A Review of the State's Leased Space and the Leasing Process, General Services Enterprise of the Department of Administrative Services, July 1, 1998 through June 30, 2003

Other Audit Reports - State Leasing

North Iowa Juvenile Detention Services Commission, Independent Auditor's Reports, Financial Statement and Required Supplementary Information, Schedule of Findings, June 30, 2004

Other Audit Reports - 28E Organizations

Structure et processus dans une « Agence de développement de réseaux locaux de services de santé et de services sociaux » [Document électronique] : des problèmes et un diagnostic?

Ce cas décrit la structure organisationnelle en place dans une régie régionale de la santé et des services sociaux, ainsi que le processus de prise de décision pour un dossier particulier : la mise en oeuvre d'un programme d'interruption volontaire de grossesses dans la région. L'objectif est d'illustrer comment la structure organisationnelle peut influencer (positivement ou négativement) la façon de traiter les dossiers et les résultats qui en découlent. [Auteurs]

Iowa Department of Human Services - Case Management Unit, Independent Auditor's Reports, Basic Financial Statements and Supplementary Information, June 30, 2004

State Agency Audit Report

Supervised injection services : what has been demonstrated? : a systematic literature review

BACKGROUND: Supervised injection services (SISs) have been developed to promote safer drug injection practices, enhance health-related behaviors among people who inject drugs (PWID), and connect PWID with external health and social services. Nevertheless, SISs have also been accused of fostering drug use and drug trafficking. AIMS: To systematically collect and synthesize the currently available evidence regarding SIS-induced benefits and harm. METHODS: A systematic review was performed via the PubMed, Web of Science, and ScienceDirect databases using the keyword algorithm [("SUPERVISED" OR "SAFER") AND ("INJECTION" OR "INJECTING" OR "SHOOTING" OR "CONSUMPTION") AND ("FACILITY" OR "FACILITIES" OR "ROOM" OR "GALLERY" OR "CENTRE" OR "SITE")]. RESULTS: Seventy-five relevant articles were found. All studies converged to find that SISs were efficacious in attracting the most marginalized PWID, promoting safer injection conditions, enhancing access to primary health care, and reducing the overdose frequency. SISs were not found to increase drug injecting, drug trafficking or crime in the surrounding environments. SISs were found to be associated with reduced levels of public drug injections and dropped syringes. Of the articles, 85% originated from Vancouver or Sydney. CONCLUSION: SISs have largely fulfilled their initial objectives without enhancing drug use or drug trafficking. Almost all of the studies found in this review were performed in Canada or Australia, whereas the majority of SISs are located in Europe. The implementation of new SISs in places with high rates of injection drug use and associated harms appears to be supported by evidence.

Report on Special Investigation of Before and After School Services, For the Period July 1, 2000 through December 31, 2004

Other Audit Reports - Special Investigation

A context-based methodology for integrating Web 2.0 services in learning scenarios

The emergence of the Web 2.0 technologies in the last years havechanged the way people interact with knowledge. Services for cooperation andcollaboration have placed the user in the centre of a new knowledge buildingspace. The development of new second generation learning environments canbenefit from the potential of these Web 2.0 services when applied to aneducational context. We propose a methodology for designing learningenvironments that relates Web 2.0 services with the functional requirements ofthese environments. In particular, we concentrate on the design of the KRSMsystem to discuss the components of this methodology and its application.

What can spike train distances tell us about the neural code?

Time scale parametric spike train distances like the Victor and the van Rossum distancesare often applied to study the neural code based on neural stimuli discrimination.Different neural coding hypotheses, such as rate or coincidence coding,can be assessed by combining a time scale parametric spike train distance with aclassifier in order to obtain the optimal discrimination performance. The time scalefor which the responses to different stimuli are distinguished best is assumed to bethe discriminative precision of the neural code. The relevance of temporal codingis evaluated by comparing the optimal discrimination performance with the oneachieved when assuming a rate code.We here characterize the measures quantifying the discrimination performance,the discriminative precision, and the relevance of temporal coding. Furthermore,we evaluate the information these quantities provide about the neural code. Weshow that the discriminative precision is too unspecific to be interpreted in termsof the time scales relevant for encoding. Accordingly, the time scale parametricnature of the distances is mainly an advantage because it allows maximizing thediscrimination performance across a whole set of measures with different sensitivitiesdetermined by the time scale parameter, but not due to the possibility toexamine the temporal properties of the neural code.

Report of Recommendations to the Iowa Department of Human Services - Central Distribution Center, June 30, 2004

State Audit Reports - DHS Institutions

5B Judicial District Youth Services, Independent Auditor's Reports, Basic Financial Statements, Schedule of Findings, Eight Months ended February 28, 2005 and Year ended June 30, 2004

Other Audit Reports - 28E Organizations

5B Judicial District Youth Services, Independent Auditor's Reports, Basic Financial Statements, Schedule of Findings, Eight months ended February 28, 2005 and Year Ended June 30, 2004

Other Audit Reports - 28E Organizations

Report of Recommendations to the Iowa Department of Human Services, June 30, 2004

State Audit Reports

Report of Recommendations to the Iowa Department of Administrative Services, June 30, 2004

State Audit Reports

Report of Recommendations to the Iowa Department of Administrative Services on the Review of General and Application Controls over the HRIS and Payroll Systems, May 10, 2004 through June 4, 2004

State Audit Reports

Towards reusability and tailorability in collaborative learning systems using IMS-LD and grid services

CSCL applications are complex distributed systems that posespecial requirements towards achieving success in educationalsettings. Flexible and efficient design of collaborative activitiesby educators is a key precondition in order to provide CSCL tailorable systems, capable of adapting to the needs of eachparticular learning environment. Furthermore, some parts ofthose CSCL systems should be reused as often as possible inorder to reduce development costs. In addition, it may be necessary to employ special hardware devices, computational resources that reside in other organizations, or even exceed thepossibilities of one specific organization. Therefore, theproposal of this paper is twofold: collecting collaborativelearning designs (scripting) provided by educators, based onwell-known best practices (collaborative learning flow patterns) in a standard way (IMS-LD) in order to guide the tailoring of CSCL systems by selecting and integrating reusable CSCL software units; and, implementing those units in the form of grid services offered by third party providers. More specifically, this paper outlines a grid-based CSCL system having these features and illustrates its potential scope and applicability by means of a sample collaborative learning scenario.