A total of 627 echinoderm species (12 crinoids, 185 asteroids, 185 ophiuroids, 95 echinoids and 150 holothuroids) are known from the shallow and deep waters between southern California and southern Peru, and an up-to-date classification scheme is given for them. Distribution tables provide detailed presence-absence data for latitudinal increments, geographic range endpoints, depth ranges, and substrate associations of each species. Annotated lists of all species include relevant synonyms and mistaken records as well as literature citations used for both lists and distribution tables. A species-level biogeographic analysis shows that echinoderm provinces conform to those generally observed for other marine taxa, including mollusks, crustaceans and fishes. Based on cluster analysis and more traditional approaches (using species richness, faunal turnover and faunal composition), overall faunal similarity of the shelf echinoderms is very high between 23°N and 4°S, in the tropical Panamic province. There is a northern warm-temperate fauna (California province) between Pt. Conception, California and Pt. Eugenio, Baja California that also extends into lower Baja and the Gulf of California. Warm-temperate elements in the subtropical Gulf of California distinguish it from the tropics, and it is recognized as a faunal province in spite of its low endemism. Echinoderm endemism is unusually high in the Galapagos province and is attributed to the wide habitat diversity and isolation of the archipelago. There is no evidence for a Mexican province, but there is evidence for a distinction between the tropics to the north and south of Costa Rica/Panama. Transition zones (especially in Panama and southern California) often have high species richness, increased habitat diversity, and a number of endemic species. The warm-water eastern Pacific genera are most closely related to those of the west Atlantic tropics, but very few species are shared between the regions. Trans-Pacific species in the CEP are widespread throughout the region. A confinement of Indo-Pacific species to offshore CEP islands is only seen at Clipperton Island, the lone coral atoll of the eastern Pacific.

Land surface processes play an important role when modeling weather and climate, and understanding and representing such processes in South America is a particular challenge because of the large variations in regional climate and surface features such as vegetation and soil. Numerical models have been used to explore the climate and weather of continental South America, but without appropriate initiation of land surface conditions model simulations can rapidly diverge from reality. This initiation problem is exacerbated by the fact that conventional surface observations over South America are scarce and biased towards the urban centers and coastal areas. This dissertation explores issues related to the apt representation of land surface processes and their impacts in numerical simulations with a regional atmospheric model (specifically the Eta model) over South America. The impacts of vegetation heterogeneity in regional weather forecast were first investigated. A South American Land Data Assimilation System (SALDAS) was then created analogous to that currently used in North America to estimate soil moisture fields for initializing regional atmospheric models. The land surface model (LSM) used in this SALDAS is the Simplified Simple Biosphere (SSiB). Precipitation fields are critical when calculating soil moisture and, because conventional surface observations are scarce in South America, some of the most important remote sensed precipitation products were evaluated as potential precipitation forcing for the SALDAS. Spin up states for SSiB where then compared with climatological estimates of land surface fields and significant differences found. Finally, an assessment was made of the value of SALDAS-derived soil moisture fields on Eta model forecasts. The primary result was that model performance is enhanced over the entire continent in up to 72h forecasts using SALDAS surface fields

