Hélio Radke Bittencourt

Use of classification and regression trees (CART) to classify remotely-sensed digital images

Binary tree-structured rules can be viewed in terms of repeated splits of subsets of the feature space into two descendant subsets, starting from the entire feature space and ending in a partition of the feature space associated with each class. This paper presents a brief introduction to binary decision trees and shows results obtained in the classifying Landsat-TM and AVIRIS digital images.

Morse Fall Scale: tradução e adaptação transcultural para a língua portuguesa

The study aimed to translate and adapt the Morse Fall Scale from English into the Portuguese language. This was performed in seven steps: authorization by the author of the scale; translation into Portuguese; evaluation and structuring of the translated scale; reverse translation into English; evaluation and validation of the scale by a committee of experts; evaluation of clarity of items and operational definitions with 45 professionals; evaluation of agreement between raters and the reliability of reproducibility, related to data from the evaluation of 90 patients, performed by four evaluators/judges. The clarity of the scale was considered very satisfactory, with a confidence interval of 73.0% to 100% in the option very clear. For the concordance of responses, the results showed Kappa coefficients of approximately 0.80 or higher. It was concluded that the adaptation of the scale was successful, indicating that its use is appropriate for the population of Brazilian patients.The study aimed to translate and adapt the Morse Fall Scale from English into the Portuguese language. This was performed in seven steps: authorization by the author of the scale; translation into Portuguese; evaluation and structuring of the translated scale; reverse translation into English; evaluation and validation of the scale by a committee of experts; evaluation of clarity of items and operational definitions with 45 professionals; evaluation of agreement between raters and the reliability of reproducibility, related to data from the evaluation of 90 patients, performed by four evaluators/judges. The clarity of the scale was considered very satisfactory, with a confidence interval of 73.0% to 100% in the option very clear. For the concordance of responses, the results showed Kappa coefficients of approximately 0.80 or higher. It was concluded that the adaptation of the scale was successful, indicating that its use is appropriate for the population of Brazilian patients.

Asthma Mortality in Southern Brazil: Is There a Changing Trend?

Background. Mortality from asthma increased during the last decades but is now declining in some countries. Little is known about this trend in Brazil. Objective. The objective of the study was to determine the trends in asthma mortality in Southern Brazil. Methods. We reviewed death certificates of 566 people in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, between 5 and 39 years of age in whom asthma was reported to be the underlying cause of death during the period of 1981-2003. Population data were available in 5-year age groups. Mortality rates were submitted to linear and quadratic regression procedures. Results. Among children and teenagers (5–19 years), there were 170 asthma deaths, ranging from 4 to 13 deaths each year with rates of 0.154/100,000 to 0.481/100,000. In young adults (20–39 years), 396 asthma deaths occurred, ranging from 9 to 32 each year, with rates from 0.276/100,000 to 1.034/100,000. There was an initial increase in rates, with later stabilization, and then the start of a decline beginning in the late 1990s and the early part of this decade. This trend occurred in both age subgroups examined but was more evident in males. Conclusions. Asthma mortality in southern Brazil remains low and appears to be decreasing after reaching a peak in the mid-1990s. The reason for these trends remains unknown.

Comparison of the Kato-Katz and Helmintex methods for the diagnosis of schistosomiasis in a low-intensity transmission focus in Bandeirantes, Paraná, southern Brazil.

The diagnosis of schistosomiasis is problematic in low-intensity transmission areas because parasitological methods lack sensitivity and molecular methods are neither widely available nor extensively validated. Helmintex is a method for isolating eggs from large faecal samples. We report preliminary results of a comparative evaluation of the Helmintex and Kato-Katz (KK) methods for the diagnosis of schistosomiasis in a low-intensity transmission area in Bandeirantes, Paraná, southern Brazil. Eggs were detected by both methods in seven patients, whereas only Helmintex yielded positive results in four individuals. The results confirm the previously demonstrated higher sensitivity of the Helmintex method compared with the KK method.

Morse fall scale: translation and transcultural adaptation for the portuguese language

The study aimed to translate and adapt the Morse Fall Scale from English into the Portuguese language. This was performed in seven steps: authorization by the author of the scale; translation into Portuguese; evaluation and structuring of the translated scale; reverse translation into English; evaluation and validation of the scale by a committee of experts; evaluation of clarity of items and operational definitions with 45 professionals; evaluation of agreement between raters and the reliability of reproducibility, related to data from the evaluation of 90 patients, performed by four evaluators/judges. The clarity of the scale was considered very satisfactory, with a confidence interval of 73.0% to 100% in the option very clear. For the concordance of responses, the results showed Kappa coefficients of approximately 0.80 or higher. It was concluded that the adaptation of the scale was successful, indicating that its use is appropriate for the population of Brazilian patients.The study aimed to translate and adapt the Morse Fall Scale from English into the Portuguese language. This was performed in seven steps: authorization by the author of the scale; translation into Portuguese; evaluation and structuring of the translated scale; reverse translation into English; evaluation and validation of the scale by a committee of experts; evaluation of clarity of items and operational definitions with 45 professionals; evaluation of agreement between raters and the reliability of reproducibility, related to data from the evaluation of 90 patients, performed by four evaluators/judges. The clarity of the scale was considered very satisfactory, with a confidence interval of 73.0% to 100% in the option very clear. For the concordance of responses, the results showed Kappa coefficients of approximately 0.80 or higher. It was concluded that the adaptation of the scale was successful, indicating that its use is appropriate for the population of Brazilian patients.

A binary decision tree classifier implementing logistic regression as a feature selection and classification method and its comparison with maximum likelihood

This study deals with two different approaches to the classification of hyperspectral image data using a multiple stage classifier structured as a binary tree. One approach implements the Gaussian maximum likelihood (GML) decision function at each node of the tree and the second makes use of traditional binary logistic regression (LR). The results obtained by classification of AVIRIS images data are compared with single- stage classifiers.

Logistic discrimination between classes with nearly equal spectral response in high dimensionality

Logistic discrimination can be regarded as a partially parametric approach to pattern recognition. The method is quite general and robust: it assumes nothing about the probability distribution of variables and requires the estimation of fewer parameters than some better-known procedures such as the Gaussian maximum likelihood discriminator. This paper describes the logistic discrimination model and gives results obtained when using it to classify an AVIRIS image with classes that are spectrally very similar.

Study of diagnostic accuracy of Helmintex, Kato-Katz, and POC-CCA methods for diagnosing intestinal schistosomiasis in Candeal, a low intensity transmission area in northeastern Brazil

Control initiatives have successfully reduced the prevalence and intensity of schistosomiasis transmission in several localities around the world. However, individuals that release low numbers of eggs in their feces may not be detected by classical methods that are limited by low sensitivity. Given that accurate estimates of prevalence are key to implementing planning control actions for the elimination of schistosomiasis, new diagnostic tools are needed to effectively monitor infections and confirm transmission interruption. The World Health Organization recommends the Kato-Katz (KK) thick smear as a parasitological test for epidemiological surveys, even though this method has been demonstrated to underestimate prevalence when egg burdens are low. The point-of-care immunodiagnostic for detecting schistosome cathodic circulating antigen (POC-CCA) method has been proposed as a more sensitive substitute for KK in prevalence estimations. An alternative diagnostic, the Helmintex (HTX) method, isolates eggs from fecal samples with the use of paramagnetic particles in a magnetic field. Here, a population-based study involving 461 individuals from Candeal, Sergipe State, Brazil, was conducted to evaluate these three methods comparatively by latent class analysis (LCA). The prevalence of schistosomiasis mansoni was determined to be 71% with POC-CCA, 40.% with HTX and 11% with KK. Most of the egg burdens of the individuals tested (70%) were < 1 epg, thereby revealing a dissociation between prevalence and intensity in this locality. Therefore, the present results confirm that the HTX method is a highly sensitive egg detection procedure and support its use as a reference method for diagnosing intestinal schistosomiasis and for comparative evaluation of other tests.

Perdas reprodutivas e reconcepção em bovinos de corte segundo a idade ao acasalamento

Reproductive performances of beef heifers mated at 14 months of age (14M), at 24 months of age (24M) and pluriparous cows (C), based on data from 4.012 animals were evaluated. The reproductive disorders were 19.3%, 11.6% and 7.6%, respectively, at 14M, 24M and for C; 14M was different from C (P<0.01). The occurrence of dystocia was 20.7%, 5.1% and 0.8% for the 14M, 24M and C, respectively. The 14M group was different from C (P<0.01). The mortality caused by dystocia was higher for 14M group 7.4% than for the C group 0.4% (P<0.01), respectively. The reconception rate was higher for the 14M (85.3%) and V (81.1%) than for the 24M group (70.7%) (P<0.01). The category which concentrated the parturition in the first period (until 09/19) (52.3%) was the 24M. Animals mated earlier tended to show high reproductive disorders and incidence of dystocia.

Inteligência estratégica em instituições de ensino superior

This paper examines the adoption of practices of strategic intelligence in institutions of higher education by the analysis of key information supporting management decisions and by the identification of relevant resources to improve information management. The work was founded on a research developed with managers of a private institution of higher education. The results of the exploratory stage remark the importance of manage culture of information management in institutions of higher education in order to improve the work of Strategic Intelligence and to reinforce the importance of management by indicators in order to contribute to refine this process.