The recycling of consumer items and their use as building materials have long been recognized by researchers and scholars in studies of informal settlements. There they are used as substitutes to traditional materials for walls and roofs, scarce or unaffordable in urban areas. However, they are also used as a means to repair or protect dilapidated materials and building components. / Recycled consumer items are neither accepted nor regarded as standard building materials. Nevertheless, builders continue to use them, recognizing the existence of a market where they are regarded as alternative materials in housing. The use of these materials is defined by the users' needs and priorities. However, the decision-making process also depends on availability in the market, opportunity cost of the products, the performance of each material and its perceived aesthetic and social value within the community. In the process their use has created complex supply networks that deliver building materials according to local supply and demand. / Based on a field study, this thesis presents the recycled consumer items used for the provision of housing in a squatter settlement. All the recycled non-conventional materials found are recorded according to their uses in the dwelling units, classified according to building types. Later on these materials are classified and analyzed according to their properties, their provision and acquisition.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, School of Education and Human Development, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-80). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-80). Also available on the Internet.

The final product of this thesis is a high-quality recording of selected piano works by Juan Francisco García. Juan Francisco García (1892-1974), a Dominican composer, was a prominent figure in the classical music scene of the Dominican Republic during the first half of the twentieth century. As a pioneer who fostered the nationalistic musical movement in the Dominican Republic, García sought to create compositions that sounded authentically Dominican. Garcia accomplished this goal through his piano works, which are distinctly expressive, and abridged compositions exhibiting beautiful lyrical melodies and attractive rhythmic qualities. García’s piano music displays a rich variety of compositional approaches. In his early works he employed a traditional classical language, followed by impressionist and modern techniques in his later compositions. Regardless of compositional style, his piano compositions integrate various elements of Dominican folk music and dances; their programmatic and dancing nature call for an imaginative and expressive playing. The chosen pieces for this project are fine examples of Garcia’s style and show the journey of his development as a composer. This recording includes the following three piano suites: Fantasía Indígena para Piano, Suite de Impresiones para Piano and Suite para Piano, as well as seven shorter pieces: Capricho Criollo no. 1, Capricho Criollo no. 2, Quisqueyana: Capricho, Recuerdo Grato: Danza Criolla, Yo me Enceleré: Danza- Merengue, Sambumbia and Ruego: Vals al Estilo Criollo. This recording is the first consisting entirely of piano compositions by García. As a Dominican pianist, I aspire to advance and revive the interest in García’s piano works as well as to present Dominican piano music to both musicians and audiences worldwide.

No description available.

No description available.

A tobacco supply function for the Dominican Republic was estimated and the resulting coefficients used to measure the effects of government policies on tobacco production. Nominal (Direct and Total) protection rates (NRP) and effective rates of protection (ERP) were estimated for tobacco, corn, and fertilizer. The results indicated that tobacco was taxed at an annual average rate of 9 percent while corn was subsidized during most years of the study. Direct and total price interventions for both crops and for fertilizer had the effect of decreasing tobacco production in 17 out of 21 years. A major source of taxation on tobacco production is the government policy of overvaluing the Dominican currency. In order to ameliorate the negative effects of the exchange rate policy, the Dominican government provides an explicit subsidy to tobacco production through the Tobacco Institute. Nonetheless, the results show that government revenues from tobacco product sales more than offset government expenditures on tobacco production. / Master of Science

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1985 V46 / Master of Science

To achieve independence, the Dominican Republic had to first endure three centuries of heavy-handed Spanish rule and period of Haitian domination that lasted for twenty-two years. Fear of Haitian reconquest, however, convinced the leading Dominican politicians that the new nation could not long endure without foreign protection. Encouraged by Dominican offers of a naval base, the United States toyed with the idea of expansion in the Caribbean as early as 1850, but civil war cut short these notions and allowed Spain to reassert control over her former colony. Although Spanish occupation ended in failure the United States became more determined that the island Republic should never again be dominated by a European power. Such a determination on the part of the United States to prevent European incursion led to an abortive annexationist attempt by the Grant administration in 1869 and to the establishment of a customs receivership in 1905, when unpaid foreign debts aroused the ire of European creditors. It was hoped that the establishment of a customs receivership would usher in a period of peace and prosperity for the Dominicans but by 1912 it became evident that such hopes were not to be realized. President Wilson adhered to the argument that foreign intervention in the Caribbean was not to be tolerated but broadened United States involvement in the domestic policies of the Dominican Republic by insisting on the establishment of a constitutional democracy, which he felt would establish domestic tranquility. When it became apparent that the internal conditions of the island Republic were not improving, Wilson reluctantly ordered in the United States Marines in the hopes that they would be able to educate the Dominicans to the ways of democracy. By broadening the scope of United States involvement in the domestic affairs of the Dominican Republic, Wilson had produce an occupation that denied the Dominicans the inherent right of a nation to govern itself, a liberty which had been maintained against overwhelming odds during the preceding seventy-two years.