This report assesses the state of the knowledge, identifies key future challenges in each of the three components of earthquake risk reduction—earth science, engineering, and implementation—and offers policy options to improve federal efforts.

A report on information about the Earth obtained from satellite systems assists the National Weather Service (NWS) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in conducting its legislatively mandated programs to provide weather and flood forecasts and warnings for the American public, improve public safety, and provide weather information for commerce and science.

This report takes one critical step—identifying and commenting on the available data—that may help in developing priorities for the use of limited resources to protect children from health and safety hazards in schools.

This background paper examines the complexities of innovation and commercialization in an attempt to demonstrate the linkages between science, technology, and innovation, and to highlight the growing importance of factors other than basic research in commercial success.

This paper first presents an overview of the nature and extent of the brownfields problem and discusses several key issues relating to their cleanup and redevelopment. Next, it examines three primary state approaches for addressing brownfields, with a particular focus on state voluntary cleanup programs. It then presents more detailed information on the voluntary programs in Minnesota, California, and Ohio.

This report discusses the major issues in the public school system, providing information, and contributing a broad range of perspectives that helped shape the issues regarding education and technology. The report shows that helping schools to make the connection between teachers and technology may be one of the most important steps to making the most of past, present, and future investments in educational technology and in our children’s future.

The report discusses the opportunities for Native Americans to use telecommunications (including computer networking, videoconferencing, multimedia, digital and wireless technologies, and the like) in the realms of culture, education, health care, economic development, and governance.

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.

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.

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.

This report assesses the factors that facilitate international partnerships in big science projects and those that, conversely, favor the pursuit of purely national projects. The paper also reviews and identifies several important issues to consider in structuring future collaborations.

This paper updates and develops some key issues that OTA had identified in its earlier report, in light of recent developments in the private sector and in government.

This report describes how analysts developed and evaluated a number of alternative configurations of technology that, combined with certain legal and institutional innovations, could greatly enhance the capability of law enforcement agencies to detect and prosecute money launders seeking to exploit U.S. financial institutions and wire transfer systems.

This report analyzes what International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards can and cannot be expected to accomplish, identifies areas where they might be broadened and improved, and presents options for doing so.

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.

The paper is divided into two sections, one on the PRC and one on Japan. Each section describes the structure and management of the respective defense industrial base and then compares it with its U.S. counterpart. The paper then assesses the degree to which lessons from the PRC and Japanese cases can be applied to the U.S. defense technology and industrial base (DTIB).

The analysis in this report identifies priority environmental targets across the country for water quality, wildlife, and soil quality. A tripartite set of programs designed to lower cost and achieve more enduring solutions illustrates possible approaches to the targets.

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).

This report discusses estimates of environmental technology R&D spending, interagency coordination mechanisms, and major federal programs, including programs administered by the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, the Environmental Protection Agency, and several other agencies.

This paper discusses how EPA sets Superfund cleanup priorities based on Superfund site health ranking data provided by ATSDR. It examines several parameters by which EPA site prioritization might be measured, including timeliness, cost, and use of special removal actions at the worst sites.

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.

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.

This report describes technologies for fish passage, and those for protection against turbine entrainment and mortality, with an emphasis on FERC-licensed hydropower projects.

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?