International volunteers at a Costa Rican organic farm : sheepish volunteers, proud tourists and unwitting developers

This thesis analyzes the practices and experiences of two groups of Canadian volunteers who visited the organic fanning and "alternative development" project ofFinca la Flor (FLF) in central Costa Rica. Using both participant observation and in-depth interviews with volunteers and other people involved with FLF, I examine volunteers' understandings of their involvement with the fann. I argue that three discursive fonnations are instrumental in shaping this particular volunteering encounter. Specifically, interpretation of these Canadian volunteers' experiences inspires the argument that the emerging practice of international volunteering (or voluntourism) exists at the intersection of discourses of development, volunteering and tourism, all of which both reflect and maintain problematic North-South relationships. The analysis shows that in spite ofFLF's construction as an (alternative / sustainable) international-development project, and in spite of volunteers' initial conceptualization of their trip as "volunteering," volunteers tend to act and describe their time at FLF in ways that look more like tourism than like volunteer labor or international development. Likewise, although FLF claims to principally be focused on alternative development, and merely to open up this authentic development space to volunteers for their participation, the organization in both practice and discourse seems primarily to construct a tourist experience and cater to the needs of foreigners as tourists. Discourses of development and volunteering do infonn the practices offann personnel and volunteers at FLF, but they become subordinated to the more dominant discourse of tourism as the volunteers' and fann management's ideals of development and volunteering capitulate to become focused on satisfying volunteers' (perceived or "real") touristic desires. The FLF participants I studied may have entered the encounter as volunteers, but they departed the site having been tourists.

Phytoplankton species diversity of 27 lakes and ponds of Costa Rica (Central America)

The literature on species diversity of phytoplankton of tropical lakes is scarce, and for the main part comes from studies of the big lakes in Africa, or deep lakes in South America, leaving a gap in the information about small shallow tropical lakes. In the present work the phytoplankton species composition and diversity of 27 shallow lakes and ponds in Costa Rica (Central America) was studied. The species composition was found to agree with other studies of tropical lakes, with a dominance of Chlorophyta, Cyanophyta, or in some cases Bacillariophyta or Euglenophyta; and a general paucity of Chrysophyta and Cryptophyta. Species richness varied considerably among the lakes, and tended to decrease with an increase in lake elevation. A low evenness in the species abundances was found, with one or more species outnumbering the rest by several orders of magnitude. Individual species abundances and species composition was found to vary with time in Rio Cuarto Lake, a meromictic lake situated in a region with low seasonal change in precipitation. In comparison with the phytoplankton of temperate lakes, the phytoplankton of the tropical lakes studied tended to have a lower evenness of species abundances, although species richness may be similar to temperate figures in some cases. Diversity indices sensitive to changes in the abundance of rare species tend to be higher in the tropical lakes studied; diversity indices sensitive to changes in the numbers of abundant species tend to be similar between the temperate and tropical lakes examined.

Enhancing personal effectiveness : the impacts of Costa Rica Outward Bound on students in an independent school in southwestern Ontario

This project examines students in a private school in southwestern Ontario on a 17 -day Costa Rica Outward Bound Rainforest multielement course. The study attempted to discover whether voluntary teenage participants could increase their self-perceptions of life effectiveness by participating in a 17-day expedition. A total of9 students participated in the study. The experimental design that was implemented was a mixed methods design. Participants filled in a Life Effectiveness Questionnaire (LEQ) at four predesignated times during the study. These time intervals occurred (a) before the trip commenced, (b) the first day of the trip, ( c) the last day of the trip, and (d) 1 month after the trip ended. Fieldnotes and recordings from informal group debriefing sessions were also used to gather information. Data collected in this study were analyzed in a variety of ways by the researcher. Analyses that were run on the data included the Friedman test for covariance, means, medians, and the Wilcoxon Pairs Test. The questionnaires were analyzed quantitatively, and the fieldnotes were analyzed qualitatively. Nonparametric statistical analysis was implemented as a result of the small group size of participants. Both sets of data were grouped and discussed according to similarities and differences. The data indicate that voluntary teenage participants experience significant changes over time in the areas of time management, social competency, emotional control, active initiative, and self-confidence. The types of outcomes from this study illustrate that Outward Bound-type opportunities should be offered to teenagers in Ontario schools as a means to bring about self-development.

La educación no formal de adultos en Costa Rica : un panorama de instituciones y sus programas

Tesis (Maestría en Educación de Adultos) (UANL)

Diagnóstico ambiental en la zona de Pedreras de la Sierra de San Miguel, Nuevo León

Tesis (Maestría en Ciencias con Especialidad en Ingeniería Ambiental) UANL

Preferencia de habitat, dieta, amplitud y traslape de nicho de carnívoros simpátricos (Mammalia: carnivora) en la costa sur de Jalisco,México

Tesis (Maestría en Ciencias con Especialidad en Manejo de Vida Silvestre) UANL

Manifestaciones de hidrocarburos en ambiente deltáico, de la formación San Miguel en la subcuenca Fuentes Río Escondido, noreste de México

Tesis (Maestría en Ciencias Geológicas) UANL

Análisis de los factores de riesgo ocupacional y verificación del estado de salud de los trabajadores en una empresa Transformadora de Acero [por] Miguel Angel González Osuna , Miriam Marcos Daccarett [y] Elsa Olmos Quirós

Tesis (Maestría en Salud Pública con Especialidad de Salud en el Trabajo ) UANL

Diseño de un programa de entrenamiento y capacitación para los encargados de formación de recursos humanos en el ministerio de agricultura y ganadería de la república de Costa Rica

Tesis (Maestría en Formación y Capacitación de Recursos Humanos) UANL

Construcción de una escala para medir la ansiedad con indicadores de efectividad [por] Miguel Angel Cañizales Mendoza

Tesis (Maestría en Psicología Laboral) U. A. N. L.

Geometría fractal de las fronteras de grano del acero AISI 304 sometido a deformación por Víctor Miguel Trejo Ramón

Tesis (Maestría en Ciencias de la Ingeniería Mecánica con Especialidad en Materiales) U.A.N.L.

Valor nutricional foliar de tres especies de Acacia por Miguel Angel Pérez Rodríguez

Tesis (Maestría en Ciencias Forestales) U.A.N.L.

Contribución al conocimiento de los lagomorfos (Leporidae) de Nuevo León, México [por] Miguel Angel López Acosta

Tesis (Maestría en Ciencias con Especialidad en Manejo de Vida Silvestre) U.A.N.L.

Propuesta didáctica el uso de la computadora en la enseñanza de la matemática para ingeniería [por] Miguel Angel Patlán Rodríguez

Tesis (Maestría en la Enseñanza de las Ciencias con Especialidad en Matemáticas) U.A.N.L.

Reconstrucción quirúrgica de papila interdental por Miguel Favio Saldaña Rodríguez

Tesis (Maestría en Ciencias Odontológicas con Especialidad en Periodoncia) U.A.N.L.