In Search of Radical Democracy: The Ideological Character of Current Political Advocacies for Culture Change in Planning

This paper argues that current attempts to situate the crisis in planning in demoralised or old planning cultures are playing a key role in strengthening the ideological commitment of planning to an advanced liberal social order. In order to provide planners with the means to understand some of the ideological mechanisms at work in such processes, the 2007 Danish structural reform and the parallel advocacy for culture change in planning are analysed. Drawing on post-Marxist theories of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, the analysis draws attention to the need for reflection on whether the current ideological commitment of planning is that which best serves a democratic society

JESSI AC41. Technology Assessment Schlussbericht

For the optimization of the performance and reliability of advanced integrated, application specific circuits (ASICs) during the development phase, it is necessary to assess the design related, inherent characteristics and limits of the respective semiconductor technology. An important prerequisite is a well defined and accepted technology assessment system acting as interface between semiconductor suppliers and chip designers. The strategy for such a transparent, fully foundry independent characterisation system has already been developed during the first phase of the project JESSI AC41. The following report describes the work carried out at Alcatel SEL during phase 2 to realize and to verify this common, widely automated technology assessment system for submicrometer semiconductor technologies, which consists of: common, technology supplier independent test structures and mini test chips; compact, physical transistor model for submicrometer CMOS technologies; agreed test methods for technology and reliability parameters; agreed parameter extraction procedures; common data exchange format. This jointly developed and by all project partners accepted assessment system is presently in the formal standardisation phase within CENELEC (European Standardisation Organisation). Extension towards international IEC standards is envisaged. (orig.)Available from TIB Hannover: F96B182+a / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEBundesministerium fuer Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie, Bonn (Germany)DEGerman

Discovering lactic acid bacteria by genomics

This review summarizes a collection of lactic acid bacteria that are now undergoing genomic sequencing and analysis. Summaries are presented on twenty different species, with each overview discussing the organisms fundamental and practical significance, environmental habitat, and its role in fermentation, bioprocessing, or probiotics. For those projects where genome sequence data were available by March 2002, summaries include a listing of key statistics and interesting genomic features. These efforts will revolutionize our molecular view of Gram-positive bacteria, as up to 15 genomes from the low GC content lactic acid bacteria are expected to be available in the public domain by the end of 2003. Our collective view of the lactic acid bacteria will be fundamentally changed as we rediscover the relationships and capabilities of these organisms through genomics.