A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Cayman Islands is a major offshore financial center and the registered home of thousands of corporations and financial entities. Financial activity in the Cayman Islands is measured in the trillions of dollars annually. One Cayman building--Ugland House--has been the subject of public attention as the listed address of thousands of companies. To help Congress better understand the nature of U.S. persons' business activities in the Cayman Islands, GAO was asked to study (1) the nature and extent of U.S. persons' involvement with Ugland House registered entities and the nature of such business; (2) the reasons why U.S. persons conduct business in the Cayman Islands; (3) information available to the U.S. government regarding U.S. persons' Cayman activities; and (4) the U.S. government's compliance and enforcement efforts. GAO interviewed U.S. and Cayman government officials and representatives of the law firm housed in Ugland House, and reviewed relevant documents."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In February 2007, a series of articles in The Washington Post about conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center highlighted problems in the military's disability evaluation system. Subsequently, the Department of the Army, Department of Defense (DOD), and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) undertook initiatives to address concerns with the disability evaluation process. In 2007, the Army took steps to streamline its process, and DOD and VA began piloting a joint evaluation system to address systemic concerns about timeliness and the potential inefficiency of having separate disability evaluation systems. GAO was asked to examine (1) recent actions by the Army to help servicemembers navigate its disability evaluation process and (2) the status, plans, and challenges of DOD and VA's efforts to pilot and implement a joint disability evaluation system. GAO interviewed Army, DOD, and VA officials; visited Army treatment facilities; and reviewed data from these sources."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) manages and operates about 577,000 structures worldwide, valued at about $712 billion. DOD has worked for several years to develop models that can reliably estimate the installation support funds needed to sustain these facilities, and plans to spend over $55 billion to support these facilities and operate its bases in fiscal year 2008. Because GAO has identified support infrastructure as a high-risk area that affects DOD's ability to devote funds to other more critical needs, GAO initiated this review under the Comptroller General's authority. This report discusses (1) the reliability of the annual funding estimates produced by the facilities sustainment model, (2) DOD's progress in meeting funding goals for facility sustainment and recapitalization, (3) the extent to which DOD has addressed deferred facility sustainment funding needs, and (4) the status of DOD's efforts to develop a new installation services model. To address these objectives, GAO reviewed the accuracy and support for the model's key inputs, analyzed pertinent documents, and visited eight judgmentally selected installations."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Farmers receive about $16 billion annually in federal farm program payments. These payments go to about 2 million recipients, both individuals and entities. GAO previously has reported that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) did not consistently ensure that these payments went only to those who meet eligibility requirements. GAO was asked to evaluate (1) how effectively USDA implemented 2002 Farm Bill provisions prohibiting payments to individuals or entities whose income exceeded $2.5 million and who derived less than 75 percent of that income from farming, ranching, or forestry operations, (2) the potential impact of the 2008 Farm Bill's income eligibility provisions on individuals who receive farm payments, and (3) the distribution of income of these individuals compared with all 2006 tax filers. GAO compared USDA data on individuals receiving payments with the latest available Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data on these individuals."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The United States has reimbursed Pakistan, a key ally in the global war on terror, about $5.56 billion in Coalition Support Funds (CSF) for its efforts to combat terrorism along its border with Afghanistan. The Department of Defense (Defense) provides CSF to 27 coalition partners for costs incurred in direct support of U.S. military operations. Pakistan is the largest recipient of CSF, receiving 81 percent of CSF reimbursements as of May 2008. This report focuses on (1) the extent to which Defense has consistently applied its guidance to validate the reimbursements claimed by Pakistan and (2) how the Office of the Defense Representative to Pakistan's (ODRP) role has changed over time. To address these objectives, GAO reviewed CSF oversight procedures, examined CSF documents, and interviewed Defense officials in Washington, D.C., U.S. Central Command in Florida, and Pakistan."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Wildland fires have become increasingly damaging and costly. To deal with fire's threats, the five federal wildland fire agencies--the Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture and four agencies in the Department of the Interior (Interior)--rely on thousands of firefighters, fire engines, and other assets. To ensure acquisition of the best mix of these assets, the agencies in 2002 began developing a new interagency budget tool known as fire program analysis (FPA). FPA underwent major changes in 2006, raising questions about its ability to meet its original objectives. GAO was asked to examine (1) FPA's development to date, including the 2006 changes, and (2) the extent to which FPA will meet its objectives. To do so, GAO reviewed agency policies and FPA documentation and interviewed agency officials."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Concerns about transfer pricing abuse have led researchers to compare the tax liabilities of foreign- and U.S.-controlled corporations. (Transfer prices are the prices related companies charge on intercompany transactions.) However, such comparisons are complicated because other factors may explain the differences in reported tax liabilities. In three prior reports, GAO found differences in the percentages of foreign-controlled and U.S.-controlled corporations reporting no tax liability. GAO was asked to update the previous reports by comparing: (1) the tax liabilities of foreign-controlled domestic corporations (FCDC) and U.S.-controlled corporations (USCC)-including those reporting zero tax liabilities for 1998 through 2005 (the latest available data) and (2) characteristics of FCDCs and USCCs such as age, size, and industry. GAO analyzed data from the Internal Revenue Service's Statistics of Income samples of corporate tax returns. GAO does not make any recommendations in this report. In commenting on a draft of this report, IRS provided comments on technical issues, which we incorporated into this report where appropriate."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Agency for International Development's (USAID)Cuba Program provides assistance to support human rights and promote nonviolent democratic change in Cuba. From 1996 through 2008, the program awarded $83 million in grants to nongovernmental organizations and universities. In 2006, GAO found weaknesses in program oversight that increased the risk of grantees' improperly using grant funds and failing to comply with U.S. laws. In 2008, misuse of grant funds at organizations with the program's two largest grants was detected. GAO was asked to examine (1) actions that USAID has taken since 2006, or plans to take, to improve its award and oversight of the Cuba Program's grants and (2) actions that USAID has taken in response to the recently detected misuses of grant funds. GAO analyzed USAID and grantee records, conducted limited reviews at five grantees, and interviewed agency and grantee officials."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Registered nurses (RNs) are the largest group of health care providers employed by VA's health care system. RNs are relied on to deliver inpatient care, but VA medical centers (VAMC) face RN recruitment and retention challenges. VAMCs use a patient classification system (PCS) to determine RN staffing on inpatient units by classifying inpatients according to severity of illness to determine the amount of RN care needed. GAO reviewed VAMC inpatient units for (1) the usefulness of information generated by VA's PCS; (2) key factors that affect RN retention; and (3) factors that contribute to delays in hiring RNs. GAO performed a Web-based survey of all VAMC nurse executives; interviewed VA headquarters officials and VAMC nursing officials, and conducted RN focus groups at eight VAMCs visited by GAO. The findings of GAO's survey are generalizable to all nurse executives; however, findings from the focus groups at the eight VAMCs are not generalizable."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Postal Service (the Service) has a long history of contracting out postal functions, such as mail transportation, mail delivery in rural areas, vehicle and equipment maintenance, and retail postal services. However, postal employees also perform many of these same functions and unions representing these employees have concerns about the scope and impact of outsourcing. The objectives of this requested report are to assess (1) the circumstances under which the Service can outsource postal functions, how it decides to outsource, and the extent to which it has outsourced; (2) how the Service's management processes compare for contractors and postal employees; and (3) the results, including any savings, and key challenges related to the Service's outsourcing activities. GAO reviewed applicable statutes, collective bargaining agreements, postal processes and outsourcing data, and interviewed postal union and management officials."