SummaryReasons for performing study: Infections are common complications in post operative colic patients. It is the impression of some surgeons that pyrexia in the early post operative period is a sign of infection and appropriate timing of perioperative antimicrobials will decrease the incidence of post operative infection. Objective: To determine the association between 1) post operative pyrexia and development of infection and 2) perioperative antimicrobial drug use and infection rate in post operative colic patients. Methods: Medical records of patients undergoing surgical treatment for colic were reviewed. Horses recovering from surgery and surviving >48 h were included. Data relating to case details, duration of surgery, post operative infection, peri-and post operative antimicrobial administration, presence, intensity and duration of pyrexia, were recorded. Data were analysed using standard statistical methods for simple comparisons between groups and by logistic regression for more complex comparisons. Results: One-hundred-and-thirteen horses were included in the final analyses, 48 (43%) of which were diagnosed with a post operative infection. Duration of surgery and anaesthesia were associated with post operative infection. Eighty-five percent of horses (n = 96) exhibited pyrexia (rectal temperature >38.3°C) post operatively. Peak temperature >39.2°C, time post surgery to peak temperature >48 h and duration of pyrexia >48 h were significantly associated with infection. In a combined model, time to first pyrexic >48 h post surgery, peak temperature and time to peak >48 h were equally weighted and the model's positive predictive value for post operative infection was 72%. Timing and dose rate of preoperative antimicrobials were not associated with infection but duration of post operative antimicrobial drug use was. Conclusion and clinical relevance: Slight to mild pyrexia (38-39.4°C) in the early post operative period is not necessarily associated with impending bacterial infection in colic patients and the use of antimicrobials in these patients may be costly and unnecessary.

Policymakers in most developing countries are concerned about high dropout rates and poor student learning in primary education. The government of the Philippines initiated the Dropout Intervention Program in 1990-92 as part of its effort to address these issues. Under this program, four experimental interventions were randomly assigned to 20 schools in selected low-income areas. Pre-and post-intervention data were collected from these schools, as well as from 10 control schools, in order to evaluate the program's impact on dropout behavior and student learning. The economic justification for replication appears to be strongest for the interventions that provided teachers with learning materials, which helped them to pace lessons according to students' differing abilities, and that initiated parent-teacher partnerships, which involved parents in the schooling of their children. The justification was weakest for the school feeding intervention. In addition to the results specific to the Philippines, this research demonstrates the feasibility of monitoring and evaluating interventions in the education sector in other developing countries, including the use of randomized control designs. 1. See Harbison and Hanushck (1992) for a summary of results from 96 studies on the relationship between school inputs and learning based on data from developing countries. Quantitative studies on the relationship between school inputs and dropout behavior and between school inputs and grade repetition are much more rare. Recent examples include Hanushek and Law (1994), Gomes-Ncto and Hanushek (1994), and Chuard and Mingat (1996).

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provided extremely useful input and guidance. We are grateful to Illinois Department of Employment Security for providing data access. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. At least one co-author has disclosed a financial relationship of potential relevance for this research. Further information is available online at http://www.nber.org/papers/w27576.ack NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

A wake-up call for America to create a new framework for democratizing data. Public data are foundational to our democratic system. People need consistently high-quality information from trustworthy sources. In the new economy, wealth is generated by access to data; government's job is to democratize the data playing field. Yet data produced by the American government are getting worse and costing more. In Democratizing Our Data, Julia Lane argues that good data are essential for democracy. Her book is a wake-up call to America to fix its broken public data system. Lane argues that we must rethink ways to democratize data; there are successful models to follow and new legislation that can help effect change. The private sector's data revolution—which creates new types of data and new measurements to build machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms—can be mirrored by a public sector data revolution characterized by attention to counting all who should be counted, measuring what should be measured, and protecting privacy and confidentiality. Just as Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook have led the world in the use of data for profit, the United States can show the world how to produce data for the public good.   Lane calls for a more automated, transparent, and accountable framework for creating high-quality public data that would empower citizens and inspire the government that serves them. And she outlines an organizational model that has the potential to make data more accessible and useful. As she says, failure to act threatens our democracy.