While "competitiveness" has a clear meaning when applied to a baseball team, or a firm or industry, it is of limited usefulness when applied to a country's overall economic performance. Moreover, focussing on competitiveness can lead to questionable economic policies.

Recent criticism of the Clinton Administration's policies toward China, Japan and other East Asian countries has contended that the United States is exerting much less influence and is becoming marginal in determining developments in this economically vibrant and strategically important area. Although there are important costs to U.S. influence associated with disputes with Beijing, Tokyo and others, an assessment of the U.S.-Japanese-Chinese triangular relationship that currently dominates trends in the region shows that the United States is likely to continue its influential position in post Cold War East Asia.

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By June 3, 1994, President Clinton must determine whether or not to recommend to Congress a one-year extension of his Jackson-Vanik waiver authority, in effect extending most-favored-nation (MFN)[1] trading status to China for anothe year. The media are reporting that the President has not yet decided whether he will ask for an extension, and that he may also be deliberating over whether or not to attach conditions to a recommendation for approval.

In 1915, the United States undertook a military occupation of Haiti to preempt any European intervention, to establish order out of civil strife, and to stabilize Haitian finances. During the nineteen-year occupation, U.S. military and civilian officials, numbering less than 2500 for the most part, supervised the collection of taxes and the disbursement of revenues, maintained public order, and initiated a program of public works. The Haitian government remained in place, but was subject to U.S. guidance. The Haitian people benefitted from the end of endemic political violence and from the construction of roads, bridges, and ports as well as from improved access to health care. The U.S. occupation was, nonetheless, deeply resented throughout Haitian society, and many of its accomplishments did not long endure its termination in 1934.

This OTA assessment reviews the status of federal government efforts to provide safe sanitation to Alaskan Natives and the technologies that have been used or proposed for this purpose. Finally, the report examines the legislative and institutional setting for the waste sanitation problems, and the criteria that need to be applied in selecting and implementing new technologies.

There are two longstanding constraints to implementing more energy efficient practices: 1) a shortage of finds to invest in efficient equipment; and 2) a lack of information for program planning and budgeting about the extent of investment opportunities and about the best finding mechanisms. This paper reviews advances made in addressing these constraints since 1991.

The primary purpose of this report is to identify options for enhancing the effectiveness of export controls in slowing or preventing the spread of capabilities to develop and produce weapons of mass destruction.

This report takes a strategic look at the development of electronic commerce and identifies the characteristics of the infrastructure that will be required to support it. The report found that, in an electronically networked economy, the design and underlying architecture of the global information infrastructure will have a major impact on national economic growth and development.

This paper discusses the history and status of the ALMR research program. It presents applications of this technology to the plutonium disposition problem and the possible advantages and disadvantages of its future development and deployment. It also discusses related issues such as waste management and concerns about proliferation of plutonium material.

This report looks behind the published estimates to examine analysts’ approaches to estimating future national health expenditures. In particular, the report appraises the analysts’ estimates of the potential effects of four provisions that may be key to modeling alternative reforms (government cost controls, managed competition and increased HMO enrollment, coverage for uninsured people, and administrative streamlining). The report compares assumptions in these areas to evidence from available research. The report also draws policy implications for congressional consideration.

This background paper responds to section 408 of the 1990 amendments to the Perkins Act, which asks OTA to review activities to be undertaken by the National Occupational Information Coordinating Committee (NOICC) to encourage the use of wage records from state unemployment insurance systems for purposes of conducting policy studies or monitoring the outcomes of vocational education.

The Federal Internetworking Requirements Panel (FIRP) was established by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to reassess Federal requirements for open systems networks and to recommend policy on the Government`s use of networking standards. The Panel was chartered to recommend actions which the Federal Government can take to address the short and long-term issues of interworking and convergence of networking protocols--particularly the Internet Protocol Suite (IPS) and Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) protocol suite and, when appropriate, proprietary protocols. The Panel was created at the request of the Office of Management and Budget in collaboration with the Federal Networking Council and the Federal Information Resources Management Policy Council. The Panel`s membership and charter are contained in an appendix to this report.

