Un extremo de nosotros: lo público y la paz en El Salvador y Nicaragua

Centroamérica es una de las zonas de mayor conflictividad del planeta. El presente escrito considera las manifestaciones del conflicto violento de dos naciones del istmo, El Salvador y Nicaragua, la primera sumida en una grave crisis humanitaria y la otra sostenida en una violencia de baja intensidad. Nicaragua, no obstante, es junto con Honduras, el país más pobre de la región. La insólita mezcla de pobreza y reducida violencia en un país que colinda con la zona turbulenta de Centroamérica fuerza la búsqueda de esas otras mediaciones que sostienen su estado de relativa tranquilidad. De allí las preguntas que presiden el texto. Frente a un país atormentado, ¿cómo pensar su eventual proceso hacia la paz? Ante una nación en relativa calma, ¿qué aprender para proyectar el tratamiento de la crisis violenta de la región? Desde el telón de fondo de la injusticia y la desigualdad, pues a los dos países les caracteriza la precariedad económica, ¿qué mediaciones desatan la violencia salvadoreña y cuáles posibilitan la tramitación no violenta nicaragüense?

An Ardent Flame: Witness to Distant Suffering, Human Rights and Unworthy Victims in the Coverage by The New York Times and Two Journals of the Religious Left of the 1980s Civil Wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua

Scholars have investigated witness to distant suffering (WTDS) almost entirely in visual media. This study examines it in print. This form of reporting will be examined in two publications of the religious left as contrasted with the New York Times. The thesis is that, more than any technology, WTDS consists of the journalist’s moral commitment and narrative skills and the audience’s analytical resources and trust. In the religious journals, liberation theology provides the moral commitment, the writers and editors the narrative skills and trust and the special vision of the newly empowered poor the analytical foundation. In bearing witness to those who have suffered state or guerilla terrorism in El Salvador and Nicaragua during the 1980s, we will investigate a distinction between “worthy” and “unworthy victims.” This last issue has a special ethical and political significance. Media witnessing to the suffering of strangers can help them become known, and so “worthy.” It can help them, and their plight and cause, become better recognized. This is the power of the media.

Digital processing and data compilation approach for using remotely sensed imagery to identify geological lineaments in hard-rock terrains : an application for groundwater explorations in Nicaragua

Sustainable yields from water wells in hard-rock aquifers are achieved when the well bore intersects fracture networks. Fracture networks are often not readily discernable at the surface. Lineament analysis using remotely sensed satellite imagery has been employed to identify surface expressions of fracturing, and a variety of image-analysis techniques have been successfully applied in “ideal” settings. An ideal setting for lineament detection is where the influences of human development, vegetation, and climatic situations are minimal and hydrogeological conditions and geologic structure are known. There is not yet a well-accepted protocol for mapping lineaments nor have different approaches been compared in non-ideal settings. A new approach for image-processing/synthesis was developed to identify successful satellite imagery types for lineament analysis in non-ideal terrain. Four satellite sensors (ASTER, Landsat7 ETM+, QuickBird, RADARSAT-1) and a digital elevation model were evaluated for lineament analysis in Boaco, Nicaragua, where the landscape is subject to varied vegetative cover, a plethora of anthropogenic features, and frequent cloud cover that limit the availability of optical satellite data. A variety of digital image processing techniques were employed and lineament interpretations were performed to obtain 12 complementary image products that were evaluated subjectively to identify lineaments. The 12 lineament interpretations were synthesized to create a raster image of lineament zone coincidence that shows the level of agreement among the 12 interpretations. A composite lineament interpretation was made using the coincidence raster to restrict lineament observations to areas where multiple interpretations (at least 4) agree. Nine of the 11 previously mapped faults were identified from the coincidence raster. An additional 26 lineaments were identified from the coincidence raster, and the locations of 10 were confirmed by field observation. Four manual pumping tests suggest that well productivity is higher for wells proximal to lineament features. Interpretations from RADARSAT-1 products were superior to interpretations from other sensor products, suggesting that quality lineament interpretation in this region requires anthropogenic features to be minimized and topographic expressions to be maximized. The approach developed in this study has the potential to improve siting wells in non-ideal regions.

Decreasing risk of hepatitis a infection in león, nicaragua: evidence from cross-sectional and longitudinal seroepidemiology studies

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Nicaragua is highly endemic for hepatitis A. We aimed to provide an estimate of the change in the age-specific risk of hepatitis A virus (HAV) infection based on serological data from cross-sectional and longitudinal samples collected in León, Nicaragua, in 1995/96 (n = 979) and 2003 (n = 494). METHODS The observed age-specific prevalence of anti-HAV antibodies was correlated to the age-specific risk of infection by calculating the probability of freedom from infection at a specific age. RESULTS The proportion of seropositive children aged 1.5 to 6 years was 42% in 2003 compared to 67% in 1995/96. Estimated annual risk of infection for a 3-year old child was 30% (95% CI: 27.0%, 33.1%) in 1995 and 15.5% (95% CI: 12.4%, 19.0%) in 2003. There was good agreement between estimates based on cross-sectional and longitudinal data. The age-specific geometric mean of the quantified anti-HAV antibody levels assessed in 2003 was highest at age 4 and decreased steadily up to age 40. CONCLUSIONS The substantially lower risk of HAV infection in 2003 than in 1995 for young children indicates a beginning transition from high to intermediate endemicity in León, Nicaragua. Consecutive age-stratified serosurveys are useful to assess changes in risk of infection following public health interventions. The decreasing age-specific GMC of anti-HAV antibodies during adulthood in a country with endemic HAV indirectly suggests that ongoing HAV exposure in the community has marginal boosting effect on antibody levels once protective immunity has been established by natural infection.

