Browsing by Subject "Ecuador"
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Item Diversity and distribution of the Caddisflies (Insecta: Trichoptera) of Ecuador(2017) Ríos-Touma, Blanca; Holzenthal, Ralph W.; Huisman, Jolanda; Thomson, Robin; Rázuri-Gonzales, ErnestoBackground. Aquatic insects and other freshwater animals are some of the most threatened forms of life on Earth. Caddisflies (Trichoptera) are highly biodiverse in the Neotropics and occupy a wide variety of freshwater habitats. In Andean countries, including Ecuador, knowledge of the aquatic biota is limited, and there is a great need for baseline data on the species found in these countries. Here we present the first list of Trichoptera known from Ecuador, a country that harbors two global biodiversity ‘‘hotspots.’’ Methods.We conducted a literature review of species previously reported from Ecuador and supplemented these data with material we collected during five recent field inventories from about 40 localities spanning both hotspots. Using species presence data for each Ecuadorian province, we calculated the CHAO 2 species estimator to obtain the minimum species richness for the country. Results. We recorded 310 species, including 48 new records from our own field inventories for the country. CHAO 2 calculations showed that only 54% of the species have been found. Hydroptilidae and Hydropsychidae were the most species rich families. We report the family Xiphocentronidae for the first time from Ecuador as well as several new records of genera from different families. Discussion. As in the neighboring Andean countries of Colombia and Peru, it is common to find undescribed species of caddisflies. There are vast areas of Ecuador and the northern Andes that are completely unexplored, and we expect that hundreds of new species are yet to be discovered.Item Entrepreneurship and the macroeconomy.(2009-08) Kartashova, Katsiaryna L.This thesis focuses on entrepreneur as an owner of a privately held business. As the name "privately held" suggests, there are no readily available markets for trading risks associated with entrepreneurs' investments in their businesses. On the contrary, investments in publicly traded companies provide opportunities for diversification of risks through trade in public equity markets. I study the characteristics of these alternative investments and their effect on decisions of entrepreneurs to invest in a portfolio of private and public equities. First, I compare empirically returns to an index of all non-traded entrepreneurial equity and to an index of publicly traded equity in the United States. Second, I study the aggregate effects of improving investment conditions in public equity markets through their influence on entrepreneurs' individual portfolio decisions. I provide explicit quantitative measures of associated changes in the welfare of entrepreneurs and levels of aggregate economic activity using data from Ecuador and Chile.Item Five new species of Polycentropodidae (Trichoptera) from Ecuador and Venezuela(Magnolia Press, 2005) Hamilton, Steven W.; Holzenthal, Ralph W.Diagnoses, descriptions and illustrations of male genitalia are given for four new species of the Polycentropus gertschi group, Polycentropus cressae n. sp., Polycentropus neblinensis n. sp., Polycentropus quadricuspidis n. sp., and Polycentropus silex n. sp. The former two are from Venezuela and the latter two from Ecuador. In addition, a diagnosis, description and set of male genitalia illustrations are provided for Polyplectropus beccus, a new species from Ecuador. The generic placement of this species, while currently appropriate, may require reclassification pending completion of ongoing studies on Neotropical polycentropodids.Item Los determinantes sociales de salud y las prácticas de prevención de los embarazos adolescentes en la parroquia de Cotocollao del Distrito Metropolitano de Quito(2019-04) Gaikowski, Audra AEn julio 2018, el Ministerio de Salud Pública manifestó que se considera que “el embarazo en niñas y adolescentes es un grave problema de desigualdad social, salud pública y de vulneración de derechos humanos; especialmente el embarazo en niñas menores de 14 años está directamente vinculado con violencia sexual” (Ministerio de Salud Pública, 2018). En los últimos 30 años, el gobierno ecuatoriano ha hecho muchos programas de prevención y intervención de los embarazos adolescentes. Sin embargo, siguen tasas más altas en Quito, y en Ecuador en general, que el nivel mundial de los embarazos adolescentes. Además, la tasa de los embarazos adolescentes en la edad 10 a 14 años sigue creciendo cada año (García, 2018). Este estudio está enfocado en los determinantes sociales de salud y las prácticas de prevención que se desarrollan por parte del gobierno ecuatoriano. El propósito es conocer más como los determinantes sociales de salud influyen en el riesgo de los embarazos adolescentes y que es lo que el gobierno está haciendo ahora para prevenir ese grave problema.Item A new species of Amphoropsyche (Trichoptera, Leptoceridae) from Ecuador, with a key to the species in the genus(Pensoft Publishers, 2011) Holzenthal, Ralph W.; Rázuri-Gonzales, Luis ErnestoA new species of Amphoropsyche Holzenthal is described from Ecuador. It is similar to a group of species with dorsomesal processes on the preanal appendages (i.e., A. woodruffi Flint & Sykora, A. refugia Holzenthal, and A. aragua Holzenthal), but can be distinguished from these and other members of the genus by the short, digitate dorsomesal processes on the preanal appendages and the broad lateral processes of tergum X of the male genitalia. A key to males of the 14 species now known in the genus is presented based on characters of the genitalia.Item Social class and the written and unwritten rules of competitive college admissions: A comparative study of International Baccalaureate schools in Ecuador(2020-07) Bittencourt, TiagoIn 2006, the Ecuadorian Ministry of Education signed an agreement which sought to gradually introduce the International Baccalaureate’s (IB) Diploma Programme (DP) into as many of the country’s 1400 publicly funded secondary schools as possible. The initiative was premised on the belief that the quality of public education could be significantly improved if public school students had access to the education experiences and credentials which in Ecuador were historically restricted to private schools catering to affluent students. While subject to critique by several civil societies, the initiative generated a significant amount of enthusiasm and was widely perceived as an early indication that the public-private divide which marred the country’s educational system and cemented pervasive forms of inequality was finally being rectified. Undergirding the DP initiative is a crucial assumption; that increasing access to prestigious educational programs is an important and effective way of addressing inequality. However, as numerous scholars have shown, access alone is not enough to ensure equality and generate social mobility (see Apple, 1996; Aronowitz, 2003, 2008; Jack, 2018). Rather, an overt focus on access may ignore and even conceal the forms of advantage that are unevenly distributed within different segments of society (Tan, 2008). Issues ranging from the materiality of teaching and pedagogy (Vavrus & Salema, 2013) to the practices and “informed agency” of affluent parents and students (Brantlinger, 2003) are equally important and, if left unconsidered, can greatly diminish or even negate the promise a policy such as the DP initiative upholds. This dissertation interrogates this standing assumption by examining the social and cultural processes that produce and maintain inequality, and therefore interfere with the DP initiative’s stated intent. Through process-tracing and a multi-sited ethnography of a low-income public school and an affluent private school, I found that although sponsored by Ecuador’s Ministry of Education, the DP was not recognized as a valid credential for admission to local universities. Due to this existing policy disconnect, students from both schools strictly viewed the DP as a means of gaining access to universities abroad. As a result of this shared aspirational goal, it was possible to discern important differences in how students thought through and engaged with the application process for universities abroad. These differences highlighted the formative role of students’ familial backgrounds and institutional membership, suggesting that while access to DP allowed students to share similar desired goals, circumstances outside the confines of the classroom were more likely to determine whether these goals would indeed be accomplished. In sum, while public school students were encouraged to aspire to study abroad, they were not afforded the support or have the means to effectively engage with the required application and admission processes. The gradual realization that their dreams were likely to remain unfulfilled led students to experience to a mash of affects (Berlant, 2011) which included frustration, disengagement and acquiescence. These affective responses not only conflicted with the DP initiative’s intent of equalizing opportunity, but in many ways served to reinforce existing patterns and systems of inequality. The findings of this study are not intended to discredit the DP initiative – admonishing a seemingly well-intentioned policy is a common but often unfruitful endeavor. Moreover, given the study’s design, any assertion of representation would be misleading, and therefore the impulse for generalization should be significantly tempered. Rather it is to showcase the grounded productions and the ensuing shortcomings which limit and even counteract the policy’s intended goal of addressing social inequality and equalizing opportunity. While the study was envisioned as a direct response to a specific initiative, the emerging insights speak to issues of class culture and the “internationalization” (Knight, 2004; 2015) of public education. Specifically, it will address the relationship between social class and conceptions of “responsibility”, and instances of what Bourdieu (2007) terms as “capital conversion”.