Resource Type

Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) Materials at the National Archives and Record Administration (NARA), May 12, 1998 (open access)

Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) Materials at the National Archives and Record Administration (NARA), May 12, 1998

This document is a faxed transmission of Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) materials located in the National Archives as overseen by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and as of May 12, 1998.
Date: May 12, 1998
Creator: Fulgham, Matt
Object Type: Text
System: The UNT Digital Library
Agriculture, Trade, and Environment: Achieving Complementary Policies (open access)

Agriculture, Trade, and Environment: Achieving Complementary Policies

This report provides information that can help align agricultural legislation with emerging needs and trends. Current policies do not ameliorate conflicts between agricultural production and environmental quality, between trade and the environment, and between agriculture and competitive trade.
Date: May 1995
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Costs and Effectiveness of Prostate Cancer Screening in Elderly Men (open access)

Costs and Effectiveness of Prostate Cancer Screening in Elderly Men

The background paper summarizes the evidence on the effectiveness and costs of prostate cancer screening and treatment in elderly men and explores the implications for Medicare of offering this preventive technology as a Medicare benefit.
Date: May 1995
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Hospital Financing in Seven Countries (open access)

Hospital Financing in Seven Countries

This report discusses a seven-country study of hospital financing is an attempt to find lessons for the United States. The individual experiences over the past decade of the United States and six of its international peers—Canada, England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden—in hospital financing and payment systems are reviewed by experts in each country.
Date: May 1995
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
The National Space Transportation Policy: Issues for Congress (open access)

The National Space Transportation Policy: Issues for Congress

This report is the first in a broad assessment of the health and future prospects of the U.S. space transportation technology and industrial base. The report focuses on the Clinton Administration’s National Space Transportation Policy. It examines administration policy in light of the implementation plans prepared by NASA, DOD, and the Transportation and Commerce Departments.
Date: May 1995
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Alaskan Challenge: Native Village Sanitation (open access)

An Alaskan Challenge: Native Village Sanitation

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.
Date: May 1994
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Electronic Enterprises: Looking to the Future (open access)

Electronic Enterprises: Looking to the Future

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.
Date: May 1994
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Energy Efficiency in Federal Facilities: Update on Funding and Potential Savings (open access)

Energy Efficiency in Federal Facilities: Update on Funding and Potential Savings

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.
Date: May 1994
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Export Controls and Nonproliferation Policy (open access)

Export Controls and Nonproliferation Policy

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.
Date: May 1994
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Technical Options for the Advanced Liquid Metal Reactor (open access)

Technical Options for the Advanced Liquid Metal Reactor

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.
Date: May 1994
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Understanding Estimates of National Health Expenditures Under Health Reform (open access)

Understanding Estimates of National Health Expenditures Under Health Reform

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.
Date: May 1994
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Wage Record Information Systems (open access)

Wage Record Information Systems

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.
Date: May 1994
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
The 1992 World Administrative Radio Conference: Technology and Policy Implications (open access)

The 1992 World Administrative Radio Conference: Technology and Policy Implications

This paper examined the technologies and issues to be considered at World Administrative Radio Conference (WARC)-92, discusses the international and domestic context for WARC-93 preparations, and analyzed the U.S. process of conference preparation.
Date: May 1993
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Access to Over-the-Road Buses for Persons With Disabilities (open access)

Access to Over-the-Road Buses for Persons With Disabilities

This report is part of a process leading to regulations to be issued by the U.S. Department of Transportation. This process has included a review of a draft of this study by the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (ATBCB).
Date: May 1993
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Data Format Standards for Civilian Remote Sensing Satellites (open access)

Data Format Standards for Civilian Remote Sensing Satellites

This report discusses the earth data—positional, topographic, climatological, meteorological, man–made features, and changes over time in all of these, which are increasingly important to the military. Data from these systems are bought and extensively used by the military and intelligence communities. The need to integrate data from military-unique systems as well only complicates the situation.
Date: May 1993
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Defense Conversion: Redirecting R&D (open access)

