Office of Technology Assessment - 78 Matching Results
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- Distance learning case studies
- This report discuses distance learning projects, and ways telecommunications technologies such as satellites, cable television, fiber optics, slow scan TV, instructional television fixed services, and microcomputer networking have opened up opportunities for school districts to coordinate schedules and to share resources.
- Patenting life: Ethical issues related to the patenting of animals
- This report discusses the importance of patenting transgenic animal for scientific and technology developments, and for innovation and entrepreneurship. It also discusses metaphysical and teological arguments opposing the patenting of transgenic animals.
- Scenarios of five federal agencies (1991-95) as shaped by information technology: a report to the Federal Government Information Technology Project
- This report concentrates on the impacts of telecommunications and computer technology over the next ten years on the civil sector of the federal government.
- Accuracy of diagnosis and consequences of misdiagnosis of disorders causing dementia
- This report discusses the diagnosis of clinical syndrome of dementia, accuracy of differential diagnosis of dementig disorders, prognosis and prognostic accuracy, public health consequences of misdiagnosis,and summary of recommendations.
- The clinical economics of nutrition support services and antibiotic medications for the critically and terminally ill elderly
- This report reviews the techniques that are available for assessing the economic impact of medical care intervention, provided a critical review of the studies that have examined the financial consequences of the use of nutrition support services and antibiotic medication. It also describes how their economic impact may vary from different points of view, and proposes the need for further studies and suggests policy implementation of the available data.
- Patenting life: Commercial applications and economic impact of patented animals
- This report provides an overview of U.S. live stock sector. It discusses the potential of commercial applications and expected economic impacts.
- The Family Respite Center: day care for the demented
- This report discusses the Alzheimer's disease and related disorders, describes how a new service evolved from a good idea into a five day a week operation, the Family Respite Center (FRC.
- Office of Technology Assessment (OTA)
- The Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) closed on September 29, 1995. During its 23-year history, OTA provided Congressional members and committees with analyses of the scientific and technological issues that were increasingly relevant to public policy and legislative action. The agency's legacy is found in the many items of legislation it influenced and in the channels of communication its staff helped foster between legislative policymakers and members of the scientific, technical, and business communities. The Office's legacy is also found in its hundreds of publications, gathered for the first time in electronic form on the set of 5 CD-ROMs: The OTA Legacy, 1972-1995. This Web site presents the complete contents of the five CD-ROMs with additional enhancements and features that facilitate access and retrieval.
- Quarterly Report to the Technology Assessment Board, January 1 - March 31, 1980
- This is a quarterly report detailing the budget and progress of the Office of Technology Assessment.
- RA (Research Assistants) Handbook, June 1992
- This handbook was created by the staff of the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) for new Research Assistants, to introduce them to OTA policy and provide guidelines for Research Assistant activities.
- Research Assistants Handbook
- This manual was designed to guide research assistants new to the OTA. It was used alongside the OTA Employee Handbook and other introductory materials from the OTA Information Center. It covers life at OTA, basics about projects, office equipment and resources, contractors, and an introduction to the DC area. This is not an official OTA document; it was an unpublished office manual.
- The role of private business in distance learning: the educational partnership
- This report explicates private corporation's role in developing and executing educational partnerships to serve elementary and secondary schools. It discusses the impact of these partnerships on distance learning. as well as the cooperative role of private enterprise in serving the public authority by addressing the educational needs as the local, regional, state and national levels.
- China's evolving computer industry: the role of foreign technology transfers
- This report provides a series of assessments regarding China's strategy and objectives for computer development. It examines the specific role played by acquisition of foreign computers and related know-how by PRC.
- Biotechnology in a global economy
- This report discusses the biotechnology in the following countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Switzerland, and United Kingdom.
- Biotechnology in a global economy: Biotechnology developments in Asia - A financial prespective
- This report discusses the biotechnology development, government, research institutes and industry and finance in the following countries: Singapore, Thailand, South Korea, and Taiwan.
- Mapping our genes: federal genome projects: How vast? How fast?: transcript of workshop, "Issues of Collaboration for Human Genome Projects
- This report discusses the research and technology efforts aimed at mapping and sequencing large portions or entire genomes. It includes the implication of technologies, social and ethical issues, applications in research biology and medicine etc.
- Adolescent Health Insurance Status: Analyses of Trends in Coverage and Preliminary Estimates of the Effects of an Employer Mandate and Medicaid Expansion on the Uninsured
- This report examines the health insurance status of adolescents (10 to 18 years of age) based on census data. It considers the reasons that some adolescents are insured and others are not, changes in the number of uninsured adolescents over time, and the effects of various approaches to ensure that more adolescents have insurance.
- Adolescent Health, Volume 3: Crosscutting Issues in the Delivery of Health and Related Services
- OTA’s report responds to the request of numerous Members of Congress to review the physical, emotional, and behavioral health status of contemporary American adolescents, including adolescents in groups who might be more likely to be in special need of health-related interventions: adolescents living in poverty, adolescents from racial and ethnic minority groups, Native American adolescents, and adolescents in rural areas.
- Advanced Materials by Design
- This assessment responds to a joint request from the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation to analyze the military and commercial opportunities presented by new structural materials technologies, and to outline the Federal policy objectives that are consistent with those opportunities.
- Advanced Network Technology
- This background paper analyzes technologies for tomorrow’s information superhighways. Advanced networks will first be used to support scientists in their work, linking researchers to supercomputers, databases, and scientific instruments. The paper also describes six test networks that are being funded as part of the High Performance Computing and Communications Program.
- Agricultural Commodities as Industrial Raw Materials
- This report examines potential new crops and traditional crops for industrial uses including replacements for petroleum and imported strategic materials; replacements for imported newsprint, wood rosins, rubbers, and oils; and degradable plastics. This report finds that, in the absence of additional and more comprehensive policies, developing industrial uses for agricultural commodities alone is unlikely to revitalize rural economies and solve the problems of American agriculture.
- Aid to developing countries: the technology/ecology fit
- This report focuses primarily on AID and to a lesser extent on the World Bank. AID and the World Bank have made the most observable efforts to integrate environmental and development concerns.
- Application of Solar Technology to Today's Energy Needs - Volume 1
- A report by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) reviewing "a range of solar energy systems designed to produce thermal and electrical energy directly from sunlight" and examining this technology, identifying "the circumstances under which such systems could be economically attractive" (p. iii).
- Applications of R&D in the Civil Sector: The Opportunity Provided by the Federal Grant and Cooperative Agreement Act of 1977
- An assessment by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) of the national research and development (R&D) activities with the intent of "understanding...how to maximize the beneficial impacts of our total R&D enterprise" (p. iii).
- Are we cleaning up?: 10 Superfund case studies: a special report of OTA's assessment on Superfund implementation
- This special report presents 10 case studies of recent Superfund decisions at sites which OTA believes, from surveying over 100 recent cleanup decisions, to be representative of a broad range of contamination problems and cleanup technologies.
- An Assessment of Oil Shale Technologies
- A study by the Office of Technology Assessment that examines the oil shale resources of the Western United States that could contribute to the liquid fuel supply of the United States.
- Assessment of Technologies for Determining Cancer Risks From the Environment
- A report by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) that "discusses the strengths and weaknesses of data sources used for determining trends in cancer occurrence and mortality, and reviews estimates of the contribution of various factors-behaviors and exposures-associated with cancer in this country" (p. iii).
- Automated Guideway Transit: An Assessment of PRT and Other New Systems
- A report by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) assessing the Automated Guideway Transit Systems, with both detailed findings and summaries.
- The Big Picture: HDTV and High-Resolution Systems
- A report on High Definition Television (HDTV. During 1989, HDTV moved from obscurity to center stage in the ongoing debate over the role of the Federal Government in U.S. industrial competitiveness. HDTV and related High-Resolution System (HRS) technologies in the computer and communications sectors may significantly impact U.S. electronics manufacturing, accelerate fundamental restructuring of the U.S. communications infrastructure, and provide a host of valuable services.
- Biomedical Ethics in U.S. Public Policy
- This report reviews the history of four Federal bioethics initiatives: the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, the Ethics Advisory Board, the President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research, and the Biomedical Ethics Advisory Committee.
- Building Future Security: Strategies for Restructuring the Defense Technology and Industrial Base
- This report elaborates on the findings of the earlier OTA publications and examines in greater detail the specific policy choices involved in restructuring the defense technology and industrial base (DTIB) over the next decade.
- The CDC's Case Definition of AIDS: Implications of Proposed Revisions
- This background paper examines the epidemiologic evidence used by the CDC in deciding to revise the AIDS case definition and the impact the proposed definition will have on surveillance. The paper also explores the logistical consequences and other implications of the revised definition, including its impact on Social Security disability determinations.
- Civilian Space Policy and Applications
- A report by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) that evaluates "the present states and possible future directions of space applications technologies in the civilian sector" and focuses on the technologies of "satellite communications, land remote sensing, materials processing in space, and space transportation" (p. iii).
- Climate Treaties and Models: Issues in the International Management of Climate Change
- This paper seeks to place the issue of climate change within an international context. Specifically, it addresses the feasibility of forging treaty agreements among countries to achieve significant worldwide reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases.
- Commercializing high-temperature superconductivity
- Since the discovery of high-temperature superconductivity (HTS), research laboratories around the world have pushed the temperature limits steadily upward, opening the way to commercial applications with potentially revolutionary impacts. The scientific race is becoming a commercial race, one featuring U.S. and Japanese companies, and one that the United States could lose. Indeed, American firms may already be falling behind in commercializing the technology of superconductivity.
