This book presents distinct classes of RNA therapeutics, ranging from single-stranded antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) and subclasses of RNA interferences (miRNAs and other RNAi) to in vitro transcribed and in vivo translated mRNAs drugs and RNA vaccines. The book discusses some of the challenges in RNA drug engineering, delivery, and specificity, as well as highlights the improvement of pharmacological effectiveness in a wide range of diseases.

Fruit and Nut Crops: A Treasure Trove of Diversity and Resilience
Dive into the fascinating world of fruit and nut crops in this comprehensive volume. Explore their origins, evolution, and global journey, from wild ancestors to diverse cultivars nourishing us today. Uncover their crucial role in food security, providing vital nutrients and supporting livelihoods.

Cet ouvrage s’adresse aux enseignants-chercheurs et aux étudiants, ainsi qu’aux acteurs du monde agricole, aux gestionnaires du territoire, organismes et associations environnementales et à tout citoyen intéressé par ces questions.

This book focuses solely on the issues of agricultural productivity analysis with advanced modeling approaches bringing solutions to food-insecure regions of the world, especially in south and southeast Asia and in Africa. Advanced modeling tools and their use in regional planning provide an outstanding opportunity to help face the challenges of climate change. The sudden effect of flash floods, drought, salinity, and sea water rises causing saltwater intrusions and its impact on agricultural production are some of the disastrous results of climate change.

In this book, leading researchers from this field systematically explain the latest research results on anaerobic responses in plants. The book is characterized by its in-depth coverage of the tolerance functions of plants under hypoxic conditions from a variety of perspectives, with a particular focus on research areas related to molecular biology and genetics. Although drought responses have dominated water stress research in the past, recent floods and attempts to introduce new cropping systems have made it necessary to take measures against excessive water stress injury, and systematic research is needed for this purpose. From this point of view, the approach taken in this book is new and interesting in that it covers basic research and adaptation technologies in the field, and can be applied to various different situations. The focus of this book is how plants can adapt to poor environments and improve productivity under the conditions of soil hypoxia caused by excess water, such as heavy rains and typhoons. From this point of view, the reader will be able to understand the various adaptations of plants to climate change, which will clarify the future directions of research and show the possibility of applying the knowledge and techniques gained in this book to the field.

Notre agriculture ? Une industrie qui fonctionne au pétrole, aux engrais et aux pesticides. La campagne ? Une usine qui produit des « matières premières » végétales ou animales. À l’instar des sociétés industrielles dont il émane, ce système contribue au chaos climatique par la dégradation des écosystèmes, avec le soutien des politiques publiques.

This holistic guide brings rabbit production science and medicine together. It considers the full spectrum of commercial rabbit husbandry, including intensive, semi-intensive, and organic systems for meat, fur and leather. Drawn from an international authorship, the book addresses practical and fundamental topics. In comprehensive sections, readers will find easy-to-read chapters on:

This book provides guidelines for using a new approach of resampling the Cs-137 radionuclide tracer which is used to estimate soil erosion rates. The Cs-137 resampling approach will improve significantly the use of the Cs-137 method for assessment of soil erosion, because resampling the radionuclide repeatedly (at least two times, but more sampling campaigns are possible) allows to avoid several methodological difficulties associated with Cs-137 method, namely the problems with small-scale spatial heterogeneity, the question of representativeness of reference site, reference samples, and inappropriate time extent of evaluated period. All these methodological problems are very important for reliability and accuracy of erosion rates estimated by Cs-137 method. If using single sampling approach, the small-scale spatial heterogeneity can be overcome by high number of sampling points, but this is time and labour demanding solution increasing the expenses of the erosion research.

Land deterioration, drought, desertification, and water resources shrinkage threaten natural resources, negatively impacting environmental, economic, and political stability. The increasing occurrence of climate change (extremes) impacts land degradation processes, soil erosion by water and wind, and salinization. The researchers have invested several years of scientific research in natural resources deterioration, including soil degradation and erosion, land degradation, desertification, and climate changes, which are interesting enough. However, the link between science and policymaking appears to be less active as serious actions do not take fast. The eighteen chapters of this book focus more on topics related to natural resources deterioration, such as land degradation, desertification, drought, climate change, and analysis of numerous case studies.

This book addressed the pressing challenges of climate change, land scarcity, and food security, offering a comprehensive synthesis of research on using, managing, and reclaiming marginal lands in Africa. Unfavourable climatic conditions and rapid population growth intensify competition for land, putting pressure on traditional agricultural soils thus necessitating a transition towards underutilized marginal lands. Reclaiming these damaged and undervalued areas through various technologies presents a promising path not only to food independence but also to second-generation biofuel feedstock production, utilizing excess biomass from these revived lands. While recent years have seen increased focus on restoring degraded lands, a crucial gap remains i.e. a unified knowledge base detailing the efficacy of various reclamation technologies. This book fills that void, empowering farmers and policymakers with the insights they need to make informed decisions, mobilize resources effectively, and ultimately help Africa meet its projected 60% food demand increase.

This book focuses on challenges that have arisen because of trash discharges and their potential causes and provides long-term sustainable solutions. Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused immense devastation, leading to numerous fatalities as well as substantial economic losses and health issues. With the rise in COVID-19 cases, the amount of biomedical waste has multiplied, exposing more people to the epidemic. For developing countries, waste management is already a problem, and the waste generated during this pandemic situation has made things worse. If improper waste management techniques are not changed, the world will face a new crisis that could be referred to as a "garbage crisis." The increased quantity of COVID-19-associated waste (CAW) and their presence in the environment make them more vulnerable, potentially increasing the danger of food chain contamination.

This book discusses how plant functional trait selection can help researchers to understand the plant-environment relationship, identify desirable traits, modulate plant resilience according to the changing climate, optimize resource use efficiency, and enhance genetic improvement. The plant functional traits-based approach provides a framework for improving crop productivity in agricultural systems with high precision. It enables researchers to develop crop varieties with desirable traits by focusing on the fundamental characteristics influencing growth, development, and response. Climate change and environmental variability pose significant agricultural challenges. The plant functional traits-based approach can help address these challenges by selecting and breeding traits that enhance resilience and adaptability capacity of the plant. This approach also contributes to sustainable agriculture, by focusing on increased food production, and resilience in extreme environmental conditions.

​Like many sectors, agriculture is experiencing a continuous digitalization, i.e. an increase in data-driven technologies used. In contrast to companies of other critical infrastructures, a typical farm is comparatively small and often runs as a family business. Accordingly, the demands on farming technology, its implementation, and regulations are different in many terms. Currently, a promising technological trend of agriculture is smart farming, that incorporates more precise cultivation with less manual effort. But such new developments usually lack an assessment about its impact on the sector's resilience and dependencies on other infrastructures. It remains unclear, how digitalization impacts the resilience of food production and food safety. Therefore, it is not well researched which technological developments may lead to undesired effects in the future. How modern systems should be designed to allow for both, positive impacts on efficiency, and prevention of negative effects interms of reduced resilience capacities, is also not answered by current literature. The aim of the work is to close this research gap in the interplay between agriculture, digitalization, and resilience.

The objective of this book is to present protocols, methodologies, and standard operating procedures (SOPs) used for the identification of sources, transport, and fate of agro-contaminants and illustrate them with several case studies of successful applications. The Soil and Water Management & Crop Nutrition (SWMCN) Subprogramme of the Joint Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)/International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Centre of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, through a Coordinated Research Project (CRP) in partnership with national and international research institutes, developed and evaluated a set of analytical techniques (the toolbox). The toolbox integrates multiple isotope tracers that provide information on the origins and pathways of multiple pollutants through agro-ecosystems, thereby providing more accurate guidance on mitigations. However, land management strategies to address and control the transport of pollutants from soil to water bodies remain the shared responsibility of farm and aquaculture operators, agro-chemical manufacturers, and policymakers in food and agriculture as well as the mining sectors. This book is structured into eight chapters covering (i) an overview of the book’s content, (ii) guidelines for designing water sampling programmes, (iii) the use of mixing models applicable to tracers for water pollution studies, (iv) compound-specific isotope analyses to investigate pesticide degradation in agricultural catchments, (v) the use of stable oxygen isotope composition of phosphate to investigate phosphorous in soil-plant continuum, (vi) the use of stable sulphur isotopes to disentangle agro-pollutants from other contaminants, (vii) nuclear tools used in sediment source apportionment, and (viii) the conclusions and perspectives forward. The book offers up-to-date information, and we hope it is a great source of information for students, researchers, and policymakers. The SWMCN subprogramme thanks all the contributors involved in the preparation of this publication.