Participatory Decision Making: A Field Experiment on Manipulating the Votes

Many believe that deliberative democracy, where individuals discuss alternatives before voting on them, should result in collectively superior outcomes because voters become better informed and decisions are justified using reason. These deliberations typically involve a moderator, however, whose role has been under-examined. We conduct a field experiment to test the effects moderators may have. Participants in a class of 107 students voted on options over their writing and exam requirements. Before voting, they participated in group discussions of about five people each with one moderator. Some (randomly assigned) moderators remained neutral throughout, while others made limited interventions, supporting a specific option. We find a substantial moderator effect. Our experiment is structured like deliberations used world-wide to make community decisions and thus should have some external validity. The results indicate that if organized interest groups had influence over moderators, they might be able to hijack a deliberative decision-making process.Participatory Decision Making, Field Experiment, Voting.

Enabling Deliberations in a Political Party Using Large-Scale Argumentation: A Preliminary Reports

This paper represents a preliminary report on using an argumentation system to enable large scale deliberations, involving over 400 members of the Italian Democratic Party, on electoral law reform. It is, to our knowledge, one of very few evaluations of large-scale argumentation, as well as the first to include a systematic comparison with conventional (web forum based) online deliberation. We will discuss (1) the strengths and limitations of current deliberation technologies, (2) how large-scale argumentation technology can help address these limitations, and (3) preliminary results from the Democratic Party evaluation of this technology

Study of dissolution rate enhancement of poorly water soluble drug

Aim of this work is the preparation of spray-dried microspheres as drug delivery systems for Rokitamycin (RK), using chitosan (C) and its salt, chitosan glutamate (CG) to improve the dissolution rate of the drug. The work further aimed to investigate the effect of the type of chitosan and feed solution concentration on the microsphere properties

Participatory Decision Making: A Field Experiment on Manipulating the Votes

Many believe that deliberative democracy, where individuals discuss alternatives before voting on them, should result in collectively superior outcomes because voters become better informed and decisions are justified using reason. These deliberations typically involve a moderator, however, whose role has been under-examined. We conduct a field experiment to test the effects moderators may have. Participants in a class of 107 students voted on options over their writing and exam requirements. Before voting, they participated in group discussions of about five people each with one moderator. Some (randomly assigned) moderators remained neutral throughout, while others made limited interventions, supporting a specific option. We find a substantial moderator effect. Our experiment is structured like deliberations used world-wide to make community decisions and thus should have some external validity. The results indicate that if organized interest groups had influence over moderators, they might be able to hijack a deliberative decision-making process

Participatory Decision Making: A Field Experiment on Manipulating the Votes

Many believe that deliberative democracy, where individuals discuss alternatives before voting on them, should result in collectively superior outcomes because voters become better informed and decisions are justified using reason. These deliberations typically involve a moderator, however, whose role has been under-examined. We conduct a field experiment to test the effects moderators may have. Participants in a class of 107 students voted on options over their writing and exam requirements. Before voting, they participated in group discussions of about five people each with one moderator. Some (randomly assigned) moderators remained neutral throughout, while others made limited interventions, supporting a specific option. We find a substantial moderator effect. Our experiment is structured like deliberations used world-wide to make community decisions and thus should have some external validity. The results indicate that if organized interest groups had influence over moderators, they might be able to hijack a deliberative decision-making process

Hierarchical Formation of Fibrillar and Lamellar Self-Assemblies from Guanosine-Based Motifs

Here we investigate the supramolecular polymerizations of two lipophilic guanosine derivatives in chloroform by light scattering technique and TEM experiments. The obtained data reveal the presence of several levels of organization due to the hierarchical self-assembly of the guanosine units in ribbons that in turn aggregate in fibrillar or lamellar soft structures. The elucidation of these structures furnishes an explanation to the physical behaviour of guanosine units which display organogelator properties

Spray-dried microspheres based on methylpyrrolidinone chitosan: <i>in-vitro</i> and <i>ex-vivo</i> studies

The purpose of this work was the preparation and the study of methypyrrolidinone chitosan spray-dried microspheres for the intranasal release of metoclopramide hydrochloride (Met). Chitosan (CH) microparticles were prepared as comparison