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OTA Senior Management Retreat

Description: This document describes the activities at the OTA Senior Management Retreat in Rockwood Manor, Maryland, which was held from November 16-17, 1992.
Date: November 17, 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
open access

Personnel Service Manual

Description: This is a personnel services manual, which includes areas of responsibility and services provided.
Date: 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
open access

Annual Report to the Congress: Fiscal Year 1991

Description: This report describes the activities of the Office in Fiscal Year 1991 within the context of the legislative agenda of the 101st Congress and the events in the United States and the world during 1991.
Date: March 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Difficult-To-Reuse Needles for the Prevention of HIV Infection Among Injecting Drug Abusers

Description: This paper reviews various possibilities of using non-reusable injection technologies for reducing HIV transmission among injecting drug users in the United States. It does not put forth the redesign of injection equipment as a policy option for congressional consideration; it merely examines some of the implications of a proposal put forth by some health experts.
Date: October 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Do Medicaid and Medicare Patients Sue More Often Than Other Patients?

Description: This background paper also responds to the request of the Congressional Sunbelt Caucus that OTA examine and judge the available evidence on whether Medicaid and Medicare patients, particularly obstetrics patients, are more litigious than other patients.
Date: September 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
open access

Federal and Private Roles in the Development and Provision of Alglucerase Therapy for Gaucher Disease

Description: This background paper describes the development of alglucerase, illustrates the role that both the Federal Government and private sector can have in making new therapies available for orphan diseases, and lays out some of the tradeoffs that can exist between developing new medical technologies and controlling health care costs.
Date: October 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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NASA's Office of Space Science and Applications: Process, Priorities and Goals

Description: This Background Paper summarizes a one-day workshop convened to assess the effectiveness of the planning and priority-setting mechanisms used by NASA’s Office of Space Science and Applications (OSSA) in carrying out its diverse scientific program.
Date: January 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
open access

Police Body Armor Standards and Testing, Vol. I

Description: This report discusses the standards for body-armor. The report describes the origin of the standard, the rationale for particular provisions, and the main points of controversy, which concern acceptable risks, the validity and discrimination of the test, and the reproducibility of results.
Date: August 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
open access

Retiring Old Cars: Programs To Save Gasoline and Reduce Emissions

Description: This report examines the costs and benefits of vehicle retirement programs. With regulation of new vehicles above the 90 percent control level for the major pollutants and scheduled to become even stricter in the near future, emissions from older vehicles have drawn increasing attention.
Date: July 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Science and Technology Issues in Coastal Ecotourism

Description: This paper presents information on the ecotourism trends; identifies issues related to resource conservation, ecotourism development and management, and planning; and presents questions for possible further consideration.
Date: October 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
open access

Fueling Development: Energy Technologies for Developing Countries

Description: This report examines the delivery of energy services in developing countries and how the United States can help to improve these energy services while minimizing environmental impacts, OTA examines the technologies and policies that will enable more efficient use of energy and the most promising new sources of energy supply.
Date: April 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
open access

Genetic Counseling and Cystic Fibrosis Carrier Screening: Results of a Survey

Description: This paper presents results from a 1991 OTA survey of 431 genetic counselors and nurse geneticists. It was conducted to better understand the environment in which the average genetic counselor or nurse in genetics works, to describe the infrastructure and tools available to these professionals, to assess the state of practice in the provision of cystic fibrosis (CF) carrier screening, and to evaluate their attitudes regarding CF carrier screening.
Date: October 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
open access

Genetic Tests and Health Insurance: Results of a Survey

Description: This background paper describes results from a 1991 OTA survey of U.S. health insurers’ attitudes toward genetic tests and genetic information— both how they currently view information from various sources (e.g., genetic tests, other medical tests, or family histories) in underwriting decisions and how they might reimburse consumers for genetic tests. It also reports data on the role health insurers expect genetic tests and genetic information will play in their business practices over the comi… more
Date: October 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
open access

Global Standards: Building Blocks for the Future

Description: There are standards to protect the environment and human health and safety, and to mediate commercial transactions. Other standards ensure that different products are compatible when hooked together. This report is looking across industry sectors; it evaluates the U.S. standards setting process in the light of its changing economic and technological environment, and compares it to processes in other countries.
Date: March 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
open access

Green Products by Design: Choices for a Cleaner Environment

Description: In this report, OTA provides a conceptual overview of how designers might integrate environmental concerns with traditional design objectives, and how policymakers can best take advantage of such opportunities. Although the concept of “green” design is gathering momentum, a number of technical, behavioral, economic, and informational barriers need to be addressed.
Date: September 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
open access

Home Drug Infusion Therapy Under Medicare

Description: 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 s… more
Date: May 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Identifying and Controlling Pulmonary Toxicants

Description: This Background Paper examines whether the agencies responsible for administering Federal environmental and health and safety laws have taken this concern for respiratory health to heart. This paper provides a partial response to the committees’ request for an assessment of noncancer health risks in the environment and follows OTA’s previous work on carcinogenic, neurotoxic, and immunotoxic substances.
Date: June 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
open access

Lessons in Restructuring Defense Industry: The French Experience

Description: This background paper first describes the structure and management of the French defense-industrial base and then reviews a variety of strategies the French Government and industry are pursuing to rationalize the base, while preserving key technological assets and strengthening the competitive position of French defense contractors in world markets.
Date: June 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Managing Industrial Solid Wastes From Manufacturing, Mining, Oil and Gas Production, and Utility Coal Combustion

Description: This background paper examines wastes generated by industrial activities that play a dominant role in our national economy-oil and gas production, mining and mineral processing, coal combustion, and manufacturing. In previous reports on municipal solid waste and medical waste, OTA examined other solid wastes not classified as hazardous.
Date: March 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
open access

Monitoring Limits on Sea-Launched Cruise Missiles

Description: This report examines in detail ways in which compliance with such a regime might be monitored. Surveying the life-cycle of SLCMs from development testing through deployment and storage, the assessment identifies the ‘indicators’ by which the missiles might be tracked and accounted for. It also assesses the paths of evasion that a determined cheater might take to avoid the proposed monitoring measures.
Date: September 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Performance Standards for the Food Stamp Employment and Training Program

Description: This report on proposed performance standards for the Food Stamp Employment and Training Program (FSET) responds to a mandate in the Hunger Prevention Act of 1988 (Public Law 100- 435). This report, then, goes beyond the original mandate and analyzes successful employment and training programs. Based on this analysis, the report identifies several alternative approaches to increasing the impact of FSET.
Date: February 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Cystic Fibrosis and DNA Tests: Implications of Carrier Screening

Description: This report concludes that the value of the cystic fibrosis (CF) carrier test is the information it provides. No one can estimate in common terms what it means to an individual to possess information about his or her genetic status, especially when the value concerns reproductive decision-making. As our knowledge of the human genome increases, what we do with information such as CF carrier status will depend on the perceptions and beliefs of all Americans.
Date: August 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Disposal of Chemical Weapons: Alternative Technologies

Description: 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.
Date: June 1992
Creator: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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