Merging traditional livelihood activities with new employment opportunities brought by ecotourism to Iona national park, Angola: rethinking social sustainability

Ecotourism activities and investment projects have been consistently increasing worldwide over the last few decades. In this process, ecotourism has contributed to fight poverty, to create local employment opportunities and to promote nature conservation. However, there are also plenty examples of nature-base tourism destinations where ecotourism principles have been distorted and negative impacts are on the rise. Therefore, studies that provide a deep understanding of the roots and consequences of those both positive and negative impacts are needed to achieve new higher tourism quality standards, to foster a sound local development and to promote an integrated and sustainable national growth. To obtain information useful to contribute specific recommendations aimed at linking tourism employers and job seekers, we have conducted a survey addressing locals’ demographic characteristics and their engagement in traditional livelihood activities. Data gathered from 202 respondents showed that in the largest villages traditional livelihood activities, excepting pastoralism, tend to have little expression while the same activities seem to play a key role in some small communities. Striking differences were found between nomadic or semi-nomadic people and people who have been assimilated into the western civilization and also have more sedentary life styles. Using this information and taking in consideration some new employment opportunities brought nature-based tourism to the Iona National Park, we have identified specific demographic profiles more suited for part-time and full-time jobs

Suggesting loop unrolling using a heuristic-guided approach

Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Informática e Computação. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 201

Proof mining with the bounded functional interpretation

In this doctoral thesis, we will see how the bounded functional interpretation of Ferreira and Oliva [13] can be used and contribute to the Proof Mining program, a program which aims to extract computational information from mathematical theorems using proof-theoretic techniques. We present a method for the elimination of sequential weak compactness arguments from the quantitative analysis of certain mathematical results. This method works as a “macro” and allowed us to obtain quantitative versions of important results of F. E. Browder [6], R. Wittmann [51] and H. H. Bauschke [2] in fixed point theory in Hilbert spaces. Although Browder’s and Wittmann’s theorems were previously analyzed by Kohlenbach using the monotone functional interpretation, it was not clear why such analyses did not require the use of functionals defined by bar recursion. This phenomenon is now fully understood, by a theoretical justification for the elimination of sequential weak compactness in the context of the bounded functional interpretation. Bauschke’s theorem is an important generalization of Wittmann’s theorem and its original proof is also analyzed here. The analyses of these results also required a quantitative version of a projection argument which turned out to be simpler when guided by the bounded functional interpretation than when using the monotone functional interpretation. In the context of the theory of monotone operators, results due to Boikanyo/Moro¸sanu [5] and Xu [52] for the strong convergence of variants of the proximal point algorithm were analyzed and bounds on the metastablility property of these iterations obtained. These results are the first applications of the bounded functional interpretation to the proof mining of concrete mathematical results

An Introduction to Multi-hazard Risk Interactions Towards Resilient and Sustainable Cities

The relationship between disaster resilience and sustainability in the context of urban risk has gained significant attention in recent years as the research and technical community work towards a safer, more sustainable way of living. Urban risk is a complex matrix that involves multiple elements at risk, hazards, temporal scales, and vulnerabilities, and this is why traditional risk assessment approaches that focus on addressing the impacts of a single hazard are inadequate for effectively assessing and managing urban risk, particularly in the current climate change context. With this in mind, the present chapter provides an introduction to the concept of multi-hazard risk and its relevance to resilient and sustainable cities by listing and briefly discussing the types of natural hazards that impact cities the most and examining the importance of risk assessment and management in reducing the risks posed by these hazards. The chapter also explores strategies for building resilience in cities, including the strengthening of physical infrastructure and the enhancement of social and economic resilience, and concludes by discussing future directions for research and practice in multi-hazard risk management for resilient and sustainable cities.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Distributed architecture to enhance systems protection against unauthorized activity via USB devices

Cyberattacks exploiting Universal Serial Bus (USB) interfaces may have a high impact on individual and corporate systems. The BadUSB is an attack where a USB device’s firmware is spoofed and, once mounted, allows attackers to execute a set of malicious actions in a target system. The countermeasures against this type of attack can be grouped into two strategies: phyiscal blocking of USB ports and software blocking. This paper proposes a distributed architecture that uses software blocking to enhance system protection against BadUSB attacks. This architecture is composed of multiple agents and external databases, and it is designed for personal or corporate computers using Microsoft Windows Operating System. When a USB device is connected, the agent inspects the device, provides filtered information about its functionality and presents a threat assessment to the user, based on all previous user choices stored in external databases. By providing valuable information to the user, and also threat assessments from multiple users, the proposed distributed architecture improves system protection