Bakalauro darbo santrauka Bakalauro darbą sudaro įvadas, du skyriai ir išvados. Įvade pateikta tyrimo metodika, tikslas, uždaviniai, aprašyti tyrimo dalyviai. Suformuluota hipotezė, jog mokiniams, turintiems nežymiai sutrikusį intelektą, bendrojo lavinimo mokyklos geografijos vadovėliai yra per daug sudėtingi. Pirmame skyriuje apžvelgtos bendroji ir specialioji geografijos programos, išanalizuoti mokinių, turinčių nežymiai sutrikusį intelektą, geografiniai vaizdiniai, priežasties – padarinių ryšiai. Antrame skyriuje pateiktas tyrimas, išanalizuotas vadovėlio tekstas, bei siūlomi tekstai mokymo kursui apie Pietų Ameriką. Darbo gale pateikiamos išvados. Tyrime dalyvavo 28 aštuntos ir 28 devintos klasės mokiniai, turintys nežymiai sutrikusį intelektą. Testo metodu tirta, kaip mokiniai, turintys nežymiai sutrikusį intelektą, įsisavino mokymo medžiagą apie Pietų Ameriką. Palygintos aštuntokų ir devintokų žinios. Tyrimu nustatyta, kad aštuntokai ir devintokai maždaug vienodai turi žinių apie Pietų Ameriką. Tyrimo metu aštuntokai mokymo kursą buvo išėję prieš metus, tačiau kai kurie jų rezultatai buvo prastesni už devintokų atsakymus. Devintokai apie Pietų Ameriką mokėsi tik 7 klasėje, nuo to laiko praėjo dveji metai. Ir aštuntos, ir devintos klasės mokinių žinios – nepakankamai įtvirtintos, netikslios. Besimokantys geografijos kursą specialiojoje mokykloje, įgyja žinias, kurios padeda orientuotis pasaulyje ir artimiausioje... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Summary The Bachelor Degree Paper consists of the Introductory Part, two chapters and conclusions. The Introductory Part focuses on the research methods, the aim of the work with objectives and the description of the participants in this research. The following hypothesis has been formulated: the students with a slight mental disorder find geography coursebooks for comprehensive schools too difficult. The first chapter of this work overviews common and special geography syllabuses, and analyses links between cause and effect of students with a slight mental disorder geographical visualisations. The second chapter of this work provides a detailed analysis of the coursebook text. Furthermore, different texts for teaching about South America are suggested. The conclusions are drawn at the end of the work. 28 students from the 8th class and the same number of ninthformers with a slight mental disorder participated in this research. Using the testing method, the research was carried out trying to disclose the pecularities of how students with a previously mentioned disorder master the teaching material about South America. The knowledge of the both groups of students has been compared. After the research, it can be assumed that the knowledge about South America among eightformers and ninthformers is almost the same. At the time of the research, the eightformers had completed the syllabus a year before, however some of their... [to full text]

The objective of this thesis is to investigate and understand why and how consent is manipulated in societies where severe coercion seems to be effective in securing power. This text therefore analyses the role and nature of coercion and consent – of armed conflict and news production - in Colombia: a society where severe coercion seems to be both effective and profitable. Part 1 of the thesis studies the role of coercion from the Spanish Conquest and Colonial Period to the current regime in terms of the political, social and economic interests that predominate in each period, in terms of the role of armed groups – the main instruments of coercion - in the implementation of these interests, and in terms of the resistance to these pressures. Part 2 analyses the role of consent in terms of historical interests in Colombian media production, in terms of the role of media organisations – the main instruments of consent - in the implementation of these interests, and in terms of dissent. Part 3 focuses on current Colombian news production because this is the main method through which official information related to the present armed conflict is currently being transmitted to the public and because Colombian news production seems to bridge the gap between coercion and consent: by framing and promoting armed conflict. Part 1 uses historical sources, academic articles, human rights reports and nine personal interviews with representatives of the Colombian Armed Forces, guerrilla groups and human rights organisations to represent the broadest possible political spectrum. Part 2 is based on political pamphlets and literature, newspaper and magazine articles and leaflets and 14 interviews with representatives of mass media conglomerates, alternative movements and media groups. Part 3 uses a sample of 851 current news stories to understand the nature of a hypothetical frame that contextualises the actions of the FARC – the main guerrilla group - as illegitimate challenges to proper authority. (Continued ...).

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This thesis studies the political role of the Chilean military during the years 1780-1826. Beginning with the last decades of the eighteenth century and ending immediately after the last royalist contingents were expelled from the island of Chiloé, this thesis does not seek to give a full picture of the participation of military men on the battlefield but rather to interpret their involvement in local politics. The main categories deployed in this study are 1) armies, 2) politics and 3) revolution, and the three are presented with the purpose of demonstrating that, as Peggy K. Liss has claimed, after 1810 Spanish American public life ‘became militarized; and the military, privileged’. I argue that, notwithstanding the sometimes tense relationship between civilians and the armed forces, the Chilean military became privileged because the demise of the Spanish monarchy in 1808 made them protagonists of the decision-making process. In so doing, this thesis aims to make a contribution to the understanding of Chile’s revolution of independence, as well as to discuss some recent historiographical contributions on the role of the military in the creation of the Chilean republican system. Although the focus has been placed on the career and participation of Chilean revolutionary officers, this thesis also seeks to provide an overview of both the role of royalist armies and the influence of international events in Chile.

This thesis examines the activity of the Jesuits in Colombia during the nineteenth century; it demonstrates how their return to the country in 1844 became a highly controversial political issue until 1884, when the national government authorized their permanent residence. The Jesuits were established in the country from 1844 to 1850, and then from 1858 to 1861. These two short sojourns generated significant debate between the Conservative and Liberal parties. The first return of the Jesuits coincided with the formation of these two parties and the debate over the separation of Church and State. It was after the Guerra de los Supremos, with the defeat of the Liberal Party and victory for the Conservative Party, that the latter passed a law on mission schools that allowed the return of the Society after its exile during colonial times. The Liberals considered the law of April 1842 to be a tactic used by the Conservatives to empower their political project, and when the Jesuits arrived in the country, the Liberal Party started a campaign against them in Congress and through the press. As the invitation for their return to New Granada had been issued by the Conservative government, Liberals considered them to be allies of the Conservatives and deserving of their political antipathy. The decrees issued regarding the return of the Jesuits clearly stated that they were to be assigned to Colegios de Misiones and Casas de Escala (Rest Residences) in mission territories. The Superior General of the order in Rome and the ecclesiastical authorities in Colombia interpreted the law as justifying the work of the Jesuits in establishing missions among the indigenous people and also in education in general. Eladio Urisarri, the official in Rome in charge of arranging the return of the Jesuits, supported this interpretation, but the latent ambiguity was a continual issue. The thesis analyses these episodes within the context of the republic’s politics and the state of the Colombian Church at the time, and examines the Jesuits’s experiences in Bogotá and the other dioceses where they were present.

This is a study of the pursuit of African American colonization as a state and latterly a federal policy during the period c. 1850-65. Historians generally come to the topic via an interest in the Civil War and especially in Lincoln, but in so doing, they saddle it with moral judgment and the burden of rather self-referential debates. The thesis argues that, whilst the era’s most noteworthy ventures into African American colonization did indeed emerge from the circumstances of the Civil War, and from the personal efforts of the president, one can actually offer the freshest insights on Lincoln by bearing in mind that colonization was, above all, a real policy. It enjoyed the support of other adherents too, and could be pursued by various means, which themselves might have undergone adjustment over time and by trial and error. Using an array of unpublished primary sources, the study finds that Lincoln and his allies actively pursued colonization for a longer time, and with more persistence in the face of setbacks, than scholars normally assume. The policy became entangled in considerations of whether it was primarily a domestic or an international matter, whilst other overlapping briefs also sabotaged its execution, even as the administration slowly learned various lessons about how not to go about its implementation.By early 1864, the resulting confusion, as well as the political fallout from the fiasco of the one expedition to go ahead, curtailed the president’s ability to continue with the policy. There are strong suggestions, however, that he had not repudiated colonization, and possibly looked to revive it, even as he showed a tentative interest in alternative futures for African Americans. This thesis makes a case against unrealistically binary thinking, anachronistic assumptions, abused hindsight, sweeping interpretive frameworks, and double standards of evidentiary assessment respecting a technically imperfect and ethically awkward policy.

This thesis utilizes a theoretical framework which links biophysical and social domains of ecosystems via ecosystem services (ES), in order to conduct a socio-ecological assessment of urban watersheds in three communities in Chilean and Argentine regions of southern Patagonia. Results from this study show that expanding urban areas may be undermining the ability of local watersheds to provide for high quality ES posing potential risks to community wellbeing. Secondly, researchers and decision makers influencing regional natural resource management share similar values to general community members but do not capture the diversity of values that exist within the broader community, and dialogue between these groups on management issues is poor. A community-based management structure is recommended for the creation of adaptive and locally relevant management strategies.

Classic Maya civilization which flourished A.D. 250- 900 fell from causes unknown. This study traces the evidences and interpretations of those who sought to explain the downfall. Discussion begins with treatment of the ideas of pre-archaeological travellers to the region and then shifts to the twentieth century. Themes of internal collapse are explored, first focusing on such catastrophes as earthquakes and epidemics, followed by an examination of Maya gricultural technology and its possible failure. The fifth chapter, on internal violence and external influences as causes of Maya collapse, analyzes theories of peasant revolt, wars between autonomous Maya city-states., and the strong possibility of outright invasion by other aboriginal peoples.