Textile factories or Maquiladoras are very abundant and predominant in Central American economies. However, they all do not have the same standardized work schedule or routines. Most of the Maquiladoras only follow schedules and regulations established by the current labor laws without taking into consideration many variables within their organization that could affect their overall performance. As a result, the purpose of the study is to analyze the current working structure of a textile Maquiladora and determine the most suitable schedule that will abide with the current working structure but also increase production levels, employee morale and decrease employee fatigue. A Maquiladora located in el Salvador, C.A. has been chosen for the study. It currently provides finished goods to one of the leading textile industries in the United States of America. The study will consist of collecting production numbers for two of their manufacturing cells for five consecutive days. In addition, a questionnaire will be administered to measure employee fatigue. Once all data have been collected, the data will be analyzed to determine the best working structure that will benefit the employee and the employer.

In the past two decades the Latin American region has experienced a number of credit crises stemming from large sovereign debt levels and sharp currency devaluations. This study aims to discover whether or not the sovereign credit default swaps (CDS) in the Latin American region lead equity markets prior to these sovereign credit events. Through a sample of the seven largest Latin American economies and daily return data from 2001 to 2018, I try to empirically test this question through a Generalized Least Squared model. The paper finds little significant evidence of CDS leading equity markets in price discovery prior to sovereign credit events. Additionally, the paper observes a potential momentum effect present amongst Latin American equity market returns. However, this effect is more likely serial correlation amongst equity market returns due to the illiquidity of these equity markets.

In this dissertation, I investigate two key questions: 1) What are the specific conditions under which economic inequality undermines democratic legitimacy; and 2) How does inequality map onto individuals’ perceptions of fairness and subsequently affect satisfaction with democracy and trust in political institutions? I first argue that individuals’ perceptions of distributive unfairness are key factors whereby economic inequality undermines democratic legitimacy. Inequality - and subsequent perceptions that the economic distribution is unfair - undermine political support by signaling that the democratic process is not functioning properly and by challenging people’s normative expectations about what democracy should do in practice. I next draw from a diverse literature on social and political psychology, as well as governance quality, to derive new hypotheses about how people form their fairness judgments and use them to evaluate democracy. Right-leaning and upper-class individuals should be less upset with inequality in the first place, but even when these individuals perceive distributive unfairness, they should be less likely to express political dissatisfaction as a result. Additionally, the context in which individuals form their fairness perceptions should condition the relationship between fairness judgments and political support. In a context of good governance, individuals should be less likely to perceive inequality as unfair, and subsequently less likely to express political dissatisfaction for any perceived distributive unfairness in society. Governance quality provides alternative evidence that democracy is in fact functioning properly and should allay citizens’ concerns about inequality and distributive unfairness, at least when it comes to evaluating democratic legitimacy. To test my theory and hypotheses, I take a mixed-methods approach that combines large-N analysis of public opinion data and original survey experiments. To contextualize my quantitative results, I draw on motivating examples from original open-ended surveys, newspapers, and elite interviews. In the first empirical chapter, I conduct a multilevel analysis of data from 18 Latin American and show that perceptions of distributive unfairness are negatively correlated with trust in government and satisfaction with democracy, yet good governance significantly mitigates this negative relationship. In the second empirical chapter, I use original survey experiments in Argentina, Mexico, and the US to show that perceptions of distributive unfairness are key causal factors linking inequality to political dissatisfaction. In the third empirical chapter, I use a second set of survey experiments to investigate how governance quality moderates the relationship between inequality and political support. When individuals are presented with information about declining corruption, they are less likely to perceive their country’s income distribution as unfair, and less likely to link inequality to political dissatisfaction.

Meztiso is an exploration of the artist’s identity as an individual born and raised in Guatemala; which is a country rich in natural resources where the majority of the population is native Maya yet the ruling class is majority white and poverty is widespread. The artist takes on this stunning contradiction using her own influences and views which were shaped by the political and economic upheaval and instability of her youth in Guatemala. The artist comments on her own identity as a person of mixed ancestry, a Meztiso, and because of her own family’s involvement in the capitalist government that has marginalized the Maya indigenous to this day.

Neuropsychological tests are standardized tasks used to measure psychological functioning that is associated with a particular brain structure. These tests often are used in diagnosing a cognitive deficiency resulting from brain injuries. Currently, there are a limited number of studies that have focused on standardization of neuropsychological tests in Latin America. Therefore, the vast majority of cognitive tests used in the evaluation of patients with brain damage have no normative parameters adjusted to the cultural characteristics of Latinos and Latinas. As a result, neuropsychological diagnoses among this population may be inadequate, and evaluation of rehabilitation program effectiveness limited. The importance of culturally appropriate indices of neurological tests cannot be overstated; of all the problems presented by individuals with brain injuries, cognitive disorders are the leading source of disability for adequate work, family, and social reintegration among this group. There is an urgent need to standardize neuropsychological tests in Latin America, among Latinos in the US and any other regions where neuropsychological test have not been standardized. An important population subgroup in Latin America severely lacking in norms for many neuropsychological tests are those deemed illiterate or unable to read or write. Developing normative data for individuals who are illiterate will allow neuropsychologists to have a more accurate comparison when attempting to diagnose cognitive deficits among this group in Latin America. This dissertation is unique, as no other studies have looked at the normative data and standardization of neuropsychological tests within this population in Latin America.

Esta pesquisa tem por objetivo discutir as interpretações construídas pelo engenheiro e economista francês Michel Chevalier (1806-1869) sobre as Américas entre as décadas de 1830 e 1860. Seguidor das ideias saint-simonianas durante sua juventude, viajou aos Estados Unidos, ao México e a Cuba entre 1833 e 1835. De volta à França, tornou-se professor do Collège de France (1840) e, anos depois, um dos principais quadros intelectuais e políticos de sustentação ao Segundo Império (1851-1870) de Napoleão III. Partindo dessas premissas, este trabalho se desenvolve por meio de dois grandes eixos: por um lado, a análise acerca da elaboração, na obra do autor, de uma utopia industrial de matriz saint-simoniana, desenvolvida, em grande medida, em sua abordagem a respeito dos Estados Unidos; por outro, a discussão sobre a construção de uma dicotomia no Novo Mundo entre as regiões de colonização inglesa e espanhola, mobilizada, entre outras coisas, como forma de defender empreendimentos como a construção de um canal interoceânico na América Central e a intervenção francesa sobre o México no decênio de 1860. Em seus textos, ao afirmar divergências culturais e políticas entre os países protestantes anglo-saxões e católicos latinos na Europa e nas Américas, Michel Chevalier forneceu elementos para a formulação de perspectivas de longa duração nos discursos intelectuais e políticos dos dois lados do Atlântico e para a posterior enunciação, na década de 1850, do conceito de América Latina. / This research aims to discuss the interpretations formulated by the French engineer and economist Michel Chevalier (1806-1869) about the Americas between the 1830s and 1860s. Follower of Saint Simon\'s ideas during his youth, he traveled to the United States, Mexico and Cuba between 1833 and 1835. Back to France, he became professor at the Collège de France (1840) and one of the main intellectual and political figures supporting Napoleon III\'s Second Empire (1851-1870). This work is developed based on two main axes: first of all, the analysis of the elaboration of an \"industrial utopia\" during his travel to the United States; secondly, the discussion about the elaboration of a dichotomy between the regions of English and Spanish colonization in the New World. Michel Chevalier used this comparison to defend the construction of an interoceanic canal in Central America and the armed intervention of France in Mexico in the 1860s. In his writings, Michel Chevalier affirmed cultural and political differences between the Anglo-Saxon Protestants and the Latin American Catholics in Europe and the Americas. He provided elements for the formulation, in the 1850s, of the concept of Latin America.

A partir dos rastros de leitura do escritor Ernesto Sábato, este trabalho tem a intenção de produzir uma imagem mais nítida da experiência intelectual do autor argentino. Suas influências filosóficas (Sartre e Camus, mais especificamente) e literárias (Borges como figura paradigmática) formam o tecido mesclado de seus ensaios e ficções de modo que, à luz de suas apropriações, esperamos deixar algumas orientações para o leitor que queira achegar aos temas fulcrais de Sábato. Questões como existência e transcendência, alteridade e solidão tomam forma e corpo nas suas novelas e nos seus ensaios, e os enfrentamos em três passos: o embate estético com o conterrâneo Jorge Luis Borges, no primeiro capítulo; as aderências de Sábato à obra de Jean-Paul Sartre e Albert Camus e as distorções que faz delas, no segundo; e, finalmente, uma leitura cerrada da sua primeira novela O Túnel. O confronto entre Borges e Sábato visa a explorar os desafios destes escritores se colocarem na cena literária nacional e seu papel de relevância ou não no cânone, bem como o enfrentamento ético da produção artística, sua relação com a história sóciocultural nacional e até mesmo com os dilemas ideológicos que marcaram o breve século XX. Sartre e Camus surgem como parceiros de guerra; a filosofia existencial, que coloca o homem no centro de suas atividades e fundando sua convivência com outros tantos homens, é face de uma filosofia que, ao encontrar a particularidade da América Latina, reconhece novas tensões e Sábato atravessa de contradições as premissas dessa mesma filosofia. Ao fim, encontramo-nos num experimento de leitura: O Túnel, primeira publicação de ficção do argentino, aparece como objeto-modelo de um modo de fazer literatura que se estenderá por toda a vida literária e crítica do autor. Desta maneira, acreditamos ser possível expressar a rebelião estética (e política) do itinerário crítico de Sábato. / After the legacy of Ernesto Sábatos work, thus set of essays aims to elaborate on the literacy and philosophical path followed by the Argentinean author throughout his career a a novel writer and literary criticism essayist. In orfer to fuldill that task, we follow the steps of thinkers such as French philosophers J-P Sartre and Albert Camus, and also the outstanding Argentinean Jorge Luis Borges. Out of Sábatos own interpretation of his influences we intend to discuss philosophical and literary matters taken by the author himself as crucial ones in his process of writing Existence and Transcendence, Otherness and Solitude are embedded in his novels and essays. Those concepts will guide us towards three steps: debates on aesthetics with his compatriot Jorge Luis Borges; assimilation and distortions of J-P Sartres and Camus philosophic thinking; and the close reading of his first novel The Tunnel. The examination of the controversy between Sábato and Borges is a means to explore their ascending the Argentinean literary scene and their relevance in literature canon, as well as the discussion about the ethical approach concerning art and the artistic object in general. In addition to that, we propose an examination of the relationship of Argentineans and their social, cultural and historical background, including their views on the 20th century ideological dilemmas, in wich Sartres and Camus concepts about existentialism put men as the core (and goal) of their actions and their relation to other men philosophic point of view which reachs Latin America, where it takes a new character. Finally, the close reading of The Tunnel presents a model of a new way of writing and, mainly, an original kind of literary form, one which from these on is going to accompany Sábato throughout his live and work. Our general idea is to disclose the aesthetic (and political) rebellion of Ernesto Sábatos journey on literary fiction and criticism.

