Iowa Code Section 307.47 Equipment and Vehicle Report

Attached is the Iowa Department of Transportation's Equipment and Vehicle Purchase Report for Fiscal Year 2010 as required by Iowa Code section 307.47.

Physical properties of dystrophic Red Latosol (Oxisol) under different agricultural uses

Obtaining information about soil properties under different agricultural uses to plan soil management is very important with a view to sustainability in the different agricultural systems. The aim of this study was to evaluate changes in certain indicators of the physical quality of a dystrophic Red Latosol (Oxisol) under different agricultural uses. The study was conducted in an agricultural area located in northern Paraná State. Dystrophic Red Latosol samples were taken from four sites featuring different types of land use typical of the region: pasture of Brachiaria decumbens (P); sugarcane (CN); annual crops under no-tillage (CAPD); and native forest (permanent conservation area) (control (C)). For each land use, 20 completely randomized, disturbed and undisturbed soil samples were collected from the 0-20 cm soil layer, to determine soil texture, volume of water-dispersible clay, soil flocculation (FD), particle density, quantity of organic matter (OM), soil bulk density (Ds), soil macroporosity (Ma) and microporosity (Mi), total soil porosity (TSP), mean geometric diameter of soil aggregates (MGD), and penetration resistance (PR). The results showed differences in OM, FD, MGD, Ds, PR, and Ma between the control (soil under forest) and the areas used for agriculture (P, CN and CAPD). The soils of the lowest physical quality were those used for CN and CAPD, although only the former presented a Ma level very close to that representing unfavorable conditions for plant growth. For the purposes of this study, the physical properties studied were found to perform well as indicators of soil quality.

Iowa "50 States Project": A Review of the 1983 Code for Sexuality Discrimination, February 1984

The "50 States Project" is the name given to President Ronald D. Reagan;s 1981 pledge to encourage the fifty governors to initiate individual state projects to review their state Codes for unequal treatment of persons based upon sex. We believe that Iowa is the first state to complete this project. Project efforts in Iowa began in June of 1981, when the Governor Robert D. ray appointed Dr. Patricia L. Geadelmann, Chairperson on the Iowa commission on the Status of Women, as Iowa's 50 State Project representative. A 50 States planning committee was formed consisting of members from the Governor Ray's staff, the Iowa Commission on the Status of Women, and the Iowa Legislature. Various alternatives for reviewing the Iowa code and the Iowa Administrative Rules were studied and recommendations of the group were reported to Governor Terry E. Branstad prior to his inauguration.

Code Section 307.46(2) - Use of Reversion Report

Pursuant to Iowa Code Section 307.46(2), I submit the following report on the use of reversions. The Iowa Department of Transportation spent $498,703 of the Fiscal Year 2010 Road Use Tax Fund/Primary Road Fund budget reversion in Fiscal Year 2011 for desktop, server and network software, information technology professional services and computer equipment.

Community Policing in Switzerland's Major Urban Areas: An Observational Study of the Implementation and Impact Using Geospatial Data Mining

La présente étude est à la fois une évaluation du processus de la mise en oeuvre et des impacts de la police de proximité dans les cinq plus grandes zones urbaines de Suisse - Bâle, Berne, Genève, Lausanne et Zurich. La police de proximité (community policing) est à la fois une philosophie et une stratégie organisationnelle qui favorise un partenariat renouvelé entre la police et les communautés locales dans le but de résoudre les problèmes relatifs à la sécurité et à l'ordre public. L'évaluation de processus a analysé des données relatives aux réformes internes de la police qui ont été obtenues par l'intermédiaire d'entretiens semi-structurés avec des administrateurs clés des cinq départements de police, ainsi que dans des documents écrits de la police et d'autres sources publiques. L'évaluation des impacts, quant à elle, s'est basée sur des variables contextuelles telles que des statistiques policières et des données de recensement, ainsi que sur des indicateurs d'impacts construit à partir des données du Swiss Crime Survey (SCS) relatives au sentiment d'insécurité, à la perception du désordre public et à la satisfaction de la population à l'égard de la police. Le SCS est un sondage régulier qui a permis d'interroger des habitants des cinq grandes zones urbaines à plusieurs reprises depuis le milieu des années 1980. L'évaluation de processus a abouti à un « Calendrier des activités » visant à créer des données de panel permettant de mesurer les progrès réalisés dans la mise en oeuvre de la police de proximité à l'aide d'une grille d'évaluation à six dimensions à des intervalles de cinq ans entre 1990 et 2010. L'évaluation des impacts, effectuée ex post facto, a utilisé un concept de recherche non-expérimental (observational design) dans le but d'analyser les impacts de différents modèles de police de proximité dans des zones comparables à travers les cinq villes étudiées. Les quartiers urbains, délimités par zone de code postal, ont ainsi été regroupés par l'intermédiaire d'une typologie réalisée à l'aide d'algorithmes d'apprentissage automatique (machine learning). Des algorithmes supervisés et non supervisés ont été utilisés sur les données à haute dimensionnalité relatives à la criminalité, à la structure socio-économique et démographique et au cadre bâti dans le but de regrouper les quartiers urbains les plus similaires dans des clusters. D'abord, les cartes auto-organisatrices (self-organizing maps) ont été utilisées dans le but de réduire la variance intra-cluster des variables contextuelles et de maximiser simultanément la variance inter-cluster des réponses au sondage. Ensuite, l'algorithme des forêts d'arbres décisionnels (random forests) a permis à la fois d'évaluer la pertinence de la typologie de quartier élaborée et de sélectionner les variables contextuelles clés afin de construire un modèle parcimonieux faisant un minimum d'erreurs de classification. Enfin, pour l'analyse des impacts, la méthode des appariements des coefficients de propension (propensity score matching) a été utilisée pour équilibrer les échantillons prétest-posttest en termes d'âge, de sexe et de niveau d'éducation des répondants au sein de chaque type de quartier ainsi identifié dans chacune des villes, avant d'effectuer un test statistique de la différence observée dans les indicateurs d'impacts. De plus, tous les résultats statistiquement significatifs ont été soumis à une analyse de sensibilité (sensitivity analysis) afin d'évaluer leur robustesse face à un biais potentiel dû à des covariables non observées. L'étude relève qu'au cours des quinze dernières années, les cinq services de police ont entamé des réformes majeures de leur organisation ainsi que de leurs stratégies opérationnelles et qu'ils ont noué des partenariats stratégiques afin de mettre en oeuvre la police de proximité. La typologie de quartier développée a abouti à une réduction de la variance intra-cluster des variables contextuelles et permet d'expliquer une partie significative de la variance inter-cluster des indicateurs d'impacts avant la mise en oeuvre du traitement. Ceci semble suggérer que les méthodes de géocomputation aident à équilibrer les covariables observées et donc à réduire les menaces relatives à la validité interne d'un concept de recherche non-expérimental. Enfin, l'analyse des impacts a révélé que le sentiment d'insécurité a diminué de manière significative pendant la période 2000-2005 dans les quartiers se trouvant à l'intérieur et autour des centres-villes de Berne et de Zurich. Ces améliorations sont assez robustes face à des biais dus à des covariables inobservées et covarient