- Conservation and Solar Energy Programs of the Department of Energy: A Critique
- A study by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) that "evaluates the progress and direction of a number of conservation and solar energy programs, in order to provide an overview of the balance and long-range contribution of these efforts, and to discover if the programs are coherently linked to goals set by Congress and the administration" (p. iii).
- Construction and materials research and development for the nation's public works
- A report on the nation’s infrastructure that is the physical framework that supports and sustains virtually all domestic economic activity; it is essential to maintaining international competitiveness as well.
- Disposal of Chemical Weapons: Alternative Technologies
- This background paper briefly describes the Army’s chemical weapons destruction program, discusses the factors that could affect a decision to develop alternatives, discusses the alternatives, and illustrates the difficulty of gaining public acceptance of complex technical systems.
- Drugs in Livestock Feed: Volume 1: Technical Report
- A report by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) over the use of drugs in livestock feed
- Educating scientists and engineers: grade school to grad school
- This report examines how and why students are drawn toward or deterred from pursuing a career in science or engineering. Schools, families, peers, informal education efforts-such as museums, science centers, special programs, and television— all play a role. The subtitle of this report—Grade School to Grad School—emphasizes that many factors and institutions must be understood as all one system.
- Energy Use and the U.S. Economy
- The background paper extends the analysis of energy use into new areas by explicitly looking at how energy use has changed with the expansion of the service sector, the explosion of international trade, and greater complexity of the U.S. economy as the structure of businesses changed in response to new technologies and competitive challenges. The increasing sophistication of the U.S. economy means that the role of energy is less likely to be directly identified and is instead more likely to be an indirect factor that was added many steps before in the complex network that connects producer to consumer. This report explicitly separates direct from indirect energy use.
- Establishing a 200-Mile Fisheries Zone
- A report by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) covering the the "major problems and opportunities which may occur because of the Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976" (Preface).
- Federal government information technology: Electronic Record Systems and Individual Privacy
- This report addresses four major areas: 1) technological developments relevant to government record systems; 2) current and prospective Federal agency use of electronic record systems; 3) the interaction of technology and public law relevant to protecting privacy; and 4) possible policy actions that warrant congressional attention, including amendment of existing laws such as the Privacy Act of 1974 and establishment of new mechanisms such as a Data Protection Board or Privacy Protection Commission.
- Federal government information technology: electronic record systems and individual privacy
- This report addresses four major areas: 1) technological developments relevant to government record systems; 2) current and prospective Federal agency use of electronic record systems; 3) the interaction of technology and public law relevant to protecting privacy; and 4) possible policy actions the warrant congressional attention, including amendment of existing laws such as the Privacy Act of 1974 and establishment of new mechanisms such as Data Protection Board or Privacy Protection Commission.
- From pollution to prevention: a progress report on waste reduction
- The report examines the effectiveness of the limited Federal actions taken so far and summarizes what industry and State and local governments have done to implement waste reduction. These programs are encouraging, and they help us understand what congressional policy options might accomplish, This special report discusses in greater detail several options that first appeared in Serious Reduction of Hazardous Waste.
- Grassroots Development: The African Development Foundation
- This is OTA’S third report on U.S. foreign aid and African agriculture and the most comprehensive look at a single program. It complements a larger, more general work in press on enhancing agriculture in Africa and its already-published companion report on the Sahel Development Program. The House Foreign Affairs Committee, its Subcommittee on Africa, and the House Select Committee on Hunger requested this study. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on African Affairs, endorsed their request.
- Habitability of the Love Canal Area: An Analysis of the Technical Basis for the Decision of the Habitability of the Emergency Declaration Area: A Technical Memorandum
- A case study by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) that examines "the technical basis for, and validity of, the habitability decision for the emergency declaration area near Love Canal" (p. iii).
- Health Insurance: The Hawaii Experience
- This paper provides a detailed look at the State that is often considered a model for what States can do to help provide universal or near universal health insurance coverage for their residents. The paper discusses the history of health insurance provision in Hawaii, emphasizing two relatively recent State insurance laws: 1) the 1974 law that required employers to offer coverage to most of their employees, and 2) the 1989 law that provided a State subsidy for coverage of those individuals who fell in the gap between employment-based coverage and Medicaid coverage. The paper addresses the difficulties faced in evaluating the impact of Hawaii’s various attempts to provide coverage and access, and speaks to whether all or parts of Hawaii’s experience can be transferred to other States or to the Nation as a whole.
- Helping America Compete: The Role of Federal Scientific and Technical Information
- This Special Report assesses how Federal scientific and technical information (STI) can contribute to a more competitive America and what actions are needed to realize this potential. The report was prepared in response to a request from the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.
- 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.