This paper summarises the general pattern of urban land-cover change in the Northeastern Illinois between 1972 and 1997 using Landsat acquired remotely sensed images. The region, centred by the city of Chicago, experienced dramatic land cover change in the past decades. Accompanying the redistribution of population and decentralisation of metropolitan functions are the tremendous growth and dev...

Drought is often a hidden risk with the potential to become a silent public health disaster. It is difficult to define precisely when it starts or when it is over, and although it is a climatological event, its impacts depend on other human activities, and are intensified by social vulnerability. In Brazil, half of all natural disaster events are drought related, and they cause half of the impa...

Laube for their valuable advice, bright ideas, and numerous contributions. Second, I wish to thank all other WSL staff members that helped me to complete this project. This particularly includes PD Dr. Rolf Grütter for various inputs on ontologies and proofreading the thesis. Furthermore, I sincerely thank Dr. Thomas Scharrenbach for introducing me into Semantic Web software such as Pellet, Pro...

OBJECTIVE To describe the construction of a factor of allocation of financial resources, based on the population's health needs. METHODS Quantitative study with data collected from public databases referring to the state of Pernambuco, Northeastern Brazil, between 2000 and 2010. Variables which reflected epidemiological, demographic, socio-economic and educational processes were selected in o...

OBJECTIVE To describe the use of health information systems in towns with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants. METHODS Study conducted in the state of Rio de Grande do Sul, Southern Brazil, between 2003 and 2004. A self-administered questionnaire was sent to municipal managers, containing 11 single-choice questions, three multiple-choice questions and three open questions on the structure available...

Oropouche fever has reemerged in Parauapebas and Porto de Moz municipalities, Pará State, Brazil. Serologic analysis (immunoglobulin M-ELISA) and virus isolation confirmed Oropouche virus (OROV) in both municipalities. Nucleotide sequencing of 2 OROV isolates from each location indicated genotypes I (Parauapebas) and II (Porto de Moz) in Brazil.