This report discusses the major issues surrounding the reauthorization of highway and transit legislation is laid out and four illustrative types of surface transportation programs are presented in chapters 1 and 2. Chapter 3 is devoted to the discussion of motor carrier programs, with special attention to issues related to longer combination trucks.

This Background Paper examines whether the agencies responsible for administering Federal environmental and health and safety laws have taken this concern for respiratory health to heart. This paper provides a partial response to the committees’ request for an assessment of noncancer health risks in the environment and follows OTA’s previous work on carcinogenic, neurotoxic, and immunotoxic substances.

This background paper first describes the structure and management of the French defense-industrial base and then reviews a variety of strategies the French Government and industry are pursuing to rationalize the base, while preserving key technological assets and strengthening the competitive position of French defense contractors in world markets.

This background paper briefly describes the Army’s chemical weapons destruction program, discusses the factors that could affect a decision to develop alternatives, discusses the alternatives, and illustrates the difficulty of gaining public acceptance of complex technical systems.

This report elaborates on the findings of the earlier OTA publications and examines in greater detail the specific policy choices involved in restructuring the defense technology and industrial base (DTIB) over the next decade.

This background paper analyzes technologies for tomorrow’s information superhighways. Advanced networks will first be used to support scientists in their work, linking researchers to supercomputers, databases, and scientific instruments. The paper also describes six test networks that are being funded as part of the High Performance Computing and Communications Program.

This report reviews numerous analyses of the economic impacts of the major approaches to health care reform addressed in this Report-Single Payer, Play-or-Pay, Individual Vouchers or Tax Credits, and Managed Competition and identifies some of the key issues and significant assumptions behind the estimates provided in these analyses.

Since the discovery of high-temperature superconductivity (HTS), research laboratories around the world have pushed the temperature limits steadily upward, opening the way to commercial applications with potentially revolutionary impacts. The scientific race is becoming a commercial race, one featuring U.S. and Japanese companies, and one that the United States could lose. Indeed, American firms may already be falling behind in commercializing the technology of superconductivity.

This report examines how and why students are drawn toward or deterred from pursuing a career in science or engineering. Schools, families, peers, informal education efforts-such as museums, science centers, special programs, and television— all play a role. The subtitle of this report—Grade School to Grad School—emphasizes that many factors and institutions must be understood as all one system.

This assessment responds to a joint request from the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation to analyze the military and commercial opportunities presented by new structural materials technologies, and to outline the Federal policy objectives that are consistent with those opportunities.

This report discusses the Alzheimer's disease and related disorders, describes how a new service evolved from a good idea into a five day a week operation, the Family Respite Center (FRC.

An assessment by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) on the "prospects for energy efficiency in the U.S. industrial sector, the technologies available to improve industrial energy efficiency, and the effect of various legislative policies on stimulating increased efficiency" (p. iii).

A report by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) that examines the U.S. steel industry, specifically the "nontechnological factors that shape the environment in which new technology is created and adopted" (p. iii).

A case study by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) that examines "the technical basis for, and validity of, the habitability decision for the emergency declaration area near Love Canal" (p. iii).

A report by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) that evaluates "the present states and possible future directions of space applications technologies in the civilian sector" and focuses on the technologies of "satellite communications, land remote sensing, materials processing in space, and space transportation" (p. iii).

A report by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) reviewing "a range of solar energy systems designed to produce thermal and electrical energy directly from sunlight" and examining this technology, identifying "the circumstances under which such systems could be economically attractive" (p. iii).

An assessment by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) of the national research and development (R&D) activities with the intent of "understanding...how to maximize the beneficial impacts of our total R&D enterprise" (p. iii).

A study by the Office of Technology Assessment that examines the oil shale resources of the Western United States that could contribute to the liquid fuel supply of the United States.

A study by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) that "evaluates the progress and direction of a number of conservation and solar energy programs, in order to provide an overview of the balance and long-range contribution of these efforts, and to discover if the programs are coherently linked to goals set by Congress and the administration" (p. iii).

A report by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) that "discusses the strengths and weaknesses of data sources used for determining trends in cancer occurrence and mortality, and reviews estimates of the contribution of various factors-behaviors and exposures-associated with cancer in this country" (p. iii).

A report by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) that "describes the status of technologies in use today, such as research ships, submersibles, buoy systems, aircraft, and satellites" (Foreward).

A report by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) over the use of drugs in livestock feed

A report by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) covering the the "major problems and opportunities which may occur because of the Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976" (Preface).

A study by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) that looks at nuclear proliferation and "seeks to facilitate an understanding of the problem and its implications, in terms of both a comprehensive overview and a detailed indepth analysis of key elements" (p. 7).