Inspection Intensity and Market Structure, October 2005

An investigation of financing an inspection policy while allowing the enforcement of a market regulation is described. A simple model shows that the intensity of controls depends on the market structure. Under a given number of firms, the per-firm probability of controls is lower than one, since firms’ incentive to comply with regulation holds under positive profits. In this case, a lump-sum tax is used for limiting distortions coming from financing with a fixed fee. Under free entry, the per-firm probability of controls is equal to one, and only a fixed fee that prevents excess entry is used to finance inspection.

2010 Iowa Court Debt Amnesty

During its 2010 Session the General Assembly enacted Senate File 2383 creating a Debt Amnesty Program for certain outstanding court debts. The Amnesty provided that fifty percent of outstanding eligible debt be forgiven upon payment of a lump sum equal to fifty percent of the eligible debt. The Amnesty was offered from September 1 through November 30.

Report:Ansel Briggs Project, May 1975.

In June of 1974 Governor Robert Ray approved Senate File 1325, an Act passed by the Sixty-fifth General Assembly which directed the State Historical Society of Iowa to utilize the sum of $2,500 "For the planning and study of a memorial to Ansel Briggs, the first governor of Iowa." This is the final report on all of the information that was compiled during the intense research done on the Governor. This report includes information on his ancestry and personal life, photos, governorship, correspondence, documents, monuments and much more.

Field Monitoring of Curved Girder Bridges with Integral Abutments, TPF-5(169), 2014

Nationally, there are questions regarding the design, fabrication, and erection of horizontally curved steel girder bridges due to unpredicted girder displacements, fit-up, and locked-in stresses. One reason for the concerns is that up to one-quarter of steel girder bridges are being designed with horizontal curvature. There is also an urgent need to reduce bridge maintenance costs by eliminating or reducing deck joints, which can be achieved by expanding the use of integral abutments to include curved girder bridges. However, the behavior of horizontally curved bridges with integral abutments during thermal loading is not well known nor understood. The purpose of this study was to investigate the behavior of horizontal curved bridges with integral abutment (IAB) and semi-integral abutment bridges (SIAB) with a specific interest in the response to changing temperatures. The long-term objective of this effort is to establish guidelines for the use of integral abutments with curved girder bridges. The primary objective of this work was to monitor and evaluate the behavior of six in-service, horizontally curved, steel-girder bridges with integral and semi-integral abutments. In addition, the influence of bridge curvature, skew and pier bearing (expansion and fixed) were also part of the study. Two monitoring systems were designed and applied to a set of four horizontally curved bridges and two straight bridges at the northeast corner of Des Moines, Iowa—one system for measuring strains and movement under long term thermal changes and one system for measuring the behavior under short term, controlled live loading. A finite element model was developed and validated against the measured strains. The model was then used to investigate the sensitivity of design calculations to curvature, skew and pier joint conditions. The general conclusions were as follows: (1) There were no measurable differences in the behavior of the horizontally curved bridges and straight bridges studied in this work under thermal effects. For preliminary member sizing of curved bridges, thermal stresses and movements in a straight bridge of the same length are a reasonable first approximation. (2) Thermal strains in integral abutment and semi-integral abutment bridges were not noticeably different. The choice between IAB and SIAB should be based on life – cycle costs (e.g., construction and maintenance). (3) An expansion bearing pier reduces the thermal stresses in the girders of the straight bridge but does not appear to reduce the stresses in the girders of the curved bridge. (4) An analysis of the bridges predicted a substantial total stress (sum of the vertical bending stress, the lateral bending stress, and the axial stress) up to 3 ksi due to temperature effects. (5) For the one curved integral abutment bridge studied at length, the stresses in the girders significantly vary with changes in skew and curvature. With a 10⁰ skew and 0.06 radians arc span length to radius ratio, the curved and skew integral abutment bridges can be designed as a straight bridge if an error in estimation of the stresses of 10% is acceptable.

Proceedings of the 2014 Iowa Tribal Summit on Cultural Preservation and Transportation, 2014

The 2014 Iowa Tribal Summit on Cultural Preservation and Transportation was a three day event held in Ames, Iowa, where Tribal officials, transportation officials, and preservation partners sat down to discuss various topics of interest related to consultation under the National Historical Preservation Act. The goal of this Summit was for these groups to discuss and develop effective project consultation. These proceeding provide a summary of the event, as well as recommendations for how to approach similar events in the future. In sum, 13 tribal officials, 16 transportation officials, 10 preservation partners, and two moderators attended all parts of the Summit. The 2014 Summit was a successful event when assessed in terms of group participation and attendee feedback. However, all attendees agree that events such as this Summit are most effective when they occur on a somewhat regular basis, where consulting parties can have regular dialog and interaction regarding all aspects of consultation under the National Historical Preservation Act. Recommendations offered herein can be applied to various consultation situations. -- Summary, page iii

The Role of Magnesium in Concrete Deterioration, HR-355, Appendix, 1994

In the main report concerning the role that magnesium may have in highway concrete aggregate, over 20,000 electron microprobe data were obtained, primarily from automated scans, or traverses, across dolomite aggregate grains and the adjacent cement paste. Representative traverses were shown in figures and averages of the data were presented in Table II. In this Appendix, detailed representative and selected analyses of carbonate aggregate only are presented. These analyses were not presented in the main report because they would be interesting to only a few specialists in dolomite· rocks. In this Appendix, individual point analyses of mineral compositions in the paste have been omitted along with dolomite compositions at grain boundaries and cracks. Clay minerals and quartz inclusions in the aggregate are also not included. In the analyses, the first three column headings from left to right show line number, x-axis, and y-axis (Line number is an artifact of the computer print-out for each new traverse. Consecutive line numbers indicate a continuous traverse with distances between each point of 1.5 to a few μ-m. X-axis and y-axis are coordinates on the electron microscope stage). The next columns present weight percent oxide content of FeO, K20, CaO, Si02, Al203, MgO, SrO, BaO, MnO, Na20, and C02 (calculated assuming the number of moles of C02 is equal to the sum of moles of oxides, chiefly CaO and MgO), TOTAL (the sum of all oxides), and total (sum of all oxides excluding COi). In many of the analyses total is omitted.

Total Cost of Transportation Analysis of Road and Highway Issues, HR-388, 2002

In the administration, planning, design, and maintenance of road systems, transportation professionals often need to choose between alternatives, justify decisions, evaluate tradeoffs, determine how much to spend, set priorities, assess how well the network meets traveler needs, and communicate the basis for their actions to others. A variety of technical guidelines, tools, and methods have been developed to help with these activities. Such work aids include design criteria guidelines, design exception analysis methods, needs studies, revenue allocation schemes, regional planning guides, designation of minimum standards, sufficiency ratings, management systems, point based systems to determine eligibility for paving, functional classification, and bridge ratings. While such tools play valuable roles, they also manifest a number of deficiencies and are poorly integrated. Design guides tell what solutions MAY be used, they aren't oriented towards helping find which one SHOULD be used. Design exception methods help justify deviation from design guide requirements but omit consideration of important factors. Resource distribution is too often based on dividing up what's available rather than helping determine how much should be spent. Point systems serve well as procedural tools but are employed primarily to justify decisions that have already been made. In addition, the tools aren't very scalable: a system level method of analysis seldom works at the project level and vice versa. In conjunction with the issues cited above, the operation and financing of the road and highway system is often the subject of criticisms that raise fundamental questions: What is the best way to determine how much money should be spent on a city or a county's road network? Is the size and quality of the rural road system appropriate? Is too much or too little money spent on road work? What parts of the system should be upgraded and in what sequence? Do truckers receive a hidden subsidy from other motorists? Do transportation professions evaluate road situations from too narrow of a perspective? In considering the issues and questions the author concluded that it would be of value if one could identify and develop a new method that would overcome the shortcomings of existing methods, be scalable, be capable of being understood by the general public, and utilize a broad viewpoint. After trying out a number of concepts, it appeared that a good approach would be to view the road network as a sub-component of a much larger system that also includes vehicles, people, goods-in-transit, and all the ancillary items needed to make the system function. Highway investment decisions could then be made on the basis of how they affect the total cost of operating the total system. A concept, named the "Total Cost of Transportation" method, was then developed and tested. The concept rests on four key principles: 1) that roads are but one sub-system of a much larger 'Road Based Transportation System', 2) that the size and activity level of the overall system are determined by market forces, 3) that the sum of everything expended, consumed, given up, or permanently reserved in building the system and generating the activity that results from the market forces represents the total cost of transportation, and 4) that the economic purpose of making road improvements is to minimize that total cost. To test the practical value of the theory, a special database and spreadsheet model of Iowa's county road network was developed. This involved creating a physical model to represent the size, characteristics, activity levels, and the rates at which the activities take place, developing a companion economic cost model, then using the two in tandem to explore a variety of issues. Ultimately, the theory and model proved capable of being used in full system, partial system, single segment, project, and general design guide levels of analysis. The method appeared to be capable of remedying many of the existing work method defects and to answer society's transportation questions from a new perspective.