Operações em rede : da promessa à realidade

O paradigma das Operações Centradas em Rede provocou uma alteração qualitativa no pensamento militar. A capacidade de combater em espaços de batalha remotamente dispersos, com uma consciência situacional acrescida tem implicações futuras na estrutura da força. No entanto, como todas as promessas, são acompanhadas por desafios e vulnerabilidades. As lições aprendidas dos conflitos recentes revelaram as potencialidades assim como as fraquezas, alertando os seus proponentes para possíveis condicionantes, que se não forem tidas em consideração podem conduzir ao fracasso da Transformação da Defesa

A Guerra Aérea Autónoma e a transformação do poder aéreo

O paradigma da Guerra Aérea Autónoma (GAA) revela uma profunda transformação resultante da exploração da inteligência artificial e de Sistemas Aéreos com Funcionalidades Autónomas (SAFA), num modelo de colaboração em combate entre o homem e a máquina, afetando as funções operacionais do Poder Aéreo e a sua utilidade política. O objetivo desta investigação é analisar os modelos operacionais emergentes de GAA por forma a identificar tendências e implicações para a transformação do Poder Aéreo. A análise destes modelos operacionais será feita nas dimensões que traduzem a aptidão de uma Força Aérea para gerar e empregar o Poder Aéreo, nomeadamente, os conceitos de emprego, as capacidades para operacionalizar os conceitos, a organização que estabelece o referencial para o uso da força e as pessoas que o tornam possível. A análise revelou vantagens qualitativas e quantitativas na aptidão de uma força para gerar e empregar o Poder Aéreo, em termos de eficácia operacional e eficiência de custo e risco, mas também alguns desafios tecnológicos, organizacionais e humanos. O paradigma emergente da GAA potencia o aumento da utilidade do Poder Aéreo, melhorando a disponibilidade, acessibilidade e aceitabilidade do emprego operacional, resultantes da utilização isolada de SAFA ou em combinação com aeronaves tripuladas em conceitos de operação em equipa, ou da colaboração entre múltiplos SAFA com elevados níveis de autonomia. Confirma também a tendência de afastamento gradual do homem do ciclo de decisão e da operação de SAFA individuais, para funções de supervisão de múltiplos sistemas, auxiliado por inteligência artificial, mas ambicionando reter um controlo significativo sobre a decisão de emprego de força letal

Da guerra remota: a desumanização do poder aéreo, a interferência e a interação humana no futuro da guerra

Dissertação apresentada para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Doutor em Relações Internacionais, especialidade de Estudos de Segurança e EstratégiaEsta é uma investigação sobre a Guerra. No seu domínio mais tecnológico e avassalador: a Guerra Aérea. E num registo que promete revolucionar a história milenar da conflitualidade hostil: a Guerra Aérea Remota. É uma análise crítica das ideias subjacentes ao emprego de sistemas aéreos não tripulados (Unmanned Aircraft Systems - UAS), a fim de desenvolver um conhecimento mais abrangente sobre os seus efeitos, permitindo uma adaptação mais eficaz ao futuro da Guerra. Aceitando a objetividade das vantagens operacionais, que diferenciadores estratégicos concorrem para a preeminência futura da Guerra Aérea Remota e que implicações se podem derivar para as Relações Internacionais e para Portugal? Ao procurarmos respostas para estas dúvidas, sustentamos que a tendência de crescente preeminência dos UAS se revela imprescindível, irresistível, inevitável e em última análise irreversível, ameaçando transfigurar, num futuro não tão distante, a natureza da própria Guerra. Sustentados por vários indicadores analíticos, argumentamos que o ponto de irreversibilidade foi já ultrapassado. Através da exploração e confronto dos fatores associativos e dissociativos que concorrem para a preeminência futura dos UAS, é possível destacar implicações para as políticas de segurança e defesa dos Estados. Assim, este estudo tem como objetivo registrar o momento crítico de mudança e compreender a natureza das tendências futuras, inquirindo sobre as implicações políticas, legais, morais e sociais na natureza e no caráter da Guerra resultantes da Guerra Aérea Remota. Antevemos por isso, efeitos ao nível operacional, com impacto na conduta da Guerra; efeitos genéticos refletidos na alteração das características e capacidades do Poder Aéreo; e efeitos políticos com impacto no processo de decisão sobre o uso da força nas Relações Internacionais. Considerando as implicações da Guerra Aérea Remota é possível prospetivar oportunidades, assim como desafios, que podem confrontar uma pequena potência como Portugal. A discussão dos requisitos estratégicos e operacionais de Portugal, bem como os seus diferenciadores estratégicos, contribuirá para a definição de um modelo de capacidade UAS nacional. Nessa perspetiva, sustentamos um modelo aglutinador da massa crítica, economia de escala e sinergias, gerido de forma centralizada, ao nível estratégico pelo Ministério da Defesa Nacional, segundo a liderança operacional da Força Aérea Portuguesa, enquanto Agente Executivo da capacidade UAS, em proveito conjunto, e cujo produto operacional satisfaça primariamente os requisitos das Forças Armadas, mas que adicionalmente preencha as necessidades de vários beneficiários interagenciais segundo um paradigma de facilitador de serviços e de intervenção seletiva

