Les maladies infectieuses ont encore un bel avenir [Infectious diseases have again a good future!].

Invasive fungal diseases (IFDs) have become major causes of morbidity and mortality among highly immunocompromised patients. Authoritative consensus criteria to diagnose IFD have been useful in establishing eligibility criteria for antifungal trials. There is an important need for generation of consensus definitions of outcomes of IFD that will form a standard for evaluating treatment success and failure in clinical trials. Therefore, an expert international panel consisting of the Mycoses Study Group and the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer was convened to propose guidelines for assessing treatment responses in clinical trials of IFDs and for defining study outcomes. Major fungal diseases that are discussed include invasive disease due to Candida species, Aspergillus species and other molds, Cryptococcus neoformans, Histoplasma capsulatum, and Coccidioides immitis. We also discuss potential pitfalls in assessing outcome, such as conflicting clinical, radiological, and/or mycological data and gaps in knowledge.

Enterprise Zone Program Report, 2007

This report on the Iowa Enterprise Zone Program was prepared by the Iowa Department of Economic Development in accordance with 2006 Iowa Acts, Senate File 2183, Section 9.

Avaliação dos Serviços VoIP em Links de Baixa Capacidade com Tráfego Compartilhado de Dados

Esta dissertação descreve os resultados das medições observadas em um dos Laboratórios de uma Operadora de Telecomunicações (LOP), onde foram avaliados e analisados alguns requisitos de QoS em redes de pacotes IP (Internet Protocol). Essas medições foram feitas no âmbito do objetivo desta dissertação que é avaliar formas de prover serviços VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) em redes de pacotes conforme a recomendação do padrão FRF.12. Essa rede é assim, uma rede de link de 512kbps que também provê serviços VoIP compartilhados, concorrentemente com dados e serviços multimídia. Dos ítens analisados destacam-se: Análise de Codecs; QoS (Quality Of Service) Diffserv; Compressão de cabeçalho RTP (Real Time Protocol) - cRTP; Fragmentação com intercalação - LFI; Comportamento da Rede em situações diversas; a adequação do software free Multi Generator (MGEN) de geração - medição - coleta de dados, em redes. A análise foi, essencialmente, em enlace Frame Relay nos CPE (Customer Premise Equipment), passando pelo Backbone IP VPN / MPLS Multicast, pois o Frame Relay Fórum v12 (FRF.12) dá suporte à intercalação de voz entre os pacotes de dados. O FRF.12 é indispensável, pois este esta dissertação tem como objetivo realizar um conjuntos de testes e medidas que avaliam a aplicação dos serviços VoIP em links de baixa capacidades com trafego de dados compartilhados. Para oferecer esse serviço e de qualidade é necessário fragmentar e intercalar frames de voz entre os pacotes de dados usando o FRF.12. Depois do estudo teórico das recomendações, normas de padronização internacional e dos fabricantes, foram realizados testes que resultam na validação prática de toda a teoria outrora analisada através de testes específicos que comprovam em definitivo a viabilidade das aplicações VoIP em uma rede de enlace de baixa velocidade. Feitos esses testes chegou-se a conclusão de que em determinados casos não se revela necessário nem preocupante o aumento da banda para se puder prover determinados serviços. Na sequência dos testes foram também avaliados o desempenho, a ocupação da banda e a eficácia dos equipamentos - softwares. Da bancada dos testes e medições, provou-se o seguinte: que de fato consegue-se melhor otimização da banda ao realizar compressão do cabeçalho cRTP; que de fato a fragmentação de pacote FTP (File Transfer Protocol) com intercalação de pacotes VoIP faz reduzir o delay e jitter1 para as aplicações de tempo real; que de fato a habilitação de QoS Intserv provê classificação e faz diferenciação dos tráfegos, e que o CODEC G729 apresenta melhor adequação em lidar com aplicações VoIP em routers2 CISCO, disponível em CRT (Centro de referência Tecnológica) de uma LOP.

