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 "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."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Longstanding problems in United Nations (UN) management underscore the pressing need to reform and modernize the United Nations in areas ranging from management, oversight, and accountability to operational activities in specific countries. The United States has strongly advocated the reform of UN management practices and has also been critical of the restrictions Burma's military regime has imposed on many international organizations in Burma over the past 3 years. This testimony, based on recent GAO reports, discusses (1) management reform efforts at the UN Secretariat since 2006; (2) oversight and accountability in selected UN organizations; and (3) UN and other international organizations' activities in Burma."

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.

Clouds of low energy electrons in the vacuum beam pipes of accelerators of positively charged particle beams present a serious limitation for operation at high currents. Furthermore, it is difficult to probe their density over substantial lengths of the beam pipe. We have developed a novel technique to directly measure the electron cloud density via the phase shift induced in a TE wave transmitted over a section of the accelerator and used it to measure the average electron cloud density over a 50 m section in the positron ring of the PEP-II collider at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.

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.

High brightness electron beam sources such as rf photo-injectors as proposed for SASE FELs must consistently produce the desired beam quality. We report the results of a study in which a combined neural network (NN) and first-principles (FP) model is used to model the transverse phase space of the beam as a function of quadrupole strength, while beam charge, solenoid field, accelerator gradient, and linac voltage and phase are kept constant. The parametric transport matrix between the exit of the linac section and the spectrometer screen constitutes the FP component of the combined model. The NN block provides the parameters of the transport matrix as functions of quad current. Using real data from SLAC Gun Test Facility, we will highlight the significance of the constrained training of the NN block and show that the phase space of the beam is accurately modeled by the combined NN and FP model, while variations of beam matrix parameters with the quad current are correctly captured. We plan to extend the combined model in the future to capture the effects of variations in beam charge, solenoid field, and accelerator voltage and phase.

By analyzing the pulse to pulse intensity fluctuations of the radiation emitted by a charge particle in the incoherent part of the spectrum, it is possible to extract information about the spatial distribution of the beam. At the Advanced Light Source (ALS) of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, we have developed and tested a simple scheme based on this principle that allows for the absolute measurement of the bunch length. A description of the method and the experimental results are presented.

Incoherent electron effects could seriously limit the beam lifetime in proton or ion storage rings, such as LHC, SPS, or RHIC, or blow up the vertical emittance of positron beams, e.g., at the B factories or in linear-collider damping rings. Different approaches to modeling these effects each have their own merits and drawbacks. We describe several simulation codes which simplify the descriptions of the beam-electron interaction and of the accelerator structure in various different ways, and present results for a toy model of the SPS. In addition, we present evidence that for positron beams the interplay of incoherent electron-cloud effects and synchrotron radiation can lead to a significant increase in vertical equilibrium emittance. The magnitude of a few incoherent e{sup +}e{sup -} scattering processes is also estimated. Options for future code development are reviewed.

Complete genome sequences are available for understanding biotransformation, environmental resistance and pathogenesis of microbial, cellular and pathogen systems. The present technological and scientific challenges are to unravel the relationships between the organization and function of protein complexes at cell, microbial and pathogens surfaces, to understand how these complexes evolve during the bacterial, cellular and pathogen life cycles, and how they respond to environmental changes, chemical stimulants and therapeutics. In particular, elucidating the molecular structure and architecture of human pathogen surfaces is essential to understanding mechanisms of pathogenesis, immune response, physicochemical interactions, environmental resistance and development of countermeasures against bioterrorist agents. The objective of this project was to investigate the architecture, proteomic structure, and function of bacterial spores through a combination of high-resolution in vitro atomic force microscopy (AFM) and AFM-based immunolabeling with threat-specific antibodies. Particular attention in this project was focused on spore forming Bacillus species including the Sterne vaccine strain of Bacillus anthracis and the spore forming near-neighbor of Clostridium botulinum, C. novyi-NT. Bacillus species, including B. anthracis, the causative agent of inhalation anthrax are laboratory models for elucidating spore structure/function. Even though the complete genome sequence is available for B. subtilis, cereus, anthracis and other species, the determination …

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Daily student newspaper from the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas that includes local, state and campus news along with advertising.

Semi-weekly newspaper from Bastrop, Texas that includes local, state and national news along with advertising.

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

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This report provides an overview of the components and funding for each of the three major federal mentoring programs, as well as a discussion of other federal mentoring initiatives that are currently funded.

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This report outlines and history of the Revitalization of Distressed Public Housing program.

This report provides information on the Issues for the 110th Congress with Cuba.U.S policy of Cuba has consisted largely of isolating the communist nation's economic sanctions, which the Bush administration has tightened significantly.

This report is designed to assist Congress to understand and monitor progress of the negotiations and the major issues that the negotiators are addressing. The report provides a brief background section on the significance of services to the U.S. economy. It then explains briefly the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and the structure and agenda of the services negotiations in the DDA round, including U.S. objectives in the negotiations. The report concludes with a status report on the negotiations and an examination of potential results.