Search

The Grande de Tárcoles River in Costa Rica is one of the most polluted and degraded river basins in Central America. At the same time Costa Rica is a country internationally recognized for progressive environmental management. At least on paper, the country fosters sustainable river management in the form of integrated water resources management (IWRM). In the specific case of the Grande de Tárcoles River there is the General Integral Commission of the Grande Tárcoles River basin (CGICRGT) assigned to manage the basin in an integral manner. How this works in practice has so far not been investigated. Therefore, in this article we examine the formal and informal design and working practices of the CGICRGT and determine which type of river basin organization (RBO) it represents. Based on a mixed-method approach combining document analysis with semi-structured qualitative interviews we found that the CGICRGT contains elements of both, an agency RBO and a coordinating RBO. Although coordinating the river management works well to a certain extent, critical challenges remain that hinder a fully successful management of the basin and in consequence the improvement of its ecological status. Amongst them count the overlapping responsibilities of national and local institutions, the missing participation of some important institutions, the lack of financial and personnel resources, slow progress in terms of time, and a lack of motivation of the participating institutions. Although the CGICRGT presents an excellent platform for the integrated management of the Tárcoles river basin its progress will be too slow and its impact too small as long as all participants do not prioritize its work and integrate and motivate all important actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a context of rapid technological innovation and expensive new products, the paper calls for the generation of real-world data to inform decision-making and an international discussion on the affordability of new medicines, particularly for low- and middle-income countries. Without these, the challenges of health judicialization will continue to grow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how the use of multiple platforms is tied to awareness of algorithms. It builds on the premise that users interact with ecologies or environments of technologies rather than single platforms. The study also supplements work on algorithmic awareness by implementing a mixed-method study to account for how Costa Rican users of Netflix and Spotify understood and related to the algorithms of these platforms. This study combined a survey of 258 participants and 21 in-depth semistructured interviews. Findings demonstrate that multi-platform users were more aware of algorithms and carried out more practical actions to obtain algorithmic recommendations than single-platform users. Although user type did not predict participants' attitudes towards algorithmic recommendations, higher levels of awareness were associated with more positive attitudes towards algorithms. The study also shows that differences in levels of awareness explained users' emotional arousal derived from algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contributions: The underrepresentation of women in computer science (CS) majors has long been a focus of attention in many academic documents, the majority of them from the United States and Europe. There is, however, a lack of information about educational interventions (EIs) for women in computing in Latin America. The contribution of this article is to cover this gap and describe what researchers in Latin American countries have been publishing about the recruitment and retention of women in the CS field. Background: Many EIs targeting female students at different educational levels—K-12, undergraduate, and graduate—have been undertaken to increase the participation of women in computing in Latin America. However, descriptions of these activities rarely are included in international academic databases. Research Questions: This literature mapping addresses two main research questions (RQ) about the topic of women in computing in academic publications in Latin American countries: RQ1) what are the characteristics of the publications about women in computing in Latin America? and RQ2) what are the published interventions to recruit and retain women in computing in Latin America? To answer RQ1, six subquestions were created covering year, language, country of origin, document type, and professional track. Furthermore, for RQ2, two subquestions were created involving educational level and the use of software development with a female theme. Methodology: This investigation used the systematic literature mapping process. To achieve a broad coverage of papers, the following sources were included: Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, EBSCO, the proceedings of the Latin American Women in Computing Conference (LAWCC), and those of the Women in Technology (WIT) workshop colocated with the annual conference of the Brazilian Computer Society (SBC). The included papers were published in the last decade (2010–2020) and written in English, Portuguese, or Spanish. Findings: The literature mapping encompasses 197 academic documents, 48.2% of which were written in Portuguese, 28.7% in English, and 23.1% in Spanish. The papers originated from 15 of the 20 Latin American countries. Brazil and Costa Rica have the highest number of publications overall. The documents describe initiatives to increase the participation of women in computing majors that cover the entire educational spectrum, from K-12 to graduate programs, but papers targeting populations in higher education have started to appear recently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes how presidential candidates Fabricio Alvarado and Nayib Bukele used Facebook during the elections in Costa Rica (2018) and El Salvador (2019) respectively to develop a particular style of communication that blended populist elements and religious discourse. This