dans le temps et l'espace avec la mise en oeuvre de la police de proximité. L'hypothèse alternative envisageant que les diminutions observées dans le sentiment d'insécurité soient, partiellement, un résultat des interventions policières de proximité semble donc être aussi plausible que l'hypothèse nulle considérant l'absence absolue d'effet. Ceci, même si le concept de recherche non-expérimental mis en oeuvre ne peut pas complètement exclure la sélection et la régression à la moyenne comme explications alternatives. The current research project is both a process and impact evaluation of community policing in Switzerland's five major urban areas - Basel, Bern, Geneva, Lausanne, and Zurich. Community policing is both a philosophy and an organizational strategy that promotes a renewed partnership between the police and the community to solve problems of crime and disorder. The process evaluation data on police internal reforms were obtained through semi-structured interviews with key administrators from the five police departments as well as from police internal documents and additional public sources. The impact evaluation uses official crime records and census statistics as contextual variables as well as Swiss Crime Survey (SCS) data on fear of crime, perceptions of disorder, and public attitudes towards the police as outcome measures. The SCS is a standing survey instrument that has polled residents of the five urban areas repeatedly since the mid-1980s. The process evaluation produced a "Calendar of Action" to create panel data to measure community policing implementation progress over six evaluative dimensions in intervals of five years between 1990 and 2010. The impact evaluation, carried out ex post facto, uses an observational design that analyzes the impact of the different community policing models between matched comparison areas across the five cities. Using ZIP code districts as proxies for urban neighborhoods, geospatial data mining algorithms serve to develop a neighborhood typology in order to match the comparison areas. To this end, both unsupervised and supervised algorithms are used to analyze high-dimensional data on crime, the socio-economic and demographic structure, and the built environment in order to classify urban neighborhoods into clusters of similar type. In a first step, self-organizing maps serve as tools to develop a clustering algorithm that reduces the within-cluster variance in the contextual variables and simultaneously maximizes the between-cluster variance in survey responses. The random forests algorithm then serves to assess the appropriateness of the resulting neighborhood typology and to select the key contextual variables in order to build a parsimonious model that makes a minimum of classification errors. Finally, for the impact analysis, propensity score matching methods are used to match the survey respondents of the pretest and posttest samples on age, gender, and their level of education for each neighborhood type identified within each city, before conducting a statistical test of the observed difference in the outcome measures. Moreover, all significant results were subjected to a sensitivity analysis to assess the robustness of these findings in the face of potential bias due to some unobserved covariates. The study finds that over the last fifteen years, all five police departments have undertaken major reforms of their internal organization and operating strategies and forged strategic partnerships in order to implement community policing. The resulting neighborhood typology reduced the within-cluster variance of the contextual variables and accounted for a significant share of the between-cluster variance in the outcome measures prior to treatment, suggesting that geocomputational methods help to balance the observed covariates and hence to reduce threats to the internal validity of an observational design. Finally, the impact analysis revealed that fear of crime dropped significantly over the 2000-2005 period in the neighborhoods in and around the urban centers of Bern and Zurich. These improvements are fairly robust in the face of bias due to some unobserved covariate and covary temporally and spatially with the implementation of community policing. The alternative hypothesis that the observed reductions in fear of crime were at least in part a result of community policing interventions thus appears at least as plausible as the null hypothesis of absolutely no effect, even if the observational design cannot completely rule out selection and regression to the mean as alternative explanations.

