http://www.nap.edu/rss 2013-06-19T06:59:06-04:00 New books, reports and publications from the National Academies Press. tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18364#final 2013-06-14T10:50:32-04:00 2013-06-14T10:50:32-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Most of the policy discussion about stimulating innovation has focused on the federal level. This study focuses on the significant activity at the state level, with the goal of improving the public's understanding of key policy strategies and exemplary practices. Based on a series of workshops and conferences that brought together policymakers along with leaders of industry and academia in a select number of states, the study highlights a rich variety of policy initiatives underway at the state and regional level to foster knowledge based growth and employment. Perhaps what distinguishes this effort at the state level is most of all the high degree of pragmatism. Operating out of necessity, innovation policies at the state level often involve taking advantage of existing resources and recombining them in new ways, forging innovative partnerships among universities, industry and government organizations, growing the skill base, and investing in the infrastructure to develop new technologies and new industries. Many of these initiatives are being guided by leaders from the private sector and universities.</p> <p>The objective of <em>Best Practices in State and Regional Innovation Initiatives: Competing in the 21st Century </em>is not to do an empirical review of the inputs and outputs of various state programs. Nor is it to evaluate which programs are superior. Indeed, some of the notable successes, such as the Albany nanotechnology cluster, represent a leap of leadership, investment, and sustained commitment that has had remarkable results in an industry that is actively pursued by many countries. The study's goal is to illustrate the approaches taken by a variety of highly diverse states as they confront the increasing challenges of global competition for the industries and jobs of today and tomorrow.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18364">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=289'>Industry and Labor</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/u6YLdavneow" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18364 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18335#final 2013-06-12T10:50:17-04:00 2013-06-12T10:50:17-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>The material that sustains the nuclear reactions that produce energy can also be used to make nuclear weapons—and therefore, the development of nuclear energy is one of multiple pathways to proliferation for a non-nuclear weapon state. There is a tension between the development of future nuclear fuel cycles and managing the risk of proliferation as the number of existing and future nuclear energy systems expands throughout the world. As the Department of Energy (DOE) and other parts of the government make decisions about future nuclear fuel cycles, DOE would like to improve proliferation assessments to better inform those decisions.</p> <p><em>Improving the Assessment of the Proliferation Risk of Nuclear Fuel Cycles </em>considers how the current methods of quantification of proliferation risk are being used and implemented, how other approaches to risk assessment can contribute to improving the utility of assessments for policy and decision makers. The study also seeks to understand the extent to which technical analysis of proliferation risk could be improved for policy makers through research and development.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18335">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=283'>Energy and Energy Conservation</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/c9HPhUa44a4" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18335 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13511#prepub 2013-06-05T12:49:44-04:00 2013-06-05T13:07:28-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Prepublication Now Available</strong></p> <p><em>Using Science to Improve the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program: A Way Forward</em> reviews the science that underpins the Bureau of Land Management's oversight of free-ranging horses and burros on federal public lands in the western United States, concluding that constructive changes could be implemented. The Wild Horse and Burro Program has not used scientifically rigorous methods to estimate the population sizes of horses and burros, to model the effects of management actions on the animals, or to assess the availability and use of forage on rangelands.</p> <p>Evidence suggests that horse populations are growing by 15 to 20 percent each year, a level that is unsustainable for maintaining healthy horse populations as well as healthy ecosystems. Promising fertility-control methods are available to help limit this population growth, however. In addition, science-based methods exist for improving population estimates, predicting the effects of management practices in order to maintain genetically diverse, healthy populations, and estimating the productivity of rangelands. Greater transparency in how science-based methods are used to inform management decisions may help increase public confidence in the Wild Horse and Burro Program.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13511">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=276'>Agriculture</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/QzBShJSphbs" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13511 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18319#prepub 2013-06-05T10:49:44-04:00 2013-06-18T08:43:47-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Prepublication Now Available</strong></p> <p>In 2010, more than 105,000 people were injured or killed in the United States as the result of a firearm-related incident. Recent, highly publicized, tragic mass shootings in Newtown, CT; Aurora, CO; Oak Creek, WI; and Tucson, AZ, have sharpened the American public's interest in protecting our children and communities from the harmful effects of firearm violence. While many Americans legally use firearms for a variety of activities, fatal and nonfatal firearm violence poses a serious threat to public safety and welfare.</p> <p><br /> In January 2013, President Barack Obama issued 23 executive orders directing federal agencies to improve knowledge of the causes of firearm violence, what might help prevent it, and how to minimize its burden on public health. One of these orders directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to, along with other federal agencies, immediately begin identifying the most pressing problems in firearm violence research. The CDC and the CDC Foundation asked the IOM, in collaboration with the National Research Council, to convene a committee tasked with developing a potential research agenda that focuses on the causes of, possible interventions to, and strategies to minimize the burden of firearm-related violence. <em>Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence</em> focuses on the characteristics of firearm violence, risk and protective factors, interventions and strategies, the impact of gun safety technology, and the influence of video games and other media.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18319">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=277'>Behavioral and Social Sciences</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/rBBVk42QjDQ" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18319 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18357#prepub 2013-06-05T09:49:44-04:00 2013-06-05T09:49:47-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Prepublication Now Available</strong></p> <p>Within the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Airway Transportation System Specialists ATSS) maintain and certify the equipment in the National Airspace System (NAS).In fiscal year 2012, Technical Operations had a budget of $1.7B. Thus, Technical Operations includes approximately 19 percent of the total FAA employees and less than 12 percent of the $15.9 billion total FAA budget. Technical Operations comprises ATSS workers at five different types of Air Traffic Control (ATC) facilities: (1) Air Route Traffic Control Centers, also known as En Route Centers, track aircraft once they travel beyond the terminal airspace and reach cruising altitude; they include Service Operations Centers that coordinate work and monitor equipment. (2) Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facilities control air traffic as aircraft ascend from and descend to airports, generally covering a radius of about 40 miles around the primary airport; a TRACON facility also includes a Service Operations Center. (3) Core Airports, also called Operational Evolution Partnership airports, are the nation's busiest airports. (4) The General National Airspace System (GNAS) includes the facilities located outside the larger airport locations, including rural airports and equipment not based at any airport. (5) Operations Control Centers are the facilities that coordinate maintenance work and monitor equipment for a Service Area in the United States.</p> <p>At each facility, the ATSS execute both tasks that are scheduled and predictable and tasks that are stochastic and unpredictable in. These tasks are common across the five ATSS disciplines: (1) Communications, maintaining the systems that allow air traffic controllers and pilots to be in contact throughout the flight; (2) Surveillance and Radar, maintaining the systems that allow air traffic controllers to see the specific locations of all the aircraft in the airspace they are monitoring; (3) Automation, maintaining the systems that allow air traffic controllers to track each aircraft's current and future position, speed, and altitude; (4) Navigation, maintaining the systems that allow pilots to take off, maintain their course, approach, and land their aircraft; and (5) Environmental, maintaining the power, lighting, and heating/air conditioning systems at the ATC facilities. Because the NAS needs to be available and reliable all the time, each of the different equipment systems includes redundancy so an outage can be fixed without disrupting the NAS.</p> <p><em>Assessment of Staffing Needs of Systems Specialists in Aviation </em>reviews the available information on: (A) the duties of employees in job series 2101 (Airways Transportation Systems Specialist) in the Technical Operations service unit; (B) the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS) union of the AFL-CIO; (C) the present-day staffing models employed by the FAA; (D) any materials already produced by the FAA including a recent gap analysis on staffing requirements; (E) current research on best staffing models for safety; and (F) non-US staffing standards for employees in similar roles.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18357">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=277'>Behavioral and Social Sciences</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=289'>Industry and Labor</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/V57xAGv9DUg" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18357 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18282#final 2013-06-04T00:00:00-04:00 2013-06-13T13:20:52-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Congress has an ongoing interest in ensuring that the 500,000 buildings and other structures owned and operated by the Department of Defense (DOD) are operated effectively in terms of cost and resource use. Section 2830 of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year requires the Secretary of Defense to submit a report to the congressional defense committees on the energy-efficiency and sustainability standards used by DOD for military construction and major renovations of buildings.</p> <p>DOD's report must include a cost-benefit analysis, return on investment, and long-term payback for the building standards and green building certification systems, including:<br /> (A) American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Standard 189.1-2011 for the Design of High-Performance, Green Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential.<br /> (B) ASHRAE Energy Standard 90.1-2010 for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential.<br /> (C) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver, Gold, and Platinum certification for green buildings, as well as the LEED Volume certification.<br /> (D) Other American National Standards Institute (ANSI) accredited standards.<br /> <br /> DOD's report to the congressional defense committees must also include a copy of DOD policy prescribing a comprehensive strategy for the pursuit of design and building standards across the department that include specific energy-efficiency standards and sustainable design attributes for military construction based on the cost-benefit analysis, return on investment, and demonstrated payback required for the aforementioned building standards and green building certification systems. <em>Energy-Efficiency Standards and Green Building Certification Systems Used by the Department of Defense for Military Construction and Major Renovations</em> summarizes the recommendations for energy efficiency.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18282">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=280'>Conflict and Security Issues</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=284'>Engineering and Technology</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/DjYlXYcY9LI" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18282 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18336#final 2013-06-04T00:00:00-04:00 2013-06-05T13:14:25-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>America's national parks provide a wealth of experiences to millions of people every year. What visitors see—landscapes, wildlife, cultural activities—often lingers in memory for life. And what they hear adds a dimension that sight alone cannot provide. Natural sounds can dramatically enhance visitors' experience of many aspects of park environments. In some settings, such as the expanses of Yellowstone National Park, they can even be the best way to enjoy wildlife, because animals can be heard at much greater distances than they can be seen. Sounds can also be a natural complement to natural scenes, whether the rush of water over a rocky streambed or a ranger's explanation of a park's history. In other settings, such as the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park, sounds are the main reason for visiting a park.