style of communication extended traditional modes of populism that have prevailed in Latin America since the turn of the century (emphasizing the notion of the hero who comes to rescue "the people") but expressed them in an explicitly religious way (stressing the role of a "messiah" who comes to alter the established political order). We conducted both content and multimodal discourse analyses of 838 posts made by these candidates on Facebook during their respective electoral campaigns. We argue that the study of these campaigns would be incomplete without accounting for the relationship between populism, religion, and social media. While populism gave political validity to religious discourse, a religious imaginary provided populism with charismatic and messianic authority. This populist/religious reason found an ideal expression in Facebook and, simultaneously, was resignified by this platform's affordances. In this way, we assess how fundamentalist Christianity has become a legitimating force of knowledge and politics in the context of epistemic tensions that shape contemporary Latin-American societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile technologies are part of children's everyday lives. However, little is known about their context of use in Latin America. The goal of this paper is to describe how Costa Rican caregivers and their children between the ages of 1 and 5 years old use smartphones and tablets. A mixed-methods approach was used, including two studies. Study 1 used non-participant observations to analyze family interactions related to smartphone use in food court areas in shopping malls. A total of 22 children were observed while interacting with their caregivers and their use of smartphones was registered (N = 269 events) and classified according to (a) the person who used the smartphone and (b) the actions that took place during its use. Results indicated smartphones were mostly used by caregivers (n = 226, 84.01 %), followed by a co-use to take pictures or make videos (n = 27, 10.03 %). Children's use was infrequent (n = 16, 5.94 %). During caregivers' use, children usually engaged in activities that did not involve their caretaker, such as silently eating, interacting with another adult not using a smartphone at the moment or looking around. When children attempted to interact with their caregivers while they were using their smartphones, caregivers rarely responded. No disruptive behaviors on children were observed after caregivers' lack of response. Using a survey methodology, Study 2 explored children's and caregivers' use of mobile devices at home. A total of 42.9 % of caregivers reported they sometimes facilitate a device to their children to be able to accomplish other domestic and work-related tasks, as well as to satisfy personal needs. Daily duration of caregivers' use of devices was longer on weekdays (M = 207 minutes, SD = 116.02) than weekends (M = 164.25 minutes, SD = 118.54). Caregivers' daily duration of use was related to children's daily duration of use during weekdays (r = .414) and weekends (r = .451), and during caregiving time on weekdays (r = .328) and weekends (r = .541). Using a Likert scale (1 = never, 5 = always), the children's consumed content was explored. Findings indicate that children mostly consumed content from YouTube (M = 3.60, SD = 1.14) and children's educational apps (M = 3.13, SD = 1.5). Use of educational videogames (M = 3.27, SD = 1.34), puzzle-like videogames (M = 2.36, SD = 1.26) and word games (M = 2.23, SD = 1.14) was more frequent than action (M= 1.48, SD = 1.02) and sports videogames (M= 1.55, SD = 0.93). Educational televised programs (M = 3.58, SD = 1.10) and musical cartoons (M = 3.27, SD = 1.11) were frequently consumed by children. A total of 47.2 % of caregivers also indicated that they always accompany their children while they use devices at home. Caregivers reported a higher use of technological restrictive mediation (M = 4.14, SD = 1.14) and supervision (M = 4.1, SD = 1.11), followed by instructive (M = 3.93, SD = 1.19) and co-use mediation (M= 3.62, SD = 1.14). On a scale of 1 (very negative) to 5 (very positive), caregivers indicated that physical activity (M = 1.72, SD = 1.07) and sleep (M = 2.09, SD = .96) were most negatively affected by children's device use, whereas mathematical (M = 3.36, SD = 1.04) and linguistic skills (M = 3.44, SD = 1.13) were the most positively affected. This study's results provide a preliminary understanding of the context of use of mobile technology during caregiving of young children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bibliometrics play a significant role in evaluating the scientific production of journals and research units such as universities and research centers. The present study aimed to analyze the scientific production of CIMAR (Center for Research in Marine Science and Limnology) from its foundation in 1979 to 2015. We analyzed exclusively articles published in journals and selected those with at least one author affiliated to CIMAR. For the analysis, each article was classified according to the geographical study area, the topic of the investigation, ecosystem, and taxonomic group. We analyzed the following variables: year of publication, language, journal name, and authors. In this study, we analyzed the Bradford distribution, citations, the impact factor, and the quartiles of the journals where papers were published. During the study period, CIMAR produced a total of 791 publications: 624 articles, 90 book chapters or books, 48 booklets, and 34 special issues of the journal Revista de Biología Tropical (RBT). The number of publications showed an increasing trend during the study period, and most articles were written in English (58.3%) and Spanish (41.7%). A total of 128 journals were selected to publish CIMAR's contributions. According to the Bradford method, the journal RBT is in Zone I (major productivity or concentration), with 49.8% of the total scientific production. In relation to authorship, 22 authors with 12 articles or more are registered, and 80% of the articles have been published by authors with a low (42 authors) and medium productivity level (44 authors). CIMAR published 81.6% regarding marine topics and 18.4% about limnology. Most of the articles (51.9%) dealt with the Pacific of Costa Rica, 13.5% with the Caribbean and 34.7% referred to other study locations. The publications of CIMAR were mainly about ecology (33.3%), taxonomy (24.5%) and oceanography/meteorology (12.7%). CIMAR has a highly trained and specialized staff that has gained experience and is contributing to the implementation and evaluation of Costa Rica's science, technology and innovation policies through both interdisciplinary research and the development of institutional as well as professional capacities in a framework of dialogue and public-private agreements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This narrative review summarizes literature on C. difficile and C. difficile infections (CDI) that emerged from Latin America (LA) between 1984 and 2021. The revised information includes papers in English, Spanish, or Portuguese that were retrieved from the databases Pubmed, Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, Scielo, and Lilacs. Information is presented chronologically and segregated in subregions, focusing on clinical presentation, risk factors, detection and typing methods, prevalence and incidence rates, circulating strains, and, when available, phenotypic traits, such as antimicrobial susceptibility patterns. Studies dealing with cases, clinical aspects of CDI, and performance evaluations of diagnostic methods predominated. However, they showed substantial differences in case definitions, measuring units, populations, and experimental designs. Although a handful of autochthonous strains were identified, predominantly in Brazil and Costa Rica, the presentation and epidemiology of CDI in LA were highly comparable to what has been reported in other regions of the world. Few laboratories isolate and type this bacterium and even less generate whole genome sequences or perform basic science on C. difficile. Less than ten countries lead academic productivity on C. difficile or CDI-related topics, and information from various countries in Central America and the Caribbean is still lacking. The review ends with a global interpretation of the data and recommendations to further develop and consolidate this discipline in LA. • We reviewed more than 200 papers published in Spanish, Portuguese, and English during almost four decades. • Most research on C. difficile in Latin America (LA) has focused on clinical aspects of CDI. • Scientific literature on CDI in LA has mainly emerged from less than 10 countries. • A need for consensus on techniques, case definitions, typing, nomenclature, and sustained funding was identified. • CDI presentation and epidemiology in LA and more developed regions of the world are highly comparable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the obstacles that hinder the formation of linkages among local firms, multinational corporations and universities in the Costa Rican information and communication technologies cluster. It examines both the social and the economic reasons for forming or participating in linkages, ranging from the capabilities of potential partners to compliance with customs. The research is based on qualitative information collected over four years through more than 150 direct and detailed interviews with different stakeholders in the cluster. Costa Rica is often used as a positive benchmark of cluster policy in Latin America, but it is argued here that linkages among firms in the sector have developed much more slowly than anticipated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As part of the Tuning - Latin America Project, a total of 11 scholars from 10 countries in the region produced a proposal for 24 specific competences for the psychology training. In accordance with these competences, research was conducted by the School of Psychology of the University of Costa Rica (UCR) to estimate their levels of "importance" and "fulfillment". This was done through electronic questionnaires answered by 56 teachers, 34 employers, 73 students, and 62 graduates in Psychology from the UCR. High levels of "importance" were obtained in all competences; especially those related to professional ethics and the ability to realize a comprehensive and contextualized practice. Interdisciplinary work obtained high levels of "importance" but low levels of "fulfillment". Comparisons done after grouping competences by exploratory factor analysis confirmed these results. The paper concludes that there is real and contextual relevance of these competences in the professional performance of Psychology in the Costa Rican context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: More than half of those who emigrate from developing countries move to other developing countries, yet there have been few studies of the impact of this South–South migration. In this paper, we examine the impact of migration from one developing country, Nicaragua, on the labor market in another developing country, Costa Rica. We find little evidence to support the hypothesis that Nicaraguan migration to Costa Rica was an important factor contributing to falling earnings, increased inequality or stagnating poverty in Costa Rica. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper presents an analysis of the situation of the agriculture sector in Latin America. It presents the causes of the crisis in this sector, and the actions taken by the developed countries to promote its development. It also presents an analysis of the agriculture sector's contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and the links it can generate. A whole chapter presents an analysis of the Costa Rican agriculture sector based on current data from various sources: Estado de la Nación, Promotora de Comercio Exterior, Banco Central de Costa Rica, Ministerio de Comercio Exterior, and others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]