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

The implementation of surgical procedures in the Basic Health Unit is recommended and described in the literature. However, such practice has been less and less applied in primary care. In a context of overcrowding of tertiary hospitals and consequent inoperability of elective surgical procedures it is of utmost importance and resolutivity carrying out these procedures in the Family Clinic/Basic Health Unit. In this article, we present a case of a patient who underwent excision of a crippling giant lipoma in the left popliteal fossa, with 12 years of evolution and unsuccessful attempts of surgical resolution in a tertiary hospital.

Ecuador is one of the countries where natural hazards are a real problem. This is because of some aspects linked of human settlements which are located at risk areas, which contain several natural hazards some of them are catastrophic at regional level, but also at the national level.  About the cartographic technical aspect, these circumstances raise the need to solve two problems at the same time: the availability of useful information in the shortest possible time and to transmit immediately the data to the different users who works with the management of rehabilitation and planning the geographical space affected. The first is related to the ability to generate quick response map information and the second one, with access to information technologies through SDI and Geoportal. In order to disseminate the actions taken within an Ecuadorian public institution, this article presents what actions and results were achieved in support of risk management in the earthquake on April 16, 2016; the earthquake had devastating effects in towns of the center-north coast of Ecuador. The action plan developed and implemented for the first time in Ecuador established a starting point. In the future this will allow to implement the improvements in other similar cases and to be a reference for other places where geoportals are implemented for the availability of cartographic information and the attention in case of natural disasters. In the case of Ecuador, the availability of timely and easily accessible cartographic information was a matter of great importance for the emer- gency response in April 2016. 

In this article, we create a methodology for the verification of the quality of SDI geoportals, paying special attention to usability and interoperability in a broad sense, and we apply it of the SDI geoportals of America. This methodology is based on previous studies and the experience gained in the SDI team of CNIG (National Centre for Geographic Information) Spain. Until now a big attention and considerable efforts have been dedicated to stand- ardize the web services of a SDI, but we think that little attention has been paid to the geoportals and client applications exploiting those services. Therefore, it would be wise now to try to define objective criteria for the evaluation of the usability and interoperability of geoportals, in order to contribute to its optimization with technical criteria oriented to improve its general quality. We will try to define a general indicator of SDI geoportal quality defining a set of convenient individual indicators stablished as a result of the experience and knowledge of a group of experts in the field of SDIs. In this article, we inform about the results obtained applying this methodology to the main national and supranational SDI geoportals of the Americas in order to evaluate its usefulness, to identify improvement opportunities and to contribute to its optimization. Finally, we outline some conclusions trying to balance the effort and resources needed and the benefits of the possible corrective actions derived of the performed analysis. As a consequence, it would be possible to design an Action Plan prioritizing the activities with a bigger impact in the general quality of geoportals and a lower cost. 

The present research proposes the assessment of the Data Viewer of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (VINDE) according to the usability parameters (effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction). Neither in the study, planning or implementation phase (requirements of specification, design and prototyping, development and customization), nor in the years that followed (operational portal) were done any specific study or usability test. Through a selfdeveloped methodology comprising a performance test in a predetermined time, as well as a subjective assessment questionnaire, the System Usability Scale (SUS), applied to a group of 20 geo-experts. To validate the methodology, a pilot test and a later performance test on VINDE have been carried out. The results and analyses evince the viewer is not easy to browse even for a group of geoinformation experts. It still has a number of issues to be improved concerning the organization, naming and structuring of its themes and layers, as well as enhancements in its tools and general layout for should be improved to satisfactorily meet the demands of its users. 

Both the municipalities and the State Government of Ecuador are in a critical situation regarding the implementation of the Land Registry. On the one hand, the country constitution supports the decentralization of El Ecuador leading to its municipalities have the responsibility of implementing the property registration. On the other hand, the Association of Municipalities of Ecuador (AME) has a non- standard format for collecting cadastral information which is followed by a good part of the Ecuadorian municipalities; other municipalities are still other formulas, some inadvisable. The lack of land standards recommended by international institutions (ISO, OGC) that facilitate interoperability of geographic information, prevent the crossing of cadastral information with other spatial information of the country, which does not allow place the cadastre map servers able to be accessed ubiquitously. This is dramatic for the country (state institutions, companies and individuals) who are unable to use computer tools for take land decisions on several municipalities, a province or the entire country. In addition to the lack of uniformity of cadastral files, appears the difficulty to store and manage cadastral information based on GIS type complex programs that require the use of specialists (at cost to the municipal coffers) and the lack of usability of query interfaces. This work supports theidea of the need for a National Cadastral IDE and designing tools to facilitate the consultations carried out to the IDE. 

SignA, the National Geographic Information System of Spain, has been a strategic project of the National Geographic Information Centre (CNIG) and the National Geographic Institute (IGN) of Spain, which aims the IGN data and services integration within a Geographic Information System (GIS), for its management, analyse and query through the Internet. This implies the development of an own versatile, interoperable and efficient geoportal. SignA geoportal was opened to public on December 2010 and it is about to open the fourth version, combining the best features of the Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI) and GIS technologies, allowing users to access data and services in an easy and transparent way, without special technical knowledge. After 7 years, the geoportal is growing every day its importance and usage onto the geomatics community. Currently, receives an average of 19,000 visits per month, being a tool of daily use for many of our users and for many applications. This article will be a brief review of the main features of the geoportal and the changes made to improve usability over the versions. 

Geographical information is necessary for different users and it is seen from different contexts of work such as academia, science, government and economy. For this reason, it is needed to have it available in a timely and agile way. The publication of cartographic information in Ecuador is growing in public institutions, in particular, thanks to the national geoinformation policies (officially registered in 2010). Thus, the creation of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI) is currently supported. The University of Azuay (UDA) created its SDI in 2012 as a result of the use and construction of local geographic information map displays. Thanks to research and agreements with public institutions, access to environmental data (previously pre- sented only in paper publications) was obtained through the web portal for the city of Cuenca. It is intended that such data could be comprehensible by users of non- technical profile such as citizens. This challenge has generated a process of constant updating of the geoportal in which the user is involved in several stages such as design, prototype and tests, in order to present the data to the personnel interested in knowing and monitoring the city's environmental state. In order to evaluate these improvements, a controlled test was designed for a focal group to know the percep- tion of the user's web page when comparing it with the previous one (technical) and to evaluate the effectiveness in communicating this information.

The Integrated North Andean Map, is an initiative led by the Pan American Institute for Geography and History (PAIGH) and supported by the CAF/Latin American Development Bank, in the context of the GeoSUR Program. The aim of this initiative is to develop the first Integrated Map of the countries of the North Andean area at 1:250,000 scale through the coordinated work of the Geographic Institutes of Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. This initiative also receives the specialized guidance and technical coordination provided by the National Centre for Geographic Information (CNIG) of the National Geographic Institute of Spain. In addition, the National Section of the PAIGH in the United States of America has made special contributions through the International Technical Assistance Program of the Department of the Interior (DOI-ITAP) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID); there has also  been the specialized advice of the Geological Service of the United States (USGS). The map is intended to benefit all of the geographic information users in the countries of the Community of Andean Nations by means of making available and providing access to quality regional cartographic information that is oficial, integrated and harmonized at supranational level. This project integrates the main feature types of Hydrography, Administrative Boundaries, Settlements and urban areas, Transport networks, Land Morphology and some elements considered as indispensable to understanding the geography of each country, grouped under the title Miscellaneous. A participative methodology makes it possible not only to integrate technical criteria for the geospatial information of five countries, but also to ensure continuity for this Project by means of the commitment and integration between the official Geographic Institutes of each country, at a scale that is useful for regional planning and territorial organization.

Within the context of the peace process, Colombia faces determinant challenges of land management, specifically regarding mass tenure formalization (Agencia Nacional de Tierras, 2017), providing to rural inhabitants access to land by means of a Land Fund (Alto Comisionado para la Paz, 2016), restitute land to the victims of forced dispossession and abandonment, administration of the Nation’s fallow lands, as well as delimitation of special rural inhabitant’s reserve zones. In this framework, the policy for a “modern multipurpose cadaster that integrates spatial planning and information systems” was proposed, in response to the current reality where 28% of the country’s territory does not have cadastral information, and 63.9% of the land register is not updated (CONPES, 2016). In support of this process, one of the main foundations is the availability of technical standards, based on international norms that allow for a multipurpose cadastre, interrelated with the  property registry, and other information systems of the Land Administration domain. Project of Modernization of Land Administration in Colombia, Switzerland's Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (SECO) is supporting the construction of the Geoportal for Land Administration. This article discusses the specific use case of the Geoportal for Land Administration, in development, disaggregating some key elements for its development and its link as a platform for the consolidation of the Peace Agreement. 

The Spatial Data Infrastructure of the Chilean Ministry of Agriculture (IDE MINAGRI), brings together the geographical information and the geoservices of the Ministry in a single interoperable on-line technological platform. Through this platform, the consolidated and standardized geographical information is made available to users. This information is the spatial expression of the Ministry's intervention at policy, plan and program levels. The objective is to facilitate decision making, mainly between ministerial authorities and agricultural professionals. The IDE MINAGRI is visible through its geoportal (<http://ide.minagri.gob.cl>) and the responsibility for coordination, continuous improvement and technical execution rests with the Natural Resources Information Center (CIREN).