Report Open Course Programme Wageningen UR, 2010

Annually, the Wageningen UR open course programme for mid-career professionals provides some six hundred individuals with the opportunity to update their competencies and insights. EL&I co-finances this course programme with the aim to maintain close linkages with international policy priorities and to support course innovation and development. This report provides an overview of the outputs over 2010 in relation to the commitment number 1400002642. The demand driven programme was highly successful with over six hundred participants in some 23 courses. Individual course developments are indicated and the annex provides a strategy update indicating how the programme addresses the new government’s policy priorities on international cooperation

Improving Nutrition through Agriculture : Viewing agriculture-nutrition linkages along the smallholder value chain

This report is a synthesis of existing global knowledge on improving nutrition through agriculture using a smallholder value chain approach. The smallholder value chain model used by the desk review concentrates on both producers and consumers and is centred around three pathways: improved nutrition resulting from increased production for own consumption, improved nutrition through increased income from selling agricultural products, and improved nutrition through increased income resulting from farmers’ involvement in local or regional procurement programs. The report identifies key conditions for agricultural interventions to significantly contribute to nutrition as well as important knowledge gaps pertaining to agriculture-nutrition linkages

Voedselzekerheid is complex vraagstuk

In 2009 had meer dan een miljard mensen te weinig te eten, het hoogste aantal sinds 1970. Dat blijkt uit cijfers van de VN. Jarenlang daalde het aantal mensen met honger, maar de laatste jaren is die trend gekeerd, mede door de wereldwijde economische crisis en de enorme prijsstijgingen van voedsel vlak daarvoo

Nutrition monitoring mission November 5-9, 2018 : Human Capital Development project UNICEF Rwanda

This is the report of the Nutrition Monitoring Mission that was performed November 5-9, 2018 at the invitation of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Human Capital Development project which is implemented by UNICEF Rwanda, was monitored for its progress, specifically paying attention to progress in the implementation of the various outcome areas (Nutrition, Early ChildhoodDevelopment, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), Social Protection, Pre-primary Education, Child Protection in Private Sector and Multi-Sectoral interventions

Metagenomic evidence for a polymicrobial signature of sepsis

Our understanding of the host component of sepsis has made significant progress. However, detailed study of the microorganisms causing sepsis, either as single pathogens or microbial assemblages, has received far less attention. Metagenomic data offer opportunities to characterize the microbial communities found in septic and healthy individuals. In this study we apply gradient-boosted tree classifiers and a novel computational decontamination technique built upon SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) to identify microbial hallmarks which discriminate blood metagenomic samples of septic patients from that of healthy individuals. Classifiers had high performance when using the read assignments to microbial genera [area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUROC=0.995)], including after removal of species ‘culture-confirmed’ as the cause of sepsis through clinical testing (AUROC=0.915). Models trained on single genera were inferior to those employing a polymicrobial model and we identified multiple co-occurring bacterial genera absent from healthy controls. While prevailing diagnostic paradigms seek to identify single pathogens, our results point to the involvement of a polymicrobial community in sepsis. We demonstrate the importance of the microbial component in characterising sepsis, which may offer new biological insights into the aetiology of sepsis, and ultimately support the development of clinical diagnostic or even prognostic tools

Nutritional aspects in the EDGET project : Addis Ababa, Ethiopia ; report of a mission

A mission was implemented to advise SNV project management and project staff on how to integrate human nutritional considerations into the EDGET project that aims at increasing the production of milk and dairy products in selected areas in Ethiopia. The EDGET project already also identified the objective of contributing to improving the nutritional situation of 500.000 young children in the areas. The advisory services concentrated on technical aspects of nutrition, linking the EDGET project staff to nutrition related networks and expertise in Ethiopia and on the design of a nutrition related baseline. Report CDI-14-003