The main design requirements for today's mobile applications are: · high throughput performance. · high energy efficiency. · high programmability. Until now, the choice of platform has often been limited to Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), due to their best-of-breed performance and power consumption. The economies of scale possible with these high-volume markets have traditionally been able to hide the high Non-Recurring Engineering (NRE) costs required for designing and fabricating new ASICs. However, with the NREs and design time escalating with each generation of mobile applications, this practice may be reaching its limit. Designers today are looking at programmable solutions, so that they can respond more rapidly to changes in the market and spread costs over several generations of mobile applications. However, there have been few feasible alternatives to ASICs: Digital Signals Processors (DSPs) and microprocessors cannot meet the throughput requirements, whereas Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) require too much area and power. Coarse-grained dynamically reconfigurable architectures offer better solutions for high throughput applications, when power and area considerations are taken into account. One promising example is the Reconfigurable Instruction Cell Array (RICA). RICA consists of an array of cells with an interconnect that can be dynamically reconfigured on every cycle. This allows quite complex datapaths to be rendered onto the fabric and executed in a single configuration - making these architectures particularly suitable to stream processing. Furthermore, RICA can be programmed from C, making it a good fit with existing design methodologies. However the RICA architecture has a drawback: poor scalability in terms of area and power. As the core gets bigger, the number of sequential elements in the array must be increased significantly to maintain the ability to achieve high throughputs through pipelining. As a result, a larger clock tree is required to synchronise the increased number of sequential elements. The clock tree therefore takes up a larger percentage of the area and power consumption of the core. This thesis presents a novel Dynamically Reconfigurable Asynchronous Processor (DRAP), aimed at high-throughput mobile applications. DRAP is based on the RICA architecture, but uses asynchronous design techniques - methods of designing digital systems without clocks. The absence of a global clock signal makes DRAP more scalable in terms of power and area overhead than its synchronous counterpart. The DRAP architecture maintains most of the benefits of custom asynchronous design, whilst also providing programmability via conventional high-level languages. Results show that the DRAP processor delivers considerably lower power consumption when compared to a market-leading Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) processor and a low-power ARM processor. For example, DRAP resulted in a reduction in power consumption of 20 times compared to the ARM7 processor, and 29 times compared to the TIC64x VLIW, when running the same benchmark capped to the same throughput and for the same process technology (0.13μm). When compared to an equivalent RICA design, DRAP was up to 22% larger than RICA but resulted in a power reduction of up to 1.9 times. It was also capable of achieving up to 2.8 times higher throughputs than RICA for the same benchmarks.

Many tropical trees do not form reliable annual growth rings, making it a challenge to develop tree-ring width chronologies for application to paleoclimatology in these regions. Here, I seek to establish high-resolution proxy climate records from trees without rings from the Monteverde Cloud Forest in Costa Rica using stable isotope dendroclimatology. Neotropical cloud forest ecosystems are associated with a relatively narrow range of geographic and hydroclimatic conditions, and are potentially sensitive to climate variability and change at time scales from annual to centennial and longer. My approach takes advantage of seasonal changes in the d18O of water sources used by trees over a year, a signature that is imparted to the radial growth and provides the necessary chronological control. A rapid wood extraction technique is evaluated and found to produce cellulose with d18O values indistinguishable from conventional approaches, although its application to radiocarbon requires a statistical correction. Analyses of plantation-grown Ocotea tenera reveal coherent annual d18O cycles up to 9 permil. The width of these cycles corresponds to observed basal growth increments. Interannual variability in d18O at this site is correlated with wet season precipitation anomalies. At higher elevations within the orographic cloud bank, year-to-year changes in the amplitude of oxygen isotope cycles show a relationship with dry season climate. Longer d18O chronologies from mature Pouteria (Sapotacae) reveal that dry season hydroclimatology is controlled at interannual time scales by variability in the eastern equatorial Pacific (ENSO) and the Western Hemisphere Warm Pool (WHWP), which are correlated with trade wind strength and local air temperature. A change in the late 1960s toward enhanced annual d18O amplitude may reflect low frequency changes in the Atlantic and Pacific ocean-atmosphere system. This study establishes the basis for cloud forest isotope dendroclimatology and demonstrates that the local climate of neotropical cloud forests is sensitive to interannual, and perhaps, multidecadal changes in important large-scale modes of climate variability.

International migration has grown in both scope and scale in recent decades. Almost half of the world's migrants move between countries lying within the global economic South, yet scholarship remains focused on South-to-North routes. This dissertation is a qualitative study of South-to-South migration experience of Nicaraguan women living in Costa Rica. In the mid-1990s, Costa Rica surpassed the United States as the primary destination for Nicaraguan migrants due to the coincided effects of economic distress in Nicaragua and economic developments in Costa Rica, creating gaps in the labor market that Nicaraguans filled.During the 1990s, the number of Nicaraguan migrants tripled to compose eight to sixteen percent of the Costa Rican population; women make up around half of the migrant population. What does the experience of moving between destination and origin contexts characterized by relative geographic, cultural, linguistic, economic and historical proximity reveal about the often juxtaposed social processes of integration and transnationalism? To explore this question, over a year of continuous ethnographic field research and systematic archival review of newspaper accounts were pursued in Costa Rica and Nicaragua (2005-06). Participant observation and 138 in-depth interviews were conducted with a purposeful sample of 43 migrant women, of whom two thirds were undocumented, and 12 Costa Rican health care workers. For its symbolic and material value to migrants and host country nationals, the health care system was the lens for examining migration issues and experience.Study findings suggest that multi-dimensional social forms of proximity for this migration circuit do not uniformly facilitate integration or transnationalism but rather the "paradoxes of proximity." Nicaraguan migrant women articulated feelings of profound exclusion and ambivalence about their lives. For Costa Ricans, migrants represented a threat to national ideals of "exceptionalism" central to historical accounts of their national identity. Ideals included racial and class homogeneity as well as the welfare state's successes in providing health care for all. By drawing on multiple theoretical perspectives from critical and clinical medical anthropology, feminist and historical anthropology, the study illustrates the importance of attending to paradoxical, local health-related experiences as a reflection of macro-level processes of globalization.

This research is an ethnographic case study of the emerging ecotourism economies in the agricultural village of San Gerardo de Rivas, Pérez Zeledón, Costa Rica. Due to the village’s location as the main entry point to climb the country’s tallest mountain within Chirripó National Park, the majority of households in San Gerardo now derive some income from tourism. I conducted twenty household surveys, followed by twenty-one semi-structured interviews with male and female heads of households and representatives of local organizations and tourism businesses. Drawing on local perspectives, I found that ecotourism was a complementary income source to agriculture and that men and women were engaging differently in ecotourism employment. Local organizations were involved in the participatory management of ecotourism activities within Chirripó National Park. Ecotourism has affected environmental practices and local people are strategically negotiating the direction of tourism development, including through using environmental discourses, to optimize the benefits to their community.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Tesis para optar al grado de Magíster en Gestión y Dirección de Empresas / Estudios han determinado que los niveles de contaminación a los que está llegando el planeta, lo acercan a un punto de no retorno en el que éste podría colapsar y dejar de ser habitable para el ser humano. Esta problemática, posiblemente representa el desafío más grande al que se enfrenta la humanidad hoy en día, y es por esto que todos deben ser parte del cambio necesario para revertirla. Esta tesis busca formar parte de la solución que requiere el planeta, apoyándose en la educación superior universitaria como conductora del cambio, y específicamente a través de una nueva Universidad Medioambiental, que ofrezca maestrías en Negocios Verdes y esté ubicada en Costa Rica. El trabajo tiene como objetivo principal identificar, dimensionar y evaluar las condiciones técnicas, legales, organizaciones y económicas requeridas para el establecimiento de esta institución; y complementa lo anterior con una serie de análisis estratégicos sobre las condiciones internas y externas asociadas al proyecto, lo que a su vez permite identificar los riesgos y factores clave de éxito. Una investigación bibliográfica del mercado y de la industria local y global permite validar la existencia de un mercado, en base al cual se estima una demanda inicial para la Universidad de 5 estudiantes por maestría. Posteriormente se define que la Universidad partiría con una oferta de 5 maestrías, enfocadas en atender necesidades actuales del mercado y alineadas con los objetivos ambientales de Costa Rica y el mundo, según la opinión de expertos. De llevarse a la implementación, el proyecto sería desarrollado por la Sociedad San Cristóbal, en la que participan personas de gran trayectoria en el campo ambiental y político como los son José María Figueres, expresidente de Costa Rica y actual presidente de Carbon War Room, y Cristiana Figueres, exsecretaria general de la Comisión Marco de las Naciones Unidas contra el Cambio Climático. A ellos podría sumarse como colaborador externo a la sociedad, Carlos Rodríguez, Vicepresidente de Conservation International y ex Ministro de Ambiente y Energía de Costa Rica. Lo anterior forma parte de una de las principales fuentes de ventaja competitiva que podría tener el negocio, sumándose a la definición de Costa Rica como sede para el proyecto, por su liderazgo mundial en temas ambientales, por las condiciones de inversión favorables que tiene el país; y por la poca competencia existente. Finalmente, la evaluación económica del proyecto muestra una inversión requerida de USD $2,3 millones aproximadamente, con flujos de caja positivos a lo largo de todo el periodo de evaluación (10 años). Las proyecciones realizadas arrojan un VAN de USD $764.677 con una TIR de 19%, que se encuentra por encima de la tasa de descuento calculada (12,2%). Estos indicadores llevan a concluir que el proyecto es conveniente y tiene potencial de generar riqueza para los inversionistas, sin embargo, quedando condicionado al diseño de un proceso de reclutamiento de primer nivel, que se apoye en alianzas estratégicas con universidades de renombre y con Organizaciones Globales de carácter ambiental. Aspecto que será crítico para asegurar o superar la demanda esperada, y protegerse de la alta sensibilidad que presenta el proyecto ante esta variable. Como recomendación final, se motiva a San Cristóbal a dar continuidad a la implementación del proyecto por su carácter de impacto y viabilidad económica.

