A survey on automatic habitat mapping

Habitat mapping can help assess the health of an ecosystem but the task is not always straightforward as, depending on the environment to be mapped, data types can be very different, such as marine and land habitats where in one case you can use sonar images and in the other satellite pictures. In this survey we explore works that used machine learning models when performing habitat mapping.Peer Reviewe

Ripples: a tool for supervision and control of remote assets

We describe the Ripples cloud-based software for coordination and control of multiple remote assets. Ripples can ingest and disseminate data coming from multiple sources such as physical models, drifting sensors, marine traffic (AIS) and unmanned vehicles deployed in remote areas. On top of data dissemination and awareness, Ripples can also be used for planning the autonomous assets using satellite communications, maintaining the operators in the loop.Peer Reviewe

REP18 Atlantic: a large scale exercise using unmanned systems

We present the REP18 exercise in which were operated heterogeneous unmanned underwater and aerial vehicles. This large scale exercise organized together with the PO Navy and with the participation of key players in the area, served to test the large scale use of unmanned vehicles in real-world operations both in defence and scientific areas. This work showcases how the LSTS Toolchain for Autonomous Systems enables all this.Peer Reviewe

Studying the Pacific Subtropical Front with multiple assets

We describe a novel approach to physical oceanography by coordinating remote sensing, multiple autonomous vehicles and ship borne sensors. In contrast with conventional oceanography where ships are the single point of sampling in the middle of a big ocean or are used simply as the base of operations from where autonomous vehicles are deployed, we propose a new approach where ship and autonomous vehicles are coordinated together via satellite communications. We conclude with results and lessons learned from a real-world deployment of the R/V Falkor oceanographic ship together with multiple autonomous vehicles to study the Pacific's Subtropical Front, 800 miles off the coast of San Diego

Visibility & Invisibility of Communities in Urban Systems

Information on the presence of Chinese and Ukrainian communities in Portugal, and namely in Greater Porto (northern Portugal) will be presented to then investigate how recent work on evolving networks might be a helpful tool in analysing the integration of migrant communities in urban systems, namely in helping to understand if the differential relationships between nodes and vertices might help to account for the higher and lesser visibility of these two communities within Greater Porto

Dynamic optimization in the coordination and control of autonomous underwater vehicles

The coordination and control problems arising in team composition and tasking of autonomous underwater vehicles are discussed in the framework of dynamic optimization. Team composition and tasking are specified in terms of sets and relations among the elements of these sets. Results from dynamic optimization and non-smooth analysis are used to show that these coordination and control problems can be phrased in terms of concepts such as invariance, solvability, monotonicity, and switchings among value functions

The new iteration of the wavy drifter (MELOA)

The MELOA (Multi-purpose/Multi-sensor Extra Light Oceanography Apparatus), H2020 project, proposes to develop a low-cost, easy-to-handle, wave resilient, multi-purpose, multi-sensor, extra light surface drifter for use in all water environments, ranging from deep-sea to inland waters, including coastal areas, river plumes and surf zones. The device will be developed as an upgrade to the WAVY drifter (Figure-1) conceived by the LSTS - Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, which was used to measure the surface circulation forced by wave breaking, including detailed structure of rifts and the littoral drift current. The new iteration of the wavy drifter improves upon the older one by adding new functionality like wave spectrum computation from collected data, and adding sensors such as a Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), Atmospheric Pressure Sensor (ATM), a new and improved GNSS modules with new positioning solutions, a new GSM supporting encrypted GPRS connections for real-time data transmission as well as more internal memory. Furthermore a new MCU (Microcontroller Unit) was chosen to integrate all this sensors and data collection and a new firmware package. To adapt to users’ requests and different mission profiles there are five WAVY models available, all with different sensor packages and functionality: Basic and Litoral for coastal operations, Ocean, Ocean ATMO and Ocean Plus for open sea. For the later a Satellite transceiver is used for communication instead of the GSM module, to transmit the results of wave spectrum computation

The Role of networked robotic systems to survey coastal phenomena: the Douro river plume case study

Propagation of river plumes along the coast strongly depends on several physical processes, which determine the plume fate over the shelf. The Douro is one of the largest rivers of the Iberian Peninsula, representing the most important freshwater input into the Atlantic Ocean on the northwestern Portuguese coast. Traditional methods of in situ measurements are often complicated and expensive due to the high spatial and temporal variability of its dominant drivers. By now, the general dispersion patterns of the Douro River Plume was mostly studied by numerical models and remote sensing imagery, considering the main drivers involved: river discharge, wind, and tide. From those results, the Douro River plume is classified as large-scale and surface-advected, presenting characteristics of a prototypical plume. The wind was found to play an essential role in the plume dispersion and fate. For example, southerly winds increase the velocity of the northward current, frequently merging the Douro plume with the northerly generated Minho plume. Both riverine water masses can propagate to the Rias Baixas (Spain), dramatically changing their normal circulation. By these reasons, the development of accurate and reliable plume monitoring systems is an important and challenging task. This work reports the recent use of robotic systems (AUVs and UAVs) to detect, track and survey the Douro Plume front autonomously. These systems can survey this highly dynamic environment and characterize the frontal regions of the plume regarding salinity, water temperature, turbidity, and chlorophyll concentrations under summer conditions when the plume area is small and mainly tidally driven. Results from several frontal crossings, coincident with satellite imagery acquisitions (some of which were obtained in near real-time by the new Sentinel-2 mission), demonstrated the AUVs capability to fairly detect the front structure. Cross-frontal exchanges observed in the water column by AUVs along the front emphasize the importance of new technologies use on the monitoring and detection of high spatial and temporal dynamical phenomena such as river plumes.Peer Reviewe

Monkeypox infection and bacterial cellulitis: a complication to look for

© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of International Society for Infectious Diseases. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)Human monkeypox (MPX) is an endemic zoonotic disease in regions of Africa caused by the monkeypox virus, with recent outbreaks in several non-African countries. In this study, we present two cases of patients with MPX infection complicated by a deep skin infection. Both patients presented to our dermatology clinic with a clinical syndrome characteristic of MPX. The diagnosis was confirmed based on swabs of skin lesions. Both patients later returned to our clinic with erythema, pain, and edema at the site of previous papules and were diagnosed with deep skin bacterial infection. In this study we provide information on what we believe was an underreported MPX infection complication and give some advice on preventing cases of cellulitis in these patients.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio