A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Certain indicators suggest that the financial condition of the RRG industry in aggregate generally has remained profitable. In 2003, RRGs wrote about $1.8 billion, or 1.17 percent of commercial liability insurance. In 2010, RRGs continued to comprise a small percentage of the total market, writing about $2.5 billion--or about 3 percent of commercial liability coverage. Other financial indicators, such as ratios of RRG premiums earned compared to claims paid--also suggest profitability. In addition, the number of RRGs has increased since 2004, with the most growth occurring in health care-related lines. In 2010, more than 80 percent of RRGs were domiciled in Vermont, South Carolina, the District of Columbia, Nevada, Hawaii, and Arizona, but RRGs wrote about 95 percent of their premiums outside their state of domicile. Evidence suggests that RRGs may choose to domicile in a particular state, partly due to some financial and regulatory advantages such as lower minimum capitalization requirements. RRG representatives opined that RRGs have expanded the availability of commercial liability insurance--particularly in niche markets--but differed in their opinions of whether RRGs have improved its affordability. Different interpretations of LRRA have led to …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) has a critical role in contract oversight. DCAA audits are intended to help provide reasonable assurance that defense company policies for safeguarding assets and complying with contractual requirements are fulfilled. Defense companies also maintain their own internal audit departments to monitor policies, procedures, and business systems related to their government contracts. GAO was asked to assess the role of defense companies' internal audit departments and their ability to provide DCAA with information on their internal controls. GAO assessed (1) selected defense companies' adherence to standards for internal audits, (2) the extent to which those companies' internal audit reports address defense contract management internal controls, and (3) DCAA's ability to examine internal audits and use information from these audits. GAO reviewed a nongeneralizable sample of seven major defense companies including the five largest defense contractors and two smaller contractors; analyzed information on their 2008 and 2009 internal audits, which were the latest available when GAO began its assessment; and reviewed DCAA's ability to examine and use the audits in carrying out its oversight."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Securing transportation systems and facilities requires balancing security to address potential threats while facilitating the flow of people and goods that are critical to the U.S. economy and necessary for supporting international commerce. As we have previously reported, transportation systems and facilities are vulnerable and difficult to secure given their size, easy accessibility, large number of potential targets, and proximity to urban areas. The federal government has taken steps to ensure that transportation workers, particularly those who transport hazardous materials or seek unescorted access to secure areas of federally regulated maritime or aviation facilities, are properly vetted to identify whether they pose a security risk. These efforts are intended to reduce the probability of a successful terrorist or other criminal attack on the nation's transportation systems. To help enhance the security of the U.S. transportation system, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) Transportation Threat Assessment and Credentialing (TTAC) office is responsible for conducting background checks--known as security threat assessments--for various screening and credentialing programs established for maritime, surface, and aviation transportation workers. TSA's programs are largely focused on identifying security threats posed by those …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Nonfederal government entities have varying roles and responsibilities under three TSA transportation worker credentialing programs we reviewed--the Transportation Worker Identification Credential program (TWIC) for maritime workers; the Hazardous Materials Endorsement program (HME) for truckers seeking a commercial drivers license endorsement to carry hazardous materials; and the Aviation Workers program for airport workers. TSA administers the TWIC credentialing process, with no role for maritime port facility operators outside of verifying issued credentials. Under HME, state licensing agencies issue endorsements based on whether TSA reports favorable background checking results. In contrast, under the Aviation Workers program, TSA and airports share responsibility for the vetting process for airport workers, with airports responsible for enrolling applicants, adjudicating criminal history results TSA provides, and issuing, and if necessary, revoking airport badges. Eleven of 17 selected maritime ports--including 4 of the top 10 largest ports--reported implementing additional credentialing requirements to those under TSA regulations, which generally included requirements for applicants to obtain and present local port identification--in addition to a TWIC--to gain unescorted access. At three of these ports, local agencies conducted additional criminal history checks. In addition, 4 of 6 selected …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In summary, we found that (1) According to Education officials, most amendments consisted of minor adjustments to grant budgets, activities, and timelines, and some amendments involved significant changes to the grant award. Grantees have cited a variety of reasons for these amendments, such as timeline delays and difficulty finding qualified staff. (2) Education established a review process in which Education officials consider amendment requests on a case-by-case basis. In addition, the department distinguishes significant amendment requests from minor requests based on how the amendment would change project timelines, budgets, performance measures, and the implementation of other related projects. Education reportedly applied greater scrutiny to requests that involved significant changes to grantees' planned activities, often by requiring that grantees provide additional information or seek consultation from issuearea experts within the department. Rather than reject amendment requests, Education officials explained that they generally asked grantees to resubmit requests with more information."

