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The change in land use resulting from human activities occurs at both global and local scales. The present research focuses on the multi-temporal analysis of land use change on Santa Cruz Island, Galápagos. Therefore, the analysis of land uses and their transition with vegetation cover was proposed to examine their evolution. Geographic Information Systems and the Supervised Classification technique were employed to identify changes in the terrain over time and the factors responsible for these alterations. In order to obtain accurate information about existing land uses in the study area, free satellite images were used, allowing the distinction of four distinct classes. Through this analysis, it was possible to determine the evolution of land use over a period of 32 years, spanning from 1991 to 2023. The results revealed that the classified areas underwent modifications due to both natural and human-induced factors, including livestock and agricultural activities, as well as demographic growth. To validate the obtained data, a confusion matrix was conducted, and the Kappa index was applied. These procedures demonstrated the robustness and agreement of the model used, ensuring high accuracy compared to reality. In conclusion, this study provides a comprehensive view of land use change on Santa Cruz Island, Galápagos, and offers relevant information about the factors that have contributed to such changes over time. The results have significant implications for sustainable land management and ecosystem conservation in this important region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article proposes a system of a quantitative assessment of the ability of inspectors to make correct decisions, applying an R&R study by attributes, with the method of risk analysis, supported by contingency tables and the Cohen Kappa index. Additionally, it establishes a tool to simplify the required calculations and a proposed inspection method that seeks to reduce the variability associated with the inspection process. In this paper, a simulation study is made. We simulate several quality inspectors and three sceneries. Results show a quality level between 95% and 99% was obtained. It is possible to show that reducing the variability of inspection processes results through standardized methods, criteria equalization, and staff training improves the quality level process. The procedure presented and simulated in this article can be applied in the qualitative inspection, such as manufacturing processes as services processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Boletin de Geologia is the property of Universidad Industrial de Santander and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study aimed to describe and analyze the birth and death certification process in a medicine-teaching hospital in Bogotá during 2014, regarding both the information flow and the quality of the reported death cause. A methodology was designed to monitor the quality and coverage of the birth and death hospital statistics. Seventeen final-year medicine students attending to their public health training took part in the data collection about 511 clinical records of non-fetal deaths, and excluding the deaths due to external causes occurring in 2014, (it accounts for 58% of all non-fetal deaths in the hospital during this year). Being granted access to the medical records of the deceased patients, the duly instructed students completed the death certificate forms and were supervised by different specialist teachers according to the diagnosis. The basic death cause attributed after the supervision was compared to the death cause originally certified by the hospital physicians in the online record system currently used in Colombia: RUAF-ND. The agreement in identifying the basic death cause was estimated and a gross matching of 80% was found, with a Kappa index between 57% and 95%, being all statistically above zero after grouping the basic death causes as per CIE10 chapter, and obtaining 6% of unusable codes in both databases. This study could be replicated in other medicine-teaching hospital in order to strengthen the medical student training in vital statistics while monitoring the quality of the birth and death records in the medicine-teaching hospitals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil degradation and diminished production in the desert of La Tatacoa are attributed to both environmental and anthropic factors. This article assesses the spatiotemporal dynamics of soil coverage in a discontinuous period of 23 years (1987-2001-2010), identifying areas of loss and recovery of vegetation. Geometric and radiometric corrections were applied, in addition, a quantitative analysis was performed by applying supervised classification to Landsat images. Spatiotemporal dynamics were identified through change matrices and the Kappa index. Multitemporal analysis showed a decrease in the areas of degraded soils (16.7%) and an increase in vegetal coverage (13.4%), which evinces a recovery process of 124 ha/year. The areas of stable natural vegetation and of greatest positive variation in the vegetal coverage are located to the north, northeast, and east, while the negative variation can be observed in the region adjacent to the Magdalena river. These results serve as the basis for new research on the biotic, abiotic, and socioeconomic factors that have generated the recovery of natural vegetation areas in some sectors and desertification in others. They seek to contribute to the formulation of sectorized measures such as ecological restoration as well as silvopastoral and agroforestry systems in according to social and environmental issues in a context of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Terra Latinoamericana is the property of Sociedad Mexicana de la Ciencia del Suelo A.C. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

INTRODUCTION: malignant tumors of the nose and paranasal sinuses represent 1% of malignant neoplasms of the body and 3% of those originating in the upper respiratory tract; the most common is epidermoid carcinoma. OBJECTIVE: determine the concordance between results of malignant neoplasms detected by pathology and those detected by computed tomography. MATERIAL AND METHODS: of histopathological results for malignant neoplasms of the nose and paranasal sinuses, obtained from 2012 to 2015, those with interpretation were included. We determined how many neoplasms were diagnosed as such in image studies and calculated the concordance with the Kappa coefficient. RESULTS: of 192 histopathological results of malignant neoplasms of the nose and paranasal sinuses, in the period studied, 42 had tomography and interpretation; the non-concordant proportion was 15 (35.7%) cases, the concordant proportion was 27 (64.3%) cases, and the observed proportion was 0.64; the expected proportion was estimated at 0.26, calculating a Kappa coefficient of 0.51 with "moderate" strength concordance. CONCLUSIONS: we can conclude that, to increase diagnostic concordance, it is essential to have a good clinical history and examination of the patient. In extension studies, it is important to have a suspected site of the primary tumor and conduct acquisition protocols and post-process protocols suitable for the head and neck region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]