Report on the Iowa Department of Administrative Services for the year ended June 30, 2008

Report on the Iowa Department of Administrative Services for the year ended June 30, 2008

Voyages et voyageurs dans le livre des Actes et dans la culture gréco-romaine

D'où vient la fascination de l'auteur des Actes des apôtres pour le voyage et les voyageurs? Luc a fait du voyage un thème narratif de première importance: les héros de Luc-Actes sont sans cesse en mouvement. Contrairement à l'idée que Luc a hérité ce thème du roman grec, Daniel Marguerat montre que le motif du voyage traverse l'ensemble de la culture gréco-romaine (récits de fondation de colonie, récits d'exploration, Vies de philosophes, etc). Une riche sémantique se déploie dans les Actes où voyage devient synonyme de conquête, d'aventure, d'universalité, de quête identitaire et de parcours initiatique.

Working with Iowans building a culture of conservation, Program Summary, November 2008

Over 94% of Iowa ’ s land is held in private ownership, and the programs of the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship Division of Soil Conservation (IDALS-DSC) have been established to work with these landowners. Over 90% of the landscape is used for agricultural production so much of our focus is in rural communities, but we haven’t overlooked the importance of land management in urban areas. It is crucial to understanding of both conservation and hydrology issues, that what happens on the landscape has immense consequences to the environmental health of our state and the quality of life we enjoy. IDALS-DSC is striving to integrate our programs with other agencies and local concerns to improve water and local concerns to improve water and soil quality throughout the state and nation.

State of Iowa Department of Administrative Services Human Resource Enterprise: Review of State Hiring Practices, April 30, 2007

The State of Iowa and the Hiring Practices Working Group commissioned this review of the State’s hiring practices in response to recent concerns about these practices involving racial discrimination claims against the Departments of Human Services, Transportation, and Iowa Workforce Development. The State of Iowa should be commended for undertaking this review. The State has a longstanding Affirmative Action Program and commitment to diversity – they instituted their Affirmative Action Program in 1973, and continue their commitment to its success by making the changes necessary to ensure the program is viable and sustainable. Iowa Department of Administrative Services In July 2003, the State created the Iowa Department of Administrative Services (DAS) as a way to manage and coordinate the major resources of state government. DAS provides human resource services through an entrepreneurial management model. Entrepreneurial management is a customer-focused approach to delivering services. The customer departments have input about what services and products they want from DAS and in turn DAS is funded by the customer departments through purchases of DAS services and products. DAS looks to offer new and additional services (for example recruitment support and coordination) to various customers on a fee-for-service basis. A customer council is charged with approving the DAS business plan, establishing the rate for services, and reviewing service delivery and complaints. Under this entrepreneurial model, human resource services are provided by DAS-HRE (Human Resources Enterprise) central staff, 12 DAS-HRE Personnel Officers located at the customer departments, and customer agency staff. The majority of the recruitment and hiring functions are done by the customer (hiring) departments and their staff. Applications for employment are submitted using the BrassRing system with applicants being qualified by DAS-HRE employees. Since the creation of Human Resources Enterprise, DAS-HRE has strived to provide human resource tools to the departments. The Screening Manual and the Supervisor’s Manual are just two examples of the resources created for the hiring departments. They also provide Supervisor Training for newly appointed supervisors. Larger departments have dedicated staff assigned to human resource activities. The staff at the departmental level may or may not have a human resources background. Iowa Population and Workforce The 2000 U.S. Census indicated that Iowa’s population was 2,926,324. According to this census, 92.6 percent of Iowa’s population identified their race as white (alone). The nonwhite alone or minority population (including Black or African American, Asian, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, Hispanic or Latino, American Indian or Alaska Native, two or more races, or some other race) was 7.4 percent.

How many diagnosis fields are needed to capture safety events in administrative data? Findings and recommendations from the WHO ICD-11 Topic Advisory Group on Quality and Safety

OBJECTIVE: As part of the WHO ICD-11 development initiative, the Topic Advisory Group on Quality and Safety explores meta-features of morbidity data sets, such as the optimal number of secondary diagnosis fields. DESIGN: The Health Care Quality Indicators Project of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development collected Patient Safety Indicator (PSI) information from administrative hospital data of 19-20 countries in 2009 and 2011. We investigated whether three countries that expanded their data systems to include more secondary diagnosis fields showed increased PSI rates compared with six countries that did not. Furthermore, administrative hospital data from six of these countries and two American states, California (2011) and Florida (2010), were analysed for distributions of coded patient safety events across diagnosis fields. RESULTS: Among the participating countries, increasing the number of diagnosis fields was not associated with any overall increase in PSI rates. However, high proportions of PSI-related diagnoses appeared beyond the sixth secondary diagnosis field. The distribution of three PSI-related ICD codes was similar in California and Florida: 89-90% of central venous catheter infections and 97-99% of retained foreign bodies and accidental punctures or lacerations were captured within 15 secondary diagnosis fields. CONCLUSIONS: Six to nine secondary diagnosis fields are inadequate for comparing complication rates using hospital administrative data; at least 15 (and perhaps more with ICD-11) are recommended to fully characterize clinical outcomes. Increasing the number of fields should improve the international and intra-national comparability of data for epidemiologic and health services research, utilization analyses and quality of care assessment.