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Port Aransas, Texas on Mustang Island that includes local, state and national news along with extensive advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether Texas Southern University may exchange or grant outright a portion of its real property that contains or is adjacent to a historical cemetery (RQ-0975-GA)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Authority of a county bail bond to enact a rule that restricts a bail bond licensee from employing a person who is currently on probation or parole, or who is the defendant in a pending criminal case (RQ-0976-GA)

The overall objective of this research was to create new proton-conducting polymer electrolytes for use in energy conversion devices including hydrogen fuel cells that could operate at high temperatures (95-130 C) and under low relative humidity (< 50% RH) conditions. The new polymers were based on the fluoroalkylphosphonic and phosphinic acid (FPA) groups (see illustration below) which offer prospects for rapid proton transport by a proton-hopping mechanism similar to that which operates in phosphoric acid, a well-known proton-transporting electrolyte that is used in a class of hydrogen fuel cells that work well under the conditions noted above and are already commercially successful. The two specific project objectives were as follows: (1) synthesize and characterize new proton-conducting electrolytes based on the fluoroalkylphosphonic and phosphinic acid (FPA) functional groups; and (2) create and apply new computer models to study protonic conduction in FPA-based electrolytes. The project was successful in creating the desired polymer electrolytes and also a series of molecular model compounds which were used to study proton transport in FPA electrolytes in general. Computer models were created to study both structure and proton-transport dynamics in the electrolytes, particularly the molecular model compounds. Rapid proton transport by a hopping mechanism was found …

Martin Schindewolf worked during his internship at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) under the guidance of Martin Schulz at the Computer Science Group of the Center for Applied Scientific Computing. We studied the performance of the TM subsystem of BG/Q as well as researched the possibilities for tool support for TM. To study the performance, we run CLOMP-TM. CLOMP-TM is a benchmark designed for the purpose to quantify the overhead of OpenMP and compare different synchronization primitives. To advance CLOMP-TM, we added Message Passing Interface (MPI) routines for a hybrid parallelization. This enables to run multiple MPI tasks, each running OpenMP, on one node. With these enhancements, a beneficial MPI task to OpenMP thread ratio is determined. Further, the synchronization primitives are ranked as a function of the application characteristics. To demonstrate the usefulness of these results, we investigate a real Monte Carlo simulation called Monte Carlo Benchmark (MCB). Applying the lessons learned yields the best task to thread ratio. Further, we were able to tune the synchronization by transactifying the MCB. Further, we develop tools that capture the performance of the TM run time system and present it to the application's developer. The performance of the TM run …

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

RT-PCR is commonly used for the detection of Bcr-Abl fusion transcripts in patients diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia, CML. Two fusion transcripts predominate in CML, Br-Abl e13a2 and e14a2. They have developed reverse transcriptase isothermal loop-mediated amplification (RT-LAMP) assays to detect these two fusion transcripts along with the normal Bcr transcript.

Weekly newspaper from Electra, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Olney, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Agenda for the December 8th meeting of the Dallas Way listing the topics to discuss at the monthly meeting.

Weekly newspaper from Refugio, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Alvarado, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Cooper, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Allen, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.