Climate change impacts, responses and adaptations

Genome-wide bioinformatic analyses predict key host and viral factors in SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis

“By better understanding the virus, it is possible to better understand its pathological effects and to think of future effective treatments.    

In December 2019, a coronavirus emerged in Wuhan, China, causing severe respiratory syndromes. By January 24, 2021, it had infected more than 95 million people worldwide, causing at least 2 million deaths. Researchers speculate that the virus originated in bats, with pangolins as an intermediate host to reach humans. Studies have attempted to understand the interactions between the virus and infected cells, and have compared the effects of covid with those of other respiratory viruses. A variation in the viral sequence has been identified that is associated with the age of the patient. This study is based on the analysis of the expression of pulmonary genes infected with covid or other viruses. Certain characteristic elements found in the body of certain patients trigger cytokine storms. The study showed that elevated Interleukin 6 is seen in more than half of covid patients and is associated with respiratory failure, sepsis, and risk of mortality, making it worthwhile to use Interleukin 6 activity as a tool to determine the severity and progression of covid.

Search, inspection and selection of new source material for millet breeding

“It is important to consider the greatly increased frequency of extreme weather events in recent decades

Millet refers to several species of plants in the Poaceae family. They are small-seeded cereals, cultivated in dry areas. Cultivated especially in Russia, its great genetic variety increases the success of crops. With the increase in extreme temperature episodes, the question arises as to how to continue to obtain millet without the crops suffering too much from climate change.

The most ecologically and economically efficient ways are to create new varieties of millet, so current research is aimed at increasing the plant's genetic diversity, improving its architecture and adaptive capabilities, and creating plants with high adaptive potential.

To observe the millet's response to climate, researchers observed a field from 2017 to 2019, in a location that has sufficient moisture for the crop.

Millet reacts in three different ways to stress (drought and high temperature): irritation, damage, adaptation. During irritation, there is a deviation of the parameters from the norm: the plant acts strangely, then it returns to normal. The damage is characterized by a general disorder in the plant, stronger if the stress level is high, and weaker if the plant is resistant. Then after the damage, the plant eventually adapts.

There is a strong link between productivity and plant structure, and it seems promising to select plants for cultivation based on grain size.

Pedestrian–bus route and pickup location planning for emergency evacuation

“Compared to individual evacuation by car, evacuation by bus has distinct advantages and characteristics, especially in densely populated areas

Climate change is causing an increase in hurricanes and flooding in some areas where populations are dependent on public transportation. This makes it more than necessary to organize and plan effective evacuations by bus. This public transportation has the advantage of being able to move large numbers of humans and animals efficiently, while creating the least amount of traffic congestion possible. A mathematical model is proposed to design efficient evacuation routes, taking into account the pedestrian route, pedestrian pick-up locations, and the bus system itself. The objective is to minimize the evacuation time. The proposed models attempt to create optimized routes even when the number of buses or their capacity is limited. When this is the case, it is more efficient to allocate more buses to pick up nodes that have more people and longer evacuation routes, and to allocate fewer buses but more round trips to pick up nodes that have shorter evacuation routes.

Studies are planned to refine the models, and to take into account the possible delay when pedestrians board the bus.