Aim: Brazil harbours the largest known extent of rhodolith beds (RBs) in the world, a habitat whose ecological and economic importance have been widely overlooked. This creates a dire situation that is likely to worsen with the rapidly expanding human activities, considering that less than 5% of Brazil's ocean area is fully protected. We assessed the importance of Brazilian RBs for supporting biodiversity, at a country-wide level, and identified multi-criteria hotspots that, in face of lack of protection and presence of anthropogenic threats, could safeguard conservation seascapes across Southwestern Atlantic waters. Location: Southwestern Atlantic Ocean. Methods: We performed a systematic review of studies on Brazilian RBs to retrieve information regarding their spatial distribution and associated biodiversity. Multi-criteria hotspots were identified based on the areas where high species diversity co-occurs with a high presence of endemic, threatened and commercially important species. Furthermore, we assessed how well RBs are covered by marine protected areas (MPAs), as well as their spatial overlap with multiple threats. Results: Existing records for Brazilian RBs indicate >1000 different species, mostly fish and algae, including significant numbers of endemic, threatened and commercially important species. Most of the RBs are either unprotected or only partially protected, including the majority of the biodiversity hotspots identified by our analysis. Among the main potential threats to RBs, bottom trawling ranks highest, while the expansion of seabed mining and oil and gas activities may sharply increase the risk of cumulative impacts on RBs in the near future. Main Conclusions: Our large-scale quantitative assessment confirms the significant role of RBs as biodiversity hotspots. This information could be leveraged to help meet the twin goals of RB conservation, through the establishment of highly-protected MPAs in hotspot areas, and their sustainable use through an ecosystem-based approach that accounts for vulnerabilities of RBs to multiple threats.

Os produtos alimentares são um bem essencial para o ser humano, satisfazendo as suas necessidades nutricionais assim como os seus sentimentos de saciedade e prazer. Nas últimas décadas, o setor agroalimentar evoluiu de forma exponencial, criando um largo leque de produtos com o objetivo de corresponder às crescentes exigências dos consumidores. Neste sentido, foram desenvolvidos sistemas de controlo e gestão da qualidade e segurança alimentar de produtos, assegurando que os alimentos cheguem ao mercado de forma segura. Na segurança alimentar está abrangido o sistema de defesa alimentar, que trata a proteção contra atos de contaminação intencional, ou adulteração, de alimentos, atividade que tem ganho relevância nas versões mais recentes de referenciais de gestão de qualidade e segurança alimentar, como British Retail Consortium (BRC) Food. O cumprimento dos requisitos exigidos pelos referenciais é fundamental para a certificação duma empresa, reforçando a sua posição no mercado agroalimentar. Deste modo, o objetivo da presente dissertação de mestrado incide no estudo dos conceitos de segurança alimentar e defesa alimentar, e das metodologias adotadas para a elaboração de um plano de defesa alimentar de empresas e organizações, como Threat Assessment and Critical Control Points (TACCP). Com este estudo, pretende-se adquirir conhecimentos para a avaliação e melhoria de um plano de defesa alimentar já implementado numa empresa, Decorgel – Produtos Alimentares S.A., no âmbito do referencial British Retail Consortium Global Standards (BRCGS), procurando cumprir os requisitos descritos na norma referentes à defesa alimentar.

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.