Social Vulnerability in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area

The manifestation of a hazardous process in a given location is clear evidence of a threat to individuals and communities. Without hazard, there is no risk. Vulnerability, however, plays a less evident role in explaining the losses that are observed in databases, whether global or local. Social vulnerability, in particular, represents the underneath conditions that turn individuals and communities more or less able to endure the impacts of hazardous events. A detailed-level analysis of social vulnerability was performed in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, considering the dimension of the individuals’ characteristics—that we define as criticality—and the characteristics of the surrounding territories in the ability to provide support during and timely recovery after the event—that we define as support capability. The study area is highly contrasting in terms of this later dimension, with urban areas concentrating most of the services and equipment that reduce vulnerability. Regarding criticality, the methodology allowed to identify very-localized hotspots laid out to high propensity to losses from two drivers: employment and education (first principal component of criticality) and age, gender, and old urban fabric (second principal component). Analysed separately or combined in a single social vulnerability index, this information is useful in the planning of short-term actions in the strict field of civil protection operations and in mid- to long-term actions considering a wider perspective of risk governance, bringing to the table public policies in the areas of social care, mobility, urban planning, education, and health services, that address the very deep roots of vulnerability.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Development of a stream flood susceptibility index at the municipal level in mainland Portugal

The growing computational capabilities and data availability promotes the development of flood susceptibility methodologies, although there is still field for improvement regarding small-scale flood susceptibility assessment. In this research, after assessing a national stream flood susceptibility (SFS) on a cell-by-cell basis, a municipal representation of SFS was performed to rank the 278 municipalities in mainland Portugal.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A flood susceptibility model at the national scale based on multicriteria analysis

River flooding is a specific worldwide type of flooding responsible for considerable human and material losses. An extensive knowledge about flood conditioning factors and a diverse set of methodologies for flood susceptibility evaluations are available, although there is still field for improvement regarding methodologies for small-scale flood susceptibility assessment, particularly relevant in data-scarce contexts. This research applied to mainland Portugal, introduces a multicriteria methodology to assess flood susceptibility at national scale considering three flood-conditioning factors: flow accumulation, average slope angle and average relative permeability. These three factors resume other factors usually considered in literature, related to morphology and potential runoff. This work includes data from the flood conditioning factors considering the cumulative role of the entire contributive area and not only the on-site characteristics. The weight of each factor was assigned based on expert opinion and validated using available flood damages databases with >150 years of records. From the several tested flood susceptibility models, the one that best fits the historical records was chosen, which corresponds also to a more valued role of flow accumulation factor. Results provide an accurate differentiation of transboundary, regional and local rivers. The scores of stream flood susceptibility were later transformed to a single value per each of the 278 municipalities of mainland Portugal. Representing the natural susceptibility to river flooding, these results can be cross-analyzed with structural mitigation measures, spatial planning instruments, exposure and vulnerability data along the respective floodplains, in order to identify water streams that require a more detailed and concerned future intervention and an exhaustive susceptibility study at the local scale.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Modelling the rainfall threshold for shallow landslides considering the landslide predisposing factors in Portugal

Rainfall-triggered landslides pose a significant threat to both infrastructure and human lives, making it crucial to comprehend the factors that contribute to their occurrence. Specifically, understanding the relationship between these factors and the amount of rain that is necessary for triggering such events is essential for effective prediction and mitigation strategies. To address this issue, our study proposes a statistical modelling approach using machine learning, specifically the Random Forest algorithm, to investigate the connection between landslide predisposing factors and the daily rainfall intensity threshold necessary for the initiation of shallow landslides in Portugal. By leveraging a comprehensive dataset comprising historical landslide events, associated critical rainfall, and ten distinct landslide predisposing factors, we developed several models and used cross-validation technique to evaluate their performance. Our findings demonstrate that the Random Forest model effectively captures a relationship among landslide predisposing factors, critical daily rainfall intensity, and landslide occurrences. The models exhibit a satisfactory accuracy in assessing the spatial variation of critical daily rainfall intensity based on the predisposing factors, with a mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of around 17%. Furthermore, the models provide valuable insights into the relative importance of various predisposing factors in landslide triggering, highlighting the significance of each factor. It was found that it takes higher rainfall intensity to trigger shallow landslides in the north region of Portugal when considering critical rainfall events of 3 and 13 days. Slope aspect, slope angle, and clay content in the soil are among the main predisposing factors used for defining the spatial variation of the daily rainfall intensity threshold.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio