Bøger af United States Congress

The Office of Technology Assessment is currently preparing an assessment of energy from biological processes. In the course of this study we have carried out an extensive analysis of alcohol fuels from agricultural products. This technical memorandum presents these findings in response to congressional interest in synthetic fuels. The purpose of the memorandum is to illuminate the technical and non-technical issues surrounding the development of gasohol. It discusses the resource base, production technologies, and economics of gasohol, and its use as a transportation fuel. The report also contains a discussion of the environmental problems and benefits of producing and using gasohol, and the social and institutional issues about using agricultural products for energy.While the memorandum does not present an analysis of policy issues, it does provide estimates of how much gasohol can be used at what cost, and the long-term prospects for ethanol production. All are important to the current congressional debate over development of a gasohol policy.

Approximately 20 million Americans work some form of nonstandard work schedule. These schedules, which require that an individual work during nondaytime hours, noncontinuous hours, or for extended periods, are referred to as "shift work." Recent advances in the understanding of the biological rhythms of the body and their control by the brain indicate that shift work can disrupt these rhythms, with possible adverse consequences for the worker. This report is the third in a series of OTA studies being conducted under an assessment of "New Developments in Neuroscience." It was requested by the House Committees on Appropriations; Energy and Commerce; Science, Space, and Technology; Veterans Affairs; and the Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. The report discusses biological rhythms: what they are, how they are controlled by the brain, and the role they play in regulating physiological and cognitive functions. The major focus of the report is the examination of the effects of nonstandard work hours on biological rhythms and how these effects can interact with other factors to affect the health, performance, and safety of workers. In addition, the report describes the Federal regulatory framework related to work hours and the current status of biological rhythm and shift work research. The report presents a range of options for congressional action related to the amount of research being conducted on these topics, the collection of relevant workplace statistical data, and the congressional role in ensuring the well-being of individuals engaged in nonstandard hours of work.

Federal law enforcement officials made a decision to use murderers as informants beginning in the 1960s. Known killers were protected from the consequences of their crimes and purposefully kept on the streets. This report discusses some of the disastrous consequences of the use of murderers as informants in New England.Beginning in the mid-1960s the Federal Bureau of Investigation began a course of conduct in New England that must be considered one of the greatest failures in the history of federal law enforcement. What happened in New England over a forty year period raises doubts that can only be dispelled by an obvious dedication to full disclosure of the truth.

This technical memorandum presents the results of the Office of Technology Assessment's (OTA) review and assessment of the scientific evidence on the validity of polygraph testing. OTA has limited this technical memorandum to issues directly related to the scientific validity of the polygraph. OTA did not consider utility, privacy, constitutional, and ethical issues, among others that have been raised in the debate over polygraph testing. We first discuss the various types of polygraph testing procedures and ways in which the polygraph is used, and then summarize the judicial, legislative, and scientific controversy over polygraph testing validity. Next, we review and evaluate both prior reviews of the scientific research on polygraph validity and the individual research studies. Finally, we discuss the range of factors that may affect polygraph validity and the possibilities for future research, and present OTA's conclusions about the scientific evidence for current and proposed Federal Government polygraph use. In preparing this memorandum, OTA has drawn on research information available from a wide variety of sources, including the major Federal Government polygraph users, the American Polygraph Association, various private polygraph practitioners, and polygraph researchers both in the United States and abroad.

Substance abuse and addiction are complex phenomena that defy simple explanation or description. A tangled interaction of factors contributes to an individual's experimentation with, use, and perhaps subsequent abuse of drugs. Regardless of the mix of contributing factors, the actions and effects exerted by drugs of abuse underlie all substance abuse and addiction. In order to understand substance abuse and addiction it is first necessary to understand how drugs work in the brain, why certain drugs have the potential for being abused, and what, if any, biological differences exist between individuals in their susceptibility to abuse drugs.This background paper describes biological contributing factors to substance abuse and addiction.

The dramatic end to the Cold War has added a new perspective to most non-proliferation issues, and added new ones. In addition to a wide selection of historical documents, this factbook includes data and discussions of a wide variety of technical and political topics. The work was prepared by the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress for the United States Senate, and has an introduction by Senator John Glenn."Halting the global spread of nuclear explosive devices has been a goal of American policy for over half a century. It predates even the first detonation of such a device in 1945. There is no weapon on earth that matches the instantaneous destructive power of the Bomb, which can devastate whole cities in the blink of an eye. Nonproliferation counted then and counts all the more today as a top national security priority."- John Glenn

The editors once more have assembled the most complete and reliable text of the debates by examining a variety of sources: stenographer Thomas Lloyd's shorthand notes, his Congressional Register, and contemporary newspaper accounts.

In 1881, Adolphus Greely led a US Arctic expedition to gather meteorological, astronomical and magnetic data. The expedition was poorly supported by the US Army, neither Greely nor his men had experience of Arctic conditions, and their ship, the Proteus, sailed home without them once they landed in Greenland. An inadequately planned relief mission failed to reach them in 1882, and a second expedition in 1883, including the Proteus, also failed to locate the men or to land supplies. In 1884, Congress investigated the earlier attempts with a view to launching a further rescue. This report includes an inquiry into the inadequate earlier missions, details of Greely's original resources, and suggestions for a plan of approach for the rescue, including how to find the men and where they were likely to be. When found in 1884, only seven of the original team of twenty-five were still alive.