MVD Quarterly Report on Building Project quarter ending March 31, 2007

Pursuant to Section 1 of House File 466 of the 81st General Assembly, the Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) is required to make quarterly reports to the Legislative Council regarding the progress of the building project for the Motor Vehicle Division and to inform the General Assembly of any significant delays or unanticipated expenditures. During the quarter ending March 31, 2007, the project progressed as planned. The project is on schedule and no unanticipated expenditures have been made.

Quarterly Report of the Building Project for the Motor Vehicle Division

Pursuant to Section 1 of House File 466 of the 81st General Assembly, the Iowa Department of Transportation is required to make quarterly reports to the Legislative Council regarding the progress of the building project for the Motor Vehicle Division. During the quarter ending June 30, 2007, the project was delayed by two weeks. The Motor Vehicle Division moved into the new Ankeny facility on June 22 and was operational Monday, June 25. The driver's license stations reopened as scheduled Tuesday, June 26, at the Ankeny facility as well as the Oliver Plaza renewal location.

The effects of poor financial information systems on the long term sustainability of local public services. Empirical evidence from the Catalan Municipalities

In this paper we describe the existence of financial illusion in public accountingand we comment on its effects for the future sustainability of local publicservices. We relate these features to the lack of incentives amongst publicmanagers for improving the financial reporting and thus management of publicassets. Financial illusion pays off for politicians and managers since it allowsfor larger public expenditure increases and managerial slack, these beingarguments in their utility functions. This preference is strengthen by the shorttime perspective of politically appointed public managers. Both factors runagainst public accountability. This hypothesis is tested for Spain by using anunique sample. We take data from around forty Catalan local authorities withpopulation above 20,000 for the financial years 1993-98. We build this databasis from the Catalan Auditing Office Reports in a way that it can be linkedto some other local social and economic variables in order to test ourassumptions. The results confirm that there is a statistical relationship between the financialillusion index (FI as constructed in the paper) and higher current expenditure.This reflects on important overruns and increases of the delay in payingsuppliers, as well as on a higher difficulties to face capital finance. Mechanismsfor FI creation have to do among other factors, with delays in paying suppliers(and thereafter higher future financial costs per unit of service), no adequateprovision for bad debts and lack of appropriate capital funding either forreposition or for new equipments. For this, it is crucial to monitor the way inwhich capital transfers are accounted in local public sheet balances. As a result,for most of the Municipalities we analyse, the funds for guaranteeing continuityand sustainability of public services provision are today at risk.Given managerial incentives at present in public institutions, we conclude thatpublic regulation recently enforced for assuring better information systems inlocal public management may not be enough to change the current state of affairs.

Economic growth with bubbles

We develop a stylized model of economic growth with bubbles. In this model, changes in investorsentiment lead to the appearance and collapse of macroeconomic bubbles or pyramid schemes.We show how these bubbles mitigate the effects of financial frictions. During bubbly episodes,unproductive investors demand bubbles while productive investors supply them. These transfersof resources improve the efficiency at which the economy operates, expanding consumption, thecapital stock and output. When bubbly episodes end, these transfers stop and consumption, thecapital stock and output contract. We characterize the stochastic equilibria of the model and arguethat they provide a natural way of introducing bubble shocks into business cycle models.

Biblia [Vetus et Novum Testamentum].

La Bible s’ouvre par deux compositions poétiques d’Alcuin qui encadrent l’Épître de saint Jérôme à Paulinus, « Frater Ambrosius... » (ff. 1-2r : Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Poetae latinae, I, 1, p. 287, LXVIII-LXX, v. 1-200 ; ff. 4r-v : Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Poetae latinae, I, 1, p. 283-284, LXV, I-III). La fin manque: la Bible s'interrompt à la fin de l'Epître de saint Paul aux Colossiens.

Crash Data Validation: An Iowa Case Study, February, 2007

With the quickening pace of crash reporting, the statistical editing of data on a weekly basis, and the ability to provide working databases to users at CTRE/Iowa Traffic Safety Data Service, the University of Iowa, and the Iowa DOT, databases that would be considered incomplete by past standards of static data files are in “public use” even as the dynamic nature of the central DOT database allows changes to be made to both the aggregate of data and to the individual crashes already reported. Moreover, “definitive” analyses of serious crashes will, by their nature, lag seriously behind the preliminary data files. Even after these analyses, the dynamic nature of the mainframe data file means that crash numbers can continue to change long after the incident year. The Iowa DOT, its Office of Driver Services (the “data owner”), and institutional data users/distributors must establish data use, distribution, and labeling protocols to deal with the new, dynamic nature of data. In order to set these protocols, data must be collected concerning the magnitude of difference between database records and crash narratives and diagrams. This study determines the difference between database records and crash narratives for the Iowa Department of Transportation’s Office of Traffic and Safety crash database and the impacts of this difference.

Interviews and adverse selection

Interviewing in professional labor markets is a costly process for firms. Moreover, poor screening can have a persistent negative impact on firms bottom lines and candidates careers. In a simple dynamic model where firms can pay a cost to interview applicants who have private information about their own ability, potentially large inefficiencies arise from information-based unemployment, where able workers are rejected by firms because of their lack of offers in previous interviews. This effect may make the market less efficient than random matching. We show that the first best can be achieved using either a mechanism with transfers or one without transfers.

On the role of retaliation in trade agreements

This paper analyzes the role of retaliation in trade agreements. It shows that, in the presenceof private information, retaliation can always be used to increase the welfare derived from suchagreements by the participating governments. In particular, it is shown that retaliation is anecessary feature of any efficient equilibrium.We argue that retaliation would not be necessary if governments could resort to internationaltransfers or export subsidies to compensate for terms-of-trade externalities. Within the currentworld trading system, though, in which transfers are seldom observed whereas export subsidiesare prohibited, the use of the remaining trade instruments in a retaliatory fashion might beoptimal. The model is used to interpret the retaliatory use of antidumping observed in the lastdecades, and the proliferation of these measures relative to other trade remedies.

Bubbly collateral and economic activity

This paper develops a model of the bubbly economy and uses it to study the effects of bailoutpolicies. In the bubbly economy, weak enforcement institutions do not allow firms to pledge futurerevenues to their creditors. As a result, "fundamental" collateral is scarce and this impairs the intermediationprocess that transforms savings into capital. To overcome this shortage of "fundamental"collateral, the bubbly economy creates "bubbly" collateral. This additional collateral supports anintricate array of intra- and inter-generational transfers that allow savings to be transformed intocapital and bubbles. Swings in investor sentiment lead to fluctuations in the amount of bubblycollateral, giving rise to bubbly business cycles with very rich and complex dynamics.Bailout policies can affect these dynamics in a variety of ways. Expected bailouts provideadditional collateral and expand investment and the capital stock. Realized bailouts reduce thesupply of funds and contract investment and the capital stock. Thus, bailout policies tend to fosterinvestment and growth in normal times, but to depress investment and growth during crisis periods.We show how to design bailout policies that maximize various policy objectives.

The European Social Survey. Methodological aspects

From a scientific point of view, surveys are undoubtedly a valuable tool for the knowledge of the social and political reality. They are widely used in the social sciences research. However, the researcher's task is often disturbed by a series of deficiencies related to some technical aspects that make difficult both the inference and the comparison. The main aim of the present paper is to report and justify the European Social Survey's technical specifications addressed to avoid and/or minimize such deficiencies. The article also gives a characterization of the non-respondents in Spain obtained from the analysis of the 2002 fieldwork data file.

Social security, retirement, and the single-mindedness of the electorate

We propose a positive theory that is consistent with two important featuresof social security programs around the world: (1) they redistributeincome from young to old and (2) they induce retirement. We construct avoting model that includes a political campaign or debate prior to theelection. The model incorporates single-mindedness of the groups that donot work: while the workers divide their political capital between their age concerns and occupational concerns , the retired concentrate alltheir political capital to support their age group. In our model, theelderly end up getting transfers from the government (paid by the young)and distortionary labor income taxes induce the retirement of the elderly.In addition, our model predicts that occupational groups that work morewill tend to have more political power. The opposite is true fornon-occupational groups (such as the elderly). We provide some evidencethat supports these additional predictions.