Bull merges 4 units, signaling a stronger chip card commitment.(Groupe Bull consolidates chip card operations into CP8 Transac unit)

Groupe Bull, a French computer company that is trying to shake off prolonged financial problems, is making a bigger commitment to smart cards.

One of the big three France-based manufacturers of the advanced cards, Bull announced last week a consolidation of its far-flung chip card and related operations into a unit called CP8 Transac.

Among the four companies coming under the unified structure is Micro Card Technologies Inc. of Vienna, Va., the longest- established chip card maker in the United States.

Micro Card will gradually convert to the CP8 Transac identity while the U.S. unit's management, led by president Arnaud d'Avezac, will remain in place, said …

WILLIAM DUQUETTE, 46.(CAPITAL REGION)

MILTON William K. Duquette, 46, of Emigh Road, Rock City Falls, died Thursday at home.

He was born in Ballston Spa. He moved to Rock City Falls in 1974. He was a librarian at Martin Marietta at the Kesselring Site in West Milton for 25 years.

Survivors include his parents, Mary Baker of Porter Corners and Lawrence Duquette Sr. of Ballston Spa; two brothers, Franklyn Duquette of Ballston Lake and Lawrence Duquette …

Hundreds attend visitation for slain Iowa coach

Hundreds of people have waited for hours in lines that stretched for blocks to attend the visitation for a slain Iowa high school football coach.

A funeral is planned for Monday for Ed Thomas, following the visitation Sunday. Thomas' sons, Todd and Aaron Thomas, say they mourned their father privately at the football fields where he held practice.

The sons said they …

Track slot machines on table // Edgar, Duchossois to meet this week

Gov. Edgar will listen to a $100 million proposal to allowyear-round slot machines at racetracks, his spokesman said Sunday.

Racetrack owners say they are losing money and need slots, videopoker and other machine games of chance to compete with riverboatcasinos.

The horseracing industry also needs tax relief, said ArlingtonInternational Racecourse owner Dick Duchossois, who is to meet withEdgar on Tuesday.Thoroughbred track owners want to allow as many as 1,200machines at each of three locations: Arlington, Sportsman's Park orHawthorne, and Maywood Park or Balmoral."The governor is willing to listen to such requests," Edgarspokesman Thomas Hardy said.The …

Study results from A. Gohin and colleagues in the area of agricultural economics published.

"The main objective of this article is to examine econometric estimates of price elasticities of food trade functions. We investigate the relevance of the prominent gravity approach," scientists writing in the Journal of Agricultural Economics report.

"This approach is based on the assumptions of symmetric, monotone, homothetic, Constant Elasticity of Substitution (CES) preferences. We test all these assumptions using intra-European trade in cheese. In general, the assumptions made on preferences by the gravity approach are not supported by our dataset," wrote A. Gohin and colleagues.

The researchers concluded: "The bias induced in the estimated price …

KATHLEEN BURNS.(CAPITAL REGION)

NISKAYUNA -- Kathleen Blanchfield Burns, of Hexam Road, died Tuesday, April 22, 1997 at Ellis Hospital after a short illness. She was born in Cohoes and was a lifelong area reisdent. She was a homemaker. Mrs. Burns was a member and past president of the Altar Rosary Society; Eucharistic minister at St. John the Evangelist; and a member of Schenectady Co. Medical Society Auxillary and St. Clare's Hospital Auxillary. She was the widow of Dr. William J. Burns, who died in 1983. Survivors include …

UN raises Pakistani capital security level

The U.N. declared the Pakistani capital unsafe for the children of its international staff Thursday and ordered them out, putting the once tranquil city on a par with Kabul and Somalia.

Pakistan is under intense U.S. pressure to combat militants responsible for rising attacks at home and in neighboring Afghanistan. Its faltering efforts so far have been met with a blur of suicide bombings that have killed nearly 1,200 people since July 2007, according to army statistics released this week.

The U.N., which employs more than 2,000 people in Pakistan, including about 100 foreigners, has not been hit.

However, the truck bombing of Islamabad's Marriott …