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| 2. |
- Berg, Linda, 1974-
(författare)
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InterNacionalistas : identifikation och främlingskap i svenska solidaritetsarbetares berättelser från Nicaragua
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this thesis is to explore what solidarity workers from Sweden narrate about and from activities in Nicaragua. I focus on how identities reflect nationalising, racialising and gendering imaginations, and how these are being handled within the context of an international solidarity movement – with the ambition to strive for global justice. My search for answers takes its point of departure in a wide gender-oriented postcolonial perspective. With an understanding of identities and places as relational and plastic, postcolonial theory attempts to see the inevitable dilemmas of colonialism, to visualise people who have been sacrificed in the name of colonialism and nationalism. It is a theoretical field concerned with the struggle for the word, values and actions categorised by a (post)colonial order. The dissertation is divided into six chapters. After the introductory chapter, chapter 2 contains a discussion of the concept solidarity as a valuable designation for these activities, connected to a national self-image and as a determining factor for the informants' understanding of their identities. One fundamental theme in this study is the tension concerning “white”, “western”, “Swedish” solidarity workers speaking for and working with people in Nicaragua. In Chapter 3, “To make oneself trustworthy”, I take a closer look at this and discusses how the interviewees verbalised strategies to handle possible positions and the paradoxes of their employment. In chapter 4 “Nationalising gender”, I examine the speech of women, men, machismo and gender equality – and how they interrelate with other factors within the stories from the period in Nicaragua. The difficulties to intervene as a Swedish volunteer or coordinator in Nicaragua were well known among the interviewees/narrators and their organisations. How and what activities for change could be in different parts of the world were, and are, repeated questions within (at least this part of) the Swedish international solidarity movement. This is one reason why the solidarity organisations emphasised the importance of creating space for social change via information and moulding of public opinion. In Chapter five, “Describe Nicaragua”, I analyse the written stories by solidarity workers. I take departure in a few of the dominating themes and clarify how Nicaragua was mediated to a Swedish speaking reader. I argue that the stories of the solidarity workers are captured between recognising difference and creating stereotypes and exotic projections. Even though their object is the opposite, they tend to produce representations which demand the Other to stay in the place of difference. In the very last part I discuss some problems with being the “voice of the poor”. The dissertation concludes with a short summary of some of the most central themes. Here I refer to the narrated liminality and inherited boundaries of the employment. I discuss the anti-imperialist and feminist work with a national dead weight and the efforts to create alternative images and translocal subject positions. I end the study by reflecting on the difficulties of an internationalist “we” and with reference to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, I call for “unlearning our privileges as our loss”.
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| 3. |
- Ljuslinder, Karin
(författare)
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Monitoring disabled women's human rights in Nicaragua
- 2007
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Ingår i: 10 years anniversary : NNDR - Nordic Network on Disability Research. ; , s. 1-
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This project studied violations of human rights of disabled women in Nicaragua, in order to apply the Convention on the Rights of persons with disabilities.
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| 5. |
- Tercero, Francisco
(författare)
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Measuring injury magnitude and patterns in a low-income country : experiences from Nicaragua
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- About 16,000 people around the world die every day from injuries. For every person that dies, several thousands more are injured, many suffering with permanent disabilities. However, like many other health problems, the magnitude and pattern of injuries in a certain population are often difficult to assess. While in many high-income countries, regular health registries may provide accurate figures, other approaches are often needed in low-income countries. Therefore, the overall aim of this thesis is to measure the magnitude and pattern of injuries in a defined population (mainly the municipality of Leon, Nicaragua) through the use of different methodologies. The first step in this study was to conduct an exploratory analysis (Paper 1) to compare the existing nationwide data sources on injury surveillance with respect to validity and prevention-relevance. However, these results were discouraging due to low validity and the lack of information for prevention purposes. In part due to the above, it was considered important to collect injury data in the municipality of León in other ways. One of the objectives of this second step was to describe the development of a hospital-based injury surveillance system aimed at prevention and to study the incidence of injuries based on data obtained from this data collection system (Paper 2). About 16% of emergency room visits were due to injuries in this low-income country context. For every death due to injury, 31 inpatients and 253 outpatients were reported. Homes and traffic areas were the main arenas where injuries occurred. The main causes were falls, traffic accidents and violence. The underreporting rate was 6%, and in 20.3% of the cases, no E-code was recorded. This study shows that hospital-based injury surveillance is an effective and potential means available for the prevention and control of injuries. However, its low coverage is a concern due to people s limited access to hospital services. Next, a study was conducted to provide a reliable estimation of traffic-related injuries in the same catchment area by capture-recapture analysis (using hospital and traffic police records) (Paper 3). This study demonstrated that neither police records nor hospital records nor the aggregate database provide acceptable coverage of traffic-related injuries. Limitations of coverage in both these data sources justified the realization of a survey in a representative sample in Leon municipality (Paper 4). Ninety-three percent of injuries were minor and seven percent were moderate or severe. The overall incidence rate was 414.2 per 1,000 inhabitants per year, but decreased to 27.6 per 1,000 when minor injuries were excluded. Most of the injuries were unintentional and only 1.2 percent were intentional. The main places of injury occurrence were homes and streets. Nine percent of all injured persons sought hospital treatment. The main causes of nonfatal cases were falls, traffic, and cuts, whereas fatalities were associated with intentional injuries. For every death due to injury, there was one permanent disability, 25 moderate/severe injuries, and 354 minor injuries. The seeking of hospital treatment depended on the severity of the injury. A complementary study on mortality and disability shows that the leading causes of mortality overall were non-communicable diseases (176/100,000), injuries (55/100,000) and communicable diseases (55/100,000). The incidence of disability-related injuries was 75/100,000, and the main types were skeletal, disfiguring, and blindness. Their causes were falls, traffic, and violence. Around three-quarters of disabilities and half of injury deaths received hospital attention. The leading causes of years of potential life lost (YPLL) and disability-adjusted life year (DALY) were traffic, falls, drowning, and violence (Paper 5). Based on these findings, the ascertainment and validity of data sources and injury indicators must be evaluated carefully when planning injury prevention measures. When results from these studies are compared, the distribution of causes of injury vary by severity and source. The main causes of injury deaths among different data sources were similar; however, these causes differ in non-fatal injuries. A methodological issue in hospital-based surveillance is that it often fails to capture most of the extreme outcomes on the injury spectrum. On the other hand, household surveys can capture most of the injury spectrum, which sometimes is missing in traditional data sources, but they cannot establish temporal variations of injuries, especially in fatal cases. Due to the cost associated with carrying out hospital or population-based studies, capture-recapture methods represent a good option for measuring the magnitude and pattern of injuries, especially in low-income countries where resources are scarce. In conclusion, methodological issues involving the sources of injury data, injury severity, and research methods must be assessed carefully to be able to measure injuries properly as a basis for effective interventions.
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- Garca, I., et al.
(författare)
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Removal of natural organic matter by conventional and enhanced coagulation in Nicaragua
- 2007
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Ingår i: Water Resources Management IV. - : WIT Press. - 9781845640743 ; , s. 399-409
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Enhanced coagulation was applied to raw water from a drinking water plant in Nicaragua through bench scale jar test in order to reduce the presence of natural organic matter (NOM) and decrease the trihalomethanes (THMs) formation which has been linked to carcinogenic diseases. Due to the lack of information about the presence of chlorination by-products (CBPs) like trihalomethanes, a study of their formation by varying pH, contact time, temperature and chlorine dose was also performed; following conventional or enhanced coagulation treatment. The results show that enhanced coagulation decreases considerably the formation of THMs because it reduces strongly the presence of organic matter due to the fact that higher alum doses were used in comparison with conventional coagulation utilized at the facility. The removal of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) was improved from 44 at the facility to 67 with enhanced coagulation. Trihalomethanes concentration increases drastically when extreme conditions of the four parameters evaluated were applied exceeding the maximum contaminant levels of USEPA (80 g/L) but not the Nicaraguan target value (460 g/L) for both coagulation types.
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| 7. |
- Bucardo, F, et al.
(författare)
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Mutated G4P[8] rotavirus associated with a nationwide outbreak of gastroenteritis in Nicaragua in 2005
- 2007
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Ingår i: Journal of Clinical Microbiology. - 0095-1137 .- 1098-660X. ; 45:3, s. 990-997
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- During February and March 2005, one of the largest national recorded outbreaks of severe acute gastroenteritis occurred in Nicaragua, affecting ≥64,000 individuals and causing ≥56 deaths, predominantly in children under 5 years of age. Through a nationwide laboratory-based study, stool samples were collected and investigated for rotavirus. Of 108 stool samples examined, 72 (67%) were positive for rotavirus. While 69% (50/72) of the positive samples were found in children less than 2 years of age, 50% (6/12) of the adult samples were positive. A mutated G4P[8] strain was the most commonly recognized strain (85%), followed by mixed G strains (8%) and G9P[8] (7%) strains. Phylogenetic analysis of the VP7 gene revealed that the G4 strains belonged to the emerging lineage Ic and was distantly related to the ST3 and VA70 G4 strains. Secondary structure predictions of the VP7 G4 protein revealed an insert of an asparagine residue in position 76, which, combined with additional mutations, surprisingly modified two downstream β-sheets at amino acid positions 80 to 85 and 115 to 119. The 2005 G4P[8] strain compared to a G4P[8] strain from 2002 had a substitution of an asparagine residue for threonine (Asn→Thr) at position 96 within antigenic region A, thus eliminating a potential glycosylation site. The mutated G4 virus was introduced in Nicaragua after 2002 and probably emerged from Brazil, Argentina, or Uruguay. Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
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| 8. |
- Benavente, Martha, et al.
(författare)
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Biosorption of Heavy Metals on Chitosan
- 2007
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Ingår i: Hydro Copper 2007. - Santiago, Chile : GECAMIN Ltda.. - 9789568504076 ; , s. 283-290
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)
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| 9. |
- Benavente, Martha, et al.
(författare)
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Remoción de Mercurio de Efluentes Mineros por Biosorción
- 2007
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Ingår i: Nexo. - Managua, Nicaragua : National University of Engineering (UNI). - 1818-6742. ; 20:2, s. 47-55
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- La minería y la extracción de oro en operaciones a pequeña escala han contribuido a la contaminación de los recursos acuáticos de Nicaragua durante décadas. En este trabajo se investigó un proceso de biosorción a bajo costo para la remoción de iones mercurio (II) de soluciones estándar y de aguas naturales usando quitosano como adsorbente. La regeneración del adsorbente también fue estudiada. Los resultados mostraron que la adsorción de iones mercurio fue independiente del pH en el rango de pH 4-10 y que la capacidad se reduce considerablemente a pH 2. Los estudios de la cinética mostraron una fase inicial rápida de adsorción seguida por una fase más lenta. Por otro lado, se comprobó que los datos experimentales se ajustan al modelo de Langmuir, y se determinó, mediante el uso de este modelo, una capacidad de adsorción de 106 mg Hg/g quitosano. Una solución acuosa de NaCl demostró ser una opción barata y eficiente para la regeneración del adsorbente; además, el adsorbente mostró una capacidad de adsorción alta después de la regeneración. Se encontró que la concentración de mercurio en 4 de las 8 muestras recolectadas cerca de la ciudad de la Libertad, excedían ligeramente los niveles permisibles (1.09-2.25 μg Hg L-1) para agua de consumo humano según las normas CAPRE. Además, se determinó que la capacidad de adsorción de mercurio es menor en aguas naturales que en las soluciones estándares.
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| 10. |
- Gamero, Rafael, et al.
(författare)
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Study of Heat and Mass Transfer to Determine Multicomponent Liquid Diffusion Coefficients in Partially Saturated Capillaries
- 2007
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Ingår i: Experimental heat transfer. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0891-6152 .- 1521-0480. ; 20:2, s. 147-157
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A study of simultaneous heat and mass transfer in partially saturated capillaries has been performed in order to develop a method that determines the matrix of multicomponent diffusion coefficients in liquid phase. The literature provides a semi-empirical formula developed by Bandrowski and Kubaczka [4] to calculate the matrix of multicomponent diffusion coefficients. The method separates the kinetic and thermodynamic contributions to mass transfer, and it contains an empirical exponent to improve the calculations. The present work attempts an estimation of the empirical exponent by studying the redistribution of compositions in an unsaturated nonisothermal capillary, taking into consideration the nonideality described by the matrix of thermodynamic factors. Two different ternary mixtures were tested at different temperature gradients and saturation degrees. The results reveal that the method is effective since specific values of the empirical exponent that modifies the matrix of thermodynamic factors were obtained for each system. In addition, the exponent seems to be dependent on temperature.
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