A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. has devoted an increasing proportion of its economy and federal budget to the provision of health care services, but high levels of spending do not guarantee good care. Policymakers, health practitioners, and others have implemented numerous health care interventions that make discrete changes in the organization of health care services in order to enhance the value of health care--that is, improve the quality of care while reducing costs. Examples include programs to reduce bloodstream infections and to coordinate patient care following hospital discharges. This report (1) examines the availability of evidence on the effect of selected interventions on quality of care and costs; (2) identifies key dimensions for assessing the strength of such evidence; and (3) examines factors that can facilitate the implementation and replication of health care interventions. GAO identified a broad and diverse set of health care interventions using published and unpublished sources. For 127 of those interventions, GAO analyzed responses to a questionnaire that it sent to persons knowledgeable about available information on the effect of that particular intervention on quality of care and costs. GAO's questionnaire also asked respondents to …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Cyclone Nargis hit Burma's impoverished Irrawaddy Delta on May 2, 2008, leaving nearly 140,000 people dead or missing and severely affecting about 2.4 million others, according to the UN. The Burmese military government initially blocked most access to the affected region; however, amid international pressure, it slowly began allowing international aid workers entry into the region. Since 1997, the United States has imposed sanctions to prohibit, among other things, the exportation of financial services to Burma and transactions with Burmese officials. In response to a congressional mandate, GAO (1) described the assistance UN and U.S. agencies have provided in response to Cyclone Nargis, (2) assessed USAID actions to help ensure funds are used as intended and do not benefit sanctioned entities, and (3) described the challenges responders experienced and the lessons learned. GAO reviewed financial and program documents; interviewed U.S., UN, and nongovernmental organization (NGO) officials; and traveled to Thailand and Burma."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Mutual funds are one of the most widely held investment products by Americans and advertising is one method by which investors may obtain information on funds. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act requires GAO to conduct a review of mutual fund advertising, focusing on the advertising of past performance information. This report examines (1) what is known about the impact of fund advertisements on investors, (2) the extent to which performance information is included in advertisements, and (3) the regulatory requirements for fund advertisements and how they are administered and enforced. To address these objectives, GAO reviewed existing and proposed Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) rules, conducted a literature review of studies related to mutual fund advertising's impact on investors, and reviewed a random sample of 300 fund advertisements. GAO also met with regulators, fund companies, academics, and industry and investor protection groups."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To assess quality of life and identify areas for improvement, the Air Force conducts periodic surveys of its airmen. Recent surveys indicted that many of them were not satisfied with the quality, variety, and availability of food at Air Force bases. As a result, the Air Force implemented an initiative in 2010--the Food Transformation Initiative--to improve on-base food services. The Air Force piloted the initiative at six installations with a $10.3 million contract awarded in August 2010 and plans to eventually expand the initiative to other installations in the United States. The Senate and House Armed Services Committees directed GAO to undertake a comprehensive review of the initiative. GAO reviewed (1) the initiative's objectives and performance measures, (2) implementation progress, (3) the initiative's impact on food service workers at the pilot installations, and (4) alternative approaches the Air Force considered. GAO reviewed documentation on the initiative, interviewed Air Force and contractor officials, and visited four of the six pilot installations."

Attempts to resolve the Cyprus problem and reunify the island have undergone various levels of negotiation for over 45 years. Talks between Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders have thus far failed to reach a mutually agreed settlement leaving the country with a solution for unification far from being achieved and raising the specter of a possible permanent separation. This report provides a brief overview of the early history of the negotiations, a more detailed review of the negotiations since 2008, and a description of some of the issues involved in the talks. A side issue involving trade between the European Union and Turkish Cyprus is also addressed.

This report discusses policy issues regarding military-to-military (mil-to-mil) contacts with the People's Republic of China (PRC) and provides a record of major contacts and crises since 1993.

Astronomical or optical guide stars are either natural or artificial point sources located above the Earth's atmosphere. When imaged from ground-based telescopes, they are distorted by atmospheric effects. Knowing the guide star is a point source, the atmospheric distortions may be estimated and, deconvolved or mitigated in subsequent imagery. Extending the guide star concept to wave-based measurement systems to include acoustic, seismo-acoustic, ultrasonic, and radar, a strong artificial scatterer (either acoustic or electromagnetic) may be buried or inserted, or a pre-existing or natural sub-surface point scatterer may be identified, imaged, and used as a guide star to determine properties of the sub-surface volume. That is, a data collection is performed on the guide star and the sub-surface environment reconstructed or imaged using an optimizer assuming the guide star is a point scatterer. The optimization parameters are the transceiver height and bulk sub-surface background refractive index. Once identified, the refractive index may be used in subsequent reconstructions of sub-surface measurements. The wave-base guide star description presented in this document is for a multimonostatic ground penetrating radar (GPR) but is applicable to acoustic, seismo-acoustic, and ultrasonic measurement systems operating in multimonostatic, multistatic, multibistatic, etc., modes.

A primary justification for the establishment of energy efficiency standards for home appliances is the existence of information deficiencies and externalities in the market for appliances. For example, when a long-term homeowner purchases a new gas-fired water heater, she will maximize the value of her purchase by comparing the life-cycle cost of ownership of available units, including both total installed cost - purchase price plus installation costs - and operating cost in the calculus. Choice of the appliance with the lowest life-cycle costs leads to the most economically efficient balance between capital cost and fuel cost. However, if the purchaser's expected period of ownership is shorter than the useful life of the appliance, or the purchaser does not pay for the fuel used by the appliance, as is often the case with rental property, fuel cost will be external to her costs, biasing her decision toward spending less on fuel efficiency and resulting in the purchase of an appliance with greater than optimal fuel usage. By imposing an efficiency standard on appliances, less efficient appliances are made unavailable, precluding less efficient purchases and reducing fuel usage. The reduction in fuel demanded by residential users affects the total demand for such …

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This report gives an overview of Guinea and discusses the background information and relations with the United States

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This report describes the causes, costs, and current status of inflation.

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The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA; 5 U.S.C. §552) enables any person to access—without explanation or justification—certain existing, identifiable, unpublished, executive branch agency records. Pursuant to FOIA, the public has presumptive access to requested agency records unless the material falls within any of FOIA's nine categories of exemption from disclosure. This report discusses FOIA's history, examines its implementation, and provides potential policy approaches for Congress.

Hydrogen is a promising energy source for the future economy due to its environmental friendliness. One of the important obstacles for the utilization of hydrogen as a fuel source for applications such as fuel cells is the storage of hydrogen. In the infrastructure of the expected hydrogen economy, hydrogen storage is one of the key enabling technologies. Although hydrogen possesses the highest gravimetric energy content (142 KJ/g) of all fuels, its volumetric energy density (8 MJ/L) is very low. It is desired to increase the volumetric energy density of hydrogen in a system to satisfy various applications. Research on hydrogen storage has been pursed for many years. Various storage technologies, including liquefaction, compression, metal hydride, chemical hydride, and adsorption, have been examined. Liquefaction and high pressure compression are not desired due to concerns related to complicated devices, high energy cost and safety. Metal hydrides and chemical hydrides have high gravimetric and volumetric energy densities but encounter issues because high temperature is required for the release of hydrogen, due to the strong bonding of hydrogen in the compounds. Reversibility of hydrogen loading and unloading is another concern. Adsorption of hydrogen on high surface area sorbents such as activated carbon and organic …

"This report addresses causes, prevalence, and consequences of violence against women (VAW). It provides examples of completed and ongoing U.S. activities that address VAW directly..." (from Summary) Updated July 26, 2011