Abstract Sanitation coverage in the Republic of Panama is 5 to 10 percent below the Millennium Development Goals targets set for the country. Population growth, urbanization, unplanned development and waste mismanagement have resulted in improvised trash sites and waste discharges into river systems that are important components of the biologically diverse natural environment of Panama. The study sought to investigate and estimate the burden of waste from domestic and agricultural sources in three regions of the Chilibre corrigimiento (district). It was hypothesized that the water quality and land cover data would reflect that the most populated region in the study sample (Region 2) would have more water quality violations than the adjacent background and attenuation regions (Region 1 and Region 3) in the study sample. The results supported that Region 2 had the most water quality violations -- particularly at the CHIL 3 monitoring station. Based on the results the most appropriate best management practices (BMPs) were recommended for the household, community, watershed, and regional level waste management in the study region. Future research will look determine the effectiveness of microfinance programs in bolstering sanitation-based entrepreneurship in Chilibre and across Panama.

O processo de sedimentação e assoreamento reduz a profundidade e a capacidade dos lagos de armazenamento de água do Canal do Panamá, obrigando a realizar dragagens periódicas que aumentam os custos de operação. Esses processos são acelerados pela perda de cobertura florestal na bacia. O presente estudo teve por objetivo estimar o valor econômico associado à redução de sedimentos na floresta da bacia do Canal, através do método de custo evitado de dragagem. O efeito físico da cobertura florestal sobre a redução de sedimentos foi estimado a través de regressão linear de dados biofísicos de sete microbacias que dispõem de medições de produção de sedimentos: Chagres, Pequení, Boquerón, Gatún, Trinidad, Cirí Grande e Caño Quebrado. Os resultados mostram que cada hectare de floresta nesta área reduz em 14,76 t.ano-1 de sedimentos em suspensão. Adicionando sedimentos de fundo isso corresponde a 14,32 t.ha-1.ano-1 e a um valor econômico de USD 197,40 por hectare por ano. Concluiu-se que as florestas contribuem significativamente para mitigar o processo de assoreamento dos lagos de armazenamento de água para o funcionamento do Canal do Panamá, e essa contribuição pode ser valorada em USD 39.640.091 por ano, para toda a floresta da bacia. / Sedimentation and siltation reduce the lakes depth and capacity to hold water in the Panama Canal, requiring periodic dredging which increases the operation costs. These processes are accelerated by the loss of forests that cover the basin. This studys objective is to estimate the economic value associated with reduction of sediments in the Canal basin, based on the method of avoided dredging cost. The physical effect of forest on sediment reduction was estimated through linear regression of biophysical data for seven watersheds that have measurements of sediments yield: Chagres, Pequení, Boquerón, Gatún, Trinidad, Cirí Grande and Caño Quebrado. These results shows that each hectare of forest in this area reduces the sediments in suspension. By adding sediments from the bottom of the riverbed, this corresponds to 14.32 m3.ha- 1.year-1 and to an economic value of USD 197.40 per hectare per year. It was concluded that forests contribute significantly to mitigate the process of siltation of lakes water storage for the operation of the Panama Canal, and this contribution may be valued at USD 39,640,091 per year for the entire basin forest.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The global climate is creating more ice-free waters in the Arctic. These new navigation possibilities around the Arctic lead to increased global trade, tourism, and oil and gas exploration. With the foreseeable increased nautical transportation through the Northwest Passage, the United States needs to revisit its security posture in and around the Bering Strait. At least five different grand strategies are potentially relevant in addressing this question. By comparing the suggestions of these leading grand strategy approaches to what has actually been implemented by the United States in the Strait of Hormuz, the Strait of Malacca, and the Panama Canal, similarities emerge that can help the United States shape their strategy for the defending of its national interests in the Bering Strait. By testing the different grand strategies against three reasonably similar cases, I find that a forward military presence and supporting a liberal institutionalist approach are the two key aspects that the United States should employ in the Bering Strait. Increasing and improving the military presence that the United States has in the region should be a top priority. In addition, supporting the Arctic Council would provide an increased level of security to the United States and other nations in the region. This strategy is not without its challenges and it will require artful statecraft in order to be successful.

No description available.

The United States Military is currently organized along the lines of regional combatant commands (COCOMs). Each COCOM is responsible for all U.S. military activity in their designated area of responsibility (AOR). They also deal with diplomatic issues of a wide variety with the countries within their respective AORs. Among these COCOMs, Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), whose AOR encompasses all of Central and South America (less Mexico) and the Caribbean, is one of the smallest in terms of size and budget, but has the longest history of activity among the COCOMs as it is the successor to the first joint command, the United States Caribbean Defense Command (CDC 1941-1947). Existing from 1941 to 1947, the CDC was tasked with protecting the Panama Canal, the Canal Zone, and all its access points as well as defending the region from Axis aggression and setting up a series of U.S. bases throughout the Caribbean from which to project U.S. military power after World War II. Throughout its short history, however, the CDC was plagued with the same types of resource scarcity that its successor commands would later experience. Early successes, as well as the progress of the war saw to it that the original mission of the Command was quickly rendered moot. Ironically, it was partially the success of the U.S. war effort that kept the CDC from ever reaching its full potential. Nevertheless, the CDC evolved into something different than had originally been envisioned. In the end, it became the model that other COCOMs would follow after November 1947 when the system of regional combatant commands was formally established. Although some research has been conducted into the history of these commands, this dissertation is the first academic attempt to chronicle the history of the United States Caribbean Defense Command. Research into this topic involved combing through the Archives of the United States Southern Command in its offices in Miami, Florida (SOUTHCOM Archives), as well as the CDC archives in Record Group 548 in the U.S. National Archives II in Suitland, Maryland. Secondary sources as well as references regarding treaties and international agreements were also consulted as necessary.

Les Filles de la Charité de Saint Vincent de Paul sont arrivées au Panama en 1875 comme des exilées politiques, après avoir été expulsées du Mexique par son gouvernement, dont le Congrès avait voté contre la présence de toutes les congrégations religieuses dans le pays l'année précédente. Cinq ans après leur installation dans l'isthme, la Compagnie Universelle du Canal Français - sous la direction de Ferdinand de Lesseps - a commencé les travaux de construction d'un canal qui permettrait la navigation entre les océans Atlantique et Pacifique. L'entreprise serait un échec irrémédiable pour une variété de raisons, parmi lesquelles la condition désastreuse de la santé publique, et le gouvernement des États-Unis reprendra le projet d'ingénierie colossale et l'assainissement du pays. Les Filles de la Charité, qui ont été engagées par la Compagnie Universelle du Canal comme infirmières pour soigner les patients dans leurs hôpitaux, resteraient dans l'isthme au long des années épidémiques et élargiraient leur mission dans la mesure où l'ordre religieux continue d'avoir une forte présence au sein de la société panaméenne à ce jour. Le but principal de ce travail est de analyser un épisode précédemment inconnu de l'histoire autrement bien documentée de la construction du Canal de Panama: la contribution que cette congrégation a fait à la profession naissante d’infirmière pendant les pires années de la propagation des maladies infectieuses dans l'isthme, provoquée par la surpopulation des ouvriers du canal et l'ignorance de la cause et le remède de maladies épidémiques. C’est bien connu que la construction du canal a été possible grâce à la lutte contre le paludisme et l'éradication de la fièvre jaune, les maladies qui ont décimé la population au cours des 25 premières années du projet ; que des changements radicaux dans les conditions de santé publique ont été accomplies par les mesures mises en œuvre par le médecin de l'armée américaine le colonel William Crawford Gorgas ; mais la présence des Filles de la Charité dans les hôpitaux publics et privés dans la ville de Panama et de Colón pendant ce temps, tendant aux patients et exécutant les ordres du Dr Gorgas, est resté caché pour la plupart des publications sur le sujet. Peut-être que la découverte la plus importante qui a surgi des sources recherchées pour ce travail, est que la troisième grande maladie infectieuse que les médecins et leurs assistants ont combattu au cours de ces années a été la syphilis, qui a atteint des proportions épidémiques et était incurable durant cette période aussi. Le conflit créé par les patients syphilitiques et le traitement dont ils avaient besoin et le fait qu'ils ont reçu efficacement ce traitement des sœurs, qui ont été interdites par les règles de leur propre congrégation d'avoir contact avec eux, a culminé par le retrait des religieuses des hôpitaux, et la sécularisation et la professionnalisation des soins infirmiers au Panama. Les raisons pour lesquelles les sœurs dispensaient des soins aux patients syphilitiques durant les trente-trois ans qu’ils ont servi dans les hôpitaux de la nation, malgré et contre leur propre règle, résident dans leur piété et leur spiritualité, dont les détails seront examinés tout au long de cette thèse. Les contradictions qui, apparemment, résident dans l'aide des sœurs, qui peuvent être perçues à tort comme l'ambiguïté morale, fournissent un sujet précieux d'étude pour l'histoire de la religion de la région. Il faut souligner qu'un facteur déterminant dans cet épisode était le manque de règles juridiques qui caractérisent la pratique de la médecine jusqu'à la deuxième décennie du 20e siècle dans le Nord et l'Amérique latine. Ainsi, cette étude peut également contribuer au débat contemporain très opportun sur l'éthique des professionnels de la santé, et sur l'effet que peut avoir leur empathie dans le traitement de la maladie d'un patient..... / The Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul arrived in Panama in 1875 as political exiles, after being expelled from Mexico by its Government, whose Congress had voted against the presence of all religious congregations in the country the previous year. Five years after their settling in the Isthmus, the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Français - under the direction of Ferdinand de Lesseps – began construction work for a canal that would allow navigation between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The enterprise would fail irretrievably for a variety of reasons, among them the disastrous condition of public health, and the United States Government would take over the colossal engineering project and the country’s sanitation. The Daughters of Charity, who were hired by the Compagnie Universelle to nurse patients in their hospitals, would remain in the Isthmus throughout the epidemic years and would expand their mission to the extent that the religious order continues to have a strong presence within Panamanian society to this day.The main purpose of this work is to disclose a previously unknown episode of the otherwise well documented history of the construction of the Panama Canal: the contribution that this congregation made to the incipient nursing profession during the worst years of the spread of infectious diseases in the Isthmus, provoked by the overcrowding of the canal workers, the backwardness of the region and the ignorance of the cause and cure of epidemic diseases. It is public knowledge that the construction of the canal was possible due to the control of malaria and the eradication of yellow fever, the illnesses that decimated the population during the first 25 years of the project; that radical changes in public health conditions were accomplished by the measures implemented by US Army doctor Colonel William Crawford Gorgas; but the presence of the Daughters of Charity in public and private hospitals in Panama City and Colón during this time, tending to patients and carrying out Dr Gorgas’ orders, has remained hidden for the most part from publications on the subject.Perhaps the most significant discovery surging from the sources researched for this work, is that the third great infectious disease that the doctors and their assistants fought during these years was syphilis, which reached epidemic proportions and was incurable during this period too. The conflict created by the syphilitic patients and the treatment they required and the fact that they effectively received this treatment from the sisters, who were forbidden by the rules of their own congregation to have contact with them, culminated by the withdrawal of the nuns from the hospitals, and the secularization and professionalization of nursing in Panama. The reasons why the sisters provided care to syphilitic patients during the thirty-three years they served in the nation’s hospitals, despite and against their own Rule, reside in their piety and their spirituality, details of which will be examined throughout this dissertation. The contradictions that seemingly dwelled in the sisters’ aid, which may be wrongly perceived as moral ambiguity, provide a valuable subject of study for the history of religion of the region.It must be stressed that a determining factor in this episode was the lack of legal regulations that characterized the practice of Medicine until the second decade of the 20th Century in North and Latin America. Thus, this study may also contribute to the very timely, contemporary debate on the ethics of health professionals, and on the effect that their empathy may have in the cure of a patient’s illness...