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The Iberian peninsula is a peripheral region of Europe in close proximity to Africa. Its inhabitants have an overall mtDNA genetic landscape typical of European background, although with signs of some African influence, whose features we deemed to disclose by analyzing available mtDNA HVRI distributions and new data. We analyzed 1,045 sequences. The most relevant results are the following: (1) North African sequences (haplogroup U6) present an overall frequency of 2.39%, and sub-Saharan sequences reach 3.83%, values that are, in both cases, much higher than those generally observed in Europe; and (2) there is a substantial geographic heterogeneity in the distribution of these lineages (haplogroup L being the most frequent in the south, whereas haplogroup U6 is generally more common in the north). The analysis of the observed diversity within each haplogroup strongly suggests that both were recently introduced (in historical times). Although for haplogroup U6 the documented event that is demographically compatible is the Islamic period (beginning of the 8th century to the end of the 15th century), for haplogroup L the most probable origin is the modern slave trade (mid 15th century to the end of the 18th century). However, the observed geographic structuring for one of the haplogroups does not fit the expected distribution provided by simplistic historical considerations. In fact, although for haplogroup L the north-south increasing frequency is corroborated by historical data, the opposite trend, observed for haplogroup U6, is more difficult to reconcile with the magnitude and time span of the Islamic political and cultural influence, which lasted longer and was more intense in the south. To clarify this conundrum, we need not only a substantial increase in the amount of mtDNA data (particularly for North Africa) but also new historical data and interpretations. ; This work was partially supported by a research grant to LP (SFRH/BPD/7121/2001) from Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia and IPATIMUP by Programa Operacional Ciencia, Tecnologia e Inovacao (POCTI), Quadro Comunitario de Apoio III.

There has been a call for more participatory processes to feed into urban planning for more resilient food systems. This paper describes a process of knowledge co-production for transforming towards an alternative food system in Cape Town, South Africa. A 'transformative space' was created though a T-Lab process involving change-agents advocating for an alternative food system, and was designed to discuss challenges in the local food system from a range of perspectives, in order to co-develop potentially transformative innovations that could feed into government planning. In this paper, we describe and reflect on the T-lab in order to consider whether its design was able to meet its objective: to initiate an experimental phase of coalition-building by diverse actors that could feed into the provincial government's strategic focus on food and nutrition security. Our findings indicate that T-labs have the potential to be important mechanisms for initiating and sustaining transformative change. They can be complementary to urban planning processes seeking to transform complex social-ecological systems onto more sustainable development pathways. However, as with all experimental co-production processes, there is significant learning and refinement that is necessary to ensure the process can reach its full potential. A key challenge we encountered was how to foster diversity and difference in opinions in the context of significant historical legacies of inequality, whilst simultaneously acting for 'the common good' and seeking ways to scale impact across different contexts. The paper concludes with deliberations on the nature of planning and navigating towards systemic transformative change.

Transformations toward sustainability have recently gained traction, triggered in part by a growing recognition of the dramatic socio-cultural, political, economic, and technological changes required to move societies toward more desirable futures in the Anthropocene. However, there is a dearth of literature that emphasizes the crucial aspects of sustainability transformations in the diverse contexts of the Global South. Contributors to this Special Feature aim to address this gap by weaving together a series of case studies that together form an important navigational tool on the "how to" as well as the "what" and the "where to" of sustainability transformations across diverse challenges, sectors, and geographies. They propose the term "transformative space" as a "safe-enough" collaborative process whereby actors invested in sustainability transformations can experiment with new mental models, ideas, and practices that can help shift social-ecological systems onto more desirable pathways. The authors also highlight the challenges posed to researchers as they become "transformative space-makers," navigating the power dynamics inherent in these processes. Because researchers and practitioners alike are challenged to provide answers to complex and often ambiguous or incomplete questions around sustainability, the ideas, reflections and learning gathered in this Special Feature provide some guidance on new ways of engaging with the world.

Scenario development has been recognized as a potential method to explore future change and stimulate a reflective process that can contribute to more informed decision-making. The assessment process under IPBES (the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) has however shown that the current predominantly biophysical and economic models and scenario processes for exploring the future of biodiversity, ecosystem services and their contributions to human wellbeing are insufficient to capture the complexity and context-specific nature of the problems facing these sectors. Several important challenges have been identified that require a more in-depth analysis of where more imaginative scenario efforts can be undertaken to address this gap. In this paper, we identify six key characteristics necessary for scenario processes: adaptability across diverse contexts, inclusion of diverse knowledge and value systems, legitimate stakeholder engagement that foregrounds the role of power and politics, an ability to grapple with uncertainty, individual and collective thinking mechanisms and relevance to policy making. We compared four cases of imaginative, arts-based scenario processes that each offer aspects of meeting these criteria. These approaches emphasise the importance of engaging the imagination of those involved in a process and harnessing it as a tool for identifying and conceptualising more transformative future trajectories. Drawing on the existing literature, we argue that there is value in fostering more inclusive and creative participatory processes that acknowledge the importance of understanding multiple value systems and relationships in order to reimagine a more inclusive and just future. Based on this, we reflect on future research to understand the transformative role that imagination can play in altering and enhancing knowledge-making for global assessments, including IPBES. We conclude that creative scenario co-development processes that promote imagination and create an opening for more empathetic responses should be considered as complementary tools within the suite of methodologies used for future IPBES scenario development.

