Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo realizar un balance crítico sobre la figura moderna del derecho en torno a la pregunta: ¿las leyes nacen para la coacción o para proteger y reproducir la vida material, humana? El estudio se desarrolló mediante un recorrido introductorio sobre el debate clásico entre derecho natural (iusnaturalismo) y positivo (iuspositivismo). En un segundo momento, se elabora un bosquejo del tema de “racionalidad formal del derecho” y se discuten las principales propuestas de Kelsen y Luhmann, de donde se retoman algunos planteamientos enriquecedores sobre el análisis de la reconstrucción racional del derecho. Se ofrece una propuesta fundada desde otro horizonte categorial. Por tanto, la discusión y reflexión sobre los marcos de fundamentación jurídica sirven para comprender las condiciones de posibilidad de validez y legitimidad del derecho, comprendiendo que la ciencia jurídica no deviene ciencia por el solo hecho de creer que la verdad de sus enunciados y su carácter de obligatoriedad constituyen los únicos criterios de validez irrecusables y que es en el derecho, en las necesidades materiales de los pueblos o comunidades, donde está depositada la complejidad de la vida histórico-concreta. Es allí donde el campo jurídico adquiere su riqueza y significancia histórica. Para tal cometido, es muy importante entender las pugnas históricas entre el iusnaturalismo y el iuspositivismo, entre derecho formal y el material. Conocer las antinomias de ambas perspectivas sirve para saber hacia dónde se encamina la ciencia jurídica en cuanto a su utilidad social y responsabilidad histórica.

Within Costa Rican society, a reduced vision of Afro-Costa Rican culture limited it to the culinary of rice and beans, patí (an empanada filled with spiced meat), and the so-called Calypso music. This Afro culture in Limón, Costa Rica, is a heritage of Afro-Caribbean immigrants from the late 19th century. The Afro-Costa Rican culture of the 21st century has inherited elements from these immigrants, particularly the Jamaicans. This article aims to provide a historical approach to achieve two objectives: first, to verify how many of these elements of immigrant culture have been preserved; and second, to contribute to the United Nations declaration of the Decade of Afro-descendants (2015-2024) by conducting research focused on the Afro community. For this purpose, primary sources used were the oral history of two Afro-Costa Ricans born in the mid-20 century, and general information a Jamaican provided through e-mails for a more contemporary view of Jamaica's culture. Some 20th-century newspapers were also reviewed, as well as other publications related to the subject. Among the principal conclusions drawn, the study highlighted the persistence of elements typical of Afro-Caribbean immigrant groups' culture in the 20th century's turn. Besides, it is evident the modification of the culinary traditions adapted to the current society, as well as other inherited cultural elements, which currently deserve recognition from this Afro-Costa Rican culture that has important cultural elements that should be appreciated and preserved.

El artículo realiza un análisis teórico y hermenéutico, basado en una revisión de literatura que aborda la conducta neural del individuo. Se estudian aspectos como los hemisferios cerebrales, la teoría de los tres cerebros, los procesos sinápticos y la neuro-motivación, ligados a conducta de la persona, temas que permiten estructurar los fundamentos teóricos y que sustentan el concepto de la neuro-conducta. Posteriormente se hace una exégesis ligada a los conceptos generales de la neuro-economía, donde se analiza el comportamiento neural de los individuos. El análisis se realiza desde los dos principales enfoques económicos: la izquierda y la derecha, a partir de lo cual se logra estructurar el concepto de la neuro-demanda. Finalmente, con base en el análisis realizado se realiza el planteamiento de un modelo matemático y gráfico de gestión neuro-económico de la demanda y su respectiva ecuación.

This article aims to understand how citizen participation is practiced from the point of view of deprivation of liberty and what are the formal mechanisms identified by the legal system, as well as their limitations and scope. The proposal is to reconstruct the main elements that show the evolution of access to formal citizen participation of persons deprived of liberty in Costa Rica. The methodology implemented was the analysis of data from the presidential elections. These considered data were from 1998 (when the population was allowed to vote) until 2018. Besides, data from other types of activities, such as the 2007 referendum and the use of legal tools, such as the electoral appeals filed to guarantee political rights in prisons, were examined. On the other hand, the discussion revolves around the exercise of citizen participation as one of the most studied subjects in the Social Sciences, which, however, has been little explored in the context of populations in high conditions of vulnerability, such as persons deprived of liberty. Therefore, the findings show low levels of participation and presuppose the existence of important limitations, not in access as such, but in the elements that allow the exercise of rights. It is concluded that the guarantees available to the prison population in this area constitute a challenge for the authorities in terms of the exercise of citizenship and national and international normative support.