Hydrographic open data for society

Nunes, P., Vicente, J., Veiga, A. L., Monteiro, C., Dias, T., Palma, C., & Neto, M. (2023). Hydrographic open data for society. Mapping, 32(211), 34-48. https://doi.org/10.59192/mapping.393Hydrography is defined as: “The branch of applied sciences which deals with the measurement and description of the physical features of oceans, seas, coastal areas, lakes and rivers, as well as with the prediction of their change over time, for the primary purpose of safety of navigation and in support of all other marine activities, including economic development, security and defence, scientific research, and environmental protection” (Publication S-32). Due to their broad concept hydrographic data and information provide the foundational bases for marine space management, fisheries, coastal environment, policy decisions, shipping, energy and oil industry, etc. Portuguese Hydrographic Institute (IH) manages geospatial datasets from several scientific and technical domains. Data management has been on daily agenda and always has an internal priority. Facing the digital transformation tsunami and rapid evolution of society data requirements is the main driven for developing an internal sustainable open data strategy aligned with findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) principles and as open as possible. The European Open Data and Open Science strategies combined with the need to fill the ocean knowledge gaps are changing the way how data producers deal with geospatial information. This article presents several IH projects to increase sharing and reuse of hydrographic data by society.publishersversionpublishe

SARS-CoV-2 introductions and early dynamics of the epidemic in Portugal

Genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal was rapidly implemented by the National Institute of Health in the early stages of the COVID-19 epidemic, in collaboration with more than 50 laboratories distributed nationwide. Methods By applying recent phylodynamic models that allow integration of individual-based travel history, we reconstructed and characterized the spatio-temporal dynamics of SARSCoV-2 introductions and early dissemination in Portugal. Results We detected at least 277 independent SARS-CoV-2 introductions, mostly from European countries (namely the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Italy, and Switzerland), which were consistent with the countries with the highest connectivity with Portugal. Although most introductions were estimated to have occurred during early March 2020, it is likely that SARS-CoV-2 was silently circulating in Portugal throughout February, before the first cases were confirmed. Conclusions Here we conclude that the earlier implementation of measures could have minimized the number of introductions and subsequent virus expansion in Portugal. This study lays the foundation for genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal, and highlights the need for systematic and geographically-representative genomic surveillance.We gratefully acknowledge to Sara Hill and Nuno Faria (University of Oxford) and Joshua Quick and Nick Loman (University of Birmingham) for kindly providing us with the initial sets of Artic Network primers for NGS; Rafael Mamede (MRamirez team, IMM, Lisbon) for developing and sharing a bioinformatics script for sequence curation (https://github.com/rfm-targa/BioinfUtils); Philippe Lemey (KU Leuven) for providing guidance on the implementation of the phylodynamic models; Joshua L. Cherry (National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health) for providing guidance with the subsampling strategies; and all authors, originating and submitting laboratories who have contributed genome data on GISAID (https://www.gisaid.org/) on which part of this research is based. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the view of the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Health and Human Services, or the United States government. This study is co-funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia and Agência de Investigação Clínica e Inovação Biomédica (234_596874175) on behalf of the Research 4 COVID-19 call. Some infrastructural resources used in this study come from the GenomePT project (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-022184), supported by COMPETE 2020 - Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation (POCI), Lisboa Portugal Regional Operational Programme (Lisboa2020), Algarve Portugal Regional Operational Programme (CRESC Algarve2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

ATLANTIC EPIPHYTES: a data set of vascular and non-vascular epiphyte plants and lichens from the Atlantic Forest

Epiphytes are hyper-diverse and one of the frequently undervalued life forms in plant surveys and biodiversity inventories. Epiphytes of the Atlantic Forest, one of the most endangered ecosystems in the world, have high endemism and radiated recently in the Pliocene. We aimed to (1) compile an extensive Atlantic Forest data set on vascular, non-vascular plants (including hemiepiphytes), and lichen epiphyte species occurrence and abundance; (2) describe the epiphyte distribution in the Atlantic Forest, in order to indicate future sampling efforts. Our work presents the first epiphyte data set with information on abundance and occurrence of epiphyte phorophyte species. All data compiled here come from three main sources provided by the authors: published sources (comprising peer-reviewed articles, books, and theses), unpublished data, and herbarium data. We compiled a data set composed of 2,095 species, from 89,270 holo/hemiepiphyte records, in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay, recorded from 1824 to early 2018. Most of the records were from qualitative data (occurrence only, 88%), well distributed throughout the Atlantic Forest. For quantitative records, the most common sampling method was individual trees (71%), followed by plot sampling (19%), and transect sampling (10%). Angiosperms (81%) were the most frequently registered group, and Bromeliaceae and Orchidaceae were the families with the greatest number of records (27,272 and 21,945, respectively). Ferns and Lycophytes presented fewer records than Angiosperms, and Polypodiaceae were the most recorded family, and more concentrated in the Southern and Southeastern regions. Data on non-vascular plants and lichens were scarce, with a few disjunct records concentrated in the Northeastern region of the Atlantic Forest. For all non-vascular plant records, Lejeuneaceae, a family of liverworts, was the most recorded family. We hope that our effort to organize scattered epiphyte data help advance the knowledge of epiphyte ecology, as well as our understanding of macroecological and biogeographical patterns in the Atlantic Forest. No copyright restrictions are associated with the data set. Please cite this Ecology Data Paper if the data are used in publication and teaching events. © 2019 The Authors. Ecology © 2019 The Ecological Society of Americ

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost

Back to the future: aerial warfare in Libya

A century after the first air bomb mission, a new intervention in the same geographic space has made evident the changes in Airpower. The Aerial Warfare in Libya has radically changed the civil war, complying with a UN mission to protect Libyan population, imposing a no-fly zone and an arms embargo. Therefore, Operation Unified Protector became one of the most successful campaigns in the history of NATO. We aim to assess the operational efficiency of Airpower in the conflict in Libya, focusing on the challenges of a War essentially Aerial. Despite the military results and the fact that some political objectives were met, we can identify some concerning trends that, if not shifted, may negatively influence future NATO operations. We do not aim to draw general and universal conclusions on the strategic value of Airpower based on the analysis of a specific case. Above all, we focus on identifying some lessons which have influenced OUP operational efficiency. Thus, we must analyze some factors, such as the scope of objectives, the type of opposing action and aerial strategy used by the coalition and then focus on the challenges arising from the OUP