</p> <p>The acoustical environment is also important to the well-being of the parks themselves. Many species of wildlife depend on their hearing to find prey or avoid predators. If they cannot hear, their survival is jeopardized—and the parks where they live may in turn lose part of their natural heritage. For all these reasons it is important to be aware of noise (defined as unwanted sound, and in this case usually generated by humans or machinery), which can degrade the acoustical environment, or soundscape, of parks. Just as smog smudges the visual horizon, noise obscures the listening horizon for both visitors and wildlife. This is especially true in places, such as remote wilderness areas, where extremely low sound levels are common. The National Park Service (NPS) has determined that park facilities, operations, and maintenance activities produce a substantial portion of noise in national parks and thus recognizes the need to provide park managers with guidance for protecting the natural soundscape from such noise. Therefore, the focus of the workshop was to define what park managers can do to control noise from facilities, operations, and maintenance, and not on issues such as the effects of noise on wildlife, noise metrics, and related topics.</p> <p>To aid in this effort, NPS joined with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and with the US Department of Transportation's John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center to hold a workshop to examine the challenges and opportunities facing the nation's array of parks. Entitled "Protecting National Park Soundscapes: Best Available Technologies and Practices for Reducing Park- Generated Noise," the workshop took place October 3-4, 2012, at NPS's Natural Resource Program Center in Fort Collins, Colorado.<em> Protecting National Park Soundscapes </em>is a summary of the workshop.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18336">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=284'>Engineering and Technology</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=285'>Environment and Environmental Studies</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/_nAnclbWtH0" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18336 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18314#prepub 2013-05-23T09:49:03-04:00 2013-05-23T09:49:30-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Prepublication Now Available</strong></p> <p>Physical inactivity is a key determinant of health across the lifespan. A lack of activity increases the risk of heart disease, colon and breast cancer, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, osteoporosis, anxiety and depression and others diseases. Emerging literature has suggested that in terms of mortality, the global population health burden of physical inactivity approaches that of cigarette smoking. The prevalence and substantial disease risk associated with physical inactivity has been described as a pandemic.</p> <p>The prevalence, health impact, and evidence of changeability all have resulted in calls for action to increase physical activity across the lifespan. In response to the need to find ways to make physical activity a health priority for youth, the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Physical Activity and Physical Education in the School Environment was formed. Its purpose was to review the current status of physical activity and physical education in the school environment, including before, during, and after school, and examine the influences of physical activity and physical education on the short and long term physical, cognitive and brain, and psychosocial health and development of children and adolescents.</p> <p><em>Educating the Student Body</em> makes recommendations about approaches for strengthening and improving programs and policies for physical activity and physical education in the school environment. This report lays out a set of guiding principles to guide its work on these tasks. These included: recognizing the benefits of instilling life-long physical activity habits in children; the value of using systems thinking in improving physical activity and physical education in the school environment; the recognition of current disparities in opportunities and the need to achieve equity in physical activity and physical education; the importance of considering all types of school environments; the need to take into consideration the diversity of students as recommendations are developed.</p> <p>This report will be of interest to local and national policymakers, school officials, teachers, and the education community, researchers, professional organizations, and parents interested in physical activity, physical education, and health for school-aged children and adolescents.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18314">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=282'>Education</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/r08lUyGHBOA" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18314 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18318#final 2013-05-22T00:00:00-04:00 2013-05-23T10:32:38-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Publicly available statistics from government agencies that are credible, relevant, accurate, and timely are essential for policy makers, individuals, households, businesses, academic institutions, and other organizations to make informed decisions. Even more, the effective operation of a democratic system of government depends on the unhindered flow of statistical information to its citizens.</p> <p>In the United States, federal statistical agencies in cabinet departments and independent agencies are the governmental units whose principal function is to compile, analyze, and disseminate information for such statistical purposes as describing population characteristics and trends, planning and monitoring programs, and conducting research and evaluation. The work of these agencies is coordinated by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. Statistical agencies may acquire information not only from surveys or censuses of people and organizations, but also from such sources as government administrative records, private-sector datasets, and Internet sources that are judged of suitable quality and relevance for statistical use. They may conduct analyses, but they do not advocate policies or take partisan positions. Statistical purposes for which they provide information relate to descriptions of groups and exclude any interest in or identification of an individual person, institution, or economic unit.</p> <p>Four principles are fundamental for a federal statistical agency: relevance to policy issues, credibility among data users, trust among data providers, and independence from political and other undue external influence. <em>Principles and Practices for a Federal Statistical Agency: Fifth Edition </em>explains these four principles in detail.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18318">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=290'>Math, Chemistry and Physics</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/vKr5Jo50VcU" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18318 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=14685#final 2013-05-22T00:00:00-04:00 2013-05-23T10:57:52-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Adolescence is a distinct, yet transient, period of development between childhood and adulthood characterized by increased experimentation and risk-taking, a tendency to discount long-term consequences, and heightened sensitivity to peers and other social influences. A key function of adolescence is developing an integrated sense of self, including individualization, separation from parents, and personal identity. Experimentation and novelty-seeking behavior, such as alcohol and drug use, unsafe sex, and reckless driving, are thought to serve a number of adaptive functions despite their risks.</p> <p>Research indicates that for most youth, the period of risky experimentation does not extend beyond adolescence, ceasing as identity becomes settled with maturity. Much adolescent involvement in criminal activity is part of the normal developmental process of identity formation and most adolescents will mature out of these tendencies. Evidence of significant changes in brain structure and function during adolescence strongly suggests that these cognitive tendencies characteristic of adolescents are associated with biological immaturity of the brain and with an imbalance among developing brain systems. This imbalance model implies dual systems: one involved in cognitive and behavioral control and one involved in socio-emotional processes. Accordingly adolescents lack mature capacity for self-regulations because the brain system that influences pleasure-seeking and emotional reactivity develops more rapidly than the brain system that supports self-control. This knowledge of adolescent development has underscored important differences between adults and adolescents with direct bearing on the design and operation of the justice system, raising doubts about the core assumptions driving the criminalization of juvenile justice policy in the late decades of the 20th century.</p> <p>It was in this context that the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) asked the National Research Council to convene a committee to conduct a study of juvenile justice reform. The goal of <em>Reforming Juvenile Justice: A Developmental Approach</em> was to review recent advances in behavioral and neuroscience research and draw out the implications of this knowledge for juvenile justice reform, to assess the new generation of reform activities occurring in the United States, and to assess the performance of OJJDP in carrying out its statutory mission as well as its potential role in supporting scientifically based reform efforts.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=14685">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=277'>Behavioral and Social Sciences</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/0cMkpuHyaPY" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=14685 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12568#final 2013-05-20T00:00:00-04:00 2013-05-20T13:10:03-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is one of several federal agencies responsible for protecting Americans against significant risks to human health and the environment. As part of that mission, EPA estimates the nature, magnitude, and likelihood of risks to human health and the environment; identifies the potential regulatory actions that will mitigate those risks and protect public health1 and the environment; and uses that information to decide on appropriate regulatory action. Uncertainties, both qualitative and quantitative, in the data and analyses on which these decisions are based enter into the process at each step. As a result, the informed identification and use of the uncertainties inherent in the process is an essential feature of environmental decision making.</p> <p>EPA requested that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) convene a committee to provide guidance to its decision makers and their partners in states and localities on approaches to managing risk in different contexts when uncertainty is present. It also sought guidance on how information on uncertainty should be presented to help risk managers make sound decisions and to increase transparency in its communications with the public about those decisions. Given that its charge is not limited to human health risk assessment and includes broad questions about managing risks and decision making, in this report the committee examines the analysis of uncertainty in those other areas in addition to human health risks. <em>Environmental Decisions in the Face of Uncertainty</em> explains the statement of task and summarizes the findings of the committee. </p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12568">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=285'>Environment and Environmental Studies</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=423'>Policy for Science and Technology</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/Ac79ZtSbLGA" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12568 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18273#final 2013-05-20T00:00:00-04:00 2013-05-20T13:14:45-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Rising health care costs are a central fiscal challenge confronting the United States. National spending on health care currently accounts for 18 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), but is anticipated to increase to 25 percent of GDP by 2037. The Bipartisan Policy Center argues that "this rapid growth in health expenditures creates an unsustainable burden on America's economy, with far-reaching consequences". These consequences include crowding out many national priorities, including investments in education, infrastructure, and research; stagnation of employee wages; and decreased international competitiveness.In spite of health care costs that far exceed those of other countries, health outcomes in the United States are not considerably better.</p> <p>With the goal of ensuring that patients have access to high-quality, affordable cancer care, the Institute of Medicine's (IOM's) National Cancer Policy Forum convened a public workshop, Delivering Affordable Cancer Care in the 21st Century, October 8-9, 2012, in Washington, DC. <em>Delivering Affordable Cancer Care in the 21st Century</em> summarizes the workshop.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18273">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/5e8y3VaHp6c" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18273 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18272#final 2013-05-20T00:00:00-04:00 2013-05-20T12:57:53-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>The adulteration and fraudulent manufacture of medicines is an old problem, vastly aggravated by modern manufacturing and trade. In the last decade, impotent antimicrobial drugs have compromised the treatment of many deadly diseases in poor countries. More recently, negligent production at a Massachusetts compounding pharmacy sickened hundreds of Americans. While the national drugs regulatory authority (hereafter, the regulatory authority) is responsible for the safety of a country's drug supply, no single country can entirely guarantee this today.