate by synaptosomes

"Strong" excitants of central neurones such as β N-oxalyl L α,β-diaminopropionic acid (ODAP), N-methyl-D-aspartic acid (NMDA) and kainic acid (KA) were found to inhibit the high affinity uptake of glutamate and aspartate in synaptosomes isolated from young rat brain. The potency of these "strong" excitants as convulsants appear to parallel their ability to inhibit glutamate uptake by synaptosomes. The data suggest the possibility that the convulsive effect of these "strong" excitants could be mediated by glutamate/aspartate.

Fish stupefying plants used by the Gond tribal of Mendha village of Central India

Fish stupefying plants and their methods of use by the Gond people of Mendha village of the Gadchiroli district in Maharashtra state have been documented. For the purpose of validation, literature survey revels that many fish stupefying plants being used since long time by local people are recently well tested by many workers and are found to have many important medicinal properties. It was also observed that herbal fish stupefying agents are excellent means of fishing, which do not kill whole fish stock like chemicals.

Nestedness pattern in stream diatom assemblages of central Western Ghats

Community diversity and the population abundance of a particular group of species are controlled by immediate environment, inter-and intra-species interactions, landscape conditions, historical events and evolutionary processes. Nestedness is a measure of order in an ecological system, referring to the order in which the number of species is related to area or other factors. In this study we have studied the nestedness pattern in stream diatom assemblages in 24 stream sites of central Western Ghats, and report 98 taxa from the streams of central Western Ghats region. The communities show highly significant nested pattern. The Mantel test of matrix revealed a strong relationship between species assemblages and environmental conditions at the sites. A significant relationship between species assemblage and environmental condition was observed. Principal component analysis (PCA) indicated that environmental conditions differed markedly across the sampling sites, with the first three components explaining 78% of variance. Species composition of diatoms is significantly correlated with environmental distance across geographical extent. The current pattern suggests that micro-environment at regional levels influences the species composition of epilithic diatoms in streams. The nestedness shown by the diatom community was highly significant, even though it had a high proportion of idiosyncratic species, characterized with high numbers of cosmopolitan species, whereas the nested species were dominated by endemic species. PCA identifies ionic parameters and nutrients as the major features which determine the characteristics of the sampling sites. Hence the local water quality parameters are the major factors in deciding the diatom species assemblages.