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The growing interest in nature and its conservation has led to a significant increase in tourist visits to Natural Protected Areas. However, the lack of coherent and effective planning entails substantial risks. Therefore, to take advantage of the benefits of nature tourism in these areas, a management of the activity based on sustainability criteria is required. Based on this premise, a case study is presented with the aim of assessing the main attractions of the Cornalvo Natural Park to determine its suitability to promote a variety of ecotourism experiences associated with its distinctive ecosystem of dehesas. For this purpose, the perceptions of the personnel in charge of the management of the protected area were analyzed using the Delphi method. In addition, a SWOT analysis was carried out to provide information that could serve as a basis for making decisions aimed at revaluing this area. Among the results, establishing tourist circuits with the monumental city of Mérida, promoting proximity tourism, was relevant. Likewise, increasing the dialogue with landowners within this space, with whom agreements could be established to implement various initiatives in the park is considered highly important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A methodological approach for a semi-quantitative non-destructive testing (NDT) of the effects on hydric properties after the application of different conservation treatments (commercial ethylsilicate and siloxane compounds with consolidant, water repellent or consolidant + water repellent properties) is presented in this study. The NDT used for this purpose is a simplified method of time-sequential infrared thermography (IRT) on stone (granite and marble, treated and untreated) from the Roman theatre of Merida (Spain), which was listed by UNESCO as World Heritage Site in 1993. As water evaporation modifies temperature intensely, IRT enables monitoring the response of the stone samples during water absorption-evaporation processes. The comparative analysis between treated and non-treated specimens was performed by calculating the rate of surface apparent temperature change (ΔoC/h) value. The capillary rising test, monitored by IRT, clearly showed a different response of the samples treated with water-repellent treatments, proving their efficiency. Samples treated with organosilicic compounds showed a large and rapid drop in apparent surface temperature, indicating that water accesses rapidly. Results from the evaporation test also show this difference. The surface apparent temperature increased immediately in samples with water-repellent treatments, in which water does not enter inside stone, but remains on the surface. Samples with ethyl silicate, again, show a greater difference with respect to untreated samples, taking longer to recover surface apparent temperature, because the water is retained inside the stone for longer. This study proved simplified time-sequential IRT as a reliable technique for assessing the efficacy of conservation treatments applied to stone materials in laboratory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the daily and social experience of a group of gay-men, lifestyle migrants, in the city of Mérida, Yucatán (Mexico), to determine if they face discrimination or if they live in a city that can be considered gay-friendly. Through the concept of lifestyle migration and with the support of semi-structured interviews and field observations in the historic center of the city, the contrasting aspects of Mérida in terms of acceptance of the LGBTQ+ population are studied. It is conclude that, for the study group, the city is openly gay-friendly with factors such as their purchasing power and foreigner status contributing to their acceptance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amongst the many achievements of Peter Brown may be included the ways in which he has taught us to understand and value the testimony of the Saints Lives and other hagiographic texts of Late Antiquity that often seemed baffling to scholars of earlier generations. On the other hand, sa small number of these hagiographic texts can appear so transparently historical in the nature and details of their content, as not to seem in need of such careful interpretation. In the western Mediterranean the Vitas Sanctorum Patrum Emeretensium is an outstanding example of such a work, that has been used to throw light on a range of topics, from medicine to architecture, beyond the confines of the events in later sixth century Mérida that it describes, and largely without raising any questions as to the reliability of its narrative. However, when this can be compared with that provided by other, more clearly contemporary historiographical sources, its account usually proves to be erroneous or misleading. This article reopens questions long thought closed, or which have been ignored, as to the origins, nature and purpose of the work, so as to enable the strengths and weaknesses of its evidence be better understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To evaluate the protective effect of house screening (HS) on indoor Aedes aegypti infestation, abundance and arboviral infection in Merida, Mexico. Methods: In 2019, we performed a cluster randomised controlled trial (6 control and 6 intervention areas: 100 households/area). Intervention clusters received permanently fixed fiberglass HS on all windows and doors. The study included two cross‐sectional entomologic surveys, one baseline (dry season in May 2019) and one post‐intervention (PI, rainy season between September and October 2019). The presence and number of indoor Aedes females and blood‐fed females (indoor mosquito infestation) as well as arboviral infections with dengue (DENV) and Zika (ZIKV) viruses were evaluated in a subsample of 30 houses within each cluster. Results: HS houses