Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), established in 1945, is a UN specialized agency that provides global data and expertise on agri­ culture and nutrition, fisheries, forestry, and other food and agriculture– related issues. FAO is the UN system’s largest autonomous agency, with headquarters in Rome, 78 country offices and 15 regional, sub–regional, and liaison offices, including one located in Washington, D.C. FAO’s highest policy–making body, the biennial General Conference, comprises all 183 FAO member countries plus the European Commission. The General Conference determines FAO policy and approves FAO’s reg­ ular program of work and budget. The 31st Conference, meeting in November 1999, re–elected Director–General Jacques Diouf (Senegal) to a second six–year term through December 2005. Each biennial Confer­ ence elects a 49–member Council that meets semi–annually to make rec­ ommendations to the General Conference on budget and policy issues. The North America region, which comprises the United States and Can­ ada, is allocated two seats on the Council and one seat each on FAO’s Program, Finance, and Constitutional and Legal Matters (CCLM) Com­ mittees. The United States holds the North American seats on the Finance and Joint Staff Pension Committees through December 2003. Canada holds the North American seat on the CCLM and Program Committees through December 2003. The United States participated at the World Food Summit: Five Years Later meeting held at FAO headquarters June 10–13, 2002, to discuss progress towards attaining the 1996 World Food Summit target of reduc­ ing the world’s number of hungry and malnourished by half by 2015. The United States presented new initiatives to improve agriculture productivity as a significant contribution toward meeting that goal. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman, leading the U.S. delegation, joined other min­ isters and heads of state and government in adopting a Declaration, “The International Alliance Against Hunger,” which reiterated the goals of the 1996 World Food Summit and stated, inter alia, “we are committed to

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Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) ホームページの活用法

In December 2019, a novel coronavirus was isolated from the respiratory epithelium of patients with unexplained pneumonia in Wuhan, China. This pathogen, named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), causes a pathogenic condition that has been termed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and has reached pandemic proportions. As of 17 September 2020, more than 30 million confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infections have been reported in 204 different countries, claiming more than 1 million lives worldwide. Accumulating evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2 infection can lead to a variety of clinical conditions, ranging from asymptomatic to life-threatening cases. In the early stages of the disease, most patients experience mild clinical symptoms, including a high fever and dry cough. However, 20% of patients rapidly progress to severe illness characterized by atypical interstitial bilateral pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome and multiorgan dysfunction. Almost 10% of these critically ill patients subsequently die. Insights into the pathogenic mechanisms underlying SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 progression are emerging and highlight the critical role of the immunological hyper-response - characterized by widespread endothelial damage, complement-induced blood clotting and systemic microangiopathy - in disease exacerbation. These insights may aid the identification of new or existing therapeutic interventions to limit the progression of early disease and treat severe cases.

/pdf/immunity-endothelial-injury-and-complement-induced-32uniklkq5.pdf

Immunity, endothelial injury and complement-induced coagulopathy in COVID-19.

Covalent organic frameworks offer a molecular platform for integrating organic units into periodically ordered yet extended two- and three-dimensional polymers to create topologically well-defined polygonal lattices and built-in discrete micropores and/or mesopores. This polymer architecture is unique as it enables predesigning both primary- and high-order structures, greatly enhancing our capabilities of designing organic materials to produce predictable structures and to achieve unique properties and functions. Progress over the past 15 years in the design, synthesis and functional exploration of COFs has successively established the basis of the COF field and COFs have shown the great potential of chemistry in developing a class of amazing organic materials. In this review, we focus on analysing the historic developments of COFs to uncover a full materials and application picture by providing comprehensive yet clear guidance for molecular design, synthetic control and functional exploration. We scrutinise the structural components of COFs including building blocks, reactive sites and functional groups with the aim of finding the origins of structural designability and diversity, as well as multiple functionalities. We disclose strategies for designing and synthesising frameworks to construct various tailor-made interfaces, and for exploring skeletons and pores to design properties and functions. With well-defined skeletons, pores and interfaces that offer a chemical basis to trigger and control interactions with photons, excitons, phonons, polarons, electrons, holes, spins, ions and molecules, we illustrate the current status of our understandings of structure-property correlations, and unveil the principles for establishing a regime to design unique functions that originate from and are inherent to structures. We predict the key central issues in design and synthesis, the challenges in functional design and the future directions from the perspectives of chemistry, physics and materials science.

Covalent organic frameworks: an ideal platform for designing ordered materials and advanced applications

After the 1918 flu pandemic, the world is again facing a similar situation. However, the advancement in medical science has made it possible to identify that the novel infectious agent is from the coronavirus family. Rapid genome sequencing by various groups helped in identifying the structure and function of the virus, its immunogenicity in diverse populations, and potential preventive measures. Coronavirus attacks the respiratory system, causing pneumonia and lymphopenia in infected individuals. Viral components like spike and nucleocapsid proteins trigger an immune response in the host to eliminate the virus. These viral antigens can be either recognized by the B cells or presented by MHC complexes to the T cells, resulting in antibody production, increased cytokine secretion, and cytolytic activity in the acute phase of infection. Genetic polymorphism in MHC enables it to present some of the T cell epitopes very well over the other MHC alleles. The association of MHC alleles and its downregulated expression has been correlated with disease severity against influenza and coronaviruses. Studies have reported that infected individuals can, after recovery, induce strong protective responses by generating a memory T-cell pool against SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. These memory T cells were not persistent in the long term and, upon reactivation, caused local damage due to cross-reactivity. So far, the reports suggest that SARS-CoV-2, which is highly contagious, shows related symptoms in three different stages and develops an exhaustive T-cell pool at higher loads of viral infection. As there are no specific treatments available for this novel coronavirus, numerous small molecular drugs that are being used for the treatment of diseases like SARS, MERS, HIV, ebola, malaria, and tuberculosis are being given to COVID-19 patients, and clinical trials for many such drugs have already begun. A classical immunotherapy of convalescent plasma transfusion from recovered patients has also been initiated for the neutralization of viremia in terminally ill COVID-19 patients. Due to the limitations of plasma transfusion, researchers are now focusing on developing neutralizing antibodies against virus particles along with immuno-modulation of cytokines like IL-6, Type I interferons (IFNs), and TNF-α that could help in combating the infection. This review highlights the similarities of the coronaviruses that caused SARS and MERS to the novel SARS-CoV-2 in relation to their pathogenicity and immunogenicity and also focuses on various treatment strategies that could be employed for curing COVID-19.

/pdf/overview-of-immune-response-during-sars-cov-2-infection-1mscglun7r.pdf

Overview of Immune Response During SARS-CoV-2 Infection: Lessons From the Past.

Photo-thermal catalysis has recently emerged as an alternative route to drive chemical reactions using light as an energy source. Through the synergistic combination of photo- and thermo-chemical contributions of sunlight, photo-thermal catalysis has the potential to enhance reaction rates and to change selectivity patterns, even under moderate operation conditions. This review provides the fundamentals of localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) that explain the photo-thermal effect in plasmonic structures, describes the different mechanistic pathways underlying photo-thermal catalysis, suggests methodologies to disentangle the reaction mechanisms and proposes material design strategies to improve photo-thermal performance. Ultimately, the goal is to pave the way for the wide implementation of this promising technology in the production of synthetic fuels and chemicals.

/pdf/fundamentals-and-applications-of-photo-thermal-catalysis-532tbwjn5y.pdf

Fundamentals and applications of photo-thermal catalysis.

Many inland waters exhibit complete or partial desiccation, or have vanished due to global change, exposing sediments to the atmosphere. Yet, data on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from these sedim ...

/pdf/global-co2-emissions-from-dry-inland-waters-share-common-2oz3y1quhi.pdf

Global CO2 emissions from dry inland waters share common drivers across ecosystems

Abstract Groundwater is an important freshwater resource and hosts specialized microbial assemblages providing fundamental ecosystem services. The current knowledge on the role of aquatic microorganisms in subsurface ecosystems is still limited. This work aimed to explore the links between groundwater hydrogeochemical properties and microbial community traits in a volcanic unconfined aquifer, moderately impacted by anthropic activities. The main physical and chemical parameters of groundwater samples were analyzed, along with microbial biomass (total cell counts, ATP-active biomass concentration), potential metabolic activity, and physiological profiles at the microbial community level (Biolog ™ EcoPlates). The results showed the coexistence of oxidizing and reducing groundwater conditions across the study area. We discriminated two groups of oxidizing/reducing groundwater samples (Ox and Red), each including two subgroups with different chemical conditions attributed to contrasting levels of anthropogenic impact for non-intensive agricultural practices and waste disposal activities (Ox − and Ox + ; Red − and Red +). Although the microbial biomass was likely not affected by changing redox, the microbial metabolic potential and functional diversity changed significantly. In the Ox samples, the community-level physiological profiles were different, mainly owing to the utilization of carboxylic acids (Ox − &gt; Ox +) and carbohydrates (Ox + &gt; Ox −). In the Red samples, a wider set of organic substrates were consumed by the microbial communities, including those less bioavailable (e.g., phenols). Significant differences were also found between Red − and Red + , mainly owing to the relative increase in the utilization of amino acids in Red − , polymers and amines in Red + , along with the active biomass. By reflecting the local redox conditions and moderate levels of anthropogenic impact, the applied approach highlighted changes of microbial metabolic potential and physiological profiles that imply direct repercussions on biogeochemical cycling and the ecosystem services provided by groundwater microorganisms. 

/pdf/redox-conditions-and-a-moderate-anthropogenic-impairment-of-2cu4425b.pdf

M. Melita

Papers

Global CO2 emissions from dry inland waters share common drivers across ecosystems

Redox conditions and a moderate anthropogenic impairment of groundwater quality reflected on the microbial functional traits in a volcanic aquifer