Audit report on the City of Strawberry Point, Iowa for the year ended June 30, 2006

Audit report on the City of Strawberry Point, Iowa for the year ended June 30, 2006

Hot vs. cold: Sequential responses and preference stability in experimental games

In experiments with two-person sequential games we analyzewhether responses to favorable and unfavorable actions dependon the elicitation procedure. In our hot treatment thesecond player responds to the first player s observed actionwhile in our cold treatment we follow the strategy method and have the second player decide on a contingent action foreach and every possible first player move, without firstobserving this move. Our analysis centers on the degree towhich subjects deviate from the maximization of their pecuniaryrewards, as a response to others actions. Our results show nodifference in behavior between the two treatments. We also findevidence of the stability of subjects preferences with respectto their behavior over time and to the consistency of theirchoices as first and second mover.

The HP-filter in cross-country comparisons

Many empirical studies of business cycles have followed the practise ofapplying the Hodrick-Prescott filter for cross-country comparisons. Thestandard procedure is to set the weight \lambda, which determines the'smoothness' of the trend equal to 1600. We show that if this value isused for against common wisdom about business cycles. As an example, weshow that the long recession occurred inSpain between 1975 and 1985 goesunnotoced by the HP filter. We propose a method for adjusting \lambda byreinterpreting the HP-filter as the solution to a constrained minimizationproblem. We argue that the common practice of fixing \lambda across countriesamounts to chankging the constraints on trend variability across countries.Our proposed method is easy to apply, retains all the virtues of thestandard HP-filter and when applied to Spanish data the results are inthe line with economic historian's view. Applying the method to a numberof OECD countries we find that, with the exception of Spain, Italy andJapan, the standard choice of \lambda=1600 is sensible.

Validation of the New Mix Design Process for Cold In-Place Rehabilitation Using Foamed Asphalt, 2007

Asphalt pavement recycling has grown dramatically over the last few years as a viable technology to rehabilitate existing asphalt pavements. Iowa's current Cold In-place Recycling (CIR) practice utilizes a generic recipe specification to define the characteristics of the CIR mixture. As CIR continues to evolve, the desire to place CIR mixture with specific engineering properties requires the use of a mix design process. A new mix design procedure was developed for Cold In-place Recycling using foamed asphalt (CIR-foam) in consideration of its predicted field performance. The new laboratory mix design process was validated against various Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP) materials to determine its consistency over a wide range of RAP materials available throughout Iowa. The performance tests, which include dynamic modulus test, dynamic creep test and raveling test, were conducted to evaluate the consistency of a new CIR-foam mix design process to ensure reliable mixture performance over a wide range of traffic and climatic conditions. The “lab designed” CIR will allow the pavement designer to take the properties of the CIR into account when determining the overlay thickness.

Audit report on the City of Center Point, Iowa for the year ended June 30, 2007

Audit report on the City of Center Point, Iowa for the year ended June 30, 2007

Audit report on the City of Strawberry Point, Iowa for the year ended June 30, 2007

Audit report on the City of Strawberry Point, Iowa for the year ended June 30, 2007

Special investigation of the City of Center Point Library for the period January 1, 2006 through December 6, 2007

Special investigation of the City of Center Point Library for the period January 1, 2006 through December 6, 2007