OBJECTIVE To describe the survey methodology and initial general findings of the first Central American Survey of Working Conditions and Health. METHODS A representative sample of 12,024 workers was interviewed at home in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama. Questionnaire items addressed worker demographics, employment conditions, occupational risk factors and s...

—Predator-prey interactions occur regularly in nature; however, predation events are difficult to observe in the canopy of tropical rain forests. We describe a successful capture of a Chestnut-mandibled Toucan (Ramphastos swainsonii) by a Collared ForestFalcon (Micrastur semitorquatus) in Carara National Park, Costa Rica. The predator-prey interaction lasted for ,30 min from the moment of the f...

Five new species of Trigonopeltastes Burmeister and Schaum, 1840 are described: Trigonopeltastes arborfloricola sp. n. from Nicaragua, Trigonopeltastes formidulosus sp. n. from Costa Rica, Trigonopeltastes henryi sp. n. from Costa Rica, Trigonopeltastes mombachoensis sp. n. from Nicaragua, and Trigonopeltastes warneri sp. n. from Belize and Guatemala. An updated key to species of Trigonopeltast...

Rickettsia felis is an emerging human pathogen associated primarily with the cat flea Ctenocephalides felis. In this study, we investigated the presence of Rickettsia felis in C. felis from Guatemala and Costa Rica. Ctenocephalides felis were collected directly from dogs and cats, and analyzed by polymerase chain reaction for Rickettsia-specific fragments of 17-kDa protein, OmpA, and citrate sy...

Special education services in the country of Costa Rica have been affected by factors that most developing countries confront: shortages of trained personnel, geographic isolation of a large sector of the population, and severe economic limitations. Despite these challenges, services for students with learning disabilities in Costa Rica have rapidly expanded in the last 15 years through the dev...

Roy Halling has served as a PI on several prior NSF grants, the most recent of which is “Macrofungi of Costa Rica”, a collaborative project between REH and G. M. Mueller (DEB 9972018, $165,800, Sept. 1999-Aug. 2003). This work began as a biotic survey of “The Agaricales of Costa Rican Quercus Forests” funded by NSF and U.S.A.I.D. (DEB 9300798 with subcontract to NYBG, $62,065, May 1993-April 19...

Ganglionus, gen. nov., is described for Þve species: G. mitigatus, sp. nov., from Costa Rica;G. catenatus, sp. nov., fromCosta Rica and Panama;G. undulatus, sp. nov., fromCosta Rica and Panama;G. constrictus, sp. nov., fromEcuador; andG. spatulatus, sp. nov., fromColombia.Ganglionus is placed in Derelomini and presents the following putative synapomorphies: male with (1) dorsally tumescent rost...

T his article describes how surgery developed in Costa Rica and how it was nurtured to its present status. The practice of surgery in Costa Rica developed slowly as a charitable service. In the past 3 decades, it became accessible to 87.6% of the population through the creation of a national health service system. Our objective herein is to give the reader an understanding of how surgical pract...

this qualitative study analyzes the reasons of college students for learning english as a foreign language (efl) in costa rica and the reasons of high school students for learning german as a foreign language (gfl) in the us. it asks to what extent the learners’ reasons align with or deviate from neoliberal discourses that commodify foreign languages. the analysis of 27 interviews in a us high ...

the effect of hydraulic retention time in a range from 1.0-5.5 days was evaluated in a laboratoryscaleanaerobic fixed bed reactor packed with a hybrid material composed of tire rubber and zeolite. underthese conditions, cod removal efficiencies varied from 28.3% to 82.1%, respectively. over the more than 6months of operation, no clogging was observed. the results obtained demonstrated that this...