Cocaine + Surfing: Reviewed by Jack Ryan, Gettysburg College

If you seek a conclusive answer to the question that seems to anchor Chas Smith\u27s Cocaine + Surfing: A Sordid History of Surfing\u27s Greatest Love Affair, Did surfing and cocaine start together in Peru and never leave each other\u27s embrace?, you will be disappointed. In his preface, Smith discusses the death of Andy Irons, the three-time world surfing champion from Hawaii who died November 2, 2010, alone in a Dallas hotel room of cardiac arrest brought on by cocaine abuse. Irons was thirty-two years old. According to Smith, no one in the cosseted surfing world was surprised: Drugs and surfing, especially cocaine, felt synonymous with professional surfing those eight-odd years ago (15). Chapter 1, ironically titled The Call to Adventure!, places Smith, our first-person narrator, on a hero\u27s journey. [excerpt

Teacher Unionization and the Quality of Education in Peru: An Empirical Evaluation Using Survey Data

This paper analyzes the evolution and current profile of teacher unionization and estimate the impact of unionization on the quality of public education in Peru. The research uses data from a 1999 household survey (ENAHO) and from a recent evaluation of a public program oriented to improve the quality of Peruvian public education. Regarding the evolution of unionization, there is evidence compatible with the hypothesis that the rate of teacher unionization has dropped during the last three decades, but especially during the 1990s, due basically to the hiring of temporary teachers. With respect to the profile of unionization, it is found that unionized teachers are older and more experienced, and that males are more common in the union membership. There is no empirical evidence that unionized teachers enjoy better access to educational infrastructure at the polidocente (larger) schools, but they do have better access at the multigrado (intermediate) schools. For the impact of unionization on quality, Hoxby’s production function model was adapted to the Peruvian case, in which public education is centralized and in which teachers do not have major influence on the education budget at the school or district levels. The model is estimated to test whether unionization has an impact on teachers’ effort and student achievement, but there is no empirical support for these hypotheses. The data indicate that unionization does not currently seem to be a major factor affecting the quality of educational services in the Peruvian public education system.

Titling, Credit Constraints and Rental Markets in Rural Peru: Exploring Channels and Conditioned Impacts

This paper constructs a baseline and pursues an overall impact evaluation of the PETT (Programa Especial de Titulación de Tierras), an ambitious rural titling program created in Peru in 1992. The general evaluation of impacts on farmers shows a picture of not many positive effects, at least in the short period of the evaluation (2004-2006) and for a limited sample of farmers located in the Coast and Sierra regions. On average, most income variables (and income composition) do not seem to be impacted by titling, and there are no detectable effects on investments (except for permanent pasture in the Sierra) or other outcome variables, such as credit, land markets, or land conflicts. However, this general picture hides important impacts that may occur for some groups of farmers, or for farmers facing different constraints in the pre-intervention stage. Given the limitations, we investigated in more detail two important channels that are behind the potential impacts of rural titling programs: credit access and use of land rental markets.

How effective are rewards programs in promoting payment card usage? Empirical evidence

Card issuers have mainly relied on rewards programs as their main strategic driver to increase electronic payments. However, there is scarce evidence on the effectiveness of rewards programs. This paper offers novel evidence on two key issues: i) it measures the impact of rewards programs on the use of payment cards; and ii) it quantifies their economic impact in terms of the cash substitution. The results show that rewards may significantly modify preferences for card payments, their economic impact vary significantly across types of rewards and merchant activities and rewards seem to be more effective on average for debit cardholders. JEL Classification: G20, D12, E41cardholders, merchants, payment cards, preferences, rewards

The Effects of Chronic Ethanol Exposure on Caenorhabditis elegans Germline

Ethanol is the most commonly abused drug in the world. Alcohol consumption increases a number of health risks, morbidity and mortality, and chronic and acute diseases. Some health risks include high blood pressure, stroke, liver disease, cancer, and can include mental health and social problems. Chronic alcohol consumption can lead to learning and memory problems, along with alcohol dependence. Additionally, alcohol consumption has an impact on ovarian reserve, steroid hormone production, sperm quality, fecundity, and fertility treatments. The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of ethanol exposure on fertility of the N2 wild type as measured by the number of progeny along with the effects of chronic ethanol consumption on the mitotic germline of L4 Caenorhabditis elegans. In addition, the effects of alcohol consumption were analyzed in two mutant strains: GC1373and GC1374. GC1373 has additional mutations in the glp-1 gene and notch pathway. With mutations in these functionalities, the GC1373 strain has a reduction in the differentiation of all germ stem cells. GC1374 only has the reduction of function mutation, on the pk1417 allele, this strain only produces half the number of adult germline stem cells. Worms were treated with 0 mM, 200 mM, 300 mM and 400 mM ethanol concentrations for 7 days, after L4 stage is reached, and the effects assayed by progeny counting, ethanol absorbance, mitotic germ cell counting. Our results demonstrate that chronic ethanol exposure causes lasting effects on the C. elegans germline. Chronic ethanol exposure also decreased the progeny counts of the mutant strains GC1373 and GC1374. The results presented support previous work performed on various animal models indicating chronic ethanol exposure decreased the reproductive abilities; acute exposure, for 15 minutes or 120 minutes, does not cause lasting effects on the progeny of C. elegans nor on the birth rate of other animal models. Our data suggests that chronic ethanol exposure causes lasting damage to the C. elegans germline

Mejora de los ingresos económicos de los recicladores formales del distrito de Independencia en el periodo 2009-2013

In Peru there is an unmet demand with respect to the municipal solid waste collection service in urban areas, where most of the solid wastes not collected are burned, used as pig food, thrown into rivers, etc. These situations cause environmental and health problems. Improving the collection system and solid waste treatment is an alternative to the solid waste problem. Given the characteristics of Lima, formal recyclers are considered as strategic allies to improve the solid waste collection system. The formalization of recyclers has improved their income, considering that the informal recyclers have low incomes, which does not allow them to improve their quality of life in many aspects. According to the collected and analyzed information of the recyclers´ income when they were informal, their income increased when they become formal.En el Perú se tiene una demanda insatisfecha en el servicio de recolección de residuos sólidos municipales de las áreas urbanas, donde gran parte de los residuos que no son recolectados son quemados, empleados como alimento para cerdos, lanzados a ríos, etc., estás situaciones crean problemas ambientales y de salud. Como alternativas al problema de residuos sólidos, se tiene que mejorar el sistema de recojo y el tratamiento de los residuos sólidos. Teniendo en cuenta las características de Lima, se considera a los recicladores formales como aliados estratégicos para mejorar el sistema de recojo de los residuos sólidos. La formalización de los recicladores ha incidido en la mejora de los ingresos económicos de estos, considerando que los recicladores informales tienen ingresos económicos bajos, que no les permite mejorar en varios aspectos su calidad de vida. Según la información recogida y analizada de los ingresos de los recicladores cuando eran informales, se incrementó cuando pasaron a la formalidad

Quarantined Sobremesa

This paper looks into the challenge of adapting a Sobremesa (familiar eating ritual from Latin American culture) into a digital platform. Along the design process, Quarantined Sobremesa [QS], weaves the methodological approach of Speculative design and the interdisciplinary research of Food Systems. In the midst of the current COVID-19 pandemic, this digital mealtime provided an interactive platform for different actors and commensality backgrounds across the lockdown globe. Overall, this experience suggested how a meal could be a joyful and critical medium to allocate our everyday eating habits in the bioregional food systems. Consequently, the narrative of this text will articulate a theoretical research review, qualitative data and participant observant notes from [QS], as well as news and journalist information

Private Lenders, Banks and Mortgage Credit in Peru. Evidence from Notarised Loans

This article examines the mortgage credit market of Peru during the guano era and analyses the effects of the creation of mortgage banks on the allocation of credit. It shows that mortgage banks served as interregional intermediaries and facilitated access to long-term credit for large estate owners. However, banks did not broaden access to credit. As private lenders, mortgage banks loaned largely to Lima’s merchants and renters and to hacendados from the main coastal valleys.Este artículo examina el mercado de crédito hipotecario del Perú durante la era del guano y analiza los efectos de la creación de los bancos hipotecarios en la asignación del crédito. El artículo muestra que los bancos hipotecarios operaron como intermediarios interregionales y facilitaron el acceso a crédito de largo plazo a dueños de propiedades inmuebles. Sin embargo, los bancos no ampliaron el acceso al crédito. Como los prestamistas privados, los bancos hipotecarios mayormente prestaron a comerciantes y propietarios de inmuebles de Lima y a hacendados de los principales valles costeros