This literature review of studies on public meetings, workshops, and community advisory committees discusses public participation based on empirical evidence. Public participation "success" is defined by researchers' criteria that are divided into two categories: (1) those that evaluate the success of the participatory process and (2) those that evaluate the success of the outcome of the process. We find the form of participationspublic meetings, workshops, or citizen advisory committeessdoes not determine process or outcome success. Therefore, attempts to develop a typology of public participation efforts may be problematic. However, we find some empirical support for practitioners' other widely accepted "rules of thumb"."The common practice of eliciting comments only after most of the work of reaching a decision has been done is cause for resentment of risk decisions.... Many decisions can be better informed and their information base can be more credible if the interested and affected parties are appropriately and effectively involved..." (1)."Experience increasingly shows that risk management decisions that are made in collaboration with stakeholders are more effective and more durable." (2).Two major national reports have called for more involvement of outside stakeholders in agency decision making about risk (1, 2). Despite fears of some scientists that participatory processes can swamp good science, these reports encourage agencies to take collaborative approaches to environmental problem solving. The following review of public participation studies seeks to ground discussions of implementation of public participation in empirical evidence, dating back to the 1970s when seminal research was spurred by the enactment of federal environmental statutes that mandated public participation.

Communication literature traditionally divides interaction into two forms: mass media and interpersonal communication. These ideal types are unquestionably useful heuristic tools. Yet their conceptual utility is often undermined when researchers place them at opposite ends of a linear, historical transformation in which mass media technology is believed to supplant interpersonal communication and the locations in which it occurs. This article abandons the polar, historical relationship in favor of a communication dialectic that recognizes the synthesis of ideal types into composite forms of interaction. Embedded technology demonstrates the dialectic by exploring how electronic media fixed within a physical location can combine with the interpersonal communication taking place there to enhance group interaction. The resulting hybrid defies the assumption that mass media simply displace interpersonal interaction, pointing instead to a dialectic relationship in which ideal types continually challenge and transform one another.Communication literature traditionally divides interaction into two major forms: mass media and interpersonal communication. Mass media are generally defined as one-directional, impersonal communications emanating from a central source to a dispersed and often powerless audience (see, e.g., Beniger 1986; Delia 1987; Ferrarotti 1988; Home 1986). Interpersonal communication, on the other hand, is characterized by two-way, face-to-face interaction between co-present actors (see, e.g., Goffman 1963Goffman , 1981.These ideal types are unquestionably useful heuristic tools, providing an analytical framework by which communication in many settings can be conceptualized. Yet their conceptual utility is often undermined by the tendency to historicize the ideal type relationship. Many researchers place mass media and interpersonal communication at opposite ends of a linear, historical transformation in which mass media displace interpersonal communication and the physical locations in which it occurs (Beniger 1986;Ferrarotti 1988; Home 1986; Innis 1950;Meyrowitz 1985).Confining ideal types within the context of a historical "revolution" limits their utility as abstract guides. Interpersonal communication is reduced to a dying breed, a metaphor for traditional, integrated, homogeneous patterns of social organization. Mass media, on the other hand, become a metaphor for the differentiation, heterogeneity, and anonymity of postmodem life-styles and often are

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Following the abrupt cessation of benzodiazepine therapy, patients can present with acute life-threatening withdrawal. Medical management of benzodiazepine withdrawal is typically undertaken with benzodiazepines either through loading dose with gradual taper or symptom triggered treatment, though adjuvant anxiolytics and anticonvulsants are often used. Ketamine, increasingly utilized as an adjunct in the treatment of alcohol withdrawal, may represent an effective medication in the treatment of benzodiazepine withdrawal. In this case report, a 27-year-old male with a history of benzodiazepine and opioid abuse presented to our emergency department with a chief complaint of drug withdrawal. Despite standard treatment with large amounts of benzodiazepine, barbiturate, opioid, and adjunctive medications, the patient remained with severe withdrawal syndrome until an infusion of ketamine (0.5mg/kg in 30 minutes) was administered resulting in significant improvement of the patient symptoms. This case demonstrates the potential role of ketamine as an adjunct medication in the treatment of benzodiazepine withdrawal.