</p> <p>The once common use of the term counterfeit to describe any drug that is not what it claims to be is at the heart of the argument. In a narrow, legal sense a counterfeit drug is one that infringes on a registered trademark. The lay meaning is much broader, including any drug made with intentional deceit. Some generic drug companies and civil society groups object to calling bad medicines counterfeit, seeing it as the deliberate conflation of public health and intellectual property concerns. <em>Countering the Problem of Falsified and Substandard Drugs</em> accepts the narrow meaning of counterfeit, and, because the nuances of trademark infringement must be dealt with by courts, case by case, the report does not discuss the problem of counterfeit medicines.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18272">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/NMZ4qzNG4FI" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18272 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18354#final 2013-05-15T09:48:45-04:00 2013-05-15T09:48:49-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>In 2012, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) approached the National Research Council and asked that a committee be formed to develop a list of workshop topics to explore the impact of emerging science and technology. One topic that came out of that list was directed evolution for development and production of bioactive agents. This workshop was held on February 21-22, 2013.</p> <p><em>Directed Evolution for Development and Production of Bioactive Agents</em> explains the objectives of the workshop, which were to explore the potential use of directed evolution1 for military science and technology. Understanding the current research in this area, and the potential opportunities for U.S. adversaries to use this research, might allow the DIA to advise U.S. policy makers in an appropriate and timely manner. The workshop featured invited presentations and discussions that aimed to: <br /> -Inform the U.S. intelligence community of the current status of directed evolution technology and related research, and<br /> -Discuss possible approaches involving directed evolution that might be used by an adversary to develop toxic biological agents that could pose a threat to the United States or its allies, and how they could be identified.</p> <p>Members of the Committee on Science and Technology for Defense Warning planned the agenda for the workshop, selected the presenters, and helped moderate discussions in which meeting participants probed issues of national security related to directed evolution in an effort to gain an understanding of potential vulnerabilities. Experts were invited from the areas of directed evolution, biosynthesis, detection, and biological agents.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18354">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=280'>Conflict and Security Issues</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/YSzcV0n9yu8" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18354 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18353#final 2013-05-15T09:48:39-04:00 2013-05-21T18:47:55-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p><em>Future Battlespace Situational Awareness</em> is the third workshop in an ongoing series of workshops conducted by the National Research Council's Committee for Science and Technology Challenges to U.S. National Security Interests. The first two workshops looked at individual technologies related to "big" data and future antennas and provided context for the topic addressed in the third workshop—the planning of a future warfare scenario. The objectives for the third workshop were to review technologies that enable battlespace situational awareness 10-20 years into the future for red and blue forces; and emphasize the capabilities within air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace.</p> <p>The workshop was held on May 30-31, 2012, in Suffolk, Virginia, at the Lockheed Martin Center for Innovation. The sessions were not open to the public because they involved discussions of classified material, including data addressing vulnerabilities, indicators, and observables. This series of workshops address U.S. and foreign research, why S&T applications of technologies in development are important in the context of military capabilities, and what critical scientific breakthroughs are needed to achieve advances in the fields of interest— focusing detailed attention on specific developments in the foregoing fields that might have national security implications for the United States. These workshops also consider methodology to track the relevant technology landscape for the future.</p> <p>The three workshops feature invited presentations and panelists and include discussions on a selected topic including themes relating to defense warning and surprise. <em>Future of Battlespace Situational Awareness</em> summarizes the third workshop.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18353">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=280'>Conflict and Security Issues</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/Zyx-GdzXFfc" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18353 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18320#prepub 2013-05-14T13:11:03-04:00 2013-05-14T13:11:14-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Prepublication Now Available</strong></p> <p>The electric vehicle offers many promises—increasing U.S. energy security by reducing petroleum dependence, contributing to climate-change initiatives by decreasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, stimulating long-term economic growth through the development of new technologies and industries, and improving public health by improving local air quality. There are, however, substantial technical, social, and economic barriers to widespread adoption of electric vehicles, including vehicle cost, small driving range, long charging times, and the need for a charging infrastructure. In addition, people are unfamiliar with electric vehicles, are uncertain about their costs and benefits, and have diverse needs that current electric vehicles might not meet. Although a person might derive some personal benefits from ownership, the costs of achieving the social benefits, such as reduced GHG emissions, are borne largely by the people who purchase the vehicles. Given the recognized barriers to electric-vehicle adoption, Congress asked the Department of Energy (DOE) to commission a study by the National Academies to address market barriers that are slowing the purchase of electric vehicles and hindering the deployment of supporting infrastructure. As a result of the request, the National Research Council (NRC)—a part of the National Academies—appointed the Committee on Overcoming Barriers to Electric-Vehicle Deployment.</p> <p>This committee documented their findings in two reports—a short interim report focused on near-term options, and a final comprehensive report. Overcoming Barriers to Electric-Vehicle Deployment fulfills the request for the short interim report that addresses specifically the following issues: infrastructure needs for electric vehicles, barriers to deploying the infrastructure, and possible roles of the federal government in overcoming the barriers. This report also includes an initial discussion of the pros and cons of the possible roles. This interim report does not address the committee's full statement of task and does not offer any recommendations because the committee is still in its early stages of data-gathering. The committee will continue to gather and review information and conduct analyses through late spring 2014 and will issue its final report in late summer 2014.</p> <p>Overcoming Barriers to Electric-Vehicle Deployment focuses on the light-duty vehicle sector in the United States and restricts its discussion of electric vehicles to plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs), which include battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). The common feature of these vehicles is that their batteries are charged by being plugged into the electric grid. BEVs differ from PHEVs because they operate solely on electricity stored in a battery (that is, there is no other power source); PHEVs have internal combustion engines that can supplement the electric power train. Although this report considers PEVs generally, the committee recognizes that there are fundamental differences between PHEVs and BEVs.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18320">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=284'>Engineering and Technology</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=283'>Energy and Energy Conservation</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/x_TYGeWp8F0" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18320 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=14684#final 2013-05-14T10:48:49-04:00 2013-05-14T10:49:04-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Responding to the challenges of fostering regional growth and employment in an increasingly competitive global economy, many U.S. states and regions have developed programs to attract and grow companies as well as attract the talent and resources necessary to develop innovation clusters. These state and regionally based initiatives have a broad range of goals and increasingly include significant resources, often with a sector focus and often in partnership with foundations and universities. These are being joined by recent initiatives to coordinate and concentrate investments from a variety of federal agencies that provide significant resources to develop regional centers of innovation, business incubators, and other strategies to encourage entrepreneurship and high-tech development.</p> <p><em>Building the Illinois Innovation Economy</em> is a study of selected state and regional programs to identify best practices with regard to their goals, structures, instruments, modes of operation, synergies across private and public programs, funding mechanisms and levels, and evaluation efforts. This report reviews selected state and regional efforts to capitalize on federal and state investments in areas of critical national needs. This review includes both efforts to strengthen existing industries as well as specific new technology focus areas such as nanotechnology, stem cells, and energy in order to improve our understanding of program goals, challenges, and accomplishments. As a part of this review, The Committee on Competing in the 21st Century: Best Practice in State and Regional Innovation Initiatives is convening a series of public workshops and symposia involving responsible local, state, and federal officials and other stakeholders. These meetings and symposia will enable an exchange of views, information, experience, and analysis to identify best practice in the range of programs and incentives adopted.</p> <p><em>Building the Illinois Innovation Economy </em>summarizes discussions at these symposia, fact-finding meetings, and commissioned analyses of existing state and regional programs and technology focus areas, the committee will subsequently produce a final report with findings and recommendations focused on lessons, issues, and opportunities for complementary U.S. policies created by these state and regional initiatives.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=14684">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=289'>Industry and Labor</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/QJ5pquV0O7Y" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=14684 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18311#prepub 2013-05-14T10:48:36-04:00 2013-05-22T15:05:46-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Prepublication Now Available</strong></p> <p>Despite efforts over the past several decades to reduce sodium intake in the United States, adults still consume an average of 3,400 mg of sodium every day. A number of scientific bodies and professional health organizations, including the American Heart Association, the American Medical Association, and the American Public Health Association, support reducing dietary sodium intake. These organizations support a common goal to reduce daily sodium intake to less than 2,300 milligrams and further reduce intake to 1,500 mg among persons who are 51 years of age and older and those of any age who are African-American or have hypertension, diabetes, or chronic kidney disease.</p> <p>A substantial body of evidence supports these efforts to reduce sodium intake. This evidence links excessive dietary sodium to high blood pressure, a surrogate marker for cardiovascular disease (CVD), stroke, and cardiac-related mortality. However, concerns have been raised that a low sodium intake may adversely affect certain risk factors, including blood lipids and insulin resistance, and thus potentially increase risk of heart disease and stroke. In fact, several recent reports have challenged sodium reduction in the population as a strategy to reduce this risk.</p> <p><em>Sodium Intake in Populations </em>recognizes the limitations of the available evidence, and explains that there is no consistent evidence to support an association between sodium intake and either a beneficial or adverse effect on most direct health outcomes other than some CVD outcomes (including stroke and CVD mortality) and all-cause mortality. Some evidence suggested that decreasing sodium intake could possibly reduce the risk of gastric cancer. However, the evidence was too limited to conclude the converse—that higher sodium intake could possibly increase the risk of gastric cancer. Interpreting these findings was particularly challenging because most studies were conducted outside the United States in populations consuming much higher levels of sodium than those consumed in this country. <em>Sodium Intake in Populations</em> is a summary of the findings and conclusions on evidence for associations between sodium intake and risk of CVD-related events and mortality.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18311">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=287'>Food and Nutrition</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/Hj5gPPO4hqk" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18311 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18274#final 2013-05-14T00:00:00-04:00 2013-05-14T20:24:32-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>The childhood obesity epidemic is an urgent public health problem. The most recent data available show that nearly 19 percent of boys and about 15 percent of girls aged 2-19 are obese, and almost a third of U.S. children and adolescents are overweight or obese (Ogden et al., 2012). The obesity epidemic will continue to take a substantial toll on the health of Americans. In the midst of this epidemic, children are exposed to an enormous amount of commercial advertising and marketing for food. In 2009, children aged 2-11 saw an average of more than 10 television food ads per day (Powell et al., 2011). Children see and hear advertising and marketing messages for food through many other channels as well, including radio, movies, billboards, and print media. Most notably, many new digital media venues and vehicles for food marketing have emerged in recent years, including Internet-based advergames, couponing on cell phones, and marketing on social networks, and much of this advertising is invisible to parents.</p> <p>The marketing of high-calorie, low-nutrient foods and beverages is linked to overweight and obesity. A major 2006 report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) documents evidence that television advertising influences the food and beverage preferences, requests, and short-term consumption of children aged 2-11 (IOM, 2006). <em>Challenges and Opportunities for Change in Food Marketing to Children and Youth</em> also documents a body of evidence showing an association of television advertising with the adiposity of children and adolescents aged 2-18. The report notes the prevailing pattern that food and beverage products marketed to children and youth are often high in calories, fat, sugar, and sodium; are of low nutritional value; and tend to be from food groups Americans are already overconsuming. Furthermore, marketing messages that promote nutrition, healthful foods, or physical activity are scarce (IOM, 2006). To review progress and explore opportunities for action on food and beverage marketing that targets children and youth, the IOM's Standing Committee on Childhood Obesity Prevention held a workshop in Washington, DC, on November 5, 2012, titled "New Challenges and Opportunities in Food Marketing to Children and Youth."</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18274">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=287'>Food and Nutrition</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/Vap1o2gDaGQ" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18274 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18355#prepub 2013-05-13T10:48:33-04:00 2013-05-13T10:48:54-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Prepublication Now Available</strong></p> <p>The Committee to Assess the Current Status and Future Direction of High Magnetic Field Science in the United States was convened by the National Research Council in response to a request by the National Science Foundation. This report answers three questions: (1) What is the current state of high-field magnet science, engineering, and technology in the United States, and are there any conspicuous needs to be addressed? (2) What are the current science drivers and which scientific opportunities and challenges can be anticipated over the next ten years? (3) What are the principal existing and planned high magnetic field facilities outside of the United States, what roles have U.S. high field magnet development efforts played in developing those facilities, and what potentials exist for further international collaboration in this area?</p> <p>A magnetic field is produced by an electrical current in a metal coil. This current exerts an expansive force on the coil, and a magnetic field is "high" if it challenges the strength and current-carrying capacity of the materials that create the field. Although lower magnetic fields can be achieved using commercially available magnets, research in the highest achievable fields has been, and will continue to be, most often performed in large research centers that possess the materials and systems know-how for forefront research. Only a few high field centers exist around the world; in the United States, the principal center is the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL).</p> <p>High Magnetic Field Science and Its Application in the United States considers continued support for a centralized high-field facility such as NHFML to be the highest priority. This report contains a recommendation for the funding and siting of several new high field nuclear magnetic resonance magnets at user facilities in different regions of the United States. Continued advancement in high-magnetic field science requires substantial investments in magnets with enhanced capabilities. High Magnetic Field Science and Its Application in the United States contains recommendations for the further development of all-superconducting, hybrid, and higher field pulsed magnets that meet ambitious but achievable goals.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18355">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=290'>Math, Chemistry and Physics</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/xLKjzWAM6Go" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18355 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13486#prepub 2013-05-13T09:25:21-04:00 2013-05-13T09:38:01-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Prepublication Now Available</strong></p> <p>Every year, the Global Forum undertakes two workshops whose topics are selected by the more than 55 members of the Forum. It was decided in this first year of the Forum's existence that the workshops should lay the foundation for future work of the Forum and the topic that could best provide this base of understanding was "interprofessional education." The first workshop took place August 29-30, 2012, and the second was on November 29-30, 2012. Both workshops focused on linkages between interprofessional education (IPE) and collaborative practice. The difference between them was that Workshop 1 set the stage for defining and understanding IPE while Workshop 2 brought in speakers from around the world to provide living histories of their experience working in and between interprofessional education and interprofessional or collaborative practice.</p> <p>A committee of health professional education experts planned, organized, and conducted a 2-day, interactive public workshop exploring issues related to innovations in health professions education (HPE). The committee involved educators and other innovators of curriculum development and pedagogy and will be drawn from at least four health disciplines. The workshop followed a high-level framework and established an orientation for the future work of the Global Forum on Innovations in Health Professional Education. Interprofessional Education for Collaboration: Learning How to Improve Health from Interprofessional Models Across the Continuum of Education to Practice summarizes the presentations and small group discussions that focused on innovations in five areas of HPE:</p> <p>1. Curricular innovations - Concentrates on what is being taught to health professions' learners to meet evolving domestic and international needs;<br /> 2. Pedagogic innovations - Looks at how the information can be better taught to students and WHERE education can takes place;<br /> 3. Cultural elements - Addresses who is being taught by whom as a means of enhancing the effectiveness of the design, development and implementation of interprofessional HPE; <br /> 4. Human resources for health - Focuses on how capacity can be innovatively expanded to better ensure an adequate supply and mix of educated health workers based on local needs; and<br /> 5. Metrics - Addresses how one measures whether learner assessment and evaluation of educational impact and care delivery systems influence individual and population health.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13486">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=282'>Education</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/Q9gqIrpytlM" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13486 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18262#final 2013-05-13T00:00:00-04:00 2013-05-17T07:47:19-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p><em>Review of the Research Program of the U.S. DRIVE Partnership: Fourth Report </em>follows on three previous NRC reviews of the FreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership, which was the predecessor of the U.S. DRIVE Partnership (NRC, 2005, 2008a, 2010). The U.S. DRIVE (Driving Research and Innovation for Vehicle Efficiency and Energy Sustainability) vision, according to the charter of the Partnership, is this: American consumers have a broad range of affordable personal transportation choices that reduce petroleum consumption and significantly reduce harmful emissions from the transportation sector. Its mission is as follows: accelerate the development of pre-competitive and innovative technologies to enable a full range of efficient and clean advanced light-duty vehicles (LDVs), as well as related energy infrastructure. The Partnership focuses on precompetitive research and development (R&D) that can help to accelerate the emergence of advanced technologies to be commercialization-feasible.</p> <p>The guidance for the work of the U.S. DRIVE Partnership as well as the priority setting and targets for needed research are provided by joint industry/government technical teams. This structure has been demonstrated to be an effective means of identifying high-priority, long-term precompetitive research needs for each technology with which the Partnership is involved. Technical areas in which research and development as well as technology validation programs have been pursued include the following: internal combustion engines (ICEs) potentially operating on conventional and various alternative fuels, automotive fuel cell power systems, hydrogen storage systems (especially onboard vehicles), batteries and other forms of electrochemical energy storage, electric propulsion systems, hydrogen production and delivery, and materials leading to vehicle weight reductions.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18262">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=283'>Energy and Energy Conservation</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=284'>Engineering and Technology</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/Di1C-3igMlA" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18262 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=15269#final 2013-05-13T00:00:00-04:00 2013-05-13T11:55:22-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>The mathematical sciences are part of nearly all aspects of everyday life--the discipline has underpinned such beneficial modern capabilities as Internet search, medical imaging, computer animation, numerical weather predictions, and all types of digital communications. <em>The Mathematical Sciences in 2025 </em>examines the current state of the mathematical sciences and explores the changes needed for the discipline to be in a strong position and able to maximize its contribution to the nation in 2025. It finds the vitality of the discipline excellent and that it contributes in expanding ways to most areas of science and engineering, as well as to the nation as a whole, and recommends that training for future generations of mathematical scientists should be re-assessed in light of the increasingly cross-disciplinary nature of the mathematical sciences. In addition, because of the valuable interplay between ideas and people from all parts of the mathematical sciences, the report emphasizes that universities and the government need to continue to invest in the full spectrum of the mathematical sciences in order for the whole enterprise to continue to flourish long-term.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=15269">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=290'>Math, Chemistry and Physics</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=282'>Education</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/oi9tcyGzuIw" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=15269 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18321#final 2013-05-10T10:48:24-04:00 2013-05-10T11:58:28-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>The U.S. military does not believe its soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines should be engaged in combat with adversaries on a "level playing field." Our combat individuals enter engagements to win. To that end, the United States has used its technical prowess and industrial capability to develop decisive weapons that overmatch those of potential enemies. In its current engagement—what has been identified as an "era of persistent conflict"— the nation's most important weapon is the dismounted soldier operating in small units. Today's soldier must be prepared to contend with both regular and irregular adversaries. Results in Iraq and Afghanistan show that, while the U.S. soldier is a formidable fighter, the contemporary suite of equipment and support does not afford the same high degree of overmatch capability exhibited by large weapons platforms—yet it is the soldier who ultimately will play the decisive role in restoring stability.</p> <p><em>Making the Soldier Decisive on Future Battlefields</em> establishes the technical requirements for overmatch capability for dismounted soldiers operating individually or in small units. It prescribes technological and organizational capabilities needed to make the dismounted soldier a decisive weapon in a changing, uncertain, and complex future environment and provides the Army with 15 recommendations on how to focus its efforts to enable the soldier and tactical small unit (TSU) to achieve overmatch.