The purpose of the project was to conduct model simulations for past and future climate change with respect to the proposed Yucca Mtn. repository. The authors report on three main topics, one of which is boundary conditions for paleo-hindcast studies. These conditions are necessary for the conduction of three to four model simulations. The boundary conditions have been prepared for future runs. The second topic is (a) comparing the atmospheric general circulation model (GCM) with observations and other GCMs; and (b) development of a better precipitation data base for the Yucca Mtn. region for comparisons with models. These tasks have been completed. The third topic is preliminary assessments of future climate change. Energy balance model (EBM) simulations suggest that the greenhouse effect will likely dominate climate change at Yucca Mtn. for the next 10,000 years. The EBM study should improve rational choice of GCM CO{sub 2} scenarios for future climate change.

This report was prepared at the Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory of Columbia University at Palisades, New York, under subcontract to Pacific Northwest Laboratory it is a part of a larger project of global climate studies which supports site characterization work required for the selection of a potential high-level nuclear waste repository and forms part of the Performance Assessment Scientific Support (PASS) Program at PNL. The work under the PASS Program is currently focusing on the proposed site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, and is under the overall direction of the Yucca Mountain Project Office US Department of Energy, Las Vegas, Nevada. The final results of the PNL project will provide input to global atmospheric models designed to test specific climate scenarios which will be used in the site specific modeling work of others. The primary purpose of the data bases compiled and of the astronomic predictive models is to aid in the estimation of the probabilities of future climate states. The results will be used by two other teams working on the global climate study under contract to PNL. They are located at and the University of Maine in Orono, Maine, and the Applied Research Corporation in College Station, Texas. This report …

If the US is to meet the energy needs of the future, it is essential that new technologies emerge to compensate for dwindling supplies of fossil fuels and the eventual depletion of fissionable uranium used in present-day nuclear reactors. Fusion energy has the potential to become a major source of energy for the future. Power from fusion energy would provide a substantially reduced environmental impact as compared with other forms of energy generation. Since fusion utilizes no fossil fuels, there would be no release of chemical combustion products to the atmosphere. Additionally, there are no fission products formed to present handling and disposal problems, and runaway fuel reactions are impossible due to the small amounts of deuterium and tritium present. The purpose of the TPX Project is to support the development of the physics and technology to extend tokamak operation into the continuously operating (steady-state) regime, and to demonstrate advances in fundamental tokamak performance. The purpose of TFTR D&D is to ensure compliance with DOE Order 5820.2A ``Radioactive Waste Management`` and to remove environmental and health hazards posed by the TFTR in a non-operational mode. There are two proposed actions evaluated in this environmental assessment (EA). The actions are related …

The University of Maine conducted this study for Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) as part of a global climate modeling task for site characterization of the potential nuclear waste respository site at Yucca Mountain, NV. The purpose of the study was to develop a global ice sheet dynamics model that will forecast the three-dimensional configuration of global ice sheets for specific climate change scenarios. The objective of the third (final) year of the work was to produce ice sheet data for glaciation scenarios covering the next 100,000 years. This was accomplished using both the map-plane and flowband solutions of our time-dependent, finite-element gridpoint model. The theory and equations used to develop the ice sheet models are presented. Three future scenarios were simulated by the model and results are discussed.

The Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) Program Management System Manual requires preparation of the OCRWM Regulatory Guidance Document (RGD) that addresses licensing, environmental compliance, and safety and health compliance. The document provides: regulatory compliance policy; guidance to OCRWM organizational elements to ensure a consistent approach when complying with regulatory requirements; strategies to achieve policy objectives; organizational responsibilities for regulatory compliance; guidance with regard to Program compliance oversight; and guidance on the contents of a project-level Regulatory Compliance Plan. The scope of the RGD includes site suitability evaluation, licensing, environmental compliance, and safety and health compliance, in accordance with the direction provided by Section 4.6.3 of the PMS Manual. Site suitability evaluation and regulatory compliance during site characterization are significant activities, particularly with regard to the YW MSA. OCRWM`s evaluation of whether the Yucca Mountain site is suitable for repository development must precede its submittal of a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Accordingly, site suitability evaluation is discussed in Chapter 4, and the general statements of policy regarding site suitability evaluation are discussed in Section 2.1. Although much of the data and analyses may initially be similar, the licensing process is discussed separately in Chapter 5. …

