Employment and Wages Covered by Unemployment Insurance, Final County Data, Fourth Quarter, 2003

Fourth Quarterly County information for Census of Employment & Wage, County

Employment and Wages Covered by Unemployment Insurance, Final Statewide Data, Fourth Quarter, 2003

Fourth Quarterly County information for Census of Employment & Wage, Statewide

Funções essenciais de saúde pública no currículo de Enfermagem da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

O referencial das Funções Essenciais de Saúde Pública (FESP), da Organização Pan-Americana da Saúde, foi desenvolvido para melhorar o desempenho da saúde pública, o qual depende da formação dos profissionais de saúde. Foi realizado um estudo de caso com objetivo de identificar a inserção das FESP no Currículo do Curso de Graduação em Enfermagem da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. Foram definidas palavras-chave a partir das definições das onze FESP, procedendo-se à busca nos planos de ensino das disciplinas do Currículo. Verificou-se a inserção de dez FESP, sendo a de maior ocorrência a de desenvolvimento de recursos humanos e capacitação em saúde pública. O Currículo em estudo contempla algumas FESP de forma mais intensa, o que deve propiciar a formação de enfermeiras capazes de contribuir para o desempenho destas. É necessário inserir as demais, contribuindo para o bom desempenho da saúde pública pelos profissionais formados na instituição.

Influence of the Premium Subsidy on Farmers’ Crop Insurance Coverage Decisions, April 2005

The Agricultural Risk Protection Act greatly increased the expected marginal net benefit of farmers buying high-coverage crop insurance policies by coupling premium subsidies to coverage level. This policy change, combined with cross-sectional variations in expected marginal net benefits of high-coverage policies, is used to estimate the role that premium subsidies play in farmers’ crop insurance decisions. We use county data for corn, soybeans, and wheat to estimate regression equations that are then used to obtain insight into two policy scenarios. We first estimate that eventual adoption of actuarially fair incremental premiums, combined with current coupled subsidies, would increase farmers’ purchase of high-coverage policies by almost 400 percent from 1998 levels across the three crops and two plans of insurance included in the analysis. We then estimate that a return to decoupled subsidies would decrease farmers’ high-coverage purchase decisions by an average of 36 percent.

Northeast Iowa Schools Insurance Trust, Independent Auditor's Reports, Finacial Statement and Required Supplementary Information, Schedule of Findings, June 30, 2004

Other Audit Reports - 28E Organizations

City of Walford, Capitalization Grants for Clean Water State Revolving Funds, Independent Auditor's Reports, Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards, Schedule of Findings and Questioned Costs, Year Ended June 30, 2004

City Audit Report

City of Goose Lake, Capitalization Grants for Drinking Water, State Revolving Funds, Independent Auditor's Reports, Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards, Schedule of Findings and Questioned Costs, Year Ended June 30, 2005

City Audit Report

State of Iowa, Single Audit Report, Independent Auditor's Reports, Iowa Comprehensive Annual Financial Report - Financial Section, Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards, Schedule of Findings and Questioned Costs, June 30, 2004

State Audit Reports

Iowa Federal Family Education Loan Program Division, Iowa College Student Aid Commission, Independent Auditor's Reports, Basic Financial Statements and Supplementary Information, June 30, 2004

State Audit Reports

Livestock Revenue Insurance, November 2000

This study outlines several possible structures for livestock revenue insurance. The policies take the form of an exotic option—an Asian basket option. The actuarially fair premiums for these policies are equal to the prices of the options they represent. Due to the complexity of pricing Asian basket options, we have combined two techniques for pricing options to reach the actuarially fair premiums. Projected premiums, producer welfare, and program efficiency are evaluated for the insurance products and existing market tools. Using efficiency ratios and certainty equivalent returns, we compare the insurance policies to strategies involving existing futures and options.

Social and medical vulnerability factors of emergency department frequent users in a universal health insurance system.

OBJECTIVES: The objectives were to identify the social and medical factors associated with emergency department (ED) frequent use and to determine if frequent users were more likely to have a combination of these factors in a universal health insurance system. METHODS: This was a retrospective chart review case-control study comparing randomized samples of frequent users and nonfrequent users at the Lausanne University Hospital, Switzerland. The authors defined frequent users as patients with four or more ED visits within the previous 12 months. Adult patients who visited the ED between April 2008 and March 2009 (study period) were included, and patients leaving the ED without medical discharge were excluded. For each patient, the first ED electronic record within the study period was considered for data extraction. Along with basic demographics, variables of interest included social (employment or housing status) and medical (ED primary diagnosis) characteristics. Significant social and medical factors were used to construct a logistic regression model, to determine factors associated with frequent ED use. In addition, comparison of the combination of social and medical factors was examined. RESULTS: A total of 359 of 1,591 frequent and 360 of 34,263 nonfrequent users were selected. Frequent users accounted for less than a 20th of all ED patients (4.4%), but for 12.1% of all visits (5,813 of 48,117), with a maximum of 73 ED visits. No difference in terms of age or sex occurred, but more frequent users had a nationality other than Swiss or European (n = 117 [32.6%] vs. n = 83 [23.1%], p = 0.003). Adjusted multivariate analysis showed that social and specific medical vulnerability factors most increased the risk of frequent ED use: being under guardianship (adjusted odds ratio [OR] = 15.8; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.7 to 147.3), living closer to the ED (adjusted OR = 4.6; 95% CI = 2.8 to 7.6), being uninsured (adjusted OR = 2.5; 95% CI = 1.1 to 5.8), being unemployed or dependent on government welfare (adjusted OR = 2.1; 95% CI = 1.3 to 3.4), the number of psychiatric hospitalizations (adjusted OR = 4.6; 95% CI = 1.5 to 14.1), and the use of five or more clinical departments over 12 months (adjusted OR = 4.5; 95% CI = 2.5 to 8.1). Having two of four social factors increased the odds of frequent ED use (adjusted = OR 5.4; 95% CI = 2.9 to 9.9), and similar results were found for medical factors (adjusted OR = 7.9; 95% CI = 4.6 to 13.4). A combination of social and medical factors was markedly associated with ED frequent use, as frequent users were 10 times more likely to have three of them (on a total of eight factors; 95% CI = 5.1 to 19.6). CONCLUSIONS: Frequent users accounted for a moderate proportion of visits at the Lausanne ED. Social and medical vulnerability factors were associated with frequent ED use. In addition, frequent users were more likely to have both social and medical vulnerabilities than were other patients. Case management strategies might address the vulnerability factors of frequent users to prevent inequities in health care and related costs.

How Much “Safety” Is Available under the U.S. Proposal to the WTO?, November 2005

Critics of the U.S. proposal to the World Trade Organization (WTO) made in October 2005 are correct when they argue that adoption of the proposal would significantly reduce available support under the current farm program structure. Using historical prices and yields from 1980 to 2004, we estimate that loan rates would have to drop by 9 percent and target prices would have to drop by 10 percent in order to meet the proposed aggregate Amber Box and Blue Box limits. While this finding should cheer those who think that reform of U.S. farm programs is long overdue, it alarms those who want to maintain a strong safety net for U.S. agriculture. The dilemma of needing to reform farm programs while maintaining a strong safety net could be resolved by redesigning programs so that they target revenue rather than price. Building on a base of 70 percent Green Box income insurance, a program that provides a crop-specific revenue guarantee equal to 98 percent of the product of the current effective target price and expected county yield would fit into the proposed aggregate Amber and Blue Box limits. Payments would be triggered whenever the product of the season-average price and county average yield fell below this 98 percent revenue guarantee. Adding the proposed crop-specific constraints lowers the coverage level to 95 percent. Moving from programs that target price to ones that target revenue would eliminate the rationale for ad hoc disaster payments. Program payments would automatically arrive whenever significant crop losses or economic losses caused by low prices occurred. Also, much of the need for the complicated mechanism (the Standard Reinsurance Agreement) that transfers most risk of the U.S. crop insurance to the federal government would be eliminated because the federal government would directly assume the risk through farm programs. Changing the focus of federal farm programs from price targeting to revenue targeting would not be easy. Farmers have long relied on price supports and the knowledge that crop losses are often adequately covered by heavily subsidized crop insurance or by ad hoc disaster payments. Farmers and their leaders would only be willing to support a change to revenue targeting if they see that the current system is untenable in an era of tight federal budgets and WTO limits.

Dissertações produzidas no Programa de Pós-Graduação e Mestrado em Enfermagem da Universidade Federal do Paraná

Trata-se de estudo descritivo, retrospectivo e documental com objetivo de analisar as dissertações produzidas pelo Curso de Mestrado em Enfermagem do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Enfermagem da Universidade Federal do Paraná, considerando o ajustamento de suas linhas de pesquisa. Para tanto foi realizada leitura crítica dos resumos e análise da temática das dissertações e da inserção na linha de pesquisa, bem como de métodos, abordagens, sujeitos, local, instrumentos e técnicas de pesquisa. Foram analisados 64 resumos de dissertações disponíveis on-line. Das produções analisadas há predominância do enfoque qualitativo e da utilização de entrevista. Verificou-se que as dissertações têm anuência com as linhas de pesquisa do Programa do Curso de Mestrado e sua análise pode contribuir para o redimensionamento de caminhos, linhas e pesquisas que o programa tem desenvolvido.

When federalism is not enough? Paths to cooperation in Federal democracies

This paper explores an overlooked issue in the literature on federations and federalism: the relationship between federalism and democracy. Starting from the assumption that federalism per se is not enough to guarantee cooperative intergovernmental dynamics between different levels of governments, this article analyzes how democracy reinforces cooperative intergovernmental relations under a federal design. Drawing from empirical evidence of federations in the making – Brazil, India, Malaysia, Mexico, South Africa and Spain – this article shows that in countries where the federal design was built under democratization, namely Brazil, Spain and South Africa, intergovernmental dynamics evolved under an increasingly cooperative mode of interaction.

Educational policy in Spain - a federal illusion?

Education and health policy are two of the public policies, which in Spain have been assigned to the Autonomous Communities (AC). This transfer of powers could be considered a proof for the strong “self-rule” of the AC, which in turn shows that Spain could be classified as a federal state. In the following analysis the authors in some parts disagree with that conclusion, showing that considering the education area Spain is “heavy at the top”. Due to the state’s exclusive power to regulate the basic conditions guaranteeing the equality of all Spanish citizens, the important and final decisions are taken at the center through the framework legislation. The AC play a minor role in the legislation process, they have to adopt the center decisions. De-centralization and extension of the framework legislation are highly connected: The central state reacted with strong framework legislation to the stages of the educational decentralization process. In addition, the concentration of important framing powers within the central state does not make educational reforms more infrequent. However, such reforms are the results of a competition between the parties, and not between the AC or between the AC and the central state