The article presents the contributions of criminological clinical studies on personality as a valuable instrument for criminological science, which allows determining the causes and factors of antisocial behavior. The methodology used is a documentary analysis to understand and dispel these studies' negative stigma since their misunderstanding has generated legislative reforms that directly affect the Mexican Penitentiary System's objective: social reintegration. The evolution of this criminological method is studied to discern the need to analyze and understand the subject. Besides, they provide tools reintegrate people deprived of liberty into social life positively and productively, without violating human rights; instead, the meaning of the penitentiary system is to dignify the treatment of people deprived of liberty, safeguarding their human rights and keeping in mind that the ultimate goal is reintegration. The paper emphasizes the need for these personality studies on people deprived of liberty since, thanks to them, individualized support can be provided in the process of social reintegration to avoid recidivism in the same causes that generate antisocial behavior. 

El artículo analiza los diversos perfiles neuro conductuales en ingenieros de distintas áreas en Costa Rica. El desarrollo investigativo consistió primeramente en detallar los datos de carácter demográfico que permiten estructurar un perfil general de estos profesionales, analizados desde un enfoque de neuro-conducta; posteriormente,  se indagaron en variables de corte asociativo y conductual, que permiten generar aproximaciones de comportamiento de los sujetos de estudio para efectos de determinar los posibles perfiles neuro conductuales. Se toman en cuenta las múltiples ramas y enfoques ingenieriles y se tratan temas como el perfil demográfico y aspecto conductual de los profesionales. La metodología se basa en el análisis de los datos de campo efectuados, el cual se ha realizado con 132 ingenieros en Costa Rica. La muestra fue procesada por una metodología de población infinita, ya que es muy difícil definir de forma precisa una población clara de ingenieros activos. La discusión gira en torno a datos de carácter descriptivo como la edad, género, estado civil, etc., con el fin de estructurar un perfil de los profesionales y, posteriormente, analizarlos mediante variables asociativas y conductuales. Dado lo anterior, es posible establecer perfiles neuro-conductuales mediante procesos como: neuroquímicos, lóbulos cerebrales y sinápticos. Además, mediante una función matemática, es viable obtener resultados que permiten diferenciar perfiles neuro-conductuales de los profesionales. Estos contienen relación como las toma de decisión, personalidad, capacidad analítica y círculo social. Es permisible concluir que los profesionales en Ingeniería poseen elementos sobresalientes como los procesos analíticos de corte post-sinápticos, asociados a la importancia de pensamientos analíticos. De igual manera, las variables como la capacidad analítica y toma de decisiones son especialmente definidoras de los patrones y perfiles de conducta.

This research examines the practices of university students for whom the training process has been modified due to COVID-19 pandemics; the process adopted a remote attendance of courses that interacts with virtual learning spaces. Because of the challenges posed, a study was implemented whose objective was to analyze the effects of access to ICTs by university students from the National University (UNA), Chorotega Region Campus, Liberia, Costa Rica, and its possible repercussions on teaching-learning processes. This was achieved by conducting a study with a quantitative, descriptive, and explanatory approach; the study was conducted in a sample of 221 university students. The results revealed wide inequalities in the following four components in different student groups: connectivity, technological resources, inconveniences, and alternate complications. Besides, the results showed that, in the interaction with ICTs, there is an evident discrepancy in access to digital resources, known as the digital divide. Important variables to be considered to address the mental health of students and teachers also stand out. The research establishes that digital literacy is a social challenge still pending. Therefore, recommendations are proposed to the UNA’s different instances, especially to the Office of the Vice President for Student Welfare and the Office of the Vice President for Teaching.

This article presents the development of an exploratory research project conducted from 2018 to 2019. The project’s purpose was to determine how human rights and values are present in some courses of the Center for General Studies (CEG), the Costa Rican Humanistic College, and the CEG's Master's Degree in Humanism, Society and Environment. The study was part of the activities of Education in Values and Human Rights Project in Teacher Training, of the German Cooperation Agency (DAAD), developed by the University of Ösnabruck, the University of Costa Rica, and the National University (CEG-CIDE). During 2019, each university performed the documentary analysis of the programs and applied the focus groups and the questionnaires in selected academic units. For the documentary analysis, the National University worked with the programs of the Costa Rican Humanistic High School courses, which can be eligible for a transfer credit process at the General Studies Center; those courses corresponded to the 2018 in-depth program and were part of a pilot plan. The National University also worked with the programs of the Center for General Studies and of the Master in Humanism, Society and Environment. The results show that human rights and values topics are implicitly present in most of the programs analyzed. It is recommended to make these issues explicit and to address them intentionally in the courses, so as to achieve greater coherence between humanist theory and practice in the classroom.