ORÁCULO: Detection of Spatiotemporal Hot Spots of Conflict-Related Events Extracted from Online News Sources

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Geographic Information Systems and ScienceAchieving situational awareness in peace operations requires understanding where and when conflict-related activity is most intense. However, the irregular nature of most factions hinders the use of remote sensing, while winning the trust of the host populations to allow the collection of wide-ranging human intelligence is a slow process. Thus, our proposed solution, ORÁCULO, is an information system which detects spatiotemporal hot spots of conflict-related activity by analyzing the patterns of events extracted from online news sources, allowing immediate situational awareness. To do so, it combines a closed-domain supervised event extractor with emerging hot spots analysis of event space-time cubes. The prototype of ORÁCULO was tested on tweets scraped from the Twitter accounts of local and international news sources covering the Central African Republic Civil War, and its test results show that it achieved near state-of-theart event extraction performance, significant overlap with a reference event dataset, and strong correlation with the hot spots space-time cube generated from the reference event dataset, proving the viability of the proposed solution. Future work will focus on improving the event extraction performance and on testing ORÁCULO in cooperation with peacekeeping organizations. Keywords: event extraction, natural language understanding, spatiotemporal analysis, peace operations, open-source intelligence.Atingir e manter a consciência situacional em operações de paz requer o conhecimento de quando e onde é que a atividade relacionada com o conflito é mais intensa. Porém, a natureza irregular da maioria das fações dificulta o uso de deteção remota, e ganhar a confiança das populações para permitir a recolha de informações é um processo moroso. Assim, a nossa solução proposta, ORÁCULO, consiste num sistema de informações que deteta “hot spots” espácio-temporais de atividade relacionada com o conflito através da análise dos padrões de eventos extraídos de fontes noticiosas online, (incluindo redes sociais), permitindo consciência situacional imediata. Nesse sentido, a nossa solução combina um extrator de eventos de domínio limitado baseado em aprendizagem supervisionada com a análise de “hot spots” emergentes de cubos espaçotempo de eventos. O protótipo de ORÁCULO foi testado em tweets recolhidos de fontes noticiosas locais e internacionais que cobrem a Guerra Civil da República Centro- Africana. Os resultados dos seus testes demonstram que foram conseguidos um desempenho de extração de eventos próximo do estado da arte, uma sobreposição significativa com um conjunto de eventos de referência e uma correlação forte com o cubo espaço-tempo de “hot spots” gerado a partir desse conjunto de referência, comprovando a viabilidade da solução proposta. Face aos resultados atingidos, o trabalho futuro focar-se-á em melhorar o desempenho de extração de eventos e em testar o sistema ORÁCULO em cooperação com organizações que conduzam operações paz

It Was Not the Perfect Storm: The Social History of the HIV-2 Virus in Guinea-Bissau

The perfect storm model that was elaborated for the HIV-1M pandemic has also been used to explain the emergence of HIV-2, a second human immunodeficiency virus-acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV-AIDS) that became an epidemic in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa. The use of this model creates epidemiological generalizations, ecological oversimplifications and historical misunderstandings as its assumptions—an urban center with explosive population growth, a high level of commercial sex and a surge in STDs, a network of mechanical transport and country-wide, en masse mobile campaigns—are absent from the historical record. This model fails to explain how the HIV-2 epidemic actually came about. This is the first study to conduct an exhaustive examination of sociohistorical contextual developments and align them with environmental, virological and epidemiological data. The interdisciplinary dialogue indicates that the emergence of the HIV-2 epidemic piggybacked on local sociopolitical transformations. The war’s indirect effects on ecological relations, mobility and sociability were acute in rural areas and are a key to the HIV-2 epidemic. This setting had the natural host of the virus, the population numbers, the mobility trends and the use of technology on a scale needed to foster viral adaptation and amplification. The present analysis suggests new reflections on the processes of zoonotic spillovers and disease emergence.and as well as FCT for funds to .info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Introdução: Angola na passagem do tempo

A partir de uma reflexão baseada numa década de idas e vindas ao terreno, literatura secundária e, naturalmente, os textos sobre arte, religião e novas profetizas deste dossiê, pretende-se enfatizar leituras de processos históricos e sociais mais abrangentes. Ao sublinhar alguns aspetos da história e contemporaneidade angolanas e as ligações entre o global e o local, este texto destaca a íntima relação entre períodos históricos aparentemente herméticos (pré-colonial, colonialismo e pós-independência) e a importância de processos sociais, económicos e políticos que perpassam a divisão entre colonial e pós-independência e são fulcrais para o sedimentar de discursos neomodernos sobre Angola.Considering a decade of intermittent fieldwork, secondary literature and, of course, the scholarship on art, ­religion and female prophets featured in this issue, this text aims to ­highlight broader historical and social processes. It examines both historical and ­contemporary aspects of Angola, as well as global and local relations. In doing so, it underscores the intertwinement between seemingly hermetic historical periods, i. e. pre-colonial, colonial and post-independence, and the importance of social, ­economic and ­political processes that permeate the colonial/post-independence divide, and which are central to cement neo-modern discourses and representations about present-day Angola

Cláudia Castelo, Passagens para África: o Povoamento de Angola e Moçambique com Naturais da Metrópole

O império exige colonizadores, pessoas, quer seja para conquistar, impor a ordem, evangelizar, administrar o território e populações locais, promover comércio ou indústria. Apesar da centralidade dos diversos actores colonizadores – militares, administradores, profissionais liberais, comerciantes, agricultores – a historiografia portuguesa não apresentava até à tese de doutoramento de Cláudia Castelo estudos aprofundados e críticos sobre a colonização branca das colónias africanas portuguesas..