Defense Conversion: Redirecting R&D

Part one of this report analyzes how R&D institutions currently pursuing defense missions could be more responsive and useful to civilian technology development. The Report focuses particularly on the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) three nuclear weapons laboratories, Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories. The report examines two sectors in Part Two: new kinds of automobiles that pollute less and could reduce dependence on foreign oil, and high speed surface transportation.
Date: May 1993
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Energy Efficiency Technologies for Central and Eastern Europe (open access)

Energy Efficiency Technologies for Central and Eastern Europe

This report focuses on the improvement of energy efficiency. It reviews how energy is used in the former centrally planned economies. Then it analyzes the potential effectiveness of modern technology in reducing energy waste and the factors that constrain improvements. The report also examines government programs assisting energy efficiency technology transfer and opportunities for U.S. businesses. Finally, it discusses congressional policy options to support technology transfer.
Date: May 1993
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Policy Analysis at OTA: A Staff Assessment, May 1993 (open access)

Policy Analysis at OTA: A Staff Assessment, May 1993

This document presents the findings of the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) staff assessment of policy analysis that took place in 1992. It consisted of reviewing 18 sample OTA reports and soliciting opinions about OTA's policy analysis from outside observers. This report presents the findings of this assessment, along with options for OTA management and suggestions for OTA project directors.
Date: May 1993
Creator: Office of Technology Assessment
Object Type: Text
System: The UNT Digital Library
Building Energy Efficiency (open access)

Building Energy Efficiency

This report focuses on energy use in buildings, which account for over one-third of all energy used in the United States. Significant energy savings in buildings are possible through the use of commercially available, cost-effective, energy efficient technologies; yet adoption rates for these technologies are often low. Interviews with industry, property managers, homeowners, and others were used to explore why technology adoption rates are so low. Past Federal efforts to encourage energy efficiency are reviewed, and policy options for encouraging the adoption of energy efficient technologies are discussed.
Date: May 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Combined Summaries: Technologies To Sustain Tropical Forest Resources and Biological Diversity (open access)

Combined Summaries: Technologies To Sustain Tropical Forest Resources and Biological Diversity

This report discusses how the loss of tropical forests and reduction in the Earth’s biological diversity has grown from development assistance concerns to themes of global debate during the last decade. At the same time that the value of biological resources to local communities and individual nations has become more fully appreciated, the connections between these resources and global environmental stability and economic development potential have been uncovered.
Date: May 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Evaluation of the Oregon Medicaid Proposal (open access)

Evaluation of the Oregon Medicaid Proposal

This report discusses the Oregon legislature that passed the Oregon Basic Health Services Act in 1989, which established three mechanisms for increasing access to health insurance.
Date: May 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Finding a Balance: Computer Software, Intellectual Property and the Challenge of Technological Change (open access)

Finding a Balance: Computer Software, Intellectual Property and the Challenge of Technological Change

The report identifies three policy issues: 1) the appropriate scope of copyright protection for computer software; 2) patent protection for software-related inventions and algorithms, and how the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will handle these types of applications; and 3) complications facing libraries and commercial and private producers and users of digital information, including computer-based mixed media products.
Date: May 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Home Drug Infusion Therapy Under Medicare (open access)

Home Drug Infusion Therapy Under Medicare

This report deals with the drug and biological infusion treatments (including blood transfusions) being used in the home but not yet explicitly covered by Medicare in that setting. Medicare does cover total parenteral nutrition (TPN) in the home for individuals with long-term disabilities that prevent them from being able to digest food. TPN has many similarities to the therapies discussed in detail in this report, and many providers of HDIT also provide TPN and other nutritional products and services.
Date: May 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Menopause, Hormone Therapy, and Women's Health (open access)

The Menopause, Hormone Therapy, and Women's Health

This background paper describes what is known about the natural progression of the menopause and its effect on women’s health, hormone treatment and prescribing practices, alternative approaches, and research needs.
Date: May 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library