A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Due to the federal government's role as guarantor, floods impose an enormous potential financial burden on the federal government. Consequently, decision makers at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the Congress need accurate and timely financial information to assess the effectiveness of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). This report assesses whether controls in place during the 2005 to 2007 time frame were effective and whether actions to improve controls are likely to address identified weaknesses. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reviewed and analyzed FEMA/NFIP guidance, data, and financial reports, reviewed prior audit reports, interviewed FEMA officials and contractors, and selected a sample of claim losses paid to determine whether claim files contained key documents."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The growing cost of brand-name prescription drugs--FDA-approved drug products that typically have patent protection--is a concern for patients, payers, and providers of health care--particularly when price increases are large and occur suddenly. A 2008 congressional hearing by the Joint Economic Committee drew attention to some small market prescription drugs that had an extraordinary price increase--a price increase of 100 percent or more at a single point in time. GAO was asked to examine extraordinary price increases for brand-name prescription drugs. Specifically, GAO examined the: (1) frequency of extraordinary price increases for brand-name prescription drugs from 2000 to 2008, (2) characteristics of the brand-name prescription drugs that had extraordinary price increases, and (3) factors that contributed to the extraordinary price increases experienced by these brand-name prescription drugs. To determine the frequency and characteristics of the brand-name prescription drugs that experienced an extraordinary price increase, GAO reviewed drug pricing and other data from a pharmaceutical industry compendium. To illustrate the factors that may contribute to extraordinary price increases, GAO developed case studies of six brand-name prescription drugs identified from the analysis of drug pricing data. These brand-name prescription …

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Application materials submitted to the Texas Historical Commission requesting a historic marker for the Farmers State Bank and Reinstein Store, in Brenham, Texas. The materials include the inscription text of the marker, original application, narrative, floor plans, and photographs.

In prior years a Wisconsin-SLAC collaboration developed polarized photocathodes which were used for the SLAC SLD and fixed target programs. Currently, the R&D program goal is the development of a polarized electron source (PES) which meets the ILC requirements for polarization, charge, lifetime, and pulse structure. There are two parts to this program. One part is the continued improvement of photocathode structures with higher polarization. The second part is the design and development of the laser system used to drive the photocathode. The long pulse train for the ILC introduces new challenges for the PES. More reliable and stable operation of the PES may be achievable if appropriate R&D is carried out for higher voltage operation and for a simpler photocathode load-lock system. The collaboration with SLAC is through the Polarized Photocathode Research Collaboration (PPRC). Senior SLAC personnel include T. Maruyama, J. Clendenin, R. Kirby, and A. Brachmann.

Strength of the apple parts has been noticed to decrease, especially those installed by the new induction heating system since the LEP campaign started. Fig. 1 shows the ultimate tensile strength (UTS), yield strength (YS), and elongation of the installed or installation-simulated apples on various systems. One can clearly see the mean values of UTS and YS of the post-LEP parts decreased by about 8 ksi and 6 ksi respectively from those of the pre-LEP parts. The slight increase in elongation seen in Fig.1 can be understood from the weak inverse relationship between the strength and elongation in metals. Fig.2 shows the weak correlation between the YS and elongation of the parts listed in Fig. 1. Strength data listed in Figure 1 were re-plotted as histograms in Figs. 3 and 4. Figs. 3a and 4a show histograms of all UTS and YS data. Figs. 3b and 4b shows histograms of pre-LEP data and Figs. 3c and 4c of post-LEP data. Data on statistical scatter of tensile strengths have been rarely published by material suppliers. Instead, only the minimum 'guaranteed' strength data are typically presented. An example of strength distribution of aluminum 7075-T6 sheet material, listed in Fig. 5, show that …

We present the results of a series of experiments studying how visualization software scales to massive data sets. Although several paradigms exist for processing large data, we focus on pure parallelism, the dominant approach for production software. These experiments utilized multiple visualization algorithms and were run on multiple architectures. Two types of experiments were performed. For the first, we examined performance at massive scale: 16,000 or more cores and one trillion or more cells. For the second, we studied weak scaling performance. These experiments were performed on the largest data set sizes published to date in visualization literature, and the findings on scaling characteristics and bottlenecks contribute to understanding of how pure parallelism will perform at high levels of concurrency and with very large data sets.