Possibilidade de emprego de Forças-Tarefa Subagrupamento nos cenários do conceito estratégico militar português

O presente trabalho tem como objeto de estudo o modelo emergente de forças de escalão subagrupamento capazes de operações dispersas e detentoras de elementos de combate, apoio de combate, apoio de serviços e apoio de comando, modeladas no conceito de Força- Tarefa Subagrupamento. O objetivo do estudo é avaliar a possibilidade de emprego de Forças-Tarefa Subagrupamento nos cenários do Conceito Estratégico Militar. Nesse sentido, são analisadas duas operações de estados aliados, para as quais módulos do tipo Força-Tarefa Subagrupamento foram gerados, a Operação Romeo-Alfa e a Operação Serval. Ambas as operações são então comparadas e transpostas para os cenários de emprego da ação militar presentes no Conceito Estratégico Militar, especificamente, para o cenário de Segurança Cooperativa. Partindo do pressuposto que as forças são geradas para cenários, portanto, dependentes destes, se as operações analisadas geraram Forças-Tarefa Subagrupamentos e se são traduzíveis no cenário de Segurança Cooperativa, logo, a geração e emprego de Forças-Tarefa Subagrupamento é possível para este cenário. O trabalho conclui com a recomendação de que o modelo Força-Tarefa Subagrupamento seja adotado, com o objetivo de favorecer a capacidade de adaptação das Forças Armadas face aos requisitos do novo paradigma da conflitualidade.The present essay has as its object of study the emerging model of company-level forces capable of dispersed operations and containing combat, combat support, combat service support and command support elements, modeled in the concept of Sub-Battlegroup Task- Force. The objective is to evaluate the possibility of employment of Sub-Battlegroup Task- Forces within the scenarios defined in the Portuguese Military Strategic Concept. To do so, the model analyzes two operations conducted by allied states which required the generation of modules conforming to the Sub-Battlegroup Task-Force model: Operation Serval and Operation Romeo-Alfa. Both operations are then compared and transposed to the scenarios of the Portuguese Military Strategic Concept, specifically to the scenario of Cooperative Security. Departing from the assumption that forces are generated to fulfill the requirements of specific scenarios, thus, dependent of those scenarios, if the analyzed operations generated Sub-Battlegroup Task-Forces, and if they are translatable into the Portuguese scenario of Cooperative Security, then the generation and deployment of Sub-Battlegroup Task Forces is possible within that scenario. The essay concludes with the recommendation that the model of Sub-Battlegroup Task Forces should be readily adopted, in order to increase the adaptability of the Portuguese Armed Forces regarding the requirements of the new paradigm of conflict

Saberes e práticas de cura nas igrejas neotradicionais em Luanda: carismas, participação e trajetórias das mulheres

O presente artigo analisa as visões da doença e as trajetórias de vida de mulheres carismáticas observadas em algumas igrejas neotradicionais localizadas no espaço urbano e periurbano de Luanda. As profetisas têm um papel central no espaço sociocultural ecuménico da capital, realçando como a (re)interpretação das suas biografias no contexto religioso permite criar dinâmicas sociais inovadoras que são engendradas nos campos da saúde e da religião. Estas igrejas ergueram templos e casas de oração e de cura, convertem e arrastam multidões, refizeram códigos de ética e de conduta religiosa e moral, e têm um papel central na renovação de certos rituais, com particular acuidade para a cura religiosa.This article focuses on the biographies of charismatic women belonging to the neo-traditional churches located in urban and peri-urban areas of Luanda and on local views of the disease and its cure. These female prophets play a central role in the ecumenical social-cultural space of the capital of Angola, and the (re)interpretation of their biographies in a religious context highlights the ways that they create innovative social dynamics embedded in the fields of health and religion. These churches have built temples and houses of prayer and healing, that draw large crowds of believers; have re-shaped codes of ethical, religious and moral conduct; and have played a central role in the renewal of certain rituals, particularly those related to religious healing

Influence of Polyphosphoric Acid on the Consistency and Composition of Formulated Bitumen: Standard Characterization and NMR Insights

Over the recent years, bitumen modification with polymers, acids, or mineral fillers has gained relevance to adjust its performance properties. This work reports the use of polyphosphoric acid (PPA) for the modification of formulated bitumen. With this objective, an in-depth literature review on PPA modification was firstly performed. Subsequently, five individual refinery components were selected for the preparation of bitumen blends, namely, as phaltic residue, vacuum residue, and three lube oils extracts. Seven binary/ternary bitumen blends were prepared and then treated with PPA. Afterwards, the five components and the unmodified and PPA-modified bitumen were characterized by standard methods (penetration, softening point, and penetration index), SARA analysis, elemental analysis, and P-31 and H-1 nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. The results evidenced higher asphaltenes and lower saturates/resins contents in PPA-modified bitumen. The NMR data suggest that the paraffinic chains became longer, the content of condensed aromatics increased, more substituted aromatic structures appeared, and alpha-hydrogen in aromatic structures diminished. These findings disclosed the improved consistency and oxidation stability of PPA-modified bitumen blends

On the contribution of Angola to the initial spread of HIV-1

Licenced under CC-BY-NC-NDAngola borders and has long-term links with Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as well as high levels of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) genetic diversity, indicating a potential role in the initial spread of the HIV-1 pandemic. Herein, we analyze 564 C2V3 and 354 pol publicly available sequences from DRC, Republic of Congo (RC) and Angola to better understand the initial spread of the virus in this region. Phylogeographic analyses were performed with the BEAST software. While our results pinpoint the origin of the pandemic to Kinshasa (DRC) around 1906, the introduction of HIV-1 to Angola could have occurred early between the 1910s and 1940s. Furthermore, most of the HIV-1 migrations out of Kinshasa were directed not only to Lubumbashi and Mbuji-Mayi (DRC), but also to Luanda and Brazzaville. Kinshasa census records corroborate these findings, indicating that the early exportation of the virus to Angola might be related to the high number of Angolans in Kinshasa at that time, originated mostly from the North of Angola. In summary, our results place Angola at the epicenter of the early HIV dissemination, together with DRC and RC.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Comparing properties of natural biogenic with biomass burning particles in Amazonia.

The Large Scale Biosphere Atmosphere Experiment in\ud Amazonia (LBA) is a long-term (20 years) research effort\ud aimed at the understanding of the functioning of the\ud Amazonian ecosystem. The strong biosphere-atmosphere\ud interaction is a key component of the ecosystem functioning.\ud Two aerosol components are the most visible: The natural\ud biogenic emissions of particles and VOCs, and the biomass\ud burning emissions.\ud Two aerosol and trace gases monitoring stations were\ud operated for 4 years in Manaus and Porto Velho, two very\ud distinct sites, with different land use change. Manaus is a very\ud clean and pristine site and Porto Velho is representative of\ud heavy land use change in Amazonia. Aerosol composition,\ud optical properties, size distribution, vertical profiling and\ud optical depth were measured from 2008 to 2012. Aerosol\ud radiative forcing was calculated over large areas. It was\ud observed that the natural biogenic aerosol has significant\ud absorption properties. Organic aerosol dominates the aerosol\ud mass with 80 to 95%. Light scattering and light absorption\ud shows an increase by factor of 10 from Manaus to Porto\ud Velho. Very few new particle formation events were\ud observed. Strong links between aerosols and VOC emissions\ud were observed. Aerosol radiative forcing in Rondonia shows\ud a high -15 watts/m² during the dry season of 2010, showing\ud the large impacts of aerosol loading in the Amazonian\ud ecosystem. The increase in diffuse radiation changes the\ud forest carbon uptake by 20 to 35%, a large increase in this\ud important ecosystem

notes on the present distribution and conservation of the sooty mangabey (Cercocebus atys) in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa

UIDB/04038/2020 UIDP/04038/2020The West-African sooty mangabey (Cercocebus atys) is threatened by habitat loss, hunting for meat consumption, and mortality during crop-foraging events. The species’ overall demographic trend is unknown. Presence and distribution in Guinea-Bissau, a country neighbored by Senegal and Republic of Guinea, was confirmed in 1946 but the species was declared extinct in 1989 and not observed in subsequent countrywide expeditions. Narratives of its presence across southern Guinea-Bissau are scattered in reports and occurrence in the eastern part was reported in 2017, but the limits of its distribution are currently unknown. Here, we present recent geo-referenced visual and molecular-based records of the sooty mangabey for three protected areas in southern Guinea-Bissau collected as part of a region-wide survey. Individuals were observed in Cufada Lagoons Natural Park (2015) and Dulombi National Park (NP) (2016) and photographed in Boé NP (2007, 2015 and 2020). Thirty-six samples collected in Boé NP (2017) were identified as sooty mangabey using a 402 base pair fragment of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene. Our work suggests a wider distribution in Guinea-Bissau than previously described, augments knowledge of the populations’ current habitat use and threats, and has implications for efforts to conserve the species in West Africa. Considering the sooty mangabey as the reservoir of the simian immunodeficiency virus that led to the human variant, HIV-2, confirmation that the Guinea-Bissau population is not extinct may lead to a better understanding of early viral jump to humans and consequent epidemic spread, specifically of the HIV-2 Subgroup A. We highlight the need for extra conservation measures by Guinea-Bissau authorities.publishersversionpublishe