Sediment Sampling in Estuarine Mudflats with an Aerial-Ground Robotic Team.

This paper presents a robotic team suited for bottom sediment sampling and retrieval in mudflats, targeting environmental monitoring tasks. The robotic team encompasses a four-wheel-steering ground vehicle, equipped with a drilling tool designed to be able to retain wet soil, and a multi-rotor aerial vehicle for dynamic aerial imagery acquisition. On-demand aerial imagery, properly fused on an aerial mosaic, is used by remote human operators for specifying the robotic mission and supervising its execution.

Poor outcome of acute respiratory infection in young children with underlying health condition in Brazil.

Objectives: It is well established that respiratory viruses are an important cause of hospitalizations in young children worldwide, but data are limited on the contribution of specific viruses to severe illness in South America. We describe clinical and laboratory findings from prospective surveillance for acute respiratory infections at a tertiary hospital in São Paulo, Brazil.

Methods: We screened children < 2 years old with acute respiratory tract infections admitted to an urban tertiary hospital for respiratory viruses from March 2008 through February 2010, using polymerase chain reaction assays.

Respiratory syncytial virus epidemic periods in an equatorial city of Brazil.

Background: Characterization of the human respiratory syncytial virus (HRSV) season at the local level has important implications for appropriate decisions on the time period for administration of specific prophylaxis.

Objectives: (1) To describe five consecutive epidemic periods of HRSV in an equatorial city of Brazil and (2) to show preliminary data on genomic diversity of circulating HRSV.

Patients/methods: Nasopharyngeal aspirates of 2885 children attending the emergency room and wards of a public hospital were collected and screened by indirect immunofluorescence for HRSV infections during five consecutive years (from January 2004 to December 2008).