Abstract. In this study, drought in Portugal was assessed using 74 time series of Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) with a 12-month timescale and 66 years length. A clustering analysis on the SPI Principal Components loadings was performed in order to find regions where SPI drought characteristics are similar. A Fourier analysis was then applied to the SPI time series considering one SPI value per year relative to every month. The analysis focused on the December SPI time series grouped in each of the three identified clusters to investigate the existence of cycles that could be related to the return periods of droughts. The most frequent significant cycles in each of the three clusters were identified and analysed for December and the other months. Results for December show that drought periodicities vary among the three clusters, pointing to a 6-year cycle across the country and a 9.4-year cycle in central and southern Portugal. Both these cycles likely show the influence of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) on the occurrence and severity of droughts in Portugal. Relative to other months it was observed that cycles varied according to the common occurrence of precipitation: for the rainy months – November, December and January – cycles are similar to those for December; for the dry months – May to September – where the lack of precipitation masks the occurrence of drought, the dominant cycles are of short duration and cannot be related to the NAO or other large circulation indices to explain drought variability; for the transition months – February, March, April and October – 6-year and 3-year cycles were identified, the latter being more strongly apparent in central and southern Portugal. NAO influence is again identified relative to the 6-year cycles. The short cycles are apparently associated with positive SPI, thus with wetness, not drought. Overall, results confirm the importance of the NAO as a driving force for dry and wet periods.

Abstract. The spatial variability of precipitation and drought are investigated for Portugal using monthly precipitation from 74 stations and minimum and maximum temperature from 27 stations, covering the common period of 1941–2006. Seasonal precipitation and the corresponding percentages in the year, as well as the precipitation concentration index (PCI), was computed for all 74 stations and then used as an input matrix for an R-mode principal component analysis to identify the precipitation patterns. The standardized precipitation index at 3 and 12 month time scales were computed for all stations, whereas the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) and the modified PDSI for Mediterranean conditions (MedPDSI) were computed for the stations with temperature data. The spatial patterns of drought over Portugal were identified by applying the S-mode principal component analysis coupled with varimax rotation to the drought indices matrices. The result revealed two distinct sub-regions in the country relative to both precipitation regimes and drought variability. The analysis of time variability of the PC scores of all drought indices allowed verifying that there is no linear trend indicating drought aggravation or decrease. In addition, the analysis shows that results for SPI-3, SPI-12, PDSI and MedPDSI are coherent among them.

During the economic and financial crisis, private and public organizations were subject to a constant reduction in costs and resources. Public shared service models felt compelled to adopt the Lean methodology with the aim of reducing costs, reducing waste and increasing employee satisfaction with the provision of quality services. Against this background, this article aims to evaluate the impact of the implementation of Shared Services and the inherent benefits of lean management in the Military Store, Contact Center, Post Office and Internal Portal used by the Portuguese Air Force. Using a case study methodology, this study portrays the elimination of waste and the optimization of existing human and financial resources. After the implementation in 2015, it is still possible now to verify that there is some resistance to change, and the fact that we are dealing with a hierarchical organization justifies this disadvantage. The implementation and operation of all services in their entirety allowed the optimization of resources and the simplification of processes, resulting in the elimination of duplicate tasks. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is implementing the Program for Climate Smart Livestock (PCSL) in Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia. PCSL is designed to build the capacity of governments, the private sector, and livestock keepers towards improving livestock productivity, reducing greenhouse gas emissions while adapting to climate change. In May 2021, ILRI held a hybrid (in-person and virtual) workshop with relevant stakeholders to discuss potential transformative pathways for the livestock sector in Ethiopia.

Sustainably achieving the goal of global food security is one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. The current food system is failing to meet the needs of people, and at the same time, is having far-reaching impacts on the environment and undermining human well-being in other important ways. It is increasingly apparent that a deep transformation in the way we produce and consume food is needed in order to ensure a more just and sustainable future. This paper uses the concept of regime shifts to understand key drivers and innovations underlying past disruptions in the food system and to explore how they may help us think about desirable future changes and how we might leverage them. We combine two perspectives on regime shifts-one derived from natural sciences and the other from social sciences-to propose an interpretation of food regimes that draws on innovation theory. We use this conceptualization to discuss three examples of innovations that we argue helped enable critical regime shifts in the global food system in the past: the Haber-Bosch process of nitrogen fixation, the rise of the supermarket, and the call for more transparency in the food system to reconnect consumers with their food. This paper concludes with an exploration of why this combination of conceptual understandings is important across the Global North/ Global South divide, and proposes a new sustainability regime where transformative change is spearheaded by a variety of social-ecological innovations.

The increasing concentration of populations in urban areas in recent decades has strengthened the interest in – and the importance given to – these zones. Cities have become quite attractive from investors' point of view because of the wide array of opportunities and growing need for investment in urban areas. Thus, city strategic planning quite often requires an understanding of the determinants that attract investment to urban zones. This study sought to identify the factors that strengthen urban investment based on the knowledge of a panel of experts. Fuzzy cognitive mapping techniques were applied to understand the concepts and decision criteria included in the decision-support model and their cause-and-effect relationships. The results provide insights into which determinants most strongly influence urban investment, namely, infrastructure, supporting services, and political-administrative factors. Diverse scenarios at the intra- and inter-cluster levels were created to clarify the impacts of variable changes on the model developed. The findings were validated by both the expert panel members and the vice-president of the Portuguese Association of Real Estate Developers and Investors. Advantages and limitations of the proposed framework are presented, as well as recommendations for future research. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion