A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Much attention has focused on offshoring of information technology (IT) services overseas. "Offshoring" of services generally refers to an organization's purchase from other countries of services such as software programming that it previously produced or purchased domestically. IT manufacturing, notably semiconductor manufacturing, has a longer history of offshoring of manufacturing operations. Under the Comptroller General's authority to conduct evaluations on his own initiative, GAO addressed the following questions: (1) How has offshoring in semiconductor manufacturing and software services developed over time? (2)What factors enabled the expansion of offshoring in these industries? (3) As these industries have become more global, what have been the trends in their U.S.-based activities?"

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) plays a key role in overseeing federal IT investments. The Clinger-Cohen Act, among other things, requires OMB to establish processes to analyze, track, and evaluate the risks and results of major capital investments in information systems made by agencies and to report to Congress on the net program performance benefits achieved as a result of these investments. OMB has developed several processes to help carry out its role. For example, OMB began using a Management Watch List several years ago as a means of identifying poorly planned projects based on its evaluation of agencies' funding justifications for major projects, known as exhibit 300s. In addition, in August 2005, OMB established a process for agencies to identify high risk projects, i.e., projects requiring special attention because of one or more reasons specified by OMB, and to report on those that are poorly performing or not meeting performance criteria. GAO recently issued reports on the Management Watch List, high risk projects, and agencies' exhibit 300s. GAO was asked to summarize (1) the number of projects and the fiscal year 2007 dollar value of …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense's (DOD) spending on goods and services has grown significantly since fiscal year 2000 to well over $250 billion annually. Prudence with taxpayer funds, widening deficits, and growing long-range fiscal challenges demand that DOD maximize its return on investment, while providing warfighters with the needed capabilities at the best value for the taxpayer. DOD needs to ensure that its funds are spent wisely, and that it is buying the right things, the right way. In this testimony, GAO discusses (1) recent trends in DOD contracting activity and the environment in which this activity takes place, and (2) practices which undermine its ability to establish sound business arrangements, particularly those involving the selection and oversight of DOD's contractors and incentivizing their performance. This statement is based on work GAO has completed over the past 6 years covering a range of DOD acquisition and contracting issues. Some of these issues are long-standing. GAO has identified DOD contract management as a high-risk area for more than decade. With awards to contractors large and growing, DOD will continue to be vulnerable to contracting fraud, waste or misuse of taxpayer …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Senate Special Committee on Aging asked GAO to follow up on its 2004 report, Guardianships: Collaboration Needed to Protect Incapacitated Elderly People, GAO-04-655. This report covered what state courts do to ensure that guardians fulfill their responsibilities, what exemplary guardianship programs look like, and how state courts and federal agencies work together to protect incapacitated elderly people. For this testimony, GAO agreed to (1) provide an overview and update of the findings of this prior work; (2) discuss the status of a series of recommendations GAO made in that report; and (3) discuss the prospects for progress in efforts to strengthen protections for incapacitated elderly people through guardianships. To complete this work, GAO interviewed lawyers and agency officials who have been actively involved in guardianship and representative payee programs, and spoke with officials at some of the courts identified as exemplary in the report."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Visa Waiver Program enables citizens of 27 countries to travel to the United States for tourism or business for 90 days or less without obtaining a visa. In fiscal year 2005, nearly 16 million people entered the country under the program. After the 9-11 terrorist attacks, the risk that aliens would exploit the program to enter the United States became more of a concern. This testimony discusses our recent report on the Visa Waiver Program. Specifically, it (1) describes the Visa Waiver Program's benefits and risks, (2) examines the U.S. government's process for assessing potential risks, and (3) assesses the actions taken to mitigate these risks. We met with U.S. embassy officials in six program countries and reviewed relevant procedures and reports on participating countries"

Addition of CO to [1,2,4-(Me3C)3C5H2]2CeH, Cp'2CeH, intoluene yields the cis (Cp'2Ce)2(mu-OCHCHO), in which the cis enediolategroup bridges the two metallocene fragments. The cis enediolatequantitatively isomerizes intramolecularly to the trans-enediolate inC6D6 at 100oC over seven months. When the solvent is pentane,Cp'2Ce(OCH2)CeCp'2 forms, in which the oxomethylene group or theformaldehyde dianion bridges the two metallocene fragments. The cisenediolate is suggested to form by insertion of CO into the Ce-C bond ofCp'2Ce(OCH2)CeCp'2 generating Cp'2CeOCH2COCeCp'2. The stereochemistry ofthe cis-enediolate is determined by a 1,2-hydrogen shift in the OCH2COfragment that has the OC(H2) bond anti periplanar relative to the carbenelone pair. The bridging oxomethylene complex reacts with H2, but not withCH4, to give Cp'2CeOMe, which is also the product of the reaction betweenCp'2CeH and a mixture of CO and H2. The oxomethylene complex reacts withCO to give the cis enediolate complex. DFT calculations on C5H5 modelmetallocenes show that the reaction of Cp2CeH with CO and H2 to giveCp2CeOMe is exoergic by 50 kcal mol-1. The net reaction proceeds by aseries of elementary reactions that occur after the formyl complex,Cp2Ce(eta-2 CHO), is formed by further reaction with H2. The key pointthat emerges from the calculated potential energy surface is thebifunctional nature of the metal formyl in …

The Computation Directorate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has four major areas of work: (1) Programmatic Support -- Programs are areas which receive funding to develop solutions to problems or advance basic science in their areas (Stockpile Stewardship, Homeland Security, the Human Genome project). Computer scientists are 'matrixed' to these programs to provide computer science support. (2) Livermore Computer Center (LCC) -- Development, support and advanced planning for the large, massively parallel computers, networks and storage facilities used throughout the laboratory. (3) Research -- Computer scientists research advanced solutions for programmatic work and for external contracts and research new HPC hardware solutions. (4) Infrastructure -- Support for thousands of desktop computers and numerous LANs, labwide unclassified networks, computer security, computer-use policy.

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Article on the relaxation of OH (v = 1) and OD (v = 1) by H₂O and D₂O at temperatures from 251 to 390 K.

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This report highlights the adequate yearly progress (AYP) concept of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The AYP is the standard of eligibility for grants, of which states must implement AYP policies in all public schools and local education agencies (LEAs). The standard primarily utilizes state test scores to measure the school's eligibility for funding, schools that do not meet AYP standard for two or more consecutive years face consequences. Finally, the report tackles the idea of growth models in reference to the AYP.

This report is a comparison of the laws of the United Kingdom and of the United States that govern criminal and intelligence investigations of terrorist activities. Both systems rely upon a series of statutory authorizations: in the case of the United States primarily the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act; in the case of the United Kingdom, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, the Police Act, the Intelligence Services Act. Among other differences, the U.S. procedures rely more heavily upon judicial involvement and supervision, while those of the UK employ other safeguards. The UK procedures afford greater latitude to arrest, detain and supervise suspected terrorists than those available in the United States.

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The large-scale computational capabilities at LLNL make it possible to develop seamless connections from processes at the atomic scale to complex macroscopic phenomena such as hydrodynamic instabilities and turbulent mixing. Traditionally, these connections have been made by combining results from different scientific fields. For gases and fluids, atomic and molecular scattering cross sections must first be obtained and incorporated into Boltzmann transport equations. Their solution yields then transport coefficients which are input parameters for the Navier-Stokes equations for fluid dynamics. The latter are solved numerically with hydro-codes. For visco-elastic solids, on the other hand, atomistic simulations must first provide constitutive laws for the mobility and multiplication of dislocations and other crystalline defects. In turn, these laws are utilized to construct meso-scale models for plastic deformation. These models are then incorporated into hydro- and finite element codes to predict the macroscopic behavior of solid materials. Many of these intermediate steps can be bypassed with large-scale molecular dynamics simulations. For this purpose, codes have been developed in which trajectories of atoms or molecules are mapped onto continuum field descriptions for mass density, mass flow, stresses, and for temperature. It is now possible to compare directly and quantitatively atomistic simulations with predictions from …

We present measurements of the total production rates and momentum distributions of the charmed baryon {Lambda}{sub c}{sup +} in e{sup +}e{sup -} {yields} hadrons at a center-of-mass energy of 10.54 GeV and in {Upsilon}(4S) decays. In hadronic events at 10.54 GeV, charmed hadrons are almost exclusively leading particles in e{sup +}e{sup -} {yields} c{bar c} events, allowing direct studies of c-quark fragmentation. We measure a momentum distribution for {Lambda}{sub c}{sup +} baryons that differs significantly from those measured previously for charmed mesons. Comparing with a number of models, we find none that can describe the distribution completely. We measure an average scaled momentum of (x{sub p}) = 0.574 {+-} 0.009 and a total rate of N{sub {Lambda}{sub c}}{sup q{bar q}} = 0.057 {+-} 0.002(exp.) {+-} 0.015(BF) {Lambda}{sub c}{sup +} per hadronic event, where the experimental error is much smaller than that due to the branching fraction into the reconstructed decay mode, pK{sup -} {pi}{sup +}. In {Upsilon}(4S) decays we measure a total rate of N{sub {Lambda}{sub c}}{sup {Upsilon}} = 0.091 {+-} 0.006(exp.) {+-} 0.024(BF) per {Upsilon}(4S) decay, and find a much softer momentum distribution than expected from B decays into a {Lambda}{sub c}{sup +} plus an antinucleon and one to …

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A study of exclusive production of the D{bar D} system through initial-state radiation is performed in a search for charmonium states, where D = D{sup 0} or D{sup +}. The D{sup 0} mesons are reconstructed in the D{sup 0} {yields} K{sup -}{pi}{sup +}, D{sup 0} {yields} K{sup -}{pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup 0}, and D{sup 0} {yields} K{sup -}{pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup -} decay modes. The D{sup +} is reconstructed through the D{sup +} {yields} K{sup -}{pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup +} decay mode. The analysis makes use of an integrated luminosity of 288.5 fb{sup -1} collected by the BABAR experiment. The D{bar D} mass spectrum shows a clear {psi}(3770) signal. Further structures appear in the 3.9 and 4.1 GeV/c{sup 2} regions. No evidence is found for Y(4260) decays to D{bar D}, implying an upper limit {Beta}(Y(4260) {yields} D{bar D})/{Beta}(Y(4260) {yields} J/{psi}{pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup -}) < 7.6 (95% confidence level).

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Current regulatory schemes use generic or industrial sector specific benchmarks to evaluate the quality of industrial stormwater discharges. While benchmarks can be a useful tool for facility stormwater managers in evaluating the quality stormwater runoff, benchmarks typically do not take into account site-specific conditions, such as: soil chemistry, atmospheric deposition, seasonal changes in water source, and upstream land use. Failing to account for these factors may lead to unnecessary costs to trace a source of natural variation, or potentially missing a significant local water quality problem. Site-specific water quality thresholds, established upon the statistical evaluation of historic data take into account these factors, are a better tool for the direct evaluation of runoff quality, and a more cost-effective trigger to investigate anomalous results. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), a federal facility, established stormwater monitoring programs to comply with the requirements of the industrial stormwater permit and Department of Energy orders, which require the evaluation of the impact of effluent discharges on the environment. LLNL recognized the need to create a tool to evaluate and manage stormwater quality that would allow analysts to identify trends in stormwater quality and recognize anomalous results so that trace-back and corrective actions could be initiated. …

We discuss simulated photonic crystal structure designs for laser-driven particle acceleration, focusing on three-dimensional planar structures based on the so-called ''woodpile'' lattice. We describe guiding of a speed-of-light accelerating mode by a defect in the photonic crystal lattice and discuss the properties of this mode, including particle beam dynamics and potential coupling methods for the structure. We also discuss possible materials and power sources for this structure and their effects on performance parameters, as well as possible manufacturing techniques and the required tolerances. In addition we describe the computational technique and possible improvements in numerical modeling that would aid development of photonic crystal structures.

At Yucca Mountain, Nevada-the proposed location for a national high-level nuclear waste repository-radionuclides, if released from breached waste storage canisters, could make their way down through the unsaturated zone (where the repository would be located) into the underlying groundwater and eventually back to the biosphere (i.e., where they could adversely affect human health). The compliance boundary, 18 km south of the proposed repository, is defined as the location where a human being using groundwater would be maximally exposed to radionuclides outside of an exclusion zone set around the repository. It is thus important to predict how these radionuclides would be transported by the groundwater flow, and to predict both the concentration of and the rate at which any leaked radionuclides would arrive at the compliance boundary. We recently conducted a study of groundwater flux in the saturated zone through the Crater Flat Group, in a wellbore 15 km south of the proposed repository. The Crater Flat Group, a sequence of ash-flow tuff formations, is laterally extensive beneath the footprint of the proposed repository. Because of its intense fracturing and high permeabilities, the Bullfrog tuff is the primary unit within the Cratei Flat Group through which radionuclides would be transported, as …

While silicon has several properties making it an attractive material for structure-based laser-driven acceleration, its optical damage threshold, a key parameter for high-gradient acceleration, has been unknown. Here we present measurements of the optical damage threshold of crystalline silicon for ultrafast pulses in the mid-infrared. The wavelengths tested span a range from the telecommunications band at 1550 nm extending longer toward the two-photon absorption threshold at around 2200 nm. We discuss the prevailing theories of ultrafast optical breakdown, describe the experimental setup and preliminary results, and propose a relevant performance parameter for candidate accelerator structures.