2011 Road Use Tax Fund (RUTF) Study A report to the Iowa Legislature, per 2011 Iowa Code Section 307.31

The transportation system is in demand 24/7 and 365 days a year irrespective of neither the weather nor the conditions. Iowa’s transportation system is an integral and essential part of society serving commerce and daily functions of all Iowans across the state. A high quality transportation system serves as the artery for economic activity and, the condition of the infrastructure is a key element for our future growth opportunities. A key component of Iowa’s transportation system is the public roadway system owned and maintained by the state, cities and counties. In order to regularly re-evaluate the conditions of Iowa’s public roadway infrastructure and assess the ability of existing revenues to meet the needs of the system, the Iowa Department of Transportation’s 2006 Road Use Tax Fund (RUTF) report to the legislature included a recommendation that a study be conducted every five years. That recommendation was included in legislation adopted in 2007 and signed into law. The law specifically requires the following (2011 Iowa Code Section 307.31): •“The department shall periodically review the current revenue levels of the road use tax fund and the sufficiency of those revenues for the projected construction and maintenance needs of city, county, and state governments in the future. The department shall submit a written report to the general assembly regarding its findings by December 31 every five years, beginning in 2011. The report may include recommendations concerning funding levels needed to support the future mobility and accessibility for users of Iowa's public road system.” •“The department shall evaluate alternative funding sources for road maintenance and construction and report to the general assembly at least every five years on the advantages and disadvantages and the viability of alternative funding mechanisms.” Consistent with this requirement, the Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) has prepared this study. Recognizing the importance of actively engaging with the public and transportation stakeholders in any discussion of public roadway conditions and needs, Governor Terry E. Branstad announced on March 8, 2011, the creation of, and appointments to, the Governor’s Transportation 2020 Citizen Advisory Commission (CAC). The CAC was tasked with assisting the Iowa DOT as they assess the condition of Iowa’s roadway system and evaluate current and future funding available to best address system needs. In particular the CAC was directed to gather input from the public and stakeholders regarding the condition of Iowa’s public roadway system, the impact of that system, whether additional funding is needed to maintain/improve the system, and, if so, what funding mechanisms ought to be considered. With this input, the CAC prepared a report and recommendations that were presented to Governor Branstad and the Iowa DOT in November 2011 for use in the development of this study. The CAC’s report is available at www.iowadot.gov/transportation2020/pdfs/CAC%20REPORT%20FINAL%20110211.pdf. The CAC’s report was developed utilizing analysis and information from the Iowa DOT. Therefore, the report forms the basis for this study and the two documents are very similar. Iowa is fortunate to have an extensive public roadway system that provides access to all areas of the state and facilitates the efficient movement of goods and people. However, it is also a tremendous challenge for the state, cities and counties to maintain and improve this system given flattening revenue, lost buying power, changing demands on the system, severe weather, and an aging system. This challenge didn’t appear overnight and for the last decade many studies have been completed to look into the situation and the legislature has taken significant action to begin addressing the situation. In addition, the Iowa DOT and Iowa’s cities and counties have worked jointly and independently to increase efficiency and streamline operations. All of these actions have been successful and resulted in significant changes; however, it is apparent much more needs to be done. A well-maintained, high-quality transportation system reduces transportation costs and provides consistent and reliable service. These are all factors that are critical in the evaluation companies undertake when deciding where to expand or locate new developments. The CAC and Iowa DOT heard from many Iowans that additional investment in Iowa’s roadway system is vital to support existing jobs and continued job creation in the state of Iowa. Beginning June 2011, the CAC met regularly to review material and discuss potential recommendations to address Iowa’s roadway funding challenges. This effort included extensive public outreach with meetings held in seven locations across Iowa and through a Transportation 2020 website hosted by the Iowa DOT (www.iowadot.gov/transportation2020). Over 500 people attended the public meetings held through the months of August and September, with 198 providing verbal or written comment at the meetings or through the website. Comments were received from a wide array of individuals. The public comments demonstrated overwhelming support for increased funding for Iowa’s roads. Through the public input process, several guiding principles were established to guide the development of recommendations. Those guiding principles are: • Additional revenues are restricted for road and bridge improvements only, like 95 percent of the current state road revenue is currently. This includes the fuel tax and registration fees. • State and local governments continue to streamline and become more efficient, both individually and by looking for ways to do things collectively. • User fee concept is preserved, where those who use the roads pay for them, including non¬residents. • Revenue-generating methods equitable across users. • Increase revenue generating mechanisms that are viable now but begin to implement and set the stage for longer-term solutions that bring equity and stability to road funding. • Continue Iowa’s long standing tradition of state roadway financing coming from pay-as-you-go financing. Iowa must not fall into the situation that other states are currently facing where the majority of their new program dollars are utilized to pay the debt service of past bonding. Based on the analysis of Iowa’s public roadway needs and revenue and the extensive work of the Governor’s Transportation 2020 Citizen Advisory Commission, the Iowa DOT has identified specific recommendations. The recommendations follow very closely the recommendations of the CAC (CAC recommendations from their report are repeated in Appendix B). Following is a summary of the recommendations which are fully documented beginning on page 21. 1. Through a combination of efficiency savings and increased revenue, a minimum of $215 million of revenue per year should be generated to meet Iowa’s critical roadway needs. 2. The Code of Iowa should be changed to require the study of the sufficiency of the state’s road funds to meet the road system’s needs every two years instead of every five years to coincide with the biennial legislative budget appropriation schedule. 3.Modify the current registration fee for electric vehicles to be based on weight and value using the same formula that applies to most passenger vehicles. 4.Consistent with existing Code of Iowa requirements, new funding should go to the TIME-21 Fund up to the cap ($225 million) and remaining new funding should be distributed consistent with the Road Use Tax Fund distribution formula. 5.The CAC recommended the Iowa DOT at least annually convene meetings with cities and counties to review the operation, maintenance and improvement of Iowa’s public roadway system to identify ways to jointly increase efficiency. In direct response to this recommendation, Governor Branstad directed the Iowa DOT to begin this effort immediately with a target of identifying $50 million of efficiency savings that can be captured from the over $1 billion of state revenue already provided to the Iowa DOT and Iowa’s cities and counties to administer, maintain and improve Iowa’s public roadway system. This would build upon past joint and individual actions that have reduced administrative costs and resulted in increased funding for improvement of Iowa’s public roadway system. Efficiency actions should be quantified, measured and reported to the public on a regular basis. 6.By June 30, 2012, Iowa DOT should complete a study of vehicles and equipment that use Iowa’s public roadway system but pay no user fees or substantially lower user fees than other vehicles and equipment.