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18321">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=280'>Conflict and Security Issues</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=284'>Engineering and Technology</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/1WUZg0uJeRo" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18321 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13444#final 2013-05-10T00:00:00-04:00 2013-05-10T11:50:21-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>America's health care system has become too complex and costly to continue business as usual. <em>Best Care at Lower Cost</em> explains that inefficiencies, an overwhelming amount of data, and other economic and quality barriers hinder progress in improving health and threaten the nation's economic stability and global competitiveness. According to this report, the knowledge and tools exist to put the health system on the right course to achieve continuous improvement and better quality care at a lower cost. </p> <p>The costs of the system's current inefficiency underscore the urgent need for a systemwide transformation. About 30 percent of health spending in 2009--roughly $750 billion--was wasted on unnecessary services, excessive administrative costs, fraud, and other problems. Moreover, inefficiencies cause needless suffering. By one estimate, roughly 75,000 deaths might have been averted in 2005 if every state had delivered care at the quality level of the best performing state. This report states that the way health care providers currently train, practice, and learn new information cannot keep pace with the flood of research discoveries and technological advances.</p> <p>About 75 million Americans have more than one chronic condition, requiring coordination among multiple specialists and therapies, which can increase the potential for miscommunication, misdiagnosis, potentially conflicting interventions, and dangerous drug interactions. <em>Best Care at Lower Cost</em> emphasizes that a better use of data is a critical element of a continuously improving health system, such as mobile technologies and electronic health records that offer significant potential to capture and share health data better. In order for this to occur, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, IT developers, and standard-setting organizations should ensure that these systems are robust and interoperable. Clinicians and care organizations should fully adopt these technologies, and patients should be encouraged to use tools, such as personal health information portals, to actively engage in their care.</p> <p>This book is a call to action that will guide health care providers; administrators; caregivers; policy makers; health professionals; federal, state, and local government agencies; private and public health organizations; and educational institutions.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13444">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/Qs6FDXDJH-0" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13444 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18267#final 2013-05-07T00:00:00-04:00 2013-03-29T08:46:34-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Pharmaceutical companies, academic researchers, and government agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health all possess large quantities of clinical research data. If these data were shared more widely within and across sectors, the resulting research advances derived from data pooling and analysis could improve public health, enhance patient safety, and spur drug development. Data sharing can also increase public trust in clinical trials and conclusions derived from them by lending transparency to the clinical research process. Much of this information, however, is never shared. Retention of clinical research data by investigators and within organizations may represent lost opportunities in biomedical research. Despite the potential benefits that could be accrued from pooling and analysis of shared data, barriers to data sharing faced by researchers in industry include concerns about data mining, erroneous secondary analyses of data, and unwarranted litigation, as well as a desire to protect confidential commercial information. Academic partners face significant cultural barriers to sharing data and participating in longer term collaborative efforts that stem from a desire to protect intellectual autonomy and a career advancement system built on priority of publication and citation requirements. Some barriers, like the need to protect patient privacy, pre- sent challenges for both sectors. Looking ahead, there are also a number of technical challenges to be faced in analyzing potentially large and heterogeneous datasets.</p> <p>This public workshop focused on strategies to facilitate sharing of clinical research data in order to advance scientific knowledge and public health. While the workshop focused on sharing of data from preplanned interventional studies of human subjects, models and projects involving sharing of other clinical data types were considered to the extent that they provided lessons learned and best practices. The workshop objectives were to examine the benefits of sharing of clinical research data from all sectors and among these sectors, including, for example: benefits to the research and development enterprise and benefits to the analysis of safety and efficacy. <em>Sharing Clinical Research Data: Workshop Summary</em> identifies barriers and challenges to sharing clinical research data, explores strategies to address these barriers and challenges, including identifying priority actions and "low-hanging fruit" opportunities, and discusses strategies for using these potentially large datasets to facilitate scientific and public health advances.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18267">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=423'>Policy for Science and Technology</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/F_G4epKOdbI" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18267 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18268#final 2013-05-06T14:23:02-04:00 2013-05-06T14:23:12-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Digital media provide humans with more access to information than ever before—a computer, tablet, or smartphone can all be used to access data online and users frequently have more than one device. However, as humans continue to venture into the digital frontier, it remains to be known whether access to seemingly unlimited information is actually helping us learn and solve complex problems, or ultimately creating more difficulty and confusion for individuals and societies by offering content overload that is not always meaningful.</p> <p>Throughout history, technology has changed the way humans interact with the world. Improvements in tools, language, industrial machines, and now digital information technology have shaped our minds and societies. There has always been access to more information than humans can handle, but the difference now lies in the ubiquity of the Internet and digital technology, and the incredible speed with which anyone with a computer can access and participate in seemingly infinite information exchange. Humans now live in a world where mobile digital technology is everywhere, from the classroom and the doctor's office to public transportation and even the dinner table. This paradigm shift in technology comes with tremendous benefits and risks. Interdisciplinary Research (IDR) Teams at the 2012 National Academies Keck Futures Initiative Conference on The Informed Brain in the Digital World explored common rewards and dangers to Humans among various fields that are being greatly impacted by the Internet and the rapid evolution of digital technology.</p> <p>Keynote speaker Clifford Nass of Stanford University opened the dialogue by offering insight into what we already know about how the "information overload" of the digital world may be affecting our brains. Nass presented the idea of the "media budget," which states that when a new media emerges, it takes time away from other media in a daily time budget. When additional media appear and there is no time left in a person's daily media budget, people begin to "double book" media time. Personal computers, tablets, and smartphones make it easy to use several media simultaneously, and according to Nass, this double-booking of media can result in chronic multitasking, which effects how people store and manage memory. Although current fast-paced work and learning environments often encourage multitasking, research shows that such multitasking is inefficient, decreases productivity, and may hinder cognitive function. <em>National Academies Keck Future Initiative: The Informed Brain in a Digital World</em> summarizes the happenings of this conference.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18268">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=278'>Biology and Life Sciences</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=284'>Engineering and Technology</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/nHDRCE0qkaM" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18268 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18337#final 2013-05-03T10:48:02-04:00 2013-05-03T15:25:27-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Changes in the 21st century security environment require new analytic approaches to support strategic deterrence. Because current adversaries may be deterred from the use of nuclear weapons differently than were Cold War adversaries, the Air Force needs an analytic process and tools that can help determine those Air Force capabilities that will successfully deter or defeat these new nuclear-armed adversaries and assure U.S. allies. While some analytic tools are available, a coherent approach for their use in developing strategy and policy appears to be lacking. Without a coherent analytic approach that addresses the nuances of today's security environment, Air Force views of its strategic deterrence needs may not be understood or accepted by the appropriate decision makers.</p> <p>A coherent approach will support Air Force decisions about its strategic force priorities and needs, deter actual or potential adversaries, and assure U.S. allies. In this context, the Air Force in 2012 requested that the Air Force Studies Board of the National Research Council undertake a workshop to bring together national experts to discuss current challenges relating strategic deterrence and potential new tools and methods that the Air Force might leverage in its strategic deterrence mission.</p> <p>The workshop consisted of two 3-day sessions held in Washington, DC on September 26-28, 2012 and January 29-31, 2013 and was attended by a very diverse set of participants with expertise in strategic deterrence and a range of analytic tools of potential interest to the Air Force. <em>U.S. Air Force Strategic Deterrence Capabilities in the 21st Century Security Environment</em> summarizes this workshop.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18337">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=280'>Conflict and Security Issues</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/umIz6QDOL8A" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18337 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=14686#final 2013-05-02T10:47:59-04:00 2013-05-23T16:25:25-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Over the course of several decades, copyright protection has been expanded and extended through legislative changes occasioned by national and international developments. The content and technology industries affected by copyright and its exceptions, and in some cases balancing the two, have become increasingly important as sources of economic growth, relatively high-paying jobs, and exports. Since the expansion of digital technology in the mid-1990s, they have undergone a technological revolution that has disrupted long-established modes of creating, distributing, and using works ranging from literature and news to film and music to scientific publications and computer software.<br /> <br /> In the United States and internationally, these disruptive changes have given rise to a strident debate over copyright's proper scope and terms and means of its enforcement--a debate between those who believe the digital revolution is progressively undermining the copyright protection essential to encourage the funding, creation, and distribution of new works and those who believe that enhancements to copyright are inhibiting technological innovation and free expression.<br /> <br /> <em>Copyright in the Digital Era: Building Evidence for Policy</em> examines a range of questions regarding copyright policy by using a variety of methods, such as case studies, international and sectoral comparisons, and experiments and surveys. This report is especially critical in light of digital age developments that may, for example, change the incentive calculus for various actors in the copyright system, impact the costs of voluntary copyright transactions, pose new enforcement challenges, and change the optimal balance between copyright protection and exceptions.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=14686">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=284'>Engineering and Technology</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=279'>Computers and Information Technology</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/ToLS3WDkI_U" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=14686 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18313#final 2013-05-01T09:47:56-04:00 2013-05-01T09:48:14-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Extremely hazardous substances (EHSs) can be released accidentally as a result of result of chemical spills, industrial explosions, fires, or accidents involving railroad cars and trucks transporting EHSs. Workers and residents in communities surrounding industrial facilities where EHSs are manufactured, used, or stored and in communities along the nation's railways and highways are potentially at risk of being exposed to airborne EHSs during accidental releases or intentional releases by terrorists. Pursuant to the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has identified approximately 400 EHSs on the basis of acute lethality data in rodents.</p> <p>As part of its efforts to develop acute exposure guideline levels for EHSs, EPA and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) in 1991 requested that the National Research Council (NRC) develop guidelines for establishing such levels. In response to that request, the NRC published <em>Guidelines for Developing Community Emergency Exposure Levels for Hazardous Substances</em> in 1993. Subsequently, Standard Operating Procedures for Developing Acute Exposure Guideline Levels for Hazardous Substances was published in 2001, providing updated procedures, methodologies, and other guidelines used by the National Advisory Committee (NAC) on Acute Exposure Guideline Levels for Hazardous Substances and the Committee on Acute Exposure Guideline Levels (AEGLs) in developing the AEGL values.</p> <p>Using the 1993 and 2001 NRC guidelines reports, the NAC—consisting of members from EPA, the Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of Energy (DOE), the Department of Transportation (DOT), other federal and state governments, the chemical industry, academia, and other organizations from the private sector—has developed AEGLs for more than 270 EHSs. In 1998, EPA and DOD requested that the NRC independently review the AEGLs developed by NAC. In response to that request, the NRC organized within its Committee on Toxicology (COT) the Committee on Acute Exposure Guideline Levels, which prepared this report. This report is the fourteenth volume in that series. <em>Acute Exposure Guideline Levels for Selected Airborne Chemicals: Volume 14 </em>summarizes the committee's conclusions and recommendations.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18313">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=285'>Environment and Environmental Studies</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/NPajfozkhMw" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18313 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18344#prepub 2013-04-30T10:54:23-04:00 2013-04-30T10:54:36-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Prepublication Now Available</strong></p> <p>The US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) are responsible for protecting species that are listed as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and for protecting habitats that are critical for their survival. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is responsible for registering or reregistering pesticides under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and must ensure that pesticide use does not cause any unreasonable adverse effects on the environment, which is interpreted to include listed species and their critical habitats. The agencies have developed their own approaches to evaluating environmental risk, and their approaches differ because their legal mandates, responsibilities, institutional cultures, and expertise differ. Over the years, the agencies have tried to resolve their differences but have been unsuccessful in reaching a consensus regarding their assessment approaches.</p> <p>As a result, FWS, NMFS, EPA, and the US Department of Agriculture asked the National Research Council (NRC) to examine scientific and technical issues related to determining risks posed to listed species by pesticides. Specifically, the NRC was asked to evaluate methods for identifying the best scientific data available; to evaluate approaches for developing modeling assumptions; to identify authoritative geospatial information that might be used in risk assessments; to review approaches for characterizing sublethal, indirect, and cumulative effects; to assess the scientific information available for estimating effects of mixtures and inert ingredients; and to consider the use of uncertainty factors to account for gaps in data. <em>Assessing Risks to Endangered and Threatened Species from Pesticides</em>, which was prepared by the NRC Committee on Ecological Risk Assessment under FIFRA and ESA, is the response to that request.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18344">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=285'>Environment and Environmental Studies</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/Z0p9sTtmbO8" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18344 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18271#prepub 2013-04-23T10:47:31-04:00 2013-04-23T12:37:50-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Prepublication Now Available</strong></p> <p>The National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) is a multiagency, multidisciplinary federal initiative comprising a collection of research programs and other activities funded by the participating agencies and linked by the vision of "a future in which the ability to understand and control matter at the nanoscale leads to a revolution in technology and industry that benefits society." As first stated in the 2004 NNI strategic plan, the participating agencies intend to make progress in realizing that vision by working toward four goals. Planning, coordination, and management of the NNI are carried out by the interagency Nanoscale Science, Engineering, and Technology (NSET) Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Committee on Technology (CoT) with support from the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO).</p> <p><em>Triennial Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative</em> is the latest National Research Council review of the NNI, an assessment called for by the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act of 2003. The overall objective of the review is to make recommendations to the NSET Subcommittee and the NNCO that will improve the NNI's value for basic and applied research and for development of applications in nanotechnology that will provide economic, societal, and national security benefits to the United States. In its assessment, the committee found it important to understand in some detail—and to describe in its report—the NNI's structure and organization; how the NNI fits within the larger federal research enterprise, as well as how it can and should be organized for management purposes; and the initiative's various stakeholders and their roles with respect to research. Because technology transfer, one of the four NNI goals, is dependent on management and coordination, the committee chose to address the topic of technology transfer last, following its discussion of definitions of success and metrics for assessing progress toward achieving the four goals and management and coordination. Addressing its tasks in this order would, the committee hoped, better reflect the logic of its approach to review of the NNI. <em>Triennial Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative</em> also provides concluding remarks in the last chapter.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18271">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=284'>Engineering and Technology</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/0cBEQjIUd0U" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18271 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18278#final 2013-04-23T00:00:00-04:00 2013-04-26T14:55:33-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Increasing renewable energy development, both within the United States and abroad, has rekindled interest in the potential for marine and hydrokinetic (MHK) resources to contribute to electricity generation. These resources derive from ocean tides, waves, and currents; temperature gradients in the ocean; and free-flowing rivers and streams. One measure of the interest in the possible use of these resources for electricity generation is the increasing number of permits that have been filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). As of December 2012, FERC had issued 4 licenses and 84 preliminary permits, up from virtually zero a decade ago. However, most of these permits are for developments along the Mississippi River, and the actual benefit realized from all MHK resources is extremely small. The first U.S. commercial gridconnected project, a tidal project in Maine with a capacity of less than 1 megawatt (MW), is currently delivering a fraction of that power to the grid and is due to be fully installed in 2013.</p> <p>As part of its assessment of MHK resources, DOE asked the National Research Council (NRC) to provide detailed evaluations. In response, the NRC formed the Committee on Marine Hydrokinetic Energy Technology Assessment. As directed in its statement of task (SOT), the committee first developed an interim report, released in June 2011, which focused on the wave and tidal resource assessments (Appendix B). The current report contains the committee's evaluation of all five of the DOE resource categories as well as the committee's comments on the overall MHK resource assessment process. This summary focuses on the committee's overarching findings and conclusions regarding a conceptual framework for developing the resource assessments, the aggregation of results into a single number, and the consistency across and coordination between the individual resource assessments. Critiques of the individual resource assessment, further discussion of the practical MHK resource base, and overarching conclusions and recommendations are explained in <em>An Evaluation of the U.S. Department of Energy's Marine and Hydrokinetic Resource Assessment</em>.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18278">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=283'>Energy and Energy Conservation</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=281'>Earth Sciences</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/_PyZYAICgvU" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18278 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13485#final 2013-04-23T00:00:00-04:00 2013-04-26T09:18:06-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>For many Americans who live at or below the poverty threshold, access to healthy foods at a reasonable price is a challenge that often places a strain on already limited resources and may compel them to make food choices that are contrary to current nutritional guidance. To help alleviate this problem, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) administers a number of nutrition assistance programs designed to improve access to healthy foods for low-income individuals and households. The largest of these programs is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly called the Food Stamp Program, which today serves more than 46 million Americans with a program cost in excess of $75 billion annually. The goals of SNAP include raising the level of nutrition among low-income households and maintaining adequate levels of nutrition by increasing the food purchasing power of low-income families.</p> <p>In response to questions about whether there are different ways to define the adequacy of SNAP allotments consistent with the program goals of improving food security and access to a healthy diet, USDA's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) asked the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to conduct a study to examine the feasibility of defining the adequacy of SNAP allotments, specifically: the feasibility of establishing an objective, evidence-based, science-driven definition of the adequacy of SNAP allotments consistent with the program goals of improving food security and access to a healthy diet, as well as other relevant dimensions of adequacy; and data and analyses needed to support an evidence-based assessment of the adequacy of SNAP allotments.</p> <p><em>Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program: Examining the Evidence to Define Benefit Adequacy</em> reviews the current evidence, including the peer-reviewed published literature and peer-reviewed government reports. Although not given equal weight with peer-reviewed publications, some non-peer-reviewed publications from nongovernmental organizations and stakeholder groups also were considered because they provided additional insight into the behavioral aspects of participation in nutrition assistance programs. In addition to its evidence review, the committee held a data gathering workshop that tapped a range of expertise relevant to its task.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13485">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=287'>Food and Nutrition</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/7L0fX-e4S-M" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13485 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18332#prepub 2013-04-18T08:47:16-04:00 2013-04-18T08:47:24-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Prepublication Now Available</strong></p> <p>The Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the National Research Council (NRC) have had prominent roles in discussions of aging, disability, and technology for decades. In 1978, Aging and Medical Education (IOM, 1978) raised national awareness of the challenges to physicians posed by the aging of the U.S. population. Thirty years later, Retooling for an Aging America highlighted concerns for the entire health care workforce in view of the aging of the population, including the role of technology in caring for older populations. The 1988 report <em>The Aging Population in the 21st Century</em> examined social, economic, and demographic changes among older adults, as well as many health-related topics: health promotion and disease prevention; quality of life; health care system financing and use; and the quality of care— especially long-term care. In 1991, the landmark report Disability in America laid out a national agenda to prevent disability and improve the lives of people with disabling conditions. The 1997 report Enabling America: Assessing the Role of Rehabilitation Science and Engineering examined the knowledge base of rehabilitation science and engineering and proposed ways to translate scientific findings into interventions that produce better health. And the 2007 report The Future of Disability in America examined progress made since the earlier reports and looked at continuing barriers that limit the independence, productivity, and participation in community life of people with disabilities.