This paper considers whether the implementation of an international draft by Major League Baseball (MLB) will be possible. Over the last five years, the MLB has increasingly placed more stringent limitations on international spending, which has limited the bargaining power of international free agents. Many in the international market believe that the agreement between the MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) during the 2016 Collective Bargaining (CBA) negotiations are progressing towards an international draft, which would have a crippling effect on the future of baseball in many foreign countries. This paper is focused on the countries that stand to suffer the most should an international draft be implemented: the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and Cuba. Currently there is little reliable research on this topic. Based on extensive research and interviews with both current and former international scouts, MLB baseball operations personnel, and employees working in the Labor Department in the MLB Commissioner’s Office, this paper suggests that while the MLB maintains that an international draft will be implemented in upcoming collective bargaining agreements, the obstacles in implementing an international draft will prove to be insurmountable.

Masters in Public Administration - MPA / In the Dominican Republic (DR) the development of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in rural areas is of great importance because SMEs generate employment and increase local capacity in areas with the highest poverty rates in the country. Ultimately, SME development can contribute to poverty alleviation especially in rural areas. Micro-enterprise training as a form of capacity development initiatives aim at effective empowerment of entrepreneurs and prospective entrepreneurs, which allow them to build capacities to develop their business. These capacities will enhance their ability to ensure sustainability of decisions that influence their quality of life. So far, very little research has been conducted on the precise effects and overall effectiveness of SME-related training in the Dominican Republic. Against this background, it is of great benefit to evaluate impacts of micro-enterprise training initiatives on the development of SMEs in rural DR, in order to find out which factors stimulate the creation and growth of enterprises and which factors hinder their development. This allows effective adjustments of future support initiatives in the development sector and it contributes to the existing empirical evidence base in this field. This study applies Human Capital Theory and the Theory of Planned Behaviour as theoretical frameworks to analyze impacts of micro-enterprise training on SME development. Secondary data for this study was drawn from the Dominican tourism-project La Ruta del Cacao, applying a mixed-method approach for the data collection. Quantitative research methods in the form of a semi-structured questionnaire helped to quantify the impacts of provided micro-enterprise training. Qualitative methods in the form of Focus Group Discussions allowed an in-depth analysis of training impacts on respondents, with the aim of identifying influencing factors, especially those which the theoretical framework may not have covered. The theoretical discussion of this study identified that entrepreneurial intentions are mediated by the attitude toward entrepreneurship, perceived subjective norms and perceived behavioural control. The empirical results show that the provided training is likely to have slightly improved the participants attitude towards enterprise creation. Perceived subjective norms have not decreased due to the training and appear not to have played a role in the participants decision to start or not start a business. The participants perceived behavioural control is not likely to have increased due to the training. On the other hand, results indicate that the training provided participants with useful entrepreneurship-related skills and knowledge. Overall, the participants entrepreneurial intentions slightly improved as a result of the training. However, the impact of these outputs on SME development was rather modest. Identified external factors which influenced the participants entrepreneurial behaviour were a lack of capital, job loss, having a family to take care of, being part of an entrepreneurial family and the existence of an entrepreneurial role model. Intrinsic characteristics were identified as the most influential in demonstrating successful entrepreneurial behaviour and SME creation. The findings of this research contribute firstly to the existing evidence base of micro-enterprise training impacts in rural Dominican Republic. In addition, the findings contribute to the literature base on applications of both Human Capital Theory and the Theory of Planned Behaviour in the field of entrepreneurship education.

The diploma thesis Specifics of the business environment in the Dominican Republic and possibilities of the extension of cooperation between the Dominican Republic and the Czech Republic brings detailed view on the business environment of that developing country. The business environment is investigated by the PEST analysis, the political and legal environment, the economic environment, the social and cultural environment and the technical environment. Strengths, weaknesses of the country and opportunities and threats for potencial entrepreneurs are assessed by the SWOT analysis. The mutual business cooperation between the Dominican Republic and the Czech Republic is subject of the last part of my thesis. The mutual institutions and treaties are presented and possibilites of the extension of cooperation between two countries are proposed based on the investigation in the czech travel agencies and entrepreneurs experienced in this territory.

Globalization and the rise of the Information Society pose many challenges to developing nations. In adherence to the Millennium Development Goal of digital inclusion, the government of the Dominican Republic established a national program of community technology centers, or telecenters, that aim to promote digital literacy among the poor. This study examined how these telecenters promote the adoption of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and tested whether perceived structural factors, individual motivation or demographics predict adoption. Results from a survey conducted in the rural villages of El Seybo, Navarrete, and Oviedo confirm that telecenter users learn how to use information and communication technologies as a resource for information about civic life, entertainment, and professional development. The study concludes that telecenters can succeed in decreasing digital poverty, provided issues of sustainability are addressed with consistent and continued government funding and support. The field of information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) is in its infancy and has yet to develop strong methodological or theoretical standards. This study of ICT adoption and telecenter use in rural areas of the Caribbean contributes empirical evidence to the literature of this emerging discipline.

Through close readings of various texts that deal with issues of border, identity and the relationship between Haiti and Dominican Republic as well as with the flow of immigrants between Dominican Republic and the United States, this study introduce the trope of the “rayano” (the one that was born, lives or comes from the border) as an apt metaphor to explain the identity of Dominicans in the twenty-first century — an identity that should be viewed as one born out of movements, translations and interstices. The primary texts that this study will focus on will cover the Haitian-Dominican and Dominican-American experiences.  In terms of the former, El Masacre se pasa a pie (1973) by Freddy Prestol Castillo and The Farming of Bones (1998) by Edwidge Danticat are useful for analyzing the defining moment of the relationship between Haiti and Dominican Republic in the twentieth century: the 1937 border massacre of Haitians and Dominican-Haitians ordered by Dominican dictator Rafael L. Trujillo. In the case of the Dominican-American relationship, Dominicanish (2000) by Josefina Báez, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007) by Junot Díaz will be the texts through which it will be analyzed the Dominican diaspora and its relationship with the two defining spaces of Dominicanness in the twenty-first century: Santo Domingo and New York City. In addition to these texts, this study also will engage with the theoretical production regarding the triangular relationship between Dominican Republic, Haiti and the United States through an analysis of the different metaphors used by Lucía M. Suárez in The Tears of Hispaniola: Haitian and Dominican Diaspora Memory, Eugenio Matibag in Haitian-Dominican Counterpoint: Nation, State and Race in Hispaniola, and Michele Wucker in Why the Cocks Fight: Dominicans, Haitians, and the Struggle for Hispaniola.

Greenbelts have been used around the world to control urban growth and to enhance the natural environment of cities since the last century. However, some Latin American governments, influenced by urban renewal principles and modern planning, have implemented greenbelts to beautify and order cities. Much criticism has arisen about the social repercussions of using greenbelts as a way to control citizen behavior, which in many cases has resulted in exclusionary practices, especially of low-income populations. Based on a case study that documents and analyzes the uses and perceptions of residents of the informal settlement, Los Platanitos, of the Parque Nacional Mirador Norte, my research attempts to illuminate the political and social processes shaping urban environmental planning in Santo Domingo in order to understand practices of exclusion and marginalization in contexts marked by socioeconomic inequalities. / text

The assassination of the Dominican dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo in 1961 marked the beginning of many rebirths for the Dominican Republic. Confronted with the growing pains of an emerging democratic national consciousness, the island was also faced with an unprecedented circumstance: a massive exodus that displaced thousands of Dominicans to the United States and Puerto Rico. My dissertation focuses on contemporary narrative representations of Dominican migrations to the United States and Puerto Rico. In chapter 1, "A Product of Exiles, Travels and Displacements: The Constructions of an Ethnic and Racial Consciousness in the United States in Pedro Henríquez Ureña's Memoir," I propose my own working definition of a Dominican transnational subjectivity at the beginning of the 20th century as I see it surfacing in Henríquez Ureña's memoir. In chapter two, "With Floating (Intranational) Borders: Displaced Dominicans in Puerto Rican Narratives," I explore the narrative representation of Dominican migrations to Puerto Rico and the challenges they bring about to the Puerto Rican national discourse constituted in the late 1930s. This chapter analyzes José Luis González's La luna no era de queso: memorias de infancia (1988), Ana Lydia Vega's "El día de los hechos" from her short story collection Encancaranublado y otros cuentos de naufragio (1982) and Magali García Ramis's "Cuatro retratos urbanos" from the short story collection Las noches del riel de oro (1995). In chapter three, "Of Absent (nomadic) Fathers and Boys in Construction: Dominican Diasporic Subjectivities in Junot Díaz's Drown," I analyze the short story collection titled Drown (1993) by Junot Díaz. My reading of Diaz's work interprets his characters as gravitating towards communities in which they become active components of multi-racial and multi-ethnic communities fostered by global migrations. In the last chapter, "Crooked City Women: A Reading of Race, Ethnicity and Migration in Narratives of Late 20th and 21st Century Dominican Women writers," I focus on Loida Martiza Pérez's novel Geographies of Home (1999) and Josefina Báez's performance piece Dominicanish (2000) to illustrate how their work challenges patriarchal forms of expression that are rooted in the homeland and then disseminated in U.S. diasporic Dominican communities. / text