Soil uses in the sugarcane fallow period to improve chemical and physical properties of two latosols (oxisols)

Sugarcane production should be integrated with crop diversification with a view to competitive and sustainable results in economic, social and environmental aspects. The purpose of this study was to assess the influence of different soil uses during the sugarcane fallow period on the chemical and physical properties of eutroferric Red Latosol - LVef (Oxisol) and Acric Latosol - LVw (Acric Oxisol), in Jaboticabal, São Paulo State, Brazil (21º14'05'' S, 48º17'09'' W, 600 m asl). A randomized block design was used with five replications and four treatments, consisting of different soil uses (crops) in the sugarcane fallow period: soybean only, soybean/fallow/soybean, soybean/millet/soybean, and soybean/sunn hemp/soybean. After two soybean crops, the LVef chemical properties remained at intermediate to high levels; while those of the LVw, classified as intermediate to high in the beginning, increased to high levels. Thus, the different soil uses during the sugarcane fallow period allowed the maintenance of LVef fertility levels and the improvement of those of the LVw. Two soybean crops increased macroporosity in the 0.0-0.1 m layer of the LVef; reduced soil aggregates in the 0.0-0.1 and 0.1-0.2 m layers of both soils, and reduced aggregate stability in these two layers of the LVw. Planting pearl millet or sunn hemp between the two soybean growing seasons promoted the formation of larger soil aggregates in the surface layer (0.0-0.1 m) of the LVw.

Report on applying agreed-upon procedures to the Villisca Municipal Power Plant’s accounting procedures, cash and investment balances and compliance with Code of Iowa requirements for the period February 1, 2007 through December 31, 2010

Report on applying agreed-upon procedures to the Villisca Municipal Power Plant’s accounting procedures, cash and investment balances and compliance with Code of Iowa requirements for the period February 1, 2007 through December 31, 2010

Distorted-wave calculation of cross sections for inner-shell ionization by electron and positron impact

The relativistic distorted-wave Born approximation is used to calculate differential and total cross sections for inner shell ionization of neutral atoms by electron and positron impact. The target atom is described within the independent-electron approximation using the self-consistent Dirac-Fock-Slater potential. The distorting potential for the projectile is also set equal to the Dirac-Fock-Slater potential. For electrons, this guarantees orthogonality of all the orbitals involved and simplifies the calculation of exchange T-matrix elements. The interaction between the projectile and the target electrons is assumed to reduce to the instantaneous Coulomb interaction. The adopted numerical algorithm allows the calculation of differential and total cross sections for projectiles with kinetic energies ranging from the ionization threshold up to about ten times this value. Algorithm accuracy and stability are demonstrated by comparing differential cross sections calculated by our code with the distorting potential set to zero with equivalent results generated by a more robust code that uses the conventional plane-wave Born approximation. Sample calculation results are presented for ionization of K- and L-shells of various elements and compared with the available experimental data.

Physical quality of an oxisol under different uses

The use of a soil induces changes in the physical properties according to the management, tillage intensity and type of crop. The objective of this work was to measure the alterations of some of the soil physical properties and evaluate the physical quality by the S index, an indicator proposed by Dexter (2004), comparing the land uses: eucalyptus plantations at different ages, grazing pasture, annual crops, and an area of preserved secondary vegetation with an area of preserved native forest (National Forest Araripe - NFA) as control. The study was carried out on an Oxisol on the Fazenda Redenção, in Jardim, State of Ceará, Brazil. The experiment was arranged in a completely randomized design with seven treatments and three replications in the layers 0-0.1 and 0.1-0.2 m. The soil was analyzed for the following physical properties: bulk density, particle density, total pore volume, micro and macroporosity, soil water retention curves and water availability. Based on the S index, the hypothesis that the use of a soil deteriorates the physical quality was accepted. Clearly, native forest (NFA) was the land use with the best conditions in all physical properties studied, followed closely by the area reforested with 20 year-old eucalyptus. The use as grazing pasture affected the soil physical conditions most, especially in the surface layer (0-0.1 m), as evidenced by increased bulk density and a substantial reduction in soil porosity, mainly in macroporosity. Microporosity was not influenced by any of the uses and in any layer studied.