The geometric construction of the E. Cartan moment of rotation associated to the spacetime curvature provides a geometric interpretation of the gravitational field sources and describes geometrically how the sources are ``wired`` to the field in standard geometrodynamics. E. Cartan moment of rotation yields an alternate way (as opposed to using variational principles) to obtain Einstein equations. The E. Cartan construction uses in an essential way the soldering structure of the frame bundle underlying the geometry of the gravitational field of general relativity. The geometry of Ashtekar`s connection formulation of gravitation theory is based on a complex-valued self-dual connection that is defined not on the frame bundle of spacetime but, rather, on its complexification. We show how to transfer the construction of the E. Cartan moment of rotation to Ashtekar`s theory of gravity and demonstrate that no spurious equations are produced via this procedure.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) is required by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of (as amended in 1987) to study and characterize the suitability of Yucca Mountain as a potential geologic repository for high-level nuclear waste. During site characterization, the DOE will conduct a variety of geotechnical, geochemical, geological, and hydrological studies to determine the suitability of Yucca Mountain as a potential repository. To ensure that site characterization activities do not adversely affect the environment at Yucca Mountain, a program has been implemented to monitor and mitigate potential impacts and ensure activities comply with applicable environmental regulations. This report describes the activities and accomplishments of EG&G Energy Measurements, Inc. (EG&G/EM) from October 1992 through December 1993 for six program areas within the Terrestrial Ecosystem component of the environmental program for the Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Project (YMP): Site Characterization Effects, Desert Tortoises (Gopherus agassizii), Habitat Reclamation, Monitoring and Mitigation, Radiological Monitoring, and Biological Support.

This report was prepared by the Applied Research Corporation (ARC), College Station, Texas, under subcontract to Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) as part of a global climate studies task. The task supports site characterization work required for the selection of a potential high-level nuclear waste repository and is part of the Performance Assessment Scientific Support (PASS) Program at PNL. The work is under the overall direction of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM), US Department of Energy Headquarters, Washington, DC. The scope of the report is to present the results of the third year`s work on the atmospheric modeling part of the global climate studies task. The development testing of computer models and initial results are discussed. The appendices contain several studies that provide supporting information and guidance to the modeling work and further details on computer model development. Complete documentation of the models, including user information, will be prepared under separate reports and manuals.

Bacteria isolated from ground water samples taken from 31 springs during 1993 were collected and processed according to procedures described in earlier reports. These procedures required aseptic collection of surface water samples in sterile screw-capped containers, transportation to the HRC microbiology laboratory, and culture by spread plating onto R2A medium. The isolates were further processed for identification using a gas chromatographic analysis of fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) extracted from cell membranes. This work generated a presumptive identification of 113 bacterial species distributed among 45 genera using a database obtained from Microbial ID, Inc., Newark, Delaware (MIDI). A preliminary examination of the FAME data was accomplished using cluster analysis and principal component analysis software obtained from MIDI. Typically, bacterial strains that cluster at less than 10 Euclidian distance units have fatty acid patterns consistent among members of the same species. Thus an organism obtained from one source can be recognized if it is isolated again from the same or any other source. This makes it possible to track the distribution of organisms and monitor environmental conditions or fluid transport mechanisms. Microorganisms are seldom found as monocultures in natural environments. They are more likely to be closely associated with other genera …

As part of the DOE Plutonium Vulnerability Assessment, an investigation was made to characterize the can failures at LLNL. Since the LLNL Plutonium Facility was opened for plutonium operations in 1961, there have only been three can failures that could be remembered by plutonium handlers, vault workers, chemical analysts, and material managers. Only one of these can failures was discovered during the processing of more than 606 packages containing plutonium as part of the LLNL Plutonium Inventory Reduction Program. A very low failure rate, especially since some of the 606 cans had been in storage for two to three decades. Two of the three containers that failed were made of aluminum and were packaged with 1.25 inch diameter plutonium metal spheres. The cans were split down their entire length and the plutonium metal was heavily oxidized. The secondary gallon container of the third package failure was found to be imploded in the storage vault. Upon closer examination, the plastic bags around the inner pint can were badly melted and the lid on the can was loose. Like the other two failures, the metal was heavily oxidized. In all three of the can failures, it is theorized that air entered the …