Europe and the Petersberg Tasks – Nation-State behavior through the prism of Strategic Culture

Les missions Petersberg són l'operatiu militar més ambiciós organitzat per la Unió Europea en el desenvolupament de la CSDP, Política Europea de Seguretat i Defensa. Amb l'objectiu d'aconseguir una organització efectiva y funcional d'aquestes missions, és desitjable que les cultures estratègiques dels diferents Estats membres siguin, en gran mesura, compatibles en benefici d'una cultura estratègica europea amb directrius clares. Aquest estudi compara les cultures estratègiques d'Alemanya, el Regne Unit i França en referència al seu nivell de compatibilitat contrastant-les amb dos casos recents, exemples paradigmàtics de cultures estratègiques integrals. D'aquesta manera, pretenem descriure les circumstàncies en què es desenvolupen les missions Petersberg.

Department of Administrative Services Facts FY2007

These Facts sheets have been developed to provide a multitude of information about executive branch agencies/departments on a single sheet of paper. The Facts provides general information, contact information, workforce data, leave & benefits information, and affirmative action data. This is the most recent update of information for the fiscal year 2007.

Department of Administrative Services Facts FY2008

These Facts sheets have been developed to provide a multitude of information about executive branch agencies/departments on a single sheet of paper. The Facts provides general information, contact information, workforce data, leave & benefits information, and affirmative action data.

Application of real-time PCR for total airborne bacterial assessment : comparison with epifluorescence microscopy and culture-dependent methods

Traditional culture-dependent methods to quantify and identify airborne microorganisms are limited by factors such as short-duration sampling times and inability to count nonculturableor non-viable bacteria. Consequently, the quantitative assessment of bioaerosols is often underestimated. Use of the real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (Q-PCR) to quantify bacteria in environmental samples presents an alternative method, which should overcome this problem. The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of a real-time Q-PCR assay as a simple and reliable way to quantify the airborne bacterial load within poultry houses and sewage treatment plants, in comparison with epifluorescencemicroscopy and culture-dependent methods. The estimates of bacterial load that we obtained from real-time PCR and epifluorescence methods, are comparable, however, our analysis of sewage treatment plants indicate these methods give values 270-290 fold greater than those obtained by the ''impaction on nutrient agar'' method. The culture-dependent method of air impaction on nutrient agar was also inadequate in poultry houses, as was the impinger-culture method, which gave a bacterial load estimate 32-fold lower than obtained by Q-PCR. Real-time quantitative PCR thus proves to be a reliable, discerning, and simple method that could be used to estimate airborne bacterial load in a broad variety of other environments expected to carry high numbers of airborne bacteria. [Authors]

Recueil de pièces, manuscrites et imprimées, formé par le président Achille III DE HARLAY, relatives principalement à l'histoire religieuse, politique, administrative, diplomatique et littéraire des XVIe et XVIIe siècles. VIII.

Contient : Lettre d'Innocent XI ; « Observations sur l'Histoire du luthérianisme du P. Maimbourg » ; Extraits des Registres capitulaires de l'Église de Paris, 1654 ; Copies de pièces du XIIIe et du XIVe siècles relatives à différentes affaires ecclésiastiques ; Copie d'une lettre à Baluze sur un manuscrit chaldéen reçu du Levant par Colbert ; Sur la « Conférence de Cartage » ; Fragment orig . d'Ismaël Boulliau sur l'échéance du jour de Pâques ; « Observations sur un Traité de l'Usure fait par M. Poncet » ; « Oraison funèbre de M. de Candale par M. l'abbé Roquette, depuis évêque d'Autun » ; « Éclaircissement par M. Bernier sur le livre de Monsr de La Ville » pour la défense d'opinions de Descartes ; Mémoire pour la liberté de la Faculté de théologie de Paris ; Extraits impr. des Registres capitulaires de l'Église de Paris ; Sur la Visitation d'Angers ; Mémoires de procédure impr. relatifs à la Sainte-Chapelle ; Recueil de pièces mss et impr., bulles pontificales, lettres royales, etc., relatives à la Régale, 1198-1681 ; Établissement d'une Chambre royale à Metz, et extraits des Registres de cette Chambre royale, impr ; Lettre orig. de D. Godefroy, 1680 ; Pièces relatives à la principauté de Charleville ; Entrée de la reine de Suède Ulrique-Éléonore à Stockholm, 1680 ; Pièces impr. relatives à l'Hôpital général de Paris ; Ordonnances impr. du magistrat d'Amsterdam portant interdiction des carrosses dans ladite ville, en hollandais

Recueil de pièces, manuscrites et imprimées, formé par le président Achille III DE HARLAY, relatives principalement à l'histoire religieuse, politique, administrative, diplomatique et littéraire des XVIe et XVIIe siècles. XXXI.

Contient : Pièces sur les Jésuites (f. 1), — sur les Frères Prêcheurs, impr. (f. 34), — sur la Sorbonne (f. 48) ; Pièces sur Descartes ; Extrait des Registres du Conseil d'État relatif à l'acquisition, pour la Bibliothèque du roi, d'une partie de la bibliothèque de Mazarin, 1668 ; « Epistola » R. Rapini, S. J., « ad... Cl. Pelterium », impr., 1684, in-8° ; Extraits de Registres du Parlement ; « Procédures faites... contre Antoine, comte de Shaftsbury », 1681 ; Sur la « Prévention » en Anjou ; Factums divers impr., affaire Bruant des Carrières ; Pièces relatives à la Compagnie des Indes orientales ; Factums impr., affaire Marcara Avachins ; Pièces relatives au commerce : « Avis sur le fait des ardoises », impr., 1683, in-4° ; Notes sur « Les édits et règlements des libraires, imprimeurs, relieurs et doreurs » ; Note sur le commerce des harengs