This thesis examines the ways in which the rapid economic changes, as portrayed in two Costa Rican novels, Única mirando al mar (1993) and Los Peor (1995) by Fernando Contreras Castro, serve as solid foundation for laying out the deep-rooted economic and political challenges that have profoundly affected not only Costa Rican society but many of the national institutions. It focuses on revealing the uprising unfertile relationship between the residents and the governmental institutions, whose monstrous model of behavior are incompatible with the Costa Rican Constitution and thus, generating a systematic shift in the social norms. It explores the historical and literary Costa Rican context demonstrating how the narrative shade considerable light on the complex system of governance and its fragility in a democratic society. / Master of Arts

The purpose of this study was to assess the rural Extension manpower needs and the needs for formal education in Extension in Costa Rica. The study surveyed all current Extension professionals of the Costa Rican Ministry of Agriculture Extension system to determine their educational qualifications, education in Extension, opinions regarding the educational qualifications needed to enter an Extension position and the levels of education appropriate for formal Extension education at time of the study and in 15 years and their perceptions of the current and future needs for Extension manpower in Costa Rica. Findings included: (1) all Extension professionals had a secondary level diploma and 55 percent held university level qualifications; (2) formal education was the most reported type of education in Extension; (3) twenty-five percent had neither formal education nor training in Extension; (4) the education qualifications needed and the levels of education appropriate for formal education in Extension were perceived as shifting upwards during the next 15 years; and (5) a 33 percent current and a 102 percent future increase in Extension manpower was perceived as necessary to meet clientele needs.

This Thesis explores the possibility of increased export and export earnings stability for Costa Rica after the implementation of the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act (CBERA) or Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI). It was expected that this policy would not only increase trade and exports for some developing nations in the Caribbean but also promote development and economic stability. An export earnings model was calculated using the deflated export earnings to the U.S. and fitting a time trend equation by OLS to calculate the residuals. These residuals were then transformed to develop a risk or instability equation which included independent variables such as the export concentration index to reflect diversification of exports, the ratios of food, manufactures and raw materials in exports and the share of total Costa Rican exports deriving from the U.S. market. A reduced risk equation was estimated using OLS. The relative effect of the policy, measured by a dummy variable for the period 1983-1987 was estimated for each of the independent variables. The results indicate that there has been a distinct effect of the policy variable upon the diversification, manufactures, raw materials and food products exported by Costa Rica to the U.S. The increase in manufactured exports is significant, at the same time, there have been decreases in the value of traditional agricultural exports such as coffee, sugar, bananas and beef. Vegetables' and fruits' share of Costa Rican exports to the U.S. has increased noticeably. Although total export earnings for Costa Rica show negative growth during the period 1981-1983, U.S. export earnings have been consistently increasing. Export earnings from the U.S. show a significant increase as detected by the share of Costa Rican total exports earnings originating in the U.S. In 1980 less than 40% of Costa Rican export earnings came from the U.S. while in 1987 the figure is just over 60%, indicating increased dependency on this market as a source of export earnings. Export earnings instability, as measured in this research, shows statistically significant reductions after 1983 leading the author to conclude that this policy is possibly increasing trade and reducing the long term instability of Costa Rican exports to the U.S., therefore having some effect on the stability of long term development, and possibly, causing changes in the country's capability to deal with its debt and development efforts. The components of instability or risk of export earnings from the U.S. market yielded interesting insight into possible causes of these variations. Statistically significant negative signs were detected for the ratio of foods in exports and the dummy variable, indicating that reducing the share of foods in exports in this market would cause increases in risk and that the policy variable has had the consequence of reducing risk. The ratio of raw materials in exports was, as expected, of limited statistical significance although it consistency exhibited a negative sign indicating similar effects as the food exports. The manufacture ratio in exports was detected to be in general statistically significant during the trial estimations however, lacking consistency. The export concentration index was not determined to be statistically significant in causing export earnings instability in this particular case, however as with all independent variables tested, it was significantly changed after 1983. These results tend to support the original intention of the CBERA for the case of Costa Rica. Increases in exports and export earnings stability appear to have ocurred. However, the research suggest some caution in relying heavily in the U.S. market as a source of export earnings and supports the view that traditional exports bring about more stability than manufactures and raw material exports. / Graduation date: 1989

Le tourisme a connu une croissance spectaculaire à travers le monde depuis la seconde moitié du XXème siècle. Le tourisme ne concernait que 50 millions de touristes en 1960 pour atteindre 561 millions en 1995 et 980 millions en 2011, selon l’Organisation mondiale du tourisme.Liée à ce phénomène, la mondialisation a accentué la pensée écologique. En effet, on a vu apparaître avec le Rapport Meadows en 1972, une prise de conscience des problèmes écologiques de la planète sur la scène politique internationale.Depuis le Rapport Bruntland en 1987, en passant par le Sommet de la Terre à Rio et, plus récemment le Sommet Rio +20, le tourisme associé aux principe du développement durable semble correspondre aux attentes des sociétés.Le tourisme est-il synonyme de dégradation environnementale ou au contraire permet-il une préservation des espaces naturels ?Un travail de terrain à Madagascar et au Costa Rica nous a conduit à un questionnement de fond sur la pertinence des stratégies de développement qui s’appuie sur l’écotourisme, ainsi qu’à une analyse approfondie de la notion d’écotourisme dans son application concrète au niveau international. Il s’agit en définitive d’une étude dans le temps et l’espace, de la mise en place de l’activité écotouristique sur ces deux terrains de recherche et des implications économiques, sociales, culturelles et environnementales. / The tourist industry has seen spectacular development from the second half of the 20th Century. According to the World tourism organization, 50 million tourists in 1960 expanded to 561 million tourists in 1995 and to 980 million in 2011.Along with this phenomenon, globalization has increased ecological thinking and the Meadows Report in 1972 highlights political awareness to environmental problems around the world. From the Bruntland Report in 1987 to the Earth Summit in Rio and more recently, the Rio +20 Summit, the association of the tourism in the principles of sustainable development would seem to correspond to expectations of societies today. Does tourism induce environmental degradation or on the contrary, does it allow the preservation of natural sites ? Field work in Madagascar and Costa Rica has led me to question the pertinence of development strategies based on the notion of ecotourism, and an indepth analysis of this notion and it’s concrete application to major sites at an international level. It is a close examination in time and space of the establishment of ecotourism on these two areas of research and it’s consequences on the economie, social, cultural and environmental system.

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The corvina reina (Cynoscion albus) is an important part of the artisanal fishery in the Gulf of Nicoya, Costa Rica. Stock assessment on this sciaenid species has been restricted to the use of length-based methods because of the lack of age data. Direct age determination methodologies for tropical species often encounter serious difficulties such as poorly defined hyaline and opaque zones and lack of adequate techniques of ageing. This thesis presents the results of an age-determination study of Cynoscion albus based on otolith surface readings and microincrement analysis. Age estimates were obtained from counts of hyaline zones from surface readings using the light microscope and from microincrement readings from cross sections of the otolith using the scanning electron microscope. Validation of age estimates from surface readings was based on a linear regression of the age estimates from surface readings on age estimates from integrated daily increment readings. Growth of the otolith was studied using linear and multivariate regression methods and the results were used to construct multivariate models for prediction of age. Consistent estimates of age and fish growth parameters were obtained from surface and microincrement analysis. This study showed that Cynoscion albus is a slow-growing fish (K = 0.121) and reaches a large size (L∞ = 127.5 cm) and therefore is likely to suffer overfishing in the Gulf of Nicoya fishery. / Graduation date: 1993

The advent of Global Positioning System (GPS) has revolutionized geodesy with high accuracy, fast speed, simple use, and low cost. This dissertation investigates three topics on volcano and earthquake-related deformation using GPS measurements and models to demonstrate the power of the new generation of geodetic methods. The three topics include the 2002-2003 continued episodic inflation at Long Valley Caldera in eastern California, the coseismic and postseismic response of the energetic 2008 MW 6.4 Achaia-Elia Earthquake in northwest Peloponnese, Greece, and the interseismic megathrust coupling and forearc sliver transport near the Nicoya Peninsula in northwest Costa Rica.

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The relative importance of local, regional and historical processes to patterns of distribution and diversity of lower Mesoamerican (Panama and Costa Rica, LMA) freshwater fishes are examined at two different spatial scales. Biogeographic patterns of LMA freshwater fish communities at the spatial extent of LMA indicate that biological differences among species as well as regional and historical processes are quintessential to explaining the patters of turnover of community composition and species richness across the LMA Isthmus. The study of LMA freshwater fishes permits the inference that ecological interactions among species are not independent of a region's history, suggesting that regional and historical processes probably play an ongoing role in the maintenance of LMA freshwater fish communities. In addition, the study of the natural experiment of the Panama Canal provides a clear demonstration that dispersal, rather than local deterministic processes such as competition and predation, previously set the upper limit of the number of fish species coexisting in local communities. Comparisons of species inventories established prior to Canal construction with contemporary species lists demonstrates a large net increase in species richness of local communities, suggesting that the local communities of the Panama Canal watershed were not saturated.