The food multimix concept: new innovative approach to meeting nutritional challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa

Food insecurity, chronic hunger, starvation and malnutrition continue to affect millions of individuals throughout the developing world, especially Sub-Saharan Africa. Various initiatives by African governments and International Agencies such as the UN, the industrial nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation to boost economic development, have failed to provide the much-needed solution to these challenges. The impact of these economic shifts and the failures of structural adjustment programmes on the nutritional well-being and health of the most vulnerable members of poor communities cannot be over-emphasised. The use of ad hoc measures as an adjunct to community-based rural integrated projects have provided little success and will be unsustainable unless they are linked to harnessing available local resources. The present paper therefore focuses on exploring alternative ways of harnessing the scant agricultural resources by employing a scientific approach to food-related problem-solving. The food multimix (FMM) concept offers a scientific contribution alongside other attempts currently in use by the World Food Programme, WHO and FAO to meet the food insecurity challenges that confront most of the developing world in the twenty-first century. It is an innovative approach that makes better use of traditional food sources as a tool for meeting community nutritional needs. The FMM concept employs a food-based approach using traditional methods of food preparation and locally-available, cheap and affordable staples (fruits, pulses, vegetables and legumes) in the formulation of nutrient-enriched multimixes. Developed recipes can provide >= 40% of the daily nutritional requirements of vulnerable groups, including patients with HIV/AIDS and children undergoing nutrition rehabilitation. The FMM approach can also be used as a medium- to long-term adjunct to community-based rural integration projects aimed at health improvement and economic empowerment in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Design process knowledge reuse challenges and issues

Product knowledge support needs are compared in two companies with different production volumes and product complexity. Knowledge support requirements identified include: function, performance data, requirements data, common parts, regulatory guidelines and layout data. A process based data driven knowledge reuse method is evaluated in light of the identified product knowledge needs. The evaluation takes place through developing a pilot case with each company. It is found that the method provides more benefit to the high complexity design domain, in which a significant amount of work takes place at the conceptual design stages, relying on a conceptual product representation. There is not such a clear value proposition in a design environment whose main challenge is layout design and the application of standard parts and features. The method supports the requirement for conceptual product representation but does not fully support a standard parts library.

Challenges to Slovakia and Poland health policy decisions: use of investment treaties to claim compensation for reversal of privatisation/liberalisation policies

Investment treaties, and possibly the EU Treaty itself, are being used by multinational companies Penta and Eureko to try and force the Slovak government to pay compensation for reversing health privatisation and liberalisation policies. Similar action has been used against the Polish government by Eureko to win compensation worth nearly 2 billion Euros and a policy commitment to further privatisation.

Challenges for implementing the Marine Strategy Framework Directive in a climate of macroecological change

Unprecedented basin-scale ecological changes are occurring in our seas. As temperature and carbon dioxide concentrations increase, the extent of sea ice is decreasing, stratification and nutrient regimes are changing and pH is decreasing. These unparalleled changes present new challenges for managing our seas, as we are only just beginning to understand the ecological manifestations of these climate alterations. The Marine Strategy Framework Directive requires all European Member States to achieve good environmental status (GES) in their seas by 2020; this means management towards GES will take place against a background of climate-driven macroecological change. Each Member State must set environmental targets to achieve GES; however, in order to do so, an understanding of large-scale ecological change in the marine ecosystem is necessary. Much of our knowledge of macroecological change in the North Atlantic is a result of research using data gathered by the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) survey, a near-surface plankton monitoring programme that has been sampling in the North Atlantic since 1931. CPR data indicate that North Atlantic and North Sea plankton dynamics are responding to both climate and human-induced changes, presenting challenges to the development of pelagic targets for achievement of GES in European Seas. Thus, the continuation of long-term ecological time series such as the CPR survey is crucial for informing and supporting the sustainable management of European seas through policy mechanisms.