This report contains four sections. First part discusses methods and data collection, part two presents the framework, part three presents the findings from the brief sample survey of state and local agencies they conducted, as well as data from case studies dealing with use of information technology in providing public access to local government data. Part five evaluates the consistency of these findings and comment of their relevance for federal government considerations.

This report summarizes the general policies of acceptance of patients for treatment. Decision to initiate treatment with dialysis are made by review committees in each of six institutions that provide dialysis treatments.

This report examines the influence of legal perceptions on medical decision-making, focusing on care concerned with life-sustaining technologies for elderly.

This report discusses the temporal and economic factors of electric utilities in United States that make transmission constrains vary with time, and material specific to the individual cases. A particular focus of the investigation was the degree to which the transmission system would limit, or be affected by, the various scenarios.

This report discusses the care for the persons with Alzheimer's disease in state hospitals hospitals, and nursing homes.

This report discusses the use of technology in education of students K-12 and university.

The purpose of this report is to provide a foundation for understanding the impact of dementia on the ethnic minority elderly.

This report discusses the issues at the crossroads between privacy, security and civil liberties in one hand and law enforcement, national security, or effective administration on the other.

This report reviews the research on AIDS and sex education programs. It examines the more significant studies that have evaluated the actual impact of those programs upon various outcomes, including knowledge, attitudes, skills and sexual behaviors.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential effectiveness of “educational” programs for preventing the spread of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus that causes AIDS among IV drug users.

This report descriptively reviews findings from recent sample surveys of farmer attitudes about agricultural chemicals and groundwater quality; their practices and motivations related to chemical management; and their responses to public policy alternatives addressing this issue.

This report discusses Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and the ways to prevent those not infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) from becoming infected with it.

A report on smuggling of illegal drugs into the United States is a problem of serious proportions. The three major drugs of foreign source—cocaine, heroin, and marijuana-are the products traded by an enormous criminal enterprise whose retail sales total approximately $50 billion annually. Federal efforts to stop or deter international narcotics trafficking have met with only limited success.

In this special report, OTA analyzes the economic, legal, and ethical rights of the human sources of tissues and cells and also those of the physicians or researchers who obtain and develop these biological materials. The study describes the potential of three rapidly moving technologies (tissue and cell culture, cell fusion to produce monoclonal antibodies, and recombinant DNA) for manipulating human tissues and cells to yield commercially valuable products. The report includes a range of options for congressional action related to commercialization of human biological materials, regulation of research with human subjects, and disclosure of physicians’ commercial interest in patient treatment.

The principal aim of this report is to identify and assess the technological and institutional opportunities and constraints to maintaining biological diversity in the United States and worldwide.

This report addresses the central issues in the debate of the 1990 Farm Bill. It was requested as part of a larger study examining emerging agricultural technologies and related issues for the 1990s by the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry and the House Committee on Agriculture.

This background paper examines existing intellectual-property protection for computer software-copyrights, patents, and trade secrets—and provides an overview of the often conflicting views and concerns of various stakeholders. It was prepared in response to a request from the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Administration of Justice of the House Committee on the Judiciary.

In the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska in March, 1989, a myriad of investigations were initiated to evaluate the causes of that accident and to propose remedies. The Office of Technology Assessment was asked to study the Nation’s oil spill clean-up capabilities and to assess the technologies for responding to such catastrophic spills in the future.

This report addresses the longer run issues that technology and certain other factors will have on American agriculture during the remainder of this century. It focuses on the relationship of technology to: agricultural production, structural change, rural communities, environment and natural resource base, finance and credit, research and extension, and public policy. This report is a first step toward understanding these interrelated problems and identifying policies to ameliorate them.

A report on hazardous materials that are transported. This special report, Transportation of Hazardous Materials: State and Local Activities, is the first of the two. It summarizes Federal programs and identifies three major areas of State and local government concern: prevention and enforcement activities, emergency response and training, and planning and data gathering. The report outlines related issues, describes methods by which jurisdictions are responding to them, and documents the concerns that the Federal Government could address.

The paper has six major purposes, in order to analyze the uses of tests used in vocational programs, particularly those designed to measure broad technical skills, identify trends in vocational assessment, and identify policy issues relevant to improving test development and quality.

This study provides a technical assessment of traditional desalination techniques that can be used for water treatment. These techniques include distillation, as well as more recently developed membrane processes. As part of this effort OTA held a one-day workshop on July 29, 1987, with desalination and water treatment experts to review the initial draft of this background paper and to discuss other areas of interest. The conclusions of these discussions are included in this background report.

There are standards to protect the environment and human health and safety, and to mediate commercial transactions. Other standards ensure that different products are compatible when hooked together. This report is looking across industry sectors; it evaluates the U.S. standards setting process in the light of its changing economic and technological environment, and compares it to processes in other countries.

This background paper examines wastes generated by industrial activities that play a dominant role in our national economy-oil and gas production, mining and mineral processing, coal combustion, and manufacturing. In previous reports on municipal solid waste and medical waste, OTA examined other solid wastes not classified as hazardous.