had significantly lower risk for having Aedes aegypti female mosquitoes (odds ratio [OR] = 0.56, 95% CI 0.33–0.97, p = 0.04) and blood‐fed females (OR = 0.53, 95% CI 0.28–0.97, p = 0.04) than unscreened households from the control arm. Compared to control houses, HS houses had significantly lower indoor Ae. aegypti abundance (rate ratio [RR] = 0.50, 95% CI 0.30–0.83, p = 0.01), blood‐fed Ae. aegypti females (RR = 0.48, 95% CI 0.27–0.85, p = 0.01) and female Ae. aegypti positive for arboviruses (OR = 0.29, 95% CI 0.10–0.86, p = 0.02). The estimated intervention efficacy in reducing Ae. aegypti arbovirus infection was 71%. Conclusions: These results provide evidence supporting the use of HS as an effective pesticide‐free method to control house infestations with Aedes aegypti and reduce the transmission of Aedes‐transmitted viruses such as DENV, chikungunya (CHIKV) and ZIKV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By examining the Latin inscription of Rabbi Iacob of Mérida (Lusitania, Spain) on the basis of historical and philological arguments we can establish its dating to the early eighth century, after the Arab invasion. This would confirm the survival of sages who had a leading role in the religious life of Jewish or formerly converted Jewish communities able to clandestinely maintain and preserve their ancestral beliefs. RebbiIacob, the son of the rebbiSenior is mentioned in the inscription; it is possible that both were "masters of the Law." It is likely that they chose to practice their teachings orally due to the ban on the production and reading of all kinds of Jewish written works in the Visigothic kingdom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

T'hó –a Mayan city cited in historical documents – has been discovered and is now a topic in current archaeological discussions and research topics due to a joint UNAM and UADY research project. This project encompassed several steps, including the recording of material recovered from the city's subsoil while monitoring urban infrastructure programs, as well as the study of historical documents and maps and finally verifying hypothesis by using georadar. After surveying almost 17 km of paved streets in downtown Merida, we realized that it was possible to recognize three main deposit layers underlying the area. The uppermost layer showed modern fillings and urban infrastructure, the intermediate layer had pre-Hispanic cultural remains, and the deepest one included limestone bedrock. This study constitutes the first attempt to create a map of the remains underlying downtown Merida City in order to know and preserve its archaeological patrimony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lime kilns excavated in the Mayan area may be considered suitable artifacts for archaeomagnetic studies because the production process generally requires temperatures higher than 700 °C. This fact guarantees that the walls and floors of the furnaces carry the stable thermoremanent magnetization acquired during the cooling from high temperatures during its last use. 12 of a total of 17 samples, collected and oriented in situ inside the furnace located in Sitpach, Merida were thermally demagnetized in order to obtain their characteristic archeodirections (declination and inclination). The site-mean direction was determined based on 7 samples with greater clustering. Archaeomagnetic dating yielded two possible intervals: 267-671 AD and 1279-1455 AD. Based on relative chronological considerations of the area, the second interval seems more feasible. This new absolute chronological contribution, together with those previously reported, indicates the continuity and permanence of pyrotechnological knowledge in the Maya area from 900 to at least 1600 AD, including the beginning of the colonial period, in which some furnaces, probably built before the Spanish conquest, were reactivated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

T'hó –a Mayan city cited in historical documents – has been discovered and is now a topic in current archaeological discussions and research topics due to a joint UNAM and UADY research project. This project encompassed several steps, including the recording of material recovered from the city's subsoil while monitoring urban infrastructure programs, as well as the study of historical documents and maps and finally verifying hypothesis by using georadar. After surveying almost 17 km of paved streets in downtown Merida, we realized that it was possible to recognize three main deposit layers underlying the area. The uppermost layer showed modern fillings and urban infrastructure, the intermediate layer had pre-Hispanic cultural remains, and the deepest one included limestone bedrock. This study constitutes the first attempt to create a map of the remains underlying downtown Merida City in order to know and preserve its archaeological patrimony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an 1862 Mérida document that deals with the trial of two people accused of falsifying money, two lexemes appear that warrant some comments. The first of these is firey, a voice unknown to lexicographical repertoires, but one that could be considered a lexical coinage. The other word is moldura, that has a meaning in the document (as far as it is known, not registered or documented elsewhere) that would qualify as one of Mérida origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study deals with an analysis of documents around a trial on counterfeit currency that was held in the 19th century, in Mérida, Venezuela. Currency counterfeiting is a crime against the State that is severely punished. Two Colombian citizens denounced each other as counterfeiters. Two different stories are opposed during the trial: the prosecution, brought by José María Rojas and the government, and the defense, brought by Clara Cárdenas. As a result, Cárdenas was condemned but later she was