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open access

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

Description: 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.
Date: June 1989
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
open access

Assessing Contractor Use in Superfund: a background paper of OTA's assessment on Superfund implementation

Description: This report addresses five key questions; to what extent is superfund dependent on contractors? Why depend on contracting to such a great extent? Is the extent of superfund’s dependence on contracting appropriate? Does the extent of superfund’s dependence on contracting reduce environmental effectiveness? Is superfund’s heavy dependence on contracting cost effective?
Date: January 1989
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
open access

Beneath the bottom line: agricultural approaches to reduce agrichemical contamination of groundwater

Description: This report descriptively reviews findings from recent sample surveys of farmer attitudes about agricultural chemicals and groundwater quality; their practices and motivations related to chemical management; and their responses to public policy alternatives addressing this issue.
Date: March 1989
Creator: Paddgit, Steven & Wintsch, Susan J.
open access

Big Dumb Boosters: A Low-Cost Space Transportation Option?

Description: This background paper describes and examines a launch vehicle concept commonly known as the “Big Dumb Booster,” a concept that derives from efforts first made in the 1960s to minimize costs of space launch systems. Some launch system analysts believe that the use of this concept, when applied to existing technology, could markedly reduce space transportation costs. Other analysts disagree.
Date: February 1989
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
open access

Biological Effects of Power Frequency Electric and Magnetic Fields

Description: This background report responds to a request by the Subcommittee on Water and Power Resources of the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. The subcommittee asked that OTA review the health effects of high-voltage transmission lines. To provide background information for its assessment on electric power wheeling, OTA contracted with the Carnegie-Mellon University.
Date: May 1989
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
open access

Catching Our Breath: Next Steps for Reducing Urban Ozone

Description: This report on urban ozone was requested by the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and its Subcommittee on Health and the Environment in anticipation of the upcoming reauthorization of the Clean Air Act. Of the air pollutants that the Act covers, ozone has been the most difficult to bring under control; it may well be the most expensive.
Date: July 1989
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
open access

Coming Clean: Superfund Problems Can Be Solved...

Description: In this report, OTA concludes that there is ample reason to be optimistic about the potential of the Superfund program and presents a number of possible strategic initiatives and incremental program changes in some detail. As difficult as the national cleanup job is, there are many ways to build a better balance between health and environmental needs and the limitations that technology, experience, and economics will always impose.
Date: October 1989
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
open access

Competition in Coastal Seas: An Evaluation of Foreign Maritime Activities in the 200-Mile EEZ

Description: This background paper reviews the status of the major sectors of the maritime industry engaged in EEZ activities and notes the significant trends. Basic data on the major sectors were first prepared for OTA by the Maritime Administration. OTA then conducted a survey of industry and other interested parties and prepared the analyses in the paper.
Date: July 1989
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
open access

The Containment of Underground Nuclear Explosions

Description: This special report reviews the safety of the nuclear testing program and assesses the technical procedures used to test nuclear weapons and ensure that radioactive material produced by test explosions remains contained underground. An overall evaluation considers the acceptability of the remaining risk and discusses reasons for the lack of public confidence.
Date: October 1989
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
open access

Copyright and Home Copying: Technology Challenges the Law

Description: This report first examines home recording technologies. Then—focusing primarily on audiotaping—we examine the ambiguous legal status of home copying. Our report considers the economic effects that home audiotaping may have on the recording industry, contrasted to the effects that restricting home taping might have on consumers. Finally, we identify a range of actions that either Congress or the industry might pursue.
Date: October 1989
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
open access

Costs and Effectiveness of Cholesterol Screening in the Elderly

Description: This paper reviews the evidence that elevation of serum cholesterol (hypercholesterolemia) is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease in the elderly and that the detection and treatment of hypercholesterolemia in an elderly individual who does not have clinically apparent heart disease will diminish overall morbidity or mortality. It also estimates health care expenditures associated with screening and treatment of hypercholesterolemia in the elderly.
Date: April 1989
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
open access

Distance learning case studies

Description: 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.
Date: June 1989
Creator: Barker, Bruce O.
open access

The effects of distance learning: a summary of the literature: paper for the Congress of the United States, Office of Technology Assessment

Description: This report offers a brief review of the general characteristics of distance education, and reports the research of the 1980s on the main issues in teaching, learning, educational planning. organization and policy making with regard to use of communications technology in contemporary distance education.
Date: May 1989
Creator: Moore, Michael G.
open access

Electric Power Wheeling and Dealing: Technological Considerations for Increasing Competition

Description: This assessment analyzes how the Nation’s power systems could accommodate various proposals for competition intended to make the electric power industry more responsive to market forces. Operation of an electric power system is extremely complex, and increased competition could have serious effects on costs and reliability if not implemented carefully. The assessment identifies the technical requirements that must be met to keep the system working well as the level of competition increases, and… more
Date: May 1989
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
open access

Enhancing the Quality of U.S. Grain for International Trade

Description: Congress amended the Food Security Act of 1985 and directed the Office of Technology Assessment to conduct a comprehensive study of the technologies, institutions, and policies that affect U.S. grain quality and to prepare a comparative analysis of the grain quality systems of major export competitors of the United States. It focuses on the U.S. grain system and possible changes within that system to enhance grain quality.
Date: February 1989
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
open access

The evolution of distance learning: technology-mediated interactive learning: a report for the study, "Technologies for learning at a distance", Science, Education, and Transportation Program

Description: This report has two primary goals. One objective is to provide provocative ideas on how emerging forces external to education may shape the future of distance learning. The second purpose is to depict a potential new field, technology-mediated interactive learning, that may result from synthesis of distance learning, cooperative learning, and computer-supported cooperative work.
Date: July 1989
Creator: Dede, Christopher
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