Psychosocial factors and musculoskeletal symptoms in a vulnerable working population in Nicaragua

This research is a secondary data analysis of the CUPID-INCA Nicaragua study, a cross-sectional study comparing psychosocial and physical factors on musculoskeletal symptoms among nurses, office workers and maquiladoras in Nicaragua. There were three objectives for this thesis. (1) To describe the study population according to their socio-demographic, psychosocial (i.e. work organization and health beliefs) and physical factors. (2) To estimate the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) in the study population (nurses, office workers and maquilas). (3) To analyze and compare the trends of association between psychosocial factors and MSDs to that of physical factors and MSDs in the study population. Trends of association between MSDs and psychosocial factors were also compared between nurses, office workers and maquilas. ^ Majority of the total study population were females, middle aged, non smokers and had been on the job for more than five years. Prevalence rates of low back pain and upper extremity pain were 28% and 37% respectively in nurses, 17% and 34% in office workers and 18% and 31% in maquilas. Workers' health belief was significantly associated with MSDs in all three occupational groups. Psychosocial factors were not consistently associated more with MSDs than physical factors. Maquilas had more psychosocial factors statistically significantly associated with musculoskeletal symptoms than nurses and office workers. ^ The findings of this research suggest that both psychosocial and physical risk factors play a role on the prevalence of musculoskeletal symptoms in the three working populations in Nicaragua. Future research in this area should explore further, the risk of developing MSDs from workers' exposure to psychosocial factors as well as physical factors.^

La hispanidad y lo nacional en el pensamiento de Pablo Antonio Cuadra (Nicaragua, 1912, 2001)

Fil: Sarmiento, Alicia Inés. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras

Revolución en Nicaragua : el pueblo en rojo y negro

En el presente artículo se analiza el proceso histórico-social de la revolución sandinista de 1979 haciendo foco en la huella que ésta dejó en los nicaragüenses. Nos proponemos realizar un recorrido por el proceso de la revolución sandinista nicaragüense, analizar sus antecedentes y posibles causas, así como también las consecuencias que trajo a este país centroamericano. También se analizará, someramente, el destino de la revolución con la ofensiva neoliberal en la década de los noventa. Se hará especial hincapié en la dimensión simbólica y cultural que hasta hoy conserva dicha revolución, pero sin dejar de hacer mención a las variables estructurales que condicionaron este proceso. La investigación se nutre de distintas fuentes documentales, así como de entrevistas y de una de las manifestaciones más ricas de la cultura: la música.

Acceso y calidad de atención al aborto en contextos de absoluta ilegalidad. Nicaragua

Presentación en la Primera Conferencia Latinoamericana Prevención y Atención del Aborto Inseguro. Lima, Perú, 29 y 30 de junio de 2009

Cairo + 20 - Nicaragua. Diagnóstico Nacional 1994 - 2012. Conferencia Internacional sobre la Población y el Desarrollo.

Mientras la comunidad internacional se prepara a evaluar el cumplimiento de los acuerdos de la Conferencia Internacional sobre la Población y el Desarrollo en el próximo 2014, en Nicaragua SI Mujer nuevamente publica el monitoreo del Programa de Acción elaborado con información de los años 1994 al 2012, cuidadosamente recopilada a partir de la legislación, las políticas públicas, los programas, las normas y protocolos así como de investigaciones independientes y reportes de fuentes alternativas del movimiento feminista de la región Latinoamericana y del Caribe. Tal como decíamos en el Diagnóstico de Cairo+10, el Programa de Acción estableció una histórica transformación de las tradicionales concepciones demográficas -pro o antinatalistas- con que se forjaban las políticas de población mundial para centrar el desarrollo humano en las personas y de manera particular en las mujeres. Cairo ha obligado a la redefinición de legislaciones, estrategias y políticas en todos los países de la comunidad internacional y les ha obligado a cambiar la consideración social sobre las mujeres. En Nicaragua han pasado cuatro gobiernos que bajo signo conservador, liberal o revolucionario han coincidido sucesivamente en ignorar, postergar o minimizar los derechos de las poblaciones y específicamente de las mujeres, las adolescentes y las niñas. Es más vigente que nunca la demanda de las mujeres hecha diez años atrás de superar la indefinición de las políticas de población en la esfera de la salud, que ha impedido que el país cuente con una estrategia capaz de comenzar a reducir el riesgo, la morbilidad y la mortalidad de las mujeres -en fin-, el sufrimiento humano que se perpetúa entre generaciones.