Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This letter responds to a Congressional request for additional information related to a March 14, 2006 hearing entitled "GSA Contractors Who Cheat on Their Taxes and What Should Be Done about It." Our responses are based largely on information contained in our published reports and testimonies related to Department of Defense, civilian agency, and GSA contractors with unpaid taxes and reflect our views based on that information."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 requires that credit card issuers (issuers) include in all cardholder billing statements a generic warning, or "disclosure," about the potential financial consequences of consistently making only the minimum payment due on a credit card. However, some have urged that consumers should instead receive "customized" disclosures in their billing statements that use cardholders' actual balances and the applicable interest rates on their accounts to show the consequences of making only minimum payments, such as estimates of the time required to repay balances and the total interest amount resulting from continual minimum payments. In response to a congressional request, this report assesses the (1) feasibility and cost of requiring issuers to provide cardholders with customized minimum payment information, (2) usefulness of providing customized information to cardholders, and (3) options for providing cardholders with customized or other information about the financial consequences of making minimum payments."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Federal workers' compensation costs exceeded $1.5 billion in 2004, with approximately 148,000 new claims filed that year. Because of concerns for the safety of federal workers, as well as the costs associated with unsafe workplaces, GAO described the characteristics of federal agencies' safety programs and the implementation challenges they face, and assessed how well the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) oversees and assists federal agencies' efforts to develop and administer their safety programs."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Invasive forest pests have seriously harmed our environment and imposed significant costs upon our economy. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the lead agency for responding to forest pests. This report evaluates the federal response to three invasive forest pests--the Asian longhorned beetle, the emerald ash borer, and the pathogen Phytophthora ramorum (P. ramorum). Specifically, GAO describes (1) the status of efforts to eradicate these species, (2) the factors affecting the success of those efforts, (3) overall forest health monitoring programs, (4) coordination and communication of the three pest response efforts, and (5) USDA's use of panels of scientific experts to aid in the response efforts."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "For the past 9 years, since the first audit of the consolidated financial statements of the U.S. government (CFS), one of the major impediments to our ability to render an opinion on the CFS is that the federal government has not had adequate system, controls, and procedures to properly prepare the CFS. To address some of the internal control weaknesses identified in our audit report, Treasury began developing the Governmentwide Financial Report System (GFRS). The goal of this new system is to directly link information from federal agencies' audited financial statements to amounts reported in the CFS, a concept that we strongly support. We reported internal control weaknesses and GAO recommendations regarding the preparation of the CFS, along with progress made in this area in a separate report. This report provides our assessment of Treasury's ongoing effort to develop and implement GFRS and makes recommendations for reducing the risks associated with the development of GFRS."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Commuter rail agencies provide mobility to millions of people across the country, often using Amtrak infrastructure and services. Given these interactions, an abrupt Amtrak cessation could have a significant impact on commuter rail operations. Amtrak's chronic financial problems and recent budget proposals make such a cessation a possibility. GAO was asked to examine (1) the extent to which commuter rail agencies rely on Amtrak for access to infrastructure and services, (2) issues that commuter rail agencies would face if Amtrak abruptly ceased to provide them with services and infrastructure access, and (3) the options available to commuter rail agencies should Amtrak abruptly cease to provide them services and infrastructure access."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "For the past 9 years, since our first audit of the consolidated financial statements of the U.S. government (CFS), certain material weaknesses in internal control and in selected accounting and financial reporting practices have resulted in conditions that prevented GAO from expressing an opinion on the CFS. Specifically, GAO has reported that the U.S. government did not have adequate systems, controls, and procedures to properly prepare the CFS. Included with GAO's December 2005 disclaimer of opinion on the fiscal year 2005 CFS was its discussion of continuing weaknesses relating to the Department of the Treasury's (Treasury) preparation of the CFS. The purpose of this report is to (1) provide details of those additional weaknesses, (2) recommend improvements, and (3) describe the status of corrective actions on GAO's previous 154 recommendations."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "On November 15, 2005, we issued our report on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) fiscal years 2005 and 2004 financial statements and on SEC's internal control as of September 30, 2005. We also reported on the results of our tests of SEC's compliance with selected provisions of laws and regulations during fiscal year 2005. The purpose of this report is to discuss issues identified during our fiscal year 2005 audit concerning internal controls and accounting procedures that could be improved."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This report responds to certain requirements of the Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act (HRIFA) of 1998 that authorized certain Haitian nationals and their dependents to apply to adjust their status to lawful permanent residence. Section 902(k) of the act requires the Comptroller General to report every 6 months on the number of Haitian nationals who have applied and been approved to adjust their status to lawful permanent residence. The reports are to contain a breakdown of the number of Haitians who applied and the number who were approved as asylum applicants, parolees, children without parents, orphaned children, or abandoned children; or as the eligible dependents of these applicants, including spouses, children, and unmarried sons or daughters. Reports are to be provided until all applications have been finally adjudicated. This is our fourteenth report."

During the 2005 calendar year, LLNL provided health physics support for the Highly Enriched Uranium Transparency Program (HEU-TP) in external and internal radiation protection and technical expertise into matters related to BDMS radioactive sources and Russian radiation safety regulatory compliance. For the calendar year 2005, there were 161 person-trips that required dose monitoring of the U.S. monitors. Of the 161 person-trips, 149 person-trips were SMVs and 12 person-trips were Transparency Monitoring Office (TMO) trips. Additionally, there were 11 monitoring visits by TMO monitors to facilities other than UEIE and 3 to UEIE itself. There were two monitoring visits (source changes) that were back to back with 16 monitors. Each of these concurring visits were treated as single person-trips for dosimetry purposes. Counted individually, there were 191 individual person-visits in 2005. The LLNL Safety Laboratories Division provided the dosimetry services for the HEU-TP monitors.

The Bio-Aerosol Mass Spectrometry (BAMS) instrument analyzes single aerosol particles using a dual-polarity time-of-flight mass spectrometer recording simultaneously spectra of thirty to a hundred thousand points on each polarity. We describe here a real-time pattern recognition algorithm developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory that has been implemented on a nine Digital Signal Processor (DSP) system from Signatec Incorporated. The algorithm first preprocesses independently the raw time-of-flight data through an adaptive baseline removal routine. The next step consists of a polarity dependent calibration to a mass-to-charge representation, reducing the data to about five hundred to a thousand channels per polarity. The last step is the identification step using a pattern recognition algorithm based on a library of known particle signatures including threat agents and background particles. The identification step includes integrating the two polarities for a final identification determination using a score-based rule tree. This algorithm, operating on multiple channels per-polarity and multiple polarities, is well suited for parallel real-time processing. It has been implemented on the PMP8A from Signatec Incorporated, which is a computer based board that can interface directly to the two one-Giga-Sample digitizers (PDA1000 from Signatec Incorporated) used to record the two polarities of time-of-flight data. By using …

As part of a small scale sequestration test (about 1500 tonsof CO2) in a saline aquifer, time-lapse borehole seismic surveys wereconducted to aid in characterization of subsurface CO2 distribution andmaterial property changes induced by the injected CO2. A VSP surveydemonstrated a large increase (about 75 percent) in seismic reflectivitydue to CO2 injection and allowed estimation of the spatial extent of CO2induced changes. A crosswell survey imaged a large seismic velocitydecrease (up to 500 m/s) within the injection interval and provided ahigh resolution image of this velocity change which maps the subsurfacedistribution of CO2 between two wells. Numerical modeling of the seismicresponse uses the crosswell measurements to show that this small CO2volume causes a large response in the seismic reflectivity. This resultdemonstrates that seismic detection of small CO2 volumes in salineaquifers is feasible and realistic.

Molecular modeling was employed to both visualize and probe our understanding of carbon dioxide sequestration within a bituminous coal. A large-scale (>20,000 atoms) 3D molecular representation of Pocahontas No. 3 coal was generated. This model was constructed based on a the review data of Stock and Muntean, oxidation and decarboxylation data for aromatic clustersize frequency of Stock and Obeng, and the combination of Laser Desorption Mass Spectrometry data with HRTEM, enabled the inclusion of a molecular weight distribution. The model contains 21,931 atoms, with a molecular mass of 174,873 amu, and an average molecular weight of 714 amu, with 201 structural components. The structure was evaluated based on several characteristics to ensure a reasonable constitution (chemical and physical representation). The helium density of Pocahontas No. 3 coal is 1.34 g/cm{sup 3} (dmmf) and the model was 1.27 g/cm{sup 3}. The structure is microporous, with a pore volume comprising 34% of the volume as expected for a coal of this rank. The representation was used to visualize CO{sub 2}, and CH{sub 4} capacity, and the role of moisture in swelling and CO{sub 2}, and CH{sub 4} capacity reduction. Inclusion of 0.68% moisture by mass (ash-free) enabled the model to swell by …

Water-rock interactions within variable-aperture fractures can lead to dissolution of fracture surfaces and local alteration of fracture apertures, potentially transforming the transport properties of the fracture over time. Because fractures often provide dominant pathways for subsurface flow and transport, developing models that effectively quantify the role of dissolution on changing transport properties over a range of scales is critical to understanding potential impacts of natural and anthropogenic processes. Dissolution of fracture surfaces is controlled by surface-reaction kinetics and transport of reactants and products to and from the fracture surfaces. We present development and evaluation of a depth-averaged model of fracture flow and reactive transport that explicitly calculates local dissolution-induced alterations in fracture apertures. The model incorporates an effective mass transfer relationship that implicitly represents the transition from reaction-limited dissolution to transport-limited dissolution. We evaluate the model through direct comparison to previously reported physical experiments in transparent analog fractures fabricated by mating an inert, transparent rough surface with a smooth single crystal of potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KDP), which allowed direct measurement of fracture aperture during dissolution experiments using well-established light transmission techniques [Detwiler, et al., 2003]. Comparison of experiments and simulations at different flow rates demonstrate the relative impact of the …

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

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

Weekly newspaper from Dallas, Texas that includes local, state, and national news and advertising of interest to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community.

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Photograph of a woman at a table with a pile of papers on it. A man and a woman are standing by the table and the woman appears to be searching for an item on the table. There are several people shown behind them on a stage with posters hanging from the railing.

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Photograph of a two individuals standing under an umbrella while they observe artwork.