Wildlife Diversity and Relative Abundance Among a Variety of Adjacent Protected Areas in the Northern Talamanca Mountains of Costa Rica

Protected areas are intended to achieve the long-term conservation of nature, but not all such areas are equal in their effectiveness because of their varying regulation of human activities. In Costa Rica, we assessed mammal and bird species presence and relative abundance in three protected areas in the northern Talamanca Mountains. In this humid tropical forest area, we placed camera traps in an adjacent national park, forest reserve, and indigenous territories, each with a different mix of human activities. In 10,120 trap nights, we obtained 6181 independent photos of mostly mammals (34 species other than humans) and birds (34 species). Species with greater abundance or only occurrence in the national park were mammals and birds commonly hunted outside of the park, large carnivores rarely documented in other areas, and poachers. Species found more often outside of the park were medium-sized mammals, some birds, and domestic mammals. We conclude that even in the same ecological area, varying regulations related to type of protected area have significant effects on some mammal and bird species abundances and occurrences, and thus need to be considered when assessing the overall effectiveness of protection as a conservation strategy

Nontangential limits and Fatou-type theorems on post-critically finite self-similar sets

In this paper we study the boundary limit properties of harmonic functions on $\mathbb R_+\times K$, the solutions $u(t,x)$ to the Poisson equation $$\frac{\partial^2 u}{\partial t^2} + \Delta u = 0,$$ where $K$ is a p.c.f. set and $\Delta$ its Laplacian given by a regular harmonic structure. In particular, we prove the existence of nontangential limits of the corresponding Poisson integrals, and the analogous results of the classical Fatou theorems for bounded and nontangentially bounded harmonic functions.Comment: 22 page

ANDEAN CONDOR (VULTUR GRYPHUS) NESTING IN NORTHEASTERN COLOMBIA AND DIFFERENCES IN LAYING DATES ALONG THE ANDES

ABSTRACT Little is known about the breeding behavior of the Andean Condor in the wild, especially in the Northern Andes, where densities of this species are low and their nests are difficult to find. We describe an active Andean Condor nest found in March 2015 on the western slope of the eastern Colombian Andes, representing the first country nest record since 1972, and report observations on nesting behavior. We recorded behavior of the male and female attending the nest using direct observations and a camera trap during two months. Both parents attended the nest, but the female did so significantly longer than the male. We assume that the nesting attempt failed because our photographic observation showed no evidence of the adults, the egg, or any chick at the end of the observation period. In addition, we collated available information about the nesting and incubation periods of Andean Condors in the wild along the Andes range. We found latitudinal differences in laying dates. Egg laying occurs in the second half of the year in southern latitudes of the Andean Condor’s range (Chile, Argentina), and primarily in the first half of the year in northern latitudes (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru). RESUMEN ∙ Nidificación del Cóndor Andino (Vultur gryphus) en el norte de la cordillera oriental de Colombia y diferencias en las temporadas de incubación en los AndesEl comportamiento reproductivo del Cóndor Andino es poco conocido, especialmente en el norte de los Andes, en donde las poblaciones de la especie se encuentran reducidas en número y sus nidos son difíciles de encontrar. En éste artículo presentamos el hallazgo de un nido activo de Cóndor Andino en el páramo del Almorzadero, en la Cordillera Oriental colombiana en marzo de 2015. Este sería el primer registro de un nido de cóndores silvestres para Colombia desde 1972. Se presentan adicionalmente descripciones del comportamiento de los adultos en cuanto al cuidado del nido y atención del huevo realizadas mediante observaciones con binoculares y fotografías capturadas con una cámara trampa durante un periodo de dos meses. Mediante los dos métodos de registro (observación directa y fotografías de la cámara trampa), se encontró que, aunque los dos padres atendieron el nido y el huevo, la hembra lo hizo durante un tiempo significativamente mayor. Se consideró que el evento de reproducción fue fallido dado que no se obtuvieron registros de los adultos, el huevo o el polluelo al final de la temporada de observación. Debido a que las variaciones climáticas generadas por la latitud afectan la fisiología y biología reproductiva de las aves, se realizó una revisión de los artículos disponibles sobre las temporadas de anidación de la especie a lo largo de la Cordillera de los Andes. La información disponible sugiere que la latitud puede tener un efecto sobre las temporadas de incubación del Cóndor Andino, ocurriendo en el sur de los Andes (Chile, Argentina) en el segundo semestre del año y para la región norte (Colombia, Ecuador, Perú) durante el primer semestre

Isotropically polarized speckle patterns

Under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0 (CC-BY).The polarization of the light scattered by an optically dense and random solution of dielectric nanoparticles shows peculiar properties when the scatterers exhibit strong electric and magnetic polarizabilities. While the distribution of the scattering intensity in these systems shows the typical irregular speckle patterns, the helicity of the incident light can be fully conserved when the electric and magnetic polarizabilities of the scatterers are equal. We show that the multiple scattering of helical beams by a random dispersion of >dual> dipolar nanospheres leads to a speckle pattern exhibiting a perfect isotropic constant polarization, a situation that could be useful in coherent control of light as well as in lasing in random media.M. K. S. and J. A. acknowledge funding from Project No. FIS2013-41184-P of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, the Project No. ETORTEK IE14-393 NANOGUNE’14 of the Department of Industry of the Government of the Basque Country, Project No. IT756-13 of the Department of Education and Culture of the Basque Country, and Grant No. AP-2012-4204 from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sport. J. J. S. acknowledges financial support by the Spanish MINECO (Grant No. FIS2012-36113) and by IKERBASQUE. G. M.-T. is supported by the Australian Research Council (Grant No. FT110100924).Peer Reviewe

La participación ciudadana como elemento legitimador del gobierno

Key words: Participation, citizenship, genuinenessAbstract. The technological changes and the information flowing in continuous and global form has taken to westernized societies to be exposed to relative data of what happens in their community and in distant communities territorially. The information causes that the citizens have an opinion before the decisions and the governments' actions, and when a decision affects its personal sphere negatively, it feels the impulse of to act and to take a grade of control of the decision that impacts in its person and in its collective or union. Theparticular matters that the civic participation takes to the public light spread easily to arrive to the political calendar, for what the government reacts quickly to their demands, before the threat that the public opinion reduces its genuineness and get lost to be able to. This massive information and the positive discrimination have caused that the civic participation hasincreased considerably for benefit from the society when being listened their demands and of the governments because if they act unerringly they can increase its genuineness.Palabras clave: Participación, ciudadanía, legitimidadResumen. Los cambios tecnológicos y la información fluyendo en forma continua y global ha llevado a la sociedades occidentalizadas a estar expuestas a datos relativos de lo que sucede en su comunidad y en comunidades lejanas territorialmente. La información provoca que los ciudadanos tengamos una opinión ante las decisiones y acciones de los gobiernos, y cuando una decisión afecta negativamente su esfera personal, siente el impulso de actuar ytomar un grado de control de la decisión que impacta en su persona y en su colectividad o gremio. Los asuntos particulares que la participación ciudadana lleva a la luz pública tienden fácilmente a llegar a la agenda política, por lo que el gobierno reacciona rápidamente a sus demandas, ante la amenaza de que la opinión pública reduzca su legitimidad y se pierda poder. Esta información masiva y la discriminación positiva han provocado que la participación ciudadana haya aumentado considerablemente para beneficio de la sociedad al ser escuchadas sus demandas y de los gobiernos porque si actúan certeramente pueden aumentar su legitimidad

Transition from Diffusive to Localized Regimes in Surface Corrugated Optical Waveguides

Exact calculations of the transmittance of surface corrugated optical waveguides are presented. The elastic scattering of diffuse light or other electromagnetic waves from a rough surface induces a diffusive transport along the waveguide axis. As the length of the corrugated part of the waveguide increases, a transition from the diffusive to the localized regime is observed. This involves an analogy with electron conduction in nanowires, and hence, a concept analogous to that of ``resistance'' can be introduced. We show an oscillatory behavior of both the elastic mean free path and the localization length versus the wavelength.Comment: 3 pages, REVTEX, 3 PS figure

Statistical Scattering of Waves in Disordered Waveguides: from Microscopic Potentials to Limiting Macroscopic Statistics

We study the statistical properties of wave scattering in a disordered waveguide. The statistical properties of a "building block" of length (delta)L are derived from a potential model and used to find the evolution with length of the expectation value of physical quantities. In the potential model the scattering units consist of thin potential slices, idealized as delta slices, perpendicular to the longitudinal direction of the waveguide; the variation of the potential in the transverse direction may be arbitrary. The sets of parameters defining a given slice are taken to be statistically independent from those of any other slice and identically distributed. In the dense-weak-scattering limit, in which the potential slices are very weak and their linear density is very large, so that the resulting mean free paths are fixed, the corresponding statistical properties of the full waveguide depend only on the mean free paths and on no other property of the slice distribution. The universality that arises demonstrates the existence of a generalized central-limit theorem. Our final result is a diffusion equation in the space of transfer matrices of our system, which describes the evolution with the length L of the disordered waveguide of the transport properties of interest. In contrast to earlier publications, in the present analysis the energy of the incident particle is fully taken into account.Comment: 75 pages, 10 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev

Community College Student Engagement Patterns: A Typology Revealed Through Exploratory Cluster Analysis

This study employs survey data from the Center for Community College Student Engagement to examine the similarities and differences that exist across student-level domains in terms of student engagement in community colleges. In total, the sample used in the analysis pools data from 663 community colleges and includes more than 320,000 students. Using data-mining techniques to discover a parsimonious number of natural clusters and, in turn, a k-means cluster analysis as a means of revealing a naturally occurring typology of engagement patterns, our findings reveal that support service utilization is the most distinguishing feature of the similarities and dissimilarities across student groups, suggesting areas for further theory development and testing

Community College Student Engagement Patterns: A Typology Revealed Through Exploratory Cluster Analysis

This study employs survey data from the Center for Community College Student Engagement to examine the similarities and differences that exist across student-level domains in terms of student engagement in community colleges. In total, the sample used in the analysis pools data from 663 community colleges and includes more than 320,000 students. Using data-mining techniques to discover a parsimonious number of natural clusters and, in turn, a k-means cluster analysis as a means of revealing a naturally occurring typology of engagement patterns, our findings reveal that support service utilization is the most distinguishing feature of the similarities and dissimilarities across student groups, suggesting areas for further theory development and testing