Transportation planning initiatives are assumed to further the development of growing cities across the globe. Latin American cities, especially, suffer from a deficit of infrastructure that presents greater challenges to the efficient movement of people and goods, which makes transportation one of the biggest hindrances to development in Latin America. Throughout the twentieth century, development projects in the Dominican Republic were carried out in the contexts of foreign military occupation and state repression, whereby processes of technical modernization arrived alongside state-led violence. Meanwhile, grandiose infrastructure projects were paired with narratives of national greatness. Decisions regarding land use and distribution of public services remained inattentive of the poorest residents, causing enormous inequalities in increasingly urbanized cities. President Leonel Fernández campaigned for his third term promising to break from old forms of corruption, and has symbolically delivered this promise of progress through the construction of a new subway system. The Santo Domingo Metro revolutionizes transportation options in key areas of a chaotic and congested road system, where many public transportation vehicles are old and dilapidated. Metro can save hours in commute times, provide safe, reliable transit at low cost, and promote sustainability. However, critics note that billions of dollars invested on Metro expansion preempt the funding of health and education. Construction processes displace neighborhoods, while many communities situated near the stations still face daily hardships associated with inadequate housing and lack of sanitation. My paper blends the perspectives of technical transportation planning and critical development theory to understand whether the Metro will serve these communities by improving their access to services, schools, and job sites, or simply drain scarce funds from these very areas. This paper also critically evaluates the way that the current administration‘s symbol of progress at times mirrors the top-down political culture of the past. The Metro thus elucidates larger theoretical and practical questions regarding the interactions of transportation planning and political culture, and their impacts on spatial hierarchies and growth within urban spaces. / text

Documenting temporal changes to coastal zones is an essen­tial part of understanding and managing these environ­ments. The exclusive use of traditional surveying tools may not be practical for monitoring large, remote, or rapidly changing areas. This paper investigates the utility of multispectral Landsat Thematic Mapper satellite data for docu­menting changes to a Caribbean coastal zone using the change vector analysis processing technique. The area of study was the coastal region near the village of Buen Hombre on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. The primary habitats of interest were the intertidal mangrove for­ ests, and the shallow water seagrasses, macroalgae, and coral reefs. The change vector analysis technique uses any number of spectral bands from multidate satellite data to produce change images that yield information about both the magnitude and direction of differences in pixel values (which are proportional to radiance). The final products were created by appending color-coded change pixels onto a black-and-white base map. The advantages and limitations of the technique for coastal inventories are discussed.

INTRODUCTION: More than 2.2 million people die each year from diarrheal disease. Most cases of diarrheal disease can be linked with a lack of access to clean water and sanitation. The proper usage of sanitation, hygiene and safe drinking water are all mechanisms by which to prevent or limit fecal contamination, and in turn, reduce the risk of diarrheal disease. As a result, it is imperative to examine and understand risk factors for fecal contamination of drinking water in the home. One way to assess fecal contamination is to use indicator bacteria such as E. coli. These bacteria can be easily measured and have been weakly associated with increased risk of gastrointestinal illness. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to determine if characteristics of household drinking water storage containers impacted the concentration of total coliforms and E. coli in the stored household drinking water in rural Dominican Republic communities. METHODS: The data were collected through a cross-sectional survey and from a four month prospective cohort study in rural communities in the Dominican Republic during 2005. Data analysis was conducted using STATA 10. Descriptive statistics were calculated and reported as percentages. Bivariate statistics were carried out to test independent associations between container characteristics and E. coli. In addition, t-tests were used to examine differences in concentrations of E. coli and total coliforms as well as other household and water characteristics that may play an important role in household drinking water management and practice and contamination. RESULTS: After testing independent potential risk factors for E. coli contamination, it was determined that household storage practices have a significant impact on drinking water quality. More specifically, households that stored drinking water in containers with narrow openings (typically < 2 inches in diameter) had lower concentrations of E. coli. The water was more likely to remain protected from additional contamination once stored in the home. DISCUSSION: The association with household storage practices with E. coli contamination reveals the importance of point of drinking water management in the home. Specifically, we documented simple storage practices (commonly practiced in homes in the Dominican Republic) that can protect or reduce drinking water from contamination once in the home. While previous literature has been unable to identify a single most important risk factor of E. coli contamination in drinking water, findings from this study and previous studies indicate that more research is needed to further elucidate the role of household drinking water storage techniques in protecting household members and reducing risk of disease.