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since the 1998 near collapse of Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM), a large hedge fund--a pooled investment vehicle that is privately managed and often engages in active trading of various types of securities and commodity futures and options--the number of hedge funds has grown, and they have attracted investments from institutional investors such as pension plans. Hedge funds generally are recognized as important sources of liquidity and as holders and managers of risks in the capital markets. Although the market impacts of recent hedge fund near collapses were less severe than that of LTCM, they recalled concerns about risks associated with hedge funds and they highlighted the continuing relevance of questions raised over LTCM. This report (1) describes how federal financial regulators oversee hedge fund-related activities under their existing authorities; (2) examines what measures investors, creditors, and counterparties have taken to impose market discipline on hedge funds; and (3) explores the potential for systemic risk from hedge fund-related activities and describes actions regulators have taken to address this risk. In conducting this study, GAO reviewed regulators' policy documents and examinations and industry reports and interviewed regulatory and …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense's (DOD) intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities-such as satellites and unmanned aircraft systems-are crucial to military operations, and demand for ISR capabilities has increased. For example, DOD plans to invest $28 billion over the next 7 years in 20 airborne ISR systems alone. Congress directed DOD to fully integrate its ISR capabilities, also known as the ISR enterprise, as it works to meet current and future ISR needs. GAO was asked to (1) describe the challenges, if any, that DOD faces in integrating its ISR enterprise, (2) assess DOD's management approach for improving integration of its future ISR investments, and (3) evaluate the extent to which DOD has implemented key activities to ensure proposed new ISR capabilities fill gaps, are not duplicative, and use a joint approach to meeting warfighters' needs. GAO assessed DOD's integration initiatives and 19 proposals for new ISR capabilities. We supplemented this analysis with discussions with DOD officials."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Over the past 6 years, the Small Business Administration (SBA) has sought to transform the agency and improve its operations. A major focus of transformation was to centralize the remaining loan functions performed by 68 district offices. SBA's implementation of early transformation efforts did not reflect key practices GAO recommended in a 2003 report as important for successful transformations. Consequently, its centralization of the guaranty purchase process for one of its loan programs resulted in backlogs and other problems reported by SBA's Inspector General. Some of SBA's actions also led to a reduction in staff at district offices and a decline in employee morale. GAO was asked to assess how SBA has (1) responded to GAO's 2003 recommendations, (2) addressed the impacts of transformation on employees, (3) defined the roles and responsibilities of district offices, and (4) assessed the centralization of loan functions. GAO reviewed documents related to SBA's transformation and reform efforts, interviewed SBA officials, and analyzed SBA employee survey data. GAO also visited 10 district offices and two centers and interviewed groups of employees."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Coast Guard's Deepwater Program, under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has experienced serious performance and management problems. Deepwater is intended to replace or modernize Coast Guard vessels, aircraft, and the communications and electronic systems that link them together. As of fiscal year 2008, over $4 billion has been appropriated for Deepwater. The Coast Guard awarded a contract in June 2002 to a lead system integrator, Integrated Coast Guard Systems (ICGS), to execute the program using a system-of-systems approach. In response to a Senate report accompanying a Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill, 2008, this GAO report assesses whether the changes the Coast Guard is making to its management and acquisition approach to Deepwater will put it in a position to realize better outcomes. GAO reviewed key program documents and interviewed Coast Guard and contractor personnel."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In January 2003, GAO designated federal real property as a high-risk area, citing the government's overreliance on costly, long-term leasing as one of the major reasons. GAO's work over the years has shown that building ownership often costs less than operating leases, especially for long-term space needs. GAO was asked to identify (1) the profile of domestically held, federally leased space including the overall amount and type of space agencies lease, and any related trends; (2) the factors that drive agencies to lease space that may be more cost-effective to own; and (3) any actions taken by the administration and alternative approaches proposed to address this issue. GAO reviewed fiscal year 2006 Federal Real Property Profile (FRPP) leasing data and relevant documents and interviewed officials from the General Services Administration (GSA), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). GAO also reviewed 10 building leases that were among those with the largest dollar value in 3 locations GAO visited."

