Public Participation and New Urbanism: A Conflicting Agenda?

The challenges to public participation in planning are numerous. Inclusive and equitable processes are recognised as an ideal in much planning theory and practice, yet this ideal is increasingly difficult to realise in today's societies that comprise diverse and multiple publics. Within the wider sustainability debate, “New Urbanism” has emerged as a pragmatic alternative to conventional low-density development. Concomitant with a range of prescribed physical outcomes, the New Urbanism movement advocates a process of “citizen-based participatory planning and design”. Charrettes, with urban design workshops, are the favoured tools for achieving this goal. However, it is argued that the adherence to a single type of participatory tool can be inconsistent with accepted ideals of participation processes and has several implications. Of particular concern is the role of the charrette planner or facilitator, a figure who has the potential to manipulate the public because of his/her inevitable allegiance to the New Urban agenda. In addition, the examination of a charrette process in a small New Zealand town raises several broader questions about the ability of the approach to address issues of inclusiveness and the recognition of difference, two fundamental elements of good participatory processes.     

Natural Red Colorant Effectiveness as Influenced by Absorptive Supports

The coloring strength of six natural red colorants was studied on various powdered supports. Solutions of two commercial beet red samples, two sandalwood red samples, one Cochineal carmine powder and one Manuscus extract were used to impregnate corn starch, microgranular cellulose and wheat flour. Color intensity of each powder was measured by reflection spectrophotometry and compared to the retention level of the colorants. No simple correlation was found between the two parameters. The effectiveness of each colorant depended on the chemical or physical structure of the support. Results were confirmed by coloration of native or modified starches. Adsorption of the colorants on cellulose did not protect the most labile samples against thermal or photoreactive degradations.     

Preserving elemental content in adherent mammalian cells for analysis by synchrotron‐based x‐ray fluorescence microscopy

Trace metals play important roles in biological function, and x‐ray fluorescence microscopy (XFM) provides a way to quantitatively image their distribution within cells. The faithfulness of these measurements is dependent on proper sample preparation. Using mouse embryonic fibroblast NIH/3T3 cells as an example, we compare various approaches to the preparation of adherent mammalian cells for XFM imaging under ambient temperature. Direct side‐by‐side comparison shows that plunge‐freezing‐based cryoimmobilization provides more faithful preservation than conventional chemical fixation for most biologically important elements including P, S, Cl, K, Fe, Cu, Zn and possibly Ca in adherent mammalian cells. Although cells rinsed with fresh media had a great deal of extracellular background signal for Cl and Ca, this approach maintained cells at the best possible physiological status before rapid freezing and it does not interfere with XFM analysis of other elements. If chemical fixation has to be chosen, the combination of 3% paraformaldehyde and 1.5 % glutaraldehyde preserves S, Fe, Cu and Zn better than either fixative alone. When chemically fixed cells were subjected to a variety of dehydration processes, air drying was proved to be more suitable than other drying methods such as graded ethanol dehydration and freeze drying. This first detailed comparison for x‐ray fluorescence microscopy shows how detailed quantitative conclusions can be affected by the choice of cell preparation method.     

Evolutive instantaneous spectrum associated with partial autocorrelation function

Several approaches have been developed for the spectral analysis of nonstationary processes in the literature. Otherwise, it has been shown recently that, as in the stationary case, the partial autocorrelation function characterizes, like the autocovariance function, the second-order properties of the process. Our main result is the introduction of a new time-dependent power spectrum clearly related to this function. At each time, this spectrum describes a stationary situation in which the present is correlated with the past in the same way as our nonstationary process at this time. The properties of this spectrum are analysed. In particular, it is defined for all nonstationary processes and is in a one-to-one correspondence with the autocovariance function. Unfortunately, no spectral representation of the process is actually associated with it. This spectrum is also compared with two similar other spectra. Some examples of theoretical spectra and an estimated spectrum are considered for illustration.     

INTEGRATING OR SEGREGATING ROMA MIGRANTS IN FRANCE IN THE NAME OF RESPECT: A SPATIAL ANALYSIS OF THE VILLAGES D'INSERTION

The French republican model has long promoted an individualist, universal and difference‐blind conception of citizenship. Yet the sociological and historical reality of decolonization and immigration has strained the coherence of this conception and helped to reveal the tension between the universalism of republican principles and the particularistic application of such principles to a specific nation, defined in political and territorial terms. One limit of this model is particularly visible in the spatial management of immigration and segregation trends. Indeed, while French urban planning officially rejects any policies explicitly directed at ethnic minorities, preferring to address social inequalities in spatial terms, it has not prevented French society from pursuing a strict and enduring process of ethno‐racial segregation. Recently, the traditional universalist position has faced a new dilemma with regard to the social and spatial treatment of the Romani populations that have settled in France since the early 2000s. Local authorities have adopted various measures to accommodate and “manage” these populations through specific spatial and administrative devices, some of which are called villages or inclusion villages (villages d'insertion). This article offers a spatial and political analysis of such local policies, focusing on three main ambiguities that characterize this urban device—security function, integrative role, and ethno‐cultural component. The authors show that the villages d'insertion offer a paradigmatic situation in which the usual scales and frames of justice get blurred, and call for a new conception of citizenship, required to promote equal respect to all populations.     

Physicochemical characterisation of calcium phosphates prepared from milk ultrafiltrates: Effect of the mineral composition

This study deals with the precipitation of calcium phosphate in permeates removed from milks at different pH (6.7, 5.2 and 4.6). An overall high yield of precipitation of calcium and phosphate (70–80%, respectively) was obtained for all precipitates with Ca/P molar ratios close to 1.5. The suspended milk‐derived calcium phosphate (MDCP) precipitates had 8–14 μm size and ?14 to ?28 mV zeta potential. The dried MDCP precipitates were identified as amorphous calcium phosphate (ACP), stable over 18 months of storage at room temperature.