Tesis para optar al grado de Magíster en Gestión y Políticas Públicas / La presente investigación buscó estimar la evolución de la eficiencia técnica relativa del servicio de hospitalización en los hospitales del segundo nivel de atención del Sistema de Salud Público de Costa Rica entre el 2011 y 2016. En concreto se propuso (1) estimar la eficiencia técnica relativa de dicho servicio para cada centro e (2) identificar los efectos del cambio en productividad y sus componentes. La investigación tiene enfoque cuantitativa y descriptiva. La metodología se basa en un modelo con enfoque de análisis frontera determinístico y no paramétrico llamado DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis, por sus siglas en inglés). Este modelo estima la eficiencia técnica en forma relativa para lo cual resuelve un problema de programación lineal, que en esta investigación tiene como objetivo maximizar los productos dados unos insumos (orientación output). Adicionalmente, se calculó el Índice de Productividad de Hicks-Moorsteen que, al ser un índice multiplicativamente completo, permite mostrar el cambio en productividad y descomponerlo en sus elementos. Para el análisis se recurrió al uso de las bases de egresos hospitalarios de la Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social (CCSS) de los años 2011 y 2016, anuarios estadísticos y de Costos de la CCSS. Las variables utilizadas fueron la cantidad de camas y el gasto en hospitalización, como insumos. Mientras los productos correspondieron al total de egresos del servicio de hospitalización, porcentaje de ocupación, Índice de Mortalidad Ajustado por Riesgo (IMAR) e Índice de Estancias Ajustado por Riesgo (IEAR). Los resultados del año 2016, muestran que la mitad de los servicios de hospitalización de los centros nosocomiales públicos de Costa Rica muestran algún grado de ineficiencia. Además, no se logró comprobar que los hospitales pequeños son relativamente más eficientes que los grandes. Sin embargo, se encontró que la red Este presenta menores porcentajes de eficiencia respecto a las redes Sur y Noroeste. Asimismo, se determinó que tanto la eficiencia como la productividad disminuyeron en el periodo de análisis. La eficiencia cayó cerca de 3 p.p., empero se mantiene relativamente alta (94%), lo que da indicios de un uso apropiado de los recursos públicos. A pesar de lo anterior, la productividad cae considerablemente (26%). Todos los componentes en promedio sufrieron un retroceso, el mayor se presentó en el cambio tecnológico (18%). A partir de los resultados obtenidos se propone formular planes de mejora individuales que tengan por objetivo lograr cumplir con las metas de producción que se establecen en las holguras del modelo, tomando en consideración las buenas prácticas que han implementado otros centros de salud (benchmarking). Además, se brindan recomendaciones de políticas públicas, muy generales, sobre posibles acciones tendientes a mejorar la eficiencia y productividad de los nosocomios.

