International Graduate Conference on Science, Humanities and Engineering 2011 (IGCSHE2011)

This lecture-tutorial introduces to the evolution up to now of urban planning theories-in-practice. It aims athighlighting the plural and evolving streams of knowledge which form the core of planning ‘knowledge-in-action’.It introduces to the wicked problems and the dilemmas of planning with particular attention to the cognitive ‘morethan-rational’ approach which is emerging based on the many different planning paradigms of one century and halfof planning theory and practice. The lecture-tutorial is structured in four parts: three of these parts deal with thethree major approaches to planning still influential in the work of planners, the fourth and last part deals with ahybrid approach providing an integrated keystone to the development of planning.The physical approach: architecture and engineering for urban forms and equipments, public health, education,embellissement and beauty emulation, normative approach, training of urbanists through tours and visits of urbansuccess stories, role of experts in empathy with local communities.The rational approach: from urbanism to planning, increasing influence of system science and cybernetics, plans asrational courses of action, planning as autonomous discipline which can be applied to different domains, planners asgeneralists with a specialization, increasing influence of technical expertise, inspiration by critical rationalism,emphasis on individual knowledge and rationality and marginalization of communities.The communicative approach: increasing role of communities, experts and non-experts in dialogue, listeningcommunity voices, democratization of planning, , attention to individual and social knowledge.The environmental approach: communicative, dialogic, planning is integrated with environmental planning, withincreasing attention to systems and ecosystems in particular, to bioregions, to coming back to a balanced relationbetween human sphere and ecological non-human sphere, to incorporating the ‘more-than-human-world’ in theplanning domain and planners’ work, to considering culture as central in planning, to urban and regional(‘bioregional’) economy in an attempt to rebalancing urban consumptions and bioregional (resource-based)productions, to coming back to spiritual and austere way of life.The hybrid approach: it moves planning origins back to the scientific revolution of the XVII century, with itsseparation between faith and reason: in this vein, planners would become protagonists of reconciliation betweensociety and technique, emotion and reason; organizational science and organization development and management,in particular during the preparation – and, later on, the damage remediation – of the two world wars starting inEurope (1910s and 1940s), would become a crucial experimental field, witnessing evolution from rational anddeterministic, expert, approaches to post-rational, non-deterministic, non-expert approaches; this hybrid andpragmatic approach to planning pays also relevant attention to knowledge-in-practice and in general to cognitiveissues, and considers globalization as an important challenge for planning evolution and an extraordinaryopportunity for changing societal orders; this approach to planning is also characterized by a radical opposition tothe social and economic distribution of powers throughout different areas and regions in the planet.

The spread of broadcasting devices for mobile applications has led to a substantial increase of human exposure toradio frequency (RF) fields. A project funded by the EU aims to address the health and exposure requirements forthe electromagnetic fields that are in wide-spread public use. This includes the development of traceableelectromagnetic field (EMF) sensors and new artifact standards for measuring the specific absorption rate (SAR)covering a wide range of frequencies. This will enable the verification of the exposure limits for humansrecommended by the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection (ICNIRP).The project consortium consists of partners from seven national metrology institutes from the following countries:Germany (PTB: Coordinator), United Kindgom (NPL), France (LNE), Italy (INRIM), Finland (STUK), Netherlands(VSL), and Turkey (UME).In this contribution, besides introducing the German National Metrology Institute, the project mentioned above willbe presented with a focus on some of the main achievements so far. This includes new wideband sensors based onlog-per antennas and Schottky diodes for the frequencies between 40 GHz and 300 GHz. Moreover, an artifactstandard for measuring SAR up to 10 GHz in human equivalent liquids based on the rectangular waveguidetechniques will be presented.

