Annual Report to the Congress: Fiscal Year 1995 (open access)

Annual Report to the Congress: Fiscal Year 1995

This report includes statements by the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the board, TAAC Chairman, and the director of the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA). The report discusses the year in review regarding the work in progress, organization and operations of OTA.
Date: March 1996
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Advanced Automotive Technology: Visions of a Super-Efficient Family Car (open access)

Advanced Automotive Technology: Visions of a Super-Efficient Family Car

This report presents the results of the Office of Technology Assessment’s analysis of the prospects for developing automobiles that offer significant improvements in fuel economy and reduced emissions over the longer term (out to the year 2015). The report examines the likely costs and performance of a range of technologies and vehicle types, and the U.S. and foreign research and development programs for these technologies and vehicles (to allow completion of this study before OTA closed its doors, issues such as infrastructure development and market development--- critical to the successful commercialization of advanced vehicles-were not covered).
Date: September 1995
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Adverse Reactions to HIV Vaccines: Medical, Ethical, and Legal Issues (open access)

Adverse Reactions to HIV Vaccines: Medical, Ethical, and Legal Issues

The purpose of this background paper is to describe the current state of development of HIV vaccines, and to discuss what is known about adverse reactions that may occur. The background paper provides an overview of ethical issues that arise in the conduct of HIV vaccine trials. The report also discusses alternatives to the current product liability system to encourage the development of HIV vaccines and to fairly compensate those who are harmed as a result of adverse reactions to the vaccine.
Date: September 1995
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Assessing the Potential for Civil-Military Integration: Selected Case Studies (open access)

Assessing the Potential for Civil-Military Integration: Selected Case Studies

This paper presents material from three of the case studies undertaken during the assessment: flat panel displays, polymeric composites, and shipbuilding. The three cases illustrate both the opportunities and the challenges facing those designing policies to increase the level of civil–military integration (CMI).
Date: September 1995
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Biologically Based Technologies for Pest Control (open access)

Biologically Based Technologies for Pest Control

This report covers technologies ranging from enhanced biological control of pests by their natural predators and parasites to commercial formulations of microbial pesticides. These technologies are grounded in an understanding of pest biology and have a relatively low probability of harmful effects on human health or the environment.
Date: September 1995
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Bringing Health Care Online: The Role of Information Technologies (open access)

Bringing Health Care Online: The Role of Information Technologies

This report identifies key technologies and shows how they are being used to communicate clinical information, simplify administration of health care delivery, assess the quality of health care, inform the decision-making of providers and administrators, and support delivery of health care at a distance.
Date: September 1995
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Challenges for U.S. Agricultural Research Policy (open access)

Challenges for U.S. Agricultural Research Policy

This report focuses on new ways to finance, organize, and manage agricultural research to prepare the system for the challenges of the next century.
Date: September 1995
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Cleaning Up Contaminated Wood-Treating Sites (open access)

Cleaning Up Contaminated Wood-Treating Sites

This report reviews technologies available for hazardous waste cleanup at wood-treating sites throughout the United States. OTA found that there are many Superfund wood-treatment sites located in this country that are very similar in terms of the contaminants present and the options selected for cleanup.
Date: September 1995
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Current Status of Federal Involvement in U.S. Aquaculture (open access)

Current Status of Federal Involvement in U.S. Aquaculture

The purpose of this paper is to provide information on technology issues of immediate importance to the U.S. aquaculture industry.
Date: September 1995
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Distributed Interactive Simulation of Combat (open access)

Distributed Interactive Simulation of Combat

This background paper complements OTA’s background paper, Virtual Reality and Technologies of Combat Simulation, which focuses on the human-computer interface technologies used in simulations.
Date: September 1995
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Does Vocational Education Help the "Forgotten Half"?: Short-term Economic Consequences of High School Vocational Education for Non-College Students (open access)

Does Vocational Education Help the "Forgotten Half"?: Short-term Economic Consequences of High School Vocational Education for Non-College Students

This background paper uses very recent data to address that question for individuals just one year out of high school. The paper also presents data on the types of occupations that these young people engage in, and rough statistical correlations between those occupations and types of high-school-level vocational coursework.
Date: September 1995
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Education and Technology: Future Visions (open access)

Education and Technology: Future Visions

This paper summarizes the workshop discussion and contains the commissioned papers in their entirety. In June 1995, the contractors and a number of other prominent educators were invited to OTA for an all-day workshop to discuss these papers and the issues more broadly.
Date: September 1995
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Effectiveness of AIDS Prevention Efforts (open access)

The Effectiveness of AIDS Prevention Efforts

The report discusses trends in numbers of AIDS cases, approaches to AIDS prevention--changing behavior, efforts designed for the American people as a whole, and preventing AIDS among different groups.
Date: September 1995
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Effectiveness of Research and Experimentation Tax Credits (open access)

The Effectiveness of Research and Experimentation Tax Credits

This report assesses how well the research and experimentation R&E tax credit is currently understood, identifies inadequacies in the existing data and analyses, investigates implementation issues, considers the tax credit in the context of corporate R&D trends and Federal R&D policy more broadly, draws appropriate international comparisons, and specifies important avenues for further research.
Date: September 1995
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Environmental Monitoring for Nuclear Safeguards (open access)

Environmental Monitoring for Nuclear Safeguards

This report discusses the traditional mission of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s traditional mission, that is to detect the misuse of known nuclear materials and facilities addressed only part—and probably not the most important part—of the proliferation problem.
Date: September 1995
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Environmental Policy Tools: A User's Guide (open access)

Environmental Policy Tools: A User's Guide

This report describes 12 policy tools, and how and where they are currently used. This “user’s guide” presents a framework to help decision-makers narrow down the choice of instruments for addressing a particular problem.
Date: September 1995
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Federal Technology Transfer and the Human Genome Project (open access)

Federal Technology Transfer and the Human Genome Project

This report analyzes universities’, companies’, and researchers’ experiences and perspectives since enactment of federal laws to enhance technology transfer—especially as it pertains to research funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy, the agencies funding U.S. efforts in the Human Genome Project.
Date: September 1995
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Fish Passage Technologies: Protection at Hydropower Facilities (open access)

Fish Passage Technologies: Protection at Hydropower Facilities

This report describes technologies for fish passage, and those for protection against turbine entrainment and mortality, with an emphasis on FERC-licensed hydropower projects.
Date: September 1995
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Flat Panel Displays in Perspective (open access)

Flat Panel Displays in Perspective

This report addresses two issues. First, is the lack of a high-volume domestic FPD industry a cause for national concern? Why might having such an industry be important for the good of the nation? Second, if the government wishes to foster such an industry, what policies might be most effective?
Date: September 1995
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Foreign Eligibility for U.S. Technology Funding (open access)

Foreign Eligibility for U.S. Technology Funding

This paper addresses the question: What eligibility conditions should affiliates of foreign firms be required to meet before receiving financial assistance from the U.S. government?
Date: September 1995
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Gauging Control Technology and Regulatory Impacts in Occupational Safety and Health: An Appraisal of OSHA's Analytic Approach (open access)

Gauging Control Technology and Regulatory Impacts in Occupational Safety and Health: An Appraisal of OSHA's Analytic Approach

This report reviews the roles that analyses of control technology and regulatory impacts play in OSHA’s standard setting process, and evaluates the various methods and resources on which the agency draws in conducting these efforts. In addition, based on findings from close examinations of a number of OSHA’s past rule-makings, the report provides a critical appraisal of how well these analyses seem to be helping the agency achieve its basic occupational safety and health mission.
Date: September 1995
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Global Communications: Opportunities for Trade and Aid (open access)

Global Communications: Opportunities for Trade and Aid

This report examines the question of how telecommunication related aid policies might be designed to support both United States trade and foreign aid goals.
Date: September 1995
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Impact of Health Reform on Rural Areas: Lessons From the States (open access)

Impact of Health Reform on Rural Areas: Lessons From the States

This paper examines: 1) the effects of insurance market reforms--measures intended to make the market more equitable, or to make health care more affordable to those without insurance 2) the effects of reforms aimed at the health care delivery system.
Date: September 1995
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Impacts of Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria: Thanks to penicillin-- He will come home! (open access)

Impacts of Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria: Thanks to penicillin-- He will come home!

This report discusses what is known about the emergence and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and describes research and development aimed at controlling those organisms. It concludes that efforts are necessary both to preserve the effectiveness of currently available antibiotics and to develop new antibiotics. It discusses issues that arise in these activities, and it presents options for taking action.
Date: September 1995
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
System: The UNT Digital Library