Rickettsia felis is an emerging human pathogen associated primarily with the cat flea Ctenocephalides felis. In this study, we investigated the presence of Rickettsia felis in C. felis from Guatemala and Costa Rica. Ctenocephalides felis were collected directly from dogs and cats, and analyzed by polymerase chain reaction for Rickettsia-specific fragments of 17-kDa protein, OmpA, and citrate sy...

Special education services in the country of Costa Rica have been affected by factors that most developing countries confront: shortages of trained personnel, geographic isolation of a large sector of the population, and severe economic limitations. Despite these challenges, services for students with learning disabilities in Costa Rica have rapidly expanded in the last 15 years through the dev...

T his article describes how surgery developed in Costa Rica and how it was nurtured to its present status. The practice of surgery in Costa Rica developed slowly as a charitable service. In the past 3 decades, it became accessible to 87.6% of the population through the creation of a national health service system. Our objective herein is to give the reader an understanding of how surgical pract...

Despite being important components in coastal marine systems, sea anemones have been poorly studied on both coasts of Costa Rica. In this paper new records of sea anemones are mentioned for the Caribbean and Pacific coasts of Costa Rica and the Isla del Coco National Park. Additionally, the presence of other species previously recorded in Costa Rica based on single observations or photos, is re...

In this study we attempt to make a small progress in that direction in the case of Costa Rica. The financial system of Costa Rica is relatively small and concentrated in a few intermediaries, where State-owned banks play a leading role. However, recent years have seen a drive for modernisation in banking practices that has made product and process innovation more prevalent. This led us to try t...

This article describes the progress-as well as the challenges and limitations-in reducing salt intake in Costa Rica. The National Plan to Reduce Public Consumption of Salt/Sodium in Costa Rica 2011 - 2021 was complemented with multisectoral programs and projects specifically designed to: 1) determine sodium intake and the salt/sodium content of the most widely consumed foods; identify the consu...

Following recent molecular studies on avocado thrips, a new species is described from Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Colombia from the young leaves of avocado, Persea americana. Scirtothrips hansoni sp.n. is closely related to the Californian pest, S. perseae, and also to S. astrictus from Costa Rica that remains known from a single female. An illustrated key to these three species is provided.

We present data to argue that several recent papers on the Thysanoptera of Costa Rica are affected by unsatisfactory technical procedures, including failure to recognize intraspecific structural variation. Fourteen new synonyms are recognized for Costa Rica Thysanoptera, nine generic and five specific.

Fourteen species of Sipuncula belonging to 9 genera have been reported from Costa Rican waters, mostly from the Pacific coast. Three of these species are new records for Costa Rica (Phascolion strombus (Montagu 1804), Aspidosiphon (Aspidosiphon) muelleri Diesing 1851, and Aspidosiphon (Aspidosiphon) gracilis schnehageni (W. Fisher 1946)). One species of Echiura, Thalassema steinbecki Fisher 194...

Centro de Investigaci on en Electroqu {mica y Energ {a Qu {mica (CELEQ) Universidad de Costa Rica Ciudad de la Investigaci on, Apartado 11501 2060, San Jos e, Costa Rica State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals DUT-KTH Joint Research Center on Molecular Devices Dalian University of Technology (DUT), 116024 Dalian, P. R. China ¶Department of ChemistryAngstr€ om Laboratory Uppsala University, 75105...