released due to illness. However, there is an untold history between Clara and José María that raises suspicions. Ethnographic methodology was used on the texts to study lexical units and communication events. It also helps to understand values and beliefs from the 19th-century society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From a brief reference in 1975 of Professor D. Manuel Bendala about a bronze figurine of a legionary found in the archaeological area of Los Columbarios (Merida) in the early twentieth century, we are taking a brief tour through the history of this piece. And we are trying to put this throfy in relation to the settlement of veterans of the Legions X Gemina and V Alaudae at the time of the founding of the colony of Augusta Emerita in 25 B.C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of an archaeomagnetic study carried out on a lime burning kiln at the henequen hacienda of San Pedro Cholul (northwest of the city of Merida in the state of Yucatan, Mexico). The purpose of the study is to establish a reliable chronology and to estimate the possible social, economic and environmental implications of this settlement, which may have existed from the middle of the nineteenth century until the 1960s. Archaeomagnetic dating was carried out on samples obtained from rocks and bricks from the kiln and give an age between 1835 and 1896. This date range agrees with available historical information and is interpreted as the most important production period of the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After presenting the sociolinguistic study about El habla de Mérida (Fernández de Molina, 2014), where we check the speech evolution of this town in the last seventy years with the results proposed for Zamora Vicente (1943) in El habla de Mérida y sus cercanías, we currently proposed a new research. As in the work of Zamora Vicente, in this research we want to make a study of the capital, Mérida and also more than 13 villages that make up the region. In this paper we will present the methodology for obtain the linguistic data of the region of Mérida. We will include the description of extralinguistic variables, the steps to select the population simple and the interview model to obtain the linguistic patterns of this geographic area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, p-xylene, O3, NOx, CO, PM2.5 and meteorological parameters were measured in urban air of two sites in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico during 2016–2017. Samples were collected using 1.5 h time intervals at three different sampling periods before being analyzed by gas chromatography with flame ionization detection. The highest concentrations of BTEX occurred during midday and afternoon in spring and summer seasons. Mean concentrations of, BTEX for the Cholul and SEDUMA sites, respectively, were 40.91 μg/m3 and 32.86 μg/m3 for benzene; 6.87 μg/m3 and 3.29 μg/m3 for toluene; 13.87 μg/m3 and 8.29 μg/m3 for p-xylene; and 6.23 μg/m3 and 4.48 μg/m3 for ethylbenzene. The toluene/benzene and xylene/ethylbenzene concentration ratios indicated that BTEX levels at both sites were influenced by local and fresh emissions (vehicular traffic). Bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed in order to correlate BTEX concentrations with criteria air pollutants to infer their possible sources. Health risk assessment revealed that exposure to benzene exceeded the recommended value for the integrated lifetime cancer risk. These results suggest that Merida’s population is exposed to cancer risk, and changes in the existing environmental policies should therefore be applied to improve air quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most morphosyntactic studies conducted about the language in Extremadura have described the linguistic features occurring in the region from the analysis of data coming from rural areas and obtained, mainly during the second half of the 20th century, from methods and goals belonging to the methodology of traditional dialect studies. Even though these studies are essential to know the linguistic evolution of Extremadura's main dialect, they only reflected a linguistic variety characterized by vernacular features that do not represent, nowadays, the real regional variation. Therefore, and to acquire a solid knowledge of how the language is now in Extremadura, in this research we will present a study about the morphological and syntactic features of an urban area, Mérida (Badajoz), in which we will compare traditional results with those currently obtained in this location. Also, and to test which is the use of the variants under study, we will use a sociolinguistic perspective allowing us to corroborate which features are specific of the Extremadura's main dialect and which ones are restricted to specific social groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some linguistic attitudes towards Yucatec Maya held by various groups of speakers have not been examined. This paper explores the attitudes of Maya-Spanish bilinguals living in Merida toward Yucatec Maya. Our findings indicate that attitudes toward Yucatec Maya are generally positive; the language is currently seen as prestigious. However, the attitudes that bilinguals perceive toward their in-group are both positive and negative. We propose that language policy and planning should explicitly attempt to increase the prestige of the speakers and not only of the language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1953 É. Lévi-Provençal published the reconstruction of Aḥmad al-Rāzī's lost chronicle. His meticulous survey of Arabic sources concludes that many Arab compilers mention al-Rāzī´s chronicle as al-Ḥimyarī and Abū Muḥammad al-Rušāṭī in their respective works. This paper presents the Spanish version of the entry dedicated to the madīna of Mérida compiled in the Iqtibās; and concludes that it is one of the invaluable sources for the reconstruction of al-Rāzī´s chronicle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this paper was the knowledge and recognition of the spaces of the dwellings occupied by the elite-bourgeois society in Yucatan taking into account the main activities carried out inside them. After identifying archetypical areas, two approaches were undertaken: the first one explored each space and specified its functional dynamics, formal elements and symbolic characterization as well as stated the objects found inside. On the the other hand, the other approach analyzed each space as part of a whole. The study universe was formed by houses built between 1886-1916. The analysis was done with the tools used for the study of everyday life and the understanding of architectural space. The sources of information were varied and abundant, including plans, pictures, newspapers and periodicals. This approach allows understanding the phenomena of spatial compartmentalization, the functional specialization and the relationship between matter and its symbolic conception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wetland bryophyte characterization from the Páramo of Mifafí Valley, located in Mérida, Venezuela, at more than 4.000 m resulted in 13 new bryophytes records for the Mérida State, seven records are new for the country (six mosses and one liverwort). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Two very large deep-seated gravitational slope deformations in the highlands of the Mérida Andes, Venezuela, are herein described: the Mucubají Pass and Cerro La Camacha. These slope movements have slid in post-Last Glacial Maximum times. In addition, both landslides are in very close association with the active Boconó Fault trace. The Cerro La Camacha (Camacha Range) landslide is fault bounded along its northwest flank, whereas the Mucubají pass mass movement is even cut by the active fault trace. The almost 10km long Mucubají slide mobilizes LGM moraine deposits along the unconformable basement contact. La Camacha slope movement is a sackung-type landslide, involving two huge masses that affect the entire northwestern slope of the La Camacha Range. This sackung is at least 20km long, paralleling the active Boconó Fault trace. Combination of high relief energy (gravitational forces) and seismic shaking related to an on-site active fault could be responsible for the destabilization of the slopes or massif in both cases. Although the seismically-induced (re-)activation of the La Camacha landslide is very likely, there is no proof for that yet. Conversely, the Mucubají slide shows geomorphic, geodetic and sedimentary evidence of episodic activity in recent times, which could be ascribed to seismic triggering. In the particular case of the La Camacha sackung, the combination of dextral slip along the Boconó Fault and a SE-dipping fault plane could additionally favor the destabilization of the NW slope of the La Camacha Range. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The Historical Center of Merida has been classified as a "zone of high patrimonial value" based on the study of topography and the historical documents that show a long-term occupation, non-interrupted since pre- Columbian times when T'Hó was the great capital of the northern region of the Maya area. For the local government, rehabilitation of the Historical Center of Merida has been a great priority. Among others, this project includes preservation of archaeological remains (pre-Columbian or colonial) and detection of karstic zones under the city. In order to prevent damage to the patrimony, ground penetrating radar (GPR) surveys were carried out employing 200 and 400 MHz antennas along 16.5 km of the city streets. After data analysis, it was possible to build a map showing the locations of subsurface karst features and archaeological remains below the street pavement, many of which correlate with archaeological platforms proposed in historic documents as well as some of the cenotes recorded in popular memory. As result, for the first time in Mexico, a local government has information available that will allow them to minimize damage to archaeological remains and mitigate risks associated with construction above shallow subsurface karstic zones within this important modern city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. It is advisable for areas endemic for vector-borne-diseases, a permanent update of the species richness and geographical distribution of mosquitoes of sanitary importance. Objectives. To characterize the mosquito fauna and their breeding sites from Merida city and provide an identification key for the species found in the city. Material and Methods. Entomological surveys were carried out in 1,160 houses from the urban zone of Merida during the rainy season in 2003. The surveys consisted in direct inspections in both domestic and peridomestic sites to locate containers with water that could be potential breeding sites or harboring immatures (larvae and pupae). A photographic key was elaborated with the morphological characters of the species found in this study. Results. 40,691 larvae and pupae from twelve different species were collected, being Aedes aegypti the most abundant species (83% of immatures collected), followed by Culex thriambus (6.92%) and Cx. quinquefasciatus (3.95%). From 41,352 containers surveyed, only 11.9% had water, and from these only 14% were positive to larvae/pupae. Sixteen different breeding sites were characterized; they were mostly located in the backyards and exposed to rain. Buckets (38% of breeding sites) harbored 75% of the mosquito species collected. Conclusions. We report twelve mosquito species for Merida, Ae. aegypti was the most abundant, and the buckets were the most important breeding site due to their frequency and mosquito abundance breeding in them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]