</p> <p>All these reports were produced by committees appointed in accordance with guidelines of the National Academies and met multiples times to compile and review evidence, reach consensus on conclusions and recommendations, draft a report of the committee, and then modify that draft report in response to comments from outside reviewers. The IOM and NRC have also held several workshops related to aging, disability, and technology and published summary reports, such as Technology for Adaptive Aging and Grand Challenges of Our Aging Society. The IOM and NRC also convene groups that take a different approach to issues of pressing national and international importance. Often known as forums or roundtables, these groups meet regularly to foster dialogue and confront issues of mutual interest and concern among a broad range of stakeholders. They can convene workshops, initiate cooperative projects among members, commission independently authored articles, and generate ideas for independent consensus studies. </p> <p>In 2012 the IOM and NRC joined together to establish the Forum on Aging, Disability, and Independence to provide a neutral venue for broad-ranging discussions among the many stakeholders involved with aging and disability. The goals of the forum are to highlight areas in which the coordination of the aging and disability networks is strong, examine the challenges involved in aligning the aging and disability networks, explore new approaches for resolving problem areas, elevate the visibility and broaden the perspectives of stakeholders, and set the stage for future policy actions. Forum sponsors and members include federal agencies, health professional associations, private sector businesses, academics, and consumers. <em>Fostering Independence, Participation, and Healthy Aging Through Technology </em>summarizes this workshop.</p> <p> </p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18332">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/g0HFvrSRyLc" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18332 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13495#final 2013-04-16T00:00:00-04:00 2013-04-17T08:01:29-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death in United States, causing more than 440,000 deaths annually and resulting in $193 billion in health-related economic losses each year--$96 billion in direct medical costs and $97 billion in lost productivity. Since the first U.S. Surgeon General's report on smoking in 1964, more than 29 Surgeon General's reports, drawing on data from thousands of studies, have documented the overwhelming and conclusive biologic, epidemiologic, behavioral, and pharmacologic evidence that tobacco use is deadly. This evidence base links tobacco use to the development of multiple types of cancer and other life-threatening conditions, including cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Smoking accounts for at least 30 percent of all cancer deaths, and 80 percent of lung cancer deaths. Despite the widespread agreement on the dangers of tobacco use and considerable success in reducing tobacco use prevalence from over 40 percent at the time of the 1964 Surgeon General's report to less than 20 percent today, recent progress in reducing tobacco use has slowed. An estimated 18.9 percent of U.S. adults smoke cigarettes, nearly one in four high school seniors smoke, and 13 percent of high school males use smokeless tobacco products.</p> <p>In recognition that progress in combating cancer will not be fully achieved without addressing the tobacco problem, the National Cancer Policy Forum of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) convened a public workshop, Reducing Tobacco-Related Cancer Incidence and Mortality, June 11-12, 2012 in Washington, DC. In opening remarks to the workshop participants, planning committee chair Roy Herbst, professor of medicine and of pharmacology and chief of medical oncology at Yale Cancer Center and Smilow Cancer Hospital, described the goals of the workshop, which were to examine the current obstacles to tobacco control and to discuss potential policy, outreach, and treatment strategies that could overcome these obstacles and reduce tobacco-related cancer incidence and mortality. Experts explored a number of topics, including: the changing demographics of tobacco users and the changing patterns of tobacco product use; the influence of tobacco use on cancer incidence and cancer treatment outcomes; tobacco dependence and cessation programs; federal and state level laws and regulations to curtail tobacco use; tobacco control education, messaging, and advocacy; financial and legal challenges to tobacco control efforts; and research and infrastructure needs to support tobacco control strategies, reduce tobacco related cancer incidence, and improve cancer patient outcomes. <em>Reducing Tobacco-Related Cancer Incidence and Mortality</em> summarizes the workshop.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13495">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/Cc0ELAd4WYs" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13495 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18322#final 2013-04-15T10:47:07-04:00 2013-04-15T10:47:18-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>As mandated by the Global Change Research Act (GCRA), the U.S. Global Change Research Program is currently producing a "National Climate Assessment" (NCA). The NCA is a report to inform the President, the Congress, and the American people about the current state of scientific knowledge regarding climate change effects on U.S. regions and key sectors, now and in the coming decades. This document contains an evaluation of the draft NCA report, presented through consensus responses to the Panel's Task Statement questions, and through a large collection of individual Panel member comments and suggestions for specific chapters, statements, figures, etc. While focusing primarily on practical suggestions for immediately improving the current draft, the Panel also raises some broader considerations about fundamental approaches used in certain parts of the NCA report, and about the scope of USGCRP research that underlies the NCA findings. Some suggestions can be viewed as longer-term advice for future versions of NCA work.</p> <p>This NCA has been a significantly more ambitious effort than previous assessments, in terms of the scope of topics addressed and the breadth of public engagement processes involved. Some of the important new areas include the use of "traceable accounts," the articulation of needs for future research and a vision for an ongoing assessment process, the outreach efforts to help various stakeholders define their climate-related information needs, and the initial (though incomplete) effort to assess the current state of climate change response activities around the nation. Given the current state of the science and the scope of resources available, we believe the NCA did a reasonable job of fulfilling its charge overall. Although more needs to be done to fully meet the nation's needs for information and guidance, such needs cannot be met without an expanded research effort on the part of the USGCRP and future assessments.</p> <p>The Panel suggests that the NCA report would be improved by addressing the numerous specific problems and concerns and the more cross-cutting issues raised in the consensus answers to the Task Statement questions—which include, for instance, the need to:</p> <p>1. provide a clear overarching framework for the report that helps readers understand climate change as part of a complex system with interacting physical, biological, and human social/economic dimensions, and offers practical guidance on using iterative risk management strategies to make decisions in the face of large uncertainties;<br /> 2. clearly acknowledge how climate change affects and is affected by other types of major global environmental changes and other societal developments; <br /> 3. offer an explicit discussion about the uncertainties associated with the regional model projections presented in the NCA draft; <br /> 4. take full advantage of the e-book format planned for this document through strategic use of hyperlinks among different parts of the report and other innovative approaches that help guide the experience of the NCA's diverse audiences.</p> <p>As the nation continues to engage with the threats, opportunities, and surprises of climate change in its many manifestations, the 2013 NCA should prove to be a valuable resource, as a summary of the state of knowledge about climate change and its implications for the American people.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18322">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=281'>Earth Sciences</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=277'>Behavioral and Social Sciences</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=285'>Environment and Environmental Studies</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/s7-Fyw9pvA4" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18322 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18327#final 2013-04-10T09:32:40-04:00 2013-04-10T09:32:52-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>The United States holds a large amount of untapped wind energy, both land-based and offshore. The strongest and most consistent winds are either offshore or in rural areas, far from population centers that could benefit from the electricity produced. As of December 31, 2012, the United States had more than 60,000 megawatts of installed wind capacity—second only to China—all of it from land-based wind farms. Offshore wind development would supply energy to nearby population centers, especially on the East Coast. Yet the United States has no offshore turbines installed; many European nations have developed dozens of offshore wind farms over the past 15 years.</p> <p>Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which authorized the Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior (USDOI) to regulate renewable energy sources on the outer continental shelf (OCS). Initially, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) had responsibility for essential regulations and for implementing this new authority, in addition to regulating oil and gas development. In April 2010, MMS was reorganized (see Chapter 3), and previously coexisting functions were separated: resource development and energy management are now administered by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), and health, safety, and environmental enforcement for offshore oil and gas is now administered by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE). The regulation of renewable energy is an exception to this organizational structure. USDOI issued its final regulations in 30 CFR 585, which gave BOEM authority to regulate all renewable energy development activities on the OCS. The agency still needed to provide guidance in many areas of offshore wind development, including ensuring the health and safety of offshore wind workers.</p> <p>In August 2011, USDOI requested that the Marine Board of the National Research Council assess its approach for regulating the health and safety of wind farm workers on the OCS. <em>Worker Health and Safety on Offshore Wind Farms</em> reviews the following statements of task:</p> <p>- Identify unique risks to worker health and safety on wind farms, as compared with oil and gas operations on the OCS;</p> <p>- Identify any gaps or overlaps in jurisdictional authority; and</p> <p>- Evaluate the adequacy of existing regulations and recommend enhancements to<br /> regulations for worker health and safety on OCS wind farms.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18327">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> </p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/zqOvFxeP6JI" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18327 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18269#final 2013-04-09T00:00:00-04:00 2013-04-12T02:32:25-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>The charge of the Army Research Laboratory Technical Assessment Board (ARLTAB) is to provide biennial assessments of the scientific and technical quality of the research, development, and analysis programs at the Army Research Laboratory (ARL). The ARLTAB is assisted by six panels, each of which focuses on the portion of the ARL program conducted by one of ARL's six directorates1. When requested to do so by ARL, the ARLTAB also examines work that cuts across the directorates. For example, during 2011-2012, ARL requested that the ARLTAB examine crosscutting work in the areas of autonomous systems and network science.</p> <p>The overall quality of ARL's technical staff and their work continues to be impressive. Staff continue to demonstrate clear, passionate mindfulness of the importance of transitioning technology to support immediate and longer-term Army needs. Their involvement with the wider scientific and engineering community continues to expand. Such continued involvement and collaboration are fundamentally important for ARL's scientific and technical activities and need to include the essential elements of peer review and interaction through publications and travel to attend professional meetings, including international professional meetings. In general, ARL is working very well within an appropriate research and development niche and has been demonstrating significant accomplishments, as exemplified in the following discussion, which also addresses opportunities and challenges.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18269">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=280'>Conflict and Security Issues</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/vwGwD3gzdUQ" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18269 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18255#final 2013-04-08T10:46:46-04:00 2013-04-08T10:47:02-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>When, in late 2011, it became public knowledge that two research groups had submitted for publication manuscripts that reported on their work on mammalian transmissibility of a lethal H5N1 avian influenza strain, the information caused an international debate about the appropriateness and communication of the researchers' work, the risks associated with the work, partial or complete censorship of scientific publications, and dual-use research of concern in general.</p> <p>Recognizing that the H5N1 research is only the most recent scientific activity subject to widespread attention due to safety and security concerns, on May 1, 2012, the National Research Council's Committee on Science, Technology and Law, in conjunction with the Board on Life Sciences and the Institute of Medicine's Forum on Microbial Threats, convened a one-day public workshop for the purposes of 1) discussing the H5N1 controversy; 2) considering responses by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which had funded this research, the World Health Organization, the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), scientific publishers, and members of the international research community; and 3) providing a forum wherein the concerns and interests of the broader community of stakeholders, including policy makers, biosafety and biosecurity experts, non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and the general public might be articulated.