Robert Putnam argues that civil society-citizen activity in organizations-contributes to successful governance and democracy, which may be very important in the peaceful reconstruction of Central America. Putnam does not, however, specify in detail how civil society might shape government performance. We spell out how citizens' participation in groups might impinge upon the state through both political participation and democratic norms. We consider Putnam's category of "social capital" and add to it new "political capital" variables. We first explore the relationships among two civil society measures (formal group activism and community self help activism) and social and political capital, employing survey data from six Central American countries. We then investigate the effects of civil society and social and political capital upon levels of democracy in Central America. We find that while higher levels of formal group membership and several political capital measures are associated with higher levels of democracy, social capital does not have the relationship Putnam predicts. We conclude that political rather than social capital links formal group activism to democracy in Central America.

ABSTRACT. We describe the design, construction, and performance of an efficient new flexure-compensated Cassegrain echelle spectrograph for the 2.1-m (82-in.) Struve reflector at McDonald Observatory. The instrument has a resolving power R -k/t^k of 60,000 for two CCD pixels (for a reciprocal velocity dispersion of 2.5 kms' 1 per pixel) and provides continuous wavelength coverage for k < 8000 Â using a thinned backside-illuminated Reticon 1200x400 CCD detector. Total wavelength coverage in a single exposure varies from roughly 500 A at A=4400 A (range 4200-4700 Á) to 2500 À at k = 7500 Á (range 6500-9000 Á), and the total system efficiency at A = 6000 Á from the top of the atmosphere through the telescope, spectrograph, and CCD detector is 10% or more. The mechanical design of the Cassegrain-mounted spectrograph incorporates a unique cantilevered counterweight system designed to drastically reduce the effects of gravitational flexure. In spite of the large physical size of the Cassegrain instrument, worst-case flexure shifts over 60° (4 hr) of telescope motion are less than \ pixel and are typically on the order of 0.2 pixels or less from all sources. A subsequent paper will describe the CCD and associated electronics in detail.

Enteric viruses introduced from the community are major causes of these illnesses.

We describe the design, construction, and performance of VIRUS-P (Visible Integral-field Replicable Unit Spectrograph -Prototype), the prototype for 150+ identical fiber-fed integral field spectrographs for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX ‡ ). VIRUS-P was commissioned in 2007, is in regular service on the McDonald Observatory 2.7 m Smith telescope, and offers the largest field of any integral field spectrograph. The 246-fiber IFU uses a densepak-type fiber bundle with a 1/3 fill factor. It is fed at f/3.65 through a telecentric, two-group dioptric focal reducer. The spectrograph's double-Schmidt optical design uses a volume phase holographic grating at the pupil between the articulating f/3.32 folded collimator and the f/1.33 cryogenic prime focus camera. High on-sky throughput is achieved with this catadioptric system by the use of high reflectivity dielectric coatings, which set the 340-670 nm bandwidth. VIRUS-P is gimbal-mounted on the telescope to allow short fibers for high UV throughput, while maintaining high mechanical stability. The instrument software and the 18 square arcmin field, fixed-offset guider provide rapid acquisition, guiding, and precision dithering to fill in the IFU field. Custom software yields Poisson noise limited, sky subtracted spectra. The design characteristics are described that achieved uniformly high image quality with low scattered light and fiber-to-fiber cross talk. System throughput exceeds requirements and peaks at 40%. The observing procedures are described, and example observations are given.

We report the first detection of a planetary-mass companion to a star using the High Resolution Spectrograph (HRS) of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET). The HET-HRS now gives routine radial velocity precision of 2-3 m s −1 for high SNR observations of quiescent stars. The planetary-mass companion to the metal-rich K0V star HD 37605 has an orbital period of 54.23 days, an orbital eccentricity of 0.737, and a minimum mass of 2.84 Jupiter masses. The queue-scheduled operation of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope enabled us to discovery of this relatively short-period planet with a total observation time span of just two orbital periods. The ability of queue-scheduled large-aperture telescopes to respond quickly to interesting and important results demonstrates the power of this new approach in searching for extra-solar planets as well as in other ares of research requiring rapid response time critical observations.