<p>Global Civil Society is a spectrum of diverse social actors, which offers an alternative to the making of contemporary politics, and towards social change; it provides us with a new approach to change the existing global order through development rather than confrontation. For this reason, global civil society has recently attracted increased interest in the academic and political discourse and consequently has left the margins and is placed in the centre of contemporary International Relations and political theory.</p><p>Utilizing neo-Gramscian ideas this study examines global civil society’s concept and core features and focuses on its role as well as transformative possibilities as an agent in contemporary world politics. This thesis demonstrates through the findings of our</p><p>case study on "Civil Society Organisations" Response to the Fourth European Union – Latin America and the Caribbean Summit in Vienna 2006” the alternative approach in dealing with political issues and actively working towards those ends.</p><p>This research’s conclusions designate the great potentialities of civil society’s organizations, if carefully managed to transform the contemporary world; as well as the necessity of addressing global civil society in order to understand the role of the social realm in reducing the gap of legitimacy in the contemporary world order.</p>

<p>The formation of sovereign states in regional blocks has become an essential feature in the world system. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate which motives and driving forces that affect the creation of projects of regional integration outside Europe and the Western World. By choosing the Latin American project of integration ALBA (<em>the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas</em>) as a case of regional integration outside Europe and the Western World, the study investigates the motives expressed by the most prominent actors of the project, Venezuela and Cuba. ALBA is chosen as a representative and a unique case and through the consumption of the gramscian and the realist approaches, the essay defines two motives that affect the creation of projects of regional integration. As a way of investigating the actors’ motives, the paper studies political statements, especially those of the Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, and official positions expressed in central documents and declarations. The result shows that the motives behind ALBA are to promote a regionalism that gives priority to social welfare issues and to use this regional organization to create a multipolar world system. The essay concludes, with ALBA as a case, that the fundamental motives that could govern the regional integration process outside Europe and the Western World are, firstly, the will to resist a hegemonic world order that doesn’t give priority to social welfare issues and, secondly, to resist a unipolar world system and work as a “balancer”. While this applies to Venezuela, there are in the case of Cuba certain self-interests that could serve as motives. However, the study can’t rule out that also other motives can exist, but there is no evidence that can be used to prove that in this paper.</p>

Social violence is a serious problem in Latin America, an assertion that is thoroughly supported by statistics that identify Latin America as one of the most violent regions in the world (?Searching for Solutions in Latin America and the Caribbean? 20). These violent statistics explored in the very first chapter set the stage for this proposal by establishing its dire purpose. Formative historical legacies are central to social development, and they can provide the root causes and resentments that spur such social violence. There are a few that are common to the area of Latin America as a whole, such as the colonial experience and the slave trade, and these are examined alongside legacies of key leaders and educators that have shaped the face of the region and produced both pillars of hope and some of the greatest obstacles to social change. Understanding the root causes of violence and the formidable obstacles against effecting social change are key elements in designing and instituting a solution to this problem. Within this solution, education is a universally valid channel that, if given the necessary resources and personnel, could affect the lives of the majority of citizens. Combining the ideas of Martin L. Hoffman on the effect of inductive discipline encounters on children through character education, education becomes a powerful tool for creating not only more intelligent and autonomous citizens, but more empathic ones more attuned to an ?ethic of care.? While such a proposal certainly offers no guarantees and its successful institution would need to co-exist with other much needed social, political and economic reforms, it is presented as an innovative and experimental solution to a pressing problem taking a toll on the social and economic capital of societies in the region; a toll that is not easily ignored, particularly those for whom violence is an every day reality.