The utilization of oxygen in biological systems is associated with the formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS).While ROS have some beneficial roles through the involvement in redox regulation and intracellular signaling of thecell, they can readily react with biologically relevant molecules and modification or damage of DNA, proteins, lipidsand carbohydrates have been related to pathogenesis of various diseases. To uphold the delicate balance betweenROS levels and oxidative damage, cells utilize a multilayered defense system of enzymatic and non-enzymaticantioxidants. Oxidative stress occurs when there is a disturbance in the balance between oxidant-antioxidant statesin favor of the oxidant environment, leading to a disruption of signaling and redox regulation and/or moleculardamage and pathological processes. Oxidative stress as cause, result or epiphenomenon in degenerative disease andthe free-radical theory of aging will be discussed.

This lecture-tutorial introduces to the evolution up to now of urban planning theories-in-practice. It aims athighlighting the plural and evolving streams of knowledge which form the core of planning ‘knowledge-in-action’.It introduces to the wicked problems and the dilemmas of planning with particular attention to the cognitive ‘morethan-rational’ approach which is emerging based on the many different planning paradigms of one century and halfof planning theory and practice. The lecture-tutorial is structured in five parts: three of these parts deal with thethree major approaches to planning still influential in the work of planners, the fourth part deals with a hybridapproach providing an integrated keystone to the development of planning, the fifth and final part considers spatialimplications of management engineering.The behavioral-systemic approach: it considers management engineering as a problem solving activity, in whichsystem theory and analysis and the leading of complex systems by cybernetics play a fundamental role; humanbehaviors and decisions can be analyzed, modeled, and optimized as it is for any other problems by using a scientificapproach, engineering and policy science are close friends in this venture. Gradually, a less optimistic and confidentattitude enters the scene, acknowledging the limitations which affect our rationality and knowledge of the world.The humanistic approach: based on pioneer studies, in the fields of psychology and organizational science amongothers (see the experiment in the General Electric plant at Hawthorne by scholars from the School of Business ofHarvard in the 1930s, or the start of the Laboratory of Group Dynamics at Bethel, Usa, in the 1940s), the crucial roleof typically human abilities (emotion, creativity, trust, etc.), not easily transferable to machines or rational devices,is acknowledged, it becomes also clear that top managers in their work do not follow the rigid scheme and path ofproduction organizations postulated by Taylor, on the contrary adopting shortcuts and euristics which consist of tacitknowledge and accumulation of high level experience, something that evokes art abilities.The cognitive approach: agent-based approaches are developed for analyzing, modeling, and managing increasinglymultifaceted and decentralized organizations; the idea is that mastering individual and social cognition isfundamental prerequisite of efficient and effective organization management and engineering; the cognitiveapproach is introducing a new landscape of concepts (see ontologies in agent-based intelligent systems andorganizations) and methods (see the new various cognitive models).The technological change and organizational approach: some relevant factors are changing the way in whichtechniques and technologies are conceived and practiced, among them the search for environmental sustainability oftechniques, globalization of societies and economies, and the cognitive turn in science and organization in any fieldand at any level; technology is not seen any more as developing in linear forms in time or according to progressiveand hierarchical models on the terrain of efficiency and effectiveness, dilemmas of the relation between traditional5(endogenous) techniques and non-traditional (exogenous) techniques become more clear, the life-cycle assessmentof technological change and technological obsolescence enters the scene with its charge of unsolvable problems; therole of individual and social cognition, of ‘technological memory’ in technological change and technologyorganization is increasingly acknowledged; information and communication technology is tremendously developingand introducing new cognitive and behavioral equilibria in individual and social organizations throughout the planet.Spatial implications of management engineering: with the increasing dematerialization and knowledge enrichmentof techniques, technology acquires new spatial profiles, for instance in terms of production landscape, individual andsocial knowledge dynamics, spatial distribution and interaction of social and human capitals, so that cities andregions are gradually changing from the hierarchies and polarities of the past to the nets of the present

Among the most important characters to consider in crop breeding programmes, is resistance to pathogens and pests.There is strong consensus, that growing genetically resistant cultivars is the most appropriate and cost effectivemeans of managing pests and diseases, and is one of the key components of crop improvement. The drawbacks ofresistance are few. One of the important concerns of resistance breeders is the specificity and durability of theresistance incorporated in their cultivars. Strategies for identification and utilisation of durable sources of resistancewill be critically discussed, with special focus on cereal and legume crops.