Deliberation, Representation, Equity

"What can we learn about the development of public interaction in e-democracy from a drama delivered by mobile headphones to an audience standing around a shopping center in a Stockholm suburb? In democratic societies there is widespread acknowledgment of the need to incorporate citizens’ input in decision-making processes in more or less structured ways. But participatory decision making is balancing on the borders of inclusion, structure, precision and accuracy. To simply enable more participation will not yield enhanced democracy, and there is a clear need for more elaborated elicitation and decision analytical tools. This rigorous and thought-provoking volume draws on a stimulating variety of international case studies, from flood risk management in the Red River Delta of Vietnam, to the consideration of alternatives to gold mining in Roșia Montană in Transylvania, to the application of multi-criteria decision analysis in evaluating the impact of e-learning opportunities at Uganda's Makerere University. Editors Love Ekenberg (senior research scholar, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis [IIASA], Laxenburg, professor of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University), Karin Hansson (artist and research fellow, Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University), Mats Danielson (vice president and professor of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University, affiliate researcher, IIASA) and Göran Cars (professor of Societal Planning and Environment, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm) draw innovative collaborations between mathematics, social science, and the arts. They develop new problem formulations and solutions, with the aim of carrying decisions from agenda setting and problem awareness through to feasible courses of action by setting objectives, alternative generation, consequence assessments, and trade-off clarifications. As a result, this book is important new reading for decision makers in government, public administration and urban planning, as well as students and researchers in the fields of participatory democracy, urban planning, social policy, communication design, participatory art, decision theory, risk analysis and computer and systems sciences.

Deliberation, Representation, Equity

"What can we learn about the development of public interaction in e-democracy from a drama delivered by mobile headphones to an audience standing around a shopping center in a Stockholm suburb? In democratic societies there is widespread acknowledgment of the need to incorporate citizens’ input in decision-making processes in more or less structured ways. But participatory decision making is balancing on the borders of inclusion, structure, precision and accuracy. To simply enable more participation will not yield enhanced democracy, and there is a clear need for more elaborated elicitation and decision analytical tools. This rigorous and thought-provoking volume draws on a stimulating variety of international case studies, from flood risk management in the Red River Delta of Vietnam, to the consideration of alternatives to gold mining in Roșia Montană in Transylvania, to the application of multi-criteria decision analysis in evaluating the impact of e-learning opportunities at Uganda's Makerere University. Editors Love Ekenberg (senior research scholar, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis [IIASA], Laxenburg, professor of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University), Karin Hansson (artist and research fellow, Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University), Mats Danielson (vice president and professor of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University, affiliate researcher, IIASA) and Göran Cars (professor of Societal Planning and Environment, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm) draw innovative collaborations between mathematics, social science, and the arts. They develop new problem formulations and solutions, with the aim of carrying decisions from agenda setting and problem awareness through to feasible courses of action by setting objectives, alternative generation, consequence assessments, and trade-off clarifications. As a result, this book is important new reading for decision makers in government, public administration and urban planning, as well as students and researchers in the fields of participatory democracy, urban planning, social policy, communication design, participatory art, decision theory, risk analysis and computer and systems sciences.

Prototyping for Participatory Democracy : Fine Arts as Means for the Study of Multi-modal Communication in Public Decision Making

We present a thematic art project in a suburb of Stockholm as a means to generate problem areas in focus for a research project on multimodal communication and democratic decision-making. Through art we play with different techniques and ideas about democracy in a particular location in order to obtain a better understanding of the citizens and their environments. Artists' actions, installations and mediations create a direct confrontation with the place and its inhabitants, and explore the dynamic relationships that constitute its context. The common denominator for the invited artists is that they work with situation-specific emancipatory art that in various ways relates to the physical and mediated public sphere. The art project Performing Structure is a collaborative process where the artists develop the project and take part in the contextualization in collaboration with researchers. This is achieved partly through a shared memory work on the theme of power / powerlessness. From this feminist research practice notions of democracy is examined in order to investigate, expose, enhance and / or remodel relations of the site. The aim with the art project is to put the site and the individual in a web of geographical, social and economic contexts. The aim is also to contribute to a debate on artistic research by showing how art can be viewed as a qualitative method. Through the practice of the memory work method we contribute to the development of this methodology, and map out a space for art in the field of science

Healing after standardized clinical probing of the perlimplant soft tissue seal: A histomorphometric study in dogs

Background/Aims: Clinical probing of the soft tissues around oral implants has become a frequently used parameter for clinical monitoring. However, the healing of the disruption of the soft tissue seal as a result of probing has not yet been studied. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the healing events in the periimplant mucosal tissues following standardized clinical probing. Material and methods: In three foxhounds the mandibular premolars were extracted and, after 3 months of healing, TPS screw-shaped implants (ITO Dental Implant System) were installed. A plaque control regimen was performed throughout the duration of the experiment. After 3 months of healing of the transmucosal implants, clinical implant stability and healthy periimplant mucosal tissues with mostly absence of bleeding on probing were obtained. Clinical probing of the mesial and distal implant sites was performed immediately before 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7 days prior to the sacrifice of the animals. A specially manufactured titanium cylinder with a mesial and distal groove was fixed to the implants to standardize the insertion geometry of a pressure-sensitive probe (0.2-0.25 N, tip diameter 0.45 mm). The distances from the alveolar crest to the coronal border of the connective tissue adaptation to the implant and the length of the epithelial attachment were measured histomorphometrically in nondecalcified ground sections. The buccal and lingual aspects of the implants were used to determine the components of the biological width in unprobed control sites. Results: The probe caused a separation between the surface of the implant and the junctional epithelium, but not within the connective tissue adaptation. In general, the probe tip was located at the most coronal level of the supracrestal connective tissue as determined histologically. By 1 day after separation of the periimplant mucosal tissue by probing, an epithelial attachment of approximately 0.5 mm in the apico-coronal direction was observed. The length of the epithelial adaptation showed a tendency to increase over time (day 2:1.15 mm, day 3: 1.52 mm), and was complete at day 5 (1.92 mm). At the unprobed sites the epithelial attachment showed a mean length of 1.69 mm. Inflammatory infiltrates were practically nonexistent, indicating the absence of tissue trauma or infection as a result of probing. Conclusions: Clinical probing around osseointegrated implants does not appear to have detrimental effects on the soft tissue seal and, hence, does not seem to jeopardize the longevity of oral implants. The 'healing of the epithelial attachment' seems to be complete 5 days after clinical probing. Copyright © Blackwell Munksgaard 2002.link_to_subscribed_fulltex