This report includes the results of an initial assessment of genealogists' requirements for the redesign of the Portal's interface. The UNT Libraries received a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services for a two-year project to identify the user interface requirements of genealogists interacting with the libraries' Portal to Texas History. The IOGENE project involves genealogists in the design process beginning with the initial assessment of their requirements and continuing through usability testing of the redesigned Portal interface.

This report examines three labor issues and arguments related to the pending U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement (CFTA): violence against trade unionists; impunity (accountability for or punishment of the perpetrators); and worker rights protections for Colombians. This report addresses this issue at length, including the arguments for and against the agreement, as well as general U.S.-Colombia economic relations.

The majority of the research supported by the NSF is conducted at U.S. colleges and universities. Approximately 82.7% ($3,094.8 million) of NSF's FY2006 $3,740.6 million research and development (R&D) budget was awarded to U.S. colleges and universities. On September 30, 2008, the President signed into law the Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act, 2009 (P.L. 110-329, H.R. 2638). The act includes, among other things, three of the 12 regular appropriations acts for FY2009. The Continuing Appropriations Act funds the NSF until passage of the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Appropriations bill or until March 6, 2009, whichever occurs first. P.L. 110-329 funds the NSF at the FY2008 level.

The report opens with a discussion of how to analyze the impact of immigrants on the pay and job opportunities of native-born workers. It then uses this framework to examine and interpret the empirical literature on the subject. The report concludes with a discussion of policy implications.

We present an experimental realization of the classical Jeffery-Hamel flows inside a wedge-shaped channel. We compare the measured velocity fields with the predictions of Jeffery-Hamel theory. A detailed experimental study of bifurcation diagrams for the solutions reveals the absolute stability of the pure outflow solution and an interesting hysteretic structure for bifurcations. We also observe a multiple vortex flow regime predicted earlier numerically and analytically. Experimental studies of the stability of the flow to perturbations at the channel exit are also conducted.

The mission of the pmodel center project is to develop software technology to support scalable parallel programming models for terascale systems. The goal of the specific UD subproject is in the context developing an efficient and robust methodology and tools for HPC programming. More specifically, the focus is on developing new programming models which facilitate programmers in porting their application onto parallel high performance computing systems. During the course of the research in the past 5 years, the landscape of microprocessor chip architecture has witnessed a fundamental change – the emergence of multi-core/many-core chip architecture appear to become the mainstream technology and will have a major impact to for future generation parallel machines. The programming model for shared-address space machines is becoming critical to such multi-core architectures. Our research highlight is the in-depth study of proposed fine-grain parallelism/multithreading support on such future generation multi-core architectures. Our research has demonstrated the significant impact such fine-grain multithreading model can have on the productivity of parallel programming models and their efficient implementation.

Ground penetrating radar surveys of the TX and TY tank farms were performed to identify existing infrastructure in the near surface environment. These surveys were designed to provide background information supporting Surface-to-Surface and Well-to-Well resistivity surveys of Waste Management Area TX-TY. The objective of the preliminary investigation was to collect background characterization information with GPR to understand the spatial distribution of metallic objects that could potentially interfere with the results from high resolution resistivity{trademark} surveys. The results of the background characterization confirm the existence of documented infrastructure, as well as highlight locations of possible additional undocumented subsurface metallic objects.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) commitment to assuring the health and safety of its workers includes the conduct of illness and injury surveillance activities that provide an early warning system to detect health problems among workers. The Illness and Injury Surveillance Program monitors illnesses and health conditions that result in an absence, occupational injuries and illnesses, and disabilities and deaths among current workers.

A general phenomenological-based elasto-plastic nonlinear isotropic strain hardening material model was implemented in DYNA3D for use in solid, beam, truss, and shell elements. The constitutive model, Model 71, is based upon conventional J2 plasticity and affords optional temperature and rate dependence (visco-plasticity). The expressions for strain hardening, temperature dependence, and rate dependence allow it to represent a wide variety of material responses. Options to capture temperature changes due to adiabatic heating and thermal straining are incorporated into the constitutive framework as well. The verification problem developed for this constitutive model consists of four uni-axial right cylinders subject to constant true strain-rate boundary conditions. Three of the specimens have different constant strain rates imposed, while the fourth specimen is subjected to several strain rate jumps. The material parameters developed by Fehlmann (2005) for 21-6-9 Nitronic steel are utilized. As demonstrated below, the finite element (FE) simulations are in excellent agreement with the theoretical responses and indicated the model is functioning as desired. Consequently, this problem serves as both a verification problem and regression test problem for DYNA3D.