The rate coefficient for the reaction of the ethynyl radical (C{sub 2}H) with 1-butyne (H-C{triple_bond}C-CH{sub 2}-CH{sub 3}) is measured in a pulsed Laval nozzle apparatus. Ethynyl radicals are formed by laser photolysis of acetylene (C{sub 2}H{sub 2}) at 193 nm and detected via chemiluminescence (C{sub 2}H + O{sub 2} {yields} CH (A{sup 2}{Delta}) + CO{sub 2}). The rate coefficients are measured over the temperature range of 74-295 K. The C{sub 2}H + 1-butyne reaction exhibits no barrier and occurs with rate constants close to the collision limit. The temperature dependent rate coefficients can be fit within experimental uncertainties by the expression k = (2.4 {+-} 0.5) x 10{sup -10} (T/295 K)-(0.04 {+-} 0.03) cm{sup 3} molecule{sup -1}s{sup -1}. Reaction products are detected at room temperature (295 K) and 533 Pa using a Multiplexed Photoionization Mass Spectrometer (MPIMS) coupled to the tunable VUV synchrotron radiation from the Advanced Light Source at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Two product channels are identified for this reaction: m/z = 64 (C{sub 5}H{sub 4}) and m/z = 78 (C{sub 6}H{sub 6}) corresponding to the CH{sub 3}- and H-loss channels, respectively. Photoionization efficiency (PIE) curves are used to analyze the isomeric composition of both product channels. …

This report provides background information and potential oversight issues for Congress on the CVN-78 program, which includes the CVN-78 and CVN-79 as the first two ships in the Navy's new Gerald R. Ford (CVN- 78) class of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers (CVNs).

The Navy has been procuring Virginia (SSN-774) class nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) at a rate of one per year for the past several years, and a total of 11 boats have been procured through FY2009. This report discusses the Navy's proposed FY2010 budget, which requests $1,964.3 million in procurement funding to complete the procurement cost of a 12th Virginia-class boats.

This report discusses the current political state of Afghanistan, as well as the Afghan government. This report also discusses Afghanistan's relationship with the United States, particularly U.S. efforts to urge President Hamid Karzai to address corruption within the Afghan government.

Daily newspaper from Baytown, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Funeral program for Mrs. Eloise G. Smith, born July 22, 1921 and died December 14, 2009. The funeral was held December 22, 2009 at St. Paul United Methodist Church, officiated by Rev. Dr. Marcus A. L. Freeman, III. Funeral arrangements were made through the Lewis Funeral Home and she was buried in Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery near Needville, Texas.

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Daily newspaper from Altus, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

The program InvMass has been developed to perform a general model-independent search for new particles using the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a proton-proton collider at CERN. The search is performed by examining statistically significant variations from the Standard Model predictions in exclusive event classes classified according to the number of identified objects. The program, called InvMass, finds all relevant particle groups identified with the ATLAS detector and analyzes their production rates, invariant masses and the total transverse momenta. The generic code of InvMass can easily be adapted for any particle types identified with the ATLAS detector. Several benchmark tests are presented.

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

The fusion-evaporation reaction {sup 244}Pu({sup 48}Ca,3-4n){sup 288,289}114 was studied at the new gas-filled recoil separator TASCA. Thirteen correlated decay chains were observed and assigned to the production and decay of {sup 288,289}114. At a compound nucleus excitation energy of E* = 39.8-43.9 MeV, the 4n evaporation channel cross section was 9.8{sub -3.1}{sup +3.9} pb. At E* = 36.1-39.5 MeV, that of the 3n evaporation channel was 8.0{sub -4.5}{sup +7.4} pb. In one of the 3n evaporation channel decay chains, a previously unobserved {alpha} branch in {sup 281}Ds was observed (probability to be of random origin from background: 0.1%). This {alpha} decay populated the new nucleus {sup 277}Hs, which decayed by spontaneous fission after a lifetime of 4.5 ms.

Daily newspaper from Chickasha, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Daily newspaper from Sapulpa, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

This report discusses issues for Congress in FY2011, which are whether to approve, reject, or modify DOD's new KC-X competition strategy, and whether to approve, reject, or modify the Air Force's request for FY2011 research and development funding for the new KC-X program.

This report provides background information and presents potential issues for Congress concerning the Navy's ship force-structure goals and shipbuilding plans. Decisions that Congress makes on Navy shipbuilding programs can substantially affect Navy capabilities and funding requirements, and the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base.

This report discusses the allowances and emissions reductions from reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD).