Search Results

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).
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.
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.
Annual Report to the Congress: Fiscal Year 1994
This report includes statements form OTA Chairman, Vice-Chairman, and Director, as well as TAAC Chairman. The report also discusses industry, commerce, and international security division, as well as health, life sciences and the environment division.
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).
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.
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.
Catalog of OTA Publications, 1972 - 1994
A cumulative catalog of the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) documents published from 1972 through 1994.
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.
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.
The Cost-Effectiveness of Colorectal Cancer Screening in Average-Risk Adults
This paper presents an analysis of the cost-effectiveness of colorectal cancer (CRC) screening in average-risk adults beginning at age 50. It examines the relative cost effectiveness of competing CRC screening technologies and schedules.
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.
Coverage of Laser Technology by Health Insurers
This paper presents some empirical information on how insurers consider payment for new medical devices. It describes the survey results of medical directors affiliated with private health insurers about their coverage decisions using, as examples, three applications of lasers: laser angioplasty for opening narrowed or blocked coronary arteries; laser discectomy for treating herniated intervertebral discs; and photodynamic therapy (using a light–sensitive dye) for bladder cancer.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Effectiveness and Costs of Osteoporosis Screening and Hormone Replacement Therapy, Vol. I: Cost-Effectiveness Analysis
This paper assesses the medical benefits and costs of both screening and hormone replacement therapy. It is divided into two volumes. This volume presents the results of a model that estimates the cost per year of life gained from osteoporosis screening and hormone replacement therapy in postmenopausal women.
Effectiveness and Costs of Osteoporosis Screening and Hormone Replacement Therapy, Vol. II: Evidence on Benefits, Risks, and Costs
This paper assesses the medical benefits and costs of both screening and hormone replacement therapy. It is divided into two volumes. This volume provides the basis for the assumptions about the costs and effects of screening and hormonal replacement therapy used in the cost-effectiveness model.
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.
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.
Electronic Surveillance in a Digital Age
This background paper reviews the progress of the industry and the law enforcement agencies in implementing the Act since its approval in October 1994.
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.
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.
Environmental Technology: Analysis of Selected Federal R&D Programs
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.
EPA Superfund Actions and ATSDR Public Health Data
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
Health Care Technology and Its Assessment in Eight Countries
This paper discusses the experiences of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom—technology assessment with six technologies (or sets of technologies) including evaluation and management efforts and how the technologies diffused— are presented and compared.
Health care technology and its assessment in eight countries
This report is a part of a larger study on International Differences in Health Care Technology and Spending. It discusses health care technology as a policy issue, healthcare technology in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom and United States, as well as the lessons from the eight countries.
A History of the Department of Defense Federally Funded Research and Development Centers
The focus of this paper is the history of Department of Defense (DoD) Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) over the past 50 years, which forms part of the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) study of defense modeling and simulation.
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.
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.
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.
Improving the Prospects for Future International Peace Operations: Workshop Proceedings
In June 1995, OTA convened a workshop that brought together some of the world’s leading practitioners, academic experts, experienced diplomats, and leading technologists in order to study and discuss this issue. This report contains a summary of the results of the workshop, along with the original papers presented.
Information Technologies for the Control of Money Laundering
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.
Innovation and Commercialization of Emerging Technologies
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.
Insider's Guide to OTA
An informal orientation to the OTA. Addresses new employees' frequently asked questions; intended as a complimentary document to the official Employee Handbook.
Insider's Guide to OTA, January 1995
This guide is intended as an informal orientation to some aspects of life at the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), and to answer some of the questions frequently asked about OTA. This guide was created in the hopes of acquainting new employees with the procedures, materials, information, and expertise that lie within OTA.
International Partnerships in Large Science Projects
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.
Issue Update on Information Security and Privacy in Network Environments
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.
Learning To Work: Making the Transition From School to Work
This reports shows that work-based learning has considerable promise but will be difficult to implement. The report discusses work-based learning that can potentially help students see the relevance of their academic studies later in life, allow students to explore career options, and help them develop needed occupational skills.
The Lower Tiers of the Space Transportation Industrial Base
This background paper was prompted by a workshop held at OTA in early March 1995, at which a small group, representing a broad cross-section of lower-tier firms, discussed their views of the space transportation industry.
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.
Nuclear Safeguards and the International Atomic Energy Agency
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.
Nuclear Wastes in the Arctic: An Analysis of Arctic and Other Regional Impacts From Soviet Nuclear Contamination
This report examines the environmental and human health impacts from wastes dumped into the Arctic and North Pacific regions, from nuclear contaminants discharged into these environments, and from radioactive releases from both past and future nuclear activities in the region. The report presents what is known and unknown about this waste and contamination and how it may affect public health.
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