This mixed-method study, grounded in critical pedagogy, explored teachers of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program (IBDP) in Costa Rican public and private schools and examined the growth of the IB there. It surveyed the global mindedness of the teachers to understand their perceptions of the IB. The study also aimed to understand the IB’s Creativity, Activity, and Service (CAS) as a form of global education. Furthermore, neoliberalism was explored as a force driving the IB’s growth in Costa Rica. The study collected quantitative data from the Global Mindedness Scale (GMS) (Hett, 1993) from teachers of the IB in Costa Rica, assessing their level of global mindedness, factors that may have contributed to their score, and what differences, if any, existed between public and private school teachers. In the qualitative phase, four teachers were interviewed to explore how they perceived the IB in Costa Rica. It also critically analyzed the CAS requirement of the IB, as well as the neoliberal forces that have driven the growth of the IB in Costa Rica. The findings show that the type of school does not affect teachers’ global mindedness. Participants’ age and whether they have lived outside their country had a positive but weak relationship to teachers’ global mindedness. Teachers of STEM courses had slightly lower GMS scores. The interviews showed that teachers had positive perceptions of the IBDP and saw benefits for themselves, their students, and Costa Rica. The teachers were mostly uncritical in their responses, but the highest GMS scoring interviewee did express critical ideas. An analysis of the CAS requirement of the IB concluded that it reflects both soft and critical approaches to global citizenship education. Finally, the document analysis confirmed neoliberalism as a force behind the IB’s expansion in Costa Rica. Several recommendations were offered. First, an instrument is needed that can measure global mindedness on an international scale. Second, teacher education should incorporate issues related to global education. Third, implementation of the IBDP and other global education curricula requires ongoing support from policymakers, organizations, and schools. More research should examine the growth of the IB in other countries. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2018. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Made available in DSpace on 2015-04-14T14:27:13Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 392294.pdf: 757794 bytes, checksum: 1a3d4a9187c0b2a1e536443332ce374e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-04-16 / Esta disserta??o tem como objetivo analisar como a desigualdade social se expressa na Am?rica Latina, dado que desde seu processo de forma??o o problema se mant?m na regi?o. Nesse sentido, foram escolhidas a pobreza e a desigualdade educacional como express?es de an?lise para verificar de que forma suas l?gicas de a??o se refletem em desigualdade social. O estudo foi limitado a um determinado espa?o geogr?fico, Am?rica Latina e a um intervalo de tempo d?cada de 90 e os primeiros anos do s?culo XXI, momento caracterizado por ajustes estruturais nas economias da regi?o. No desenvolvimento desta pesquisa, verificou-se, que, a desigualdade educacional existente na regi?o, reflete-se sobre o mercado de trabalho gerando uma disparidade de rendimentos, criando c?rculo perverso em torno da pobreza e da desigualdade social. Em vista disso, tem-se na redu??o da desigualdade educacional um instrumento capaz de promover a redu??o da pobreza, e conseq?entemente ir de encontro a uma sociedade com eq?idade

Submitted by PPG Hist?ria (historia-pg@pucrs.br) on 2018-04-16T12:37:26Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Fernando Comiran_A VALSA DOS POBRES_Vers?o Final.pdf: 1413588 bytes, checksum: 9a7ef91f8a0e458d56cd9292dc2c9526 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Caroline Xavier (caroline.xavier@pucrs.br) on 2018-04-27T19:50:00Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Fernando Comiran_A VALSA DOS POBRES_Vers?o Final.pdf: 1413588 bytes, checksum: 9a7ef91f8a0e458d56cd9292dc2c9526 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-04-27T19:53:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Fernando Comiran_A VALSA DOS POBRES_Vers?o Final.pdf: 1413588 bytes, checksum: 9a7ef91f8a0e458d56cd9292dc2c9526 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-03-27 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior - CAPES / The aim of this work is to understand the diplomatic relations between Spain and Portugal during the Congress of Vienna and its bindings with Iberian politics in South America. After the Napoleonic Wars, Spain and Portugal were reinserted into the international system as peripheral forces in European policy. Without the same diplomatic density of previous times it was up to Portuguese diplomacy to build arrangements that were able to offer some role of participation in the reorganization of the European order. From the study of diplomatic correspondence between the two courts and their diplomats it was possible to realize that while Spain directed its efforts to strength Bourbon legitimacy in the Italian territories, the Portuguese diplomacy was concentrated on the restitution of the territory of Olivenza, taken by the Spaniards in the war of 1801. For different reasons and agendas, now structured, however improvised, the issues concerning South America, especially the Missoes Orientais do Urugua and the Banda Oriental as a whole have entered transversely the agendas of Vienna. / O presente trabalho tem por objetivo compreender as rela??es diplom?ticas entre Espanha e Portugal durante o Congresso de Viena e suas vincula??es com a pol?tica ib?rica na Am?rica meridional. Ap?s as guerras napole?nicas espanh?is e portugueses foram reinseridos no sistema internacional como for?as perif?ricas da pol?tica europeia. Sem a mesma densidade diplom?tica de tempos anteriores coube a diplomacia luso-espanhola construir arranjos que fossem capazes de oferecer algum lugar de participa??o na reorganiza??o da ordem europeia. A partir do estudo de correspond?ncia diplom?tica entre as duas cortes e seus diplomatas foi poss?vel perceber que, enquanto a Espanha direcionava seus esfor?os pela legitimidade din?stica bourb?nica nos territ?rios italianos a diplomacia portuguesa concentrava seus esfor?os na restitui??o do territ?rio de Oliven?a, tomado pelos espanh?is na Guerra de 1801. Por motivos distintos e por agendas, ora estruturadas, ora improvisadas, as quest?es relativas ? Am?rica do Sul, especialmente, as Miss?es Orientais do Uruguai e a Banda Oriental como um todo entraram transversalmente nas pautas de Viena.