Soil quality indicators in a rhodic kandiudult under different uses in northern Parana, Brazil

Sustainable use of soil, maintaining or improving its quality, is one of the goals of diversification in farmlands. From this point of view, bioindicators associated with C, N and P cycling can be used in assessments of land-use effects on soil quality. The aim of this study was to investigate chemical, microbiological and biochemical properties of soil associated with C, N and P under different land uses in a farm property with diversified activity in northern Parana, Brazil. Seven areas under different land uses were assessed: fragment of native Atlantic Forest; growing of peach-palm (Bactrys gasipaes); sugarcane ratoon (Saccharum officinarum) recently harvested, under renewal; growing of coffee (Coffea arabica) intercropped with tree species; recent reforestation (1 year) with native tree species, previously under annual crops; annual crops under no-tillage, rye (Cecale cereale); secondary forest, regenerated after abandonment (for 20 years) of an avocado (Persea americana) orchard. The soil under coffee, recent reforestation and secondary forest showed higher concentrations of organic carbon, but microbial biomass and enzyme activities were higher in soils under native forest and secondary forest, which also showed the lowest metabolic coefficient, followed by the peach-palm area. The lowest content of water-dispersible clay was found in the soil under native forest, differing from soils under sugarcane and secondary forest. Soil cover and soil use affected total organic C contents and soil enzyme and microbial activities, such that more intensive agricultural uses had deeper impacts on the indicators assessed. Calculation of the mean soil quality index showed that the secondary forest was closest to the fragment of native forest, followed by the peach-palm area, coffee-growing area, annual crop area, the area of recent reforestation and the sugarcane ratoon area.

The many uses of regulatory impact assessment: A meta-analysis of EU and UK cases

Research on regulation has crossed paths with the literature on policy instruments, showing that regulatory policy instruments contain cognitive and normative beliefs about policy. Thus, their usage stacks the deck in favor of one type of actor or one type of regulatory solution. In this article, we challenge the assumption that there is a predetermined relationship between ideas, regulatory policy instruments, and outcomes. We argue that different combinations of conditions lead to different outcomes, depending on how actors use the instrument. Empirically, we analyze 31 EU and UK case studies of regulatory impact assessment (RIA) - a regulatory policy instrument that has been pivotal in the so-called better regulation movement. We distinguish four main usages of RIA, that is, political, instrumental, communicative, and perfunctory. We find that in our sample instrumental usage is not so rare and that the contrast between communicative and political usages is less stark than is commonly thought. In terms of policy recommendations, our analysis suggests that there may be different paths to desirable outcomes. Policymakers should therefore explore different combinations of conditions leading to the usages they deem desirable rather than arguing for a fixed menu of variables.

Soil uses during the sugarcane fallow period: influence on soil chemical and physical properties and on sugarcane productivity

The planting of diversified crops during the sugarcane fallow period can improve the chemical and physical properties and increase the production potential of the soil for the next sugarcane cycle. The primary purpose of this study was to assess the influence of various soil uses during the sugarcane fallow period on soil chemical and physical properties and productivity after the first sugarcane harvest. The experiment was conducted in two areas located in Jaboticabal, São Paulo State, Brazil (21º 14' 05'' S, 48º 17' 09'' W) with two different soil types, namely: an eutroferric Red Latosol (RLe) with high-clay texture (clay content = 680 g kg-1) and an acric Red Latosol (RLa) with clayey texture (clay content = 440 g kg-1). A randomized block design with five replications and four treatments (crop sequences) was used. The crop sequences during the sugarcane fallow period were soybean/millet/soybean, soybean/sunn hemp/soybean, soybean/fallow/soybean, and soybean. Soil use was found not to affect chemical properties and sugarcane productivity of RLe or RLa. The soybean/millet/soybean sequence improved aggregation in the acric Latosol.