</p> <p>Perspectives on Research with H5N1 Avian Influenza: Scientific Enquiry, Communication, Controversy summarizes the proceedings of the workshop.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18255">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/cUU9pR-KTd4" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18255 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18315#final 2013-04-05T00:00:00-04:00 2013-04-03T13:05:44-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>The original charter of the Space Science Board was established in June 1958, 3 months before the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) opened its doors. The Space Science Board and its successor, the Space Studies Board (SSB), have provided expert external and independent scientific and programmatic advice to NASA on a continuous basis from NASA's inception until the present. The SSB has also provided such advice to other executive branch agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the Department of Defense, as well as to Congress.</p> <p>Space Studies Board Annual Report 2012 covers a message from the chair of the SSB, Charles F. Kennel. This report also explains the origins of the Space Science Board, how the Space Studies Board functions today, the SSB's collaboration with other National Research Council units, assures the quality of the SSB reports, acknowledges the audience and sponsors, and expresses the necessity to enhance the outreach and improve dissemination of SSB reports.</p> <p>This report will be relevant to a full range of government audiences in civilian space research - including NASA, NSF, NOAA, USGS, and the Department of Energy, as well members of the SSB, policy makers, and researchers.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18315">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=293'>Space and Aeronautics</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/MKpGhnVXG1Y" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18315 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13539#final 2013-04-04T00:00:00-04:00 2013-04-12T02:43:13-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Chronic multisymptom illness (CMI) is a serious condition that imposes an enormous burden of suffering on our nation's veterans. Veterans who have CMI often have physical symptoms (such as fatigue, joint and muscle pain, and gastrointestinal symptoms) and cognitive symptoms (such as memory difficulties). For the purposes of this report, the committee defined CMI as the presence of a spectrum of chronic symptoms experienced for 6 months or longer in at least two of six categories—fatigue, mood, and cognition, musculoskeletal, gastrointestinal, respiratory, and neurologic—that may overlap with but are not fully captured by known syndromes (such as CFS, fibromyalgia, and IBS) or other diagnoses. Despite considerable efforts by researchers in the United States and elsewhere, there is no consensus among physicians, researchers, and others as to the cause of CMI. There is a growing belief that no specific causal factor or agent will be identified. Many thousands of Gulf War veterans1 who have CMI live with sometimes debilitating symptoms and seek an effective way to manage their symptoms. Estimates of the numbers of 1991 Gulf War veterans who have CMI range from 175,000 to 250,000 (about 25-35% of the 1991 Gulf War veteran population), and there is evidence that CMI in 1991 Gulf War veterans may not resolve over time. Preliminary data suggest that CMI is occurring in veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as well.</p> <p>In addition to summarizing the available scientific and medical literature regarding the best treatments for chronic multisymptom illness among <em>Gulf War veterans, Gulf War and Health: Volume 9: Treatment for Chronic Multisymptom Illness </em>recommends how best to disseminate this information throughout the VA to improve the care and benefits provided to veterans, recommends additional scientific studies and research initiatives to resolve areas of continuing scientific uncertainty and recommends such legislative or administrative action as the IOM deems appropriate in light of the results of its review.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13539">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/Xx-K8KQmoLY" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13539 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18261#final 2013-04-03T08:46:31-04:00 2013-04-03T08:47:11-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Over the past several decades, new scientific tools and approaches for detecting microbial species have dramatically enhanced our appreciation of the diversity and abundance of the microbiota and its dynamic interactions with the environments within which these microorganisms reside. The first bacterial genome was sequenced in 1995 and took more than 13 months of work to complete. Today, a microorganism's entire genome can be sequenced in a few days. Much as our view of the cosmos was forever altered in the 17th century with the invention of the telescope, these genomic technologies, and the observations derived from them, have fundamentally transformed our appreciation of the microbial world around us.</p> <p>On June 12 and 13, 2012, the Institute of Medicine's (IOM's) Forum on Microbial Threats convened a public workshop in Washington, DC, to discuss the scientific tools and approaches being used for detecting and characterizing microbial species, and the roles of microbial genomics and metagenomics to better understand the culturable and unculturable microbial world around us. Through invited presentations and discussions, participants examined the use of microbial genomics to explore the diversity, evolution, and adaptation of microorganisms in a wide variety of environments; the molecular mechanisms of disease emergence and epidemiology; and the ways that genomic technologies are being applied to disease outbreak trace back and microbial surveillance. Points that were emphasized by many participants included the need to develop robust standardized sampling protocols, the importance of having the appropriate metadata, data analysis and data management challenges, and information sharing in real time. <em>The Science and Applications of Microbial Genomics</em> summarizes this workshop.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18261">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=278'>Biology and Life Sciences</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/48UYmGRFwfM" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18261 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18257#final 2013-03-29T08:46:15-04:00 2013-03-29T08:46:22-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>In October 2011, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released the report Cognitive Rehabilitation Therapy for Traumatic Brain Injury: Evaluating the Evidence, assessing the published evidence for the effectiveness of using cognitive rehabilitation therapy (CRT) to treat people with traumatic brain injury (TBI). TBI has gained increasing attention in the past 15 years because of its status as the signature wound of American military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Growing numbers of U.S. service members are suffering traumatic brain injuries and are surviving them, given that (a) the majority of traumatic brain injuries are mild and (b) lifesaving measures for more severe injuries have significantly improved. People with any level of injury can require ongoing health care in their recovery, helping them to regain (or compensate for) their losses of function and supporting their full integration into their social structure and an improved quality of life.</p> <p>One form of treatment for TBI is CRT, a systematic, goal-oriented approach to helping patients overcome cognitive impairments. The Department of Defense (DoD) asked the IOM to evaluate CRT for traumatic brain injury in order to guide the DoD's use and coverage in the Military Health System. Cognitive Rehabilitation Therapy for Traumatic Brain Injury: Evaluating the Evidence was the IOM's resulting study of the evidence. The report's conclusions revolved around the fact that there is little continuity among research studies of the effectiveness of different types of CRT, and there exist only small amounts of evidence (or, in many cases, none) demonstrating the effectiveness of using CRT to treat TBI—although the evidence that does exist generally indicates that CRT interventions have some effectiveness.</p> <p>The workshop brought together experts in health services administration, research, and clinical practice from the civilian and military arenas in order to discuss the barriers for evaluating the effectiveness of CRT care and for identifying suggested taxonomy, terminology, timing, and ways forward for CRT researchers. The workshop consisted of individuals and was not intended to constitute a comprehensive group. Select decision makers in the Military Health System and Veterans Affairs (VA) and researchers were invited to participate. The workshop was designed to spur thinking about (1) the types of research necessary to move the field forward toward evidence-based clinical guidelines, (2) what the translational pipeline looks like and what its current deficiencies are, and (3) considerations that decision makers may choose to use as they decide what research they will support and decide how they will balance the urgency of the need with the level of evidence for CRT interventions.<em> Cognitive Rehabilitation Therapy for Traumatic Brain Injury: Model Study Protocols and Frameworks to Advance the State of the Science </em>summarizes the happenings of the workshop.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18257">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/NKbqRFggt5E" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18257 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18252#final 2013-03-29T00:00:00-04:00 2013-05-01T12:11:14-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>The Standing Committee on Defense Materials Manufacturing and Infrastructure (DMMI) conducted a workshop on July 23-24, 2012, to share information and gather perspectives on issues concerning Materials and Manufacturing Capabilities for Sustaining Defense Systems. This workshop, held at the headquarters building of the National Academies, 2101 Constitution Avenue N.W., Washington D.C., was conducted according to the procedures of the National Research Council (NRC) for a convening activity. That is, all workshop participants—including presenters, members of the DMMI standing committee, Reliance 21, invited guests, and visitors—spoke as individuals, and no overall findings, conclusions, or recommendations were developed during or as a result of the workshop. All statements and views summarized in this publication are attributable only to those individuals who expressed them. It is worth noting that the sponsor, Reliance 21, is a Department of Defense group of professionals that was established to enable the DOD science and technology (S&T) community to work together to enhance Defense S&T programs, eliminate unwarranted duplication, and strengthen cooperation among the military services and other DOD agencies.</p> <p>The DMMI standing committee named a workshop planning group to develop the workshop agenda and decide on invited guests and presenters, in accordance with the statement of task approved by the Governing Board of the NRC. The planning group also consulted with the Reliance 21 materials and processing community of interest.</p> <p>The presentations and discussions during the workshop are summarized sequentially in the main part of this report. As an aid to readers, nine themes have been identified by the author that recurred in multiple presentations and discussions. <em>Materials and Manufacturing Capabilities for Sustaining Defense Systems: Summary of a Workshop </em>explains these nine themes and summarizes the two day workshop.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18252">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=280'>Conflict and Security Issues</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/XNGRSfvh34w" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18252 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18265#final 2013-03-28T00:00:00-04:00 2013-04-02T08:49:27-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>We live in a changing world with multiple and evolving threats to national security, including terrorism, asymmetrical warfare (conflicts between agents with different military powers or tactics), and social unrest. Visually depicting and assessing these threats using imagery and other geographically-referenced information is the mission of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). As the nature of the threat evolves, so do the tools, knowledge, and skills needed to respond. The challenge for NGA is to maintain a workforce that can deal with evolving threats to national security, ongoing scientific and technological advances, and changing skills and expectations of workers.</p> <p><em>Future U.S. Workforce for Geospatial Intelligence</em> assesses the supply of expertise in 10 geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) fields, including 5 traditional areas (geodesy and geophysics, photogrammetry, remote sensing, cartographic science, and geographic information systems and geospatial analysis) and 5 emerging areas that could improve geospatial intelligence (GEOINT fusion, crowdsourcing, human geography, visual analytics, and forecasting). The report also identifies gaps in expertise relative to NGA's needs and suggests ways to ensure an adequate supply of geospatial intelligence expertise over the next 20 years.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18265">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=280'>Conflict and Security Issues</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=281'>Earth Sciences</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/LnPQoJRnzNQ" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18265 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18266#final 2013-03-27T10:46:09-04:00 2013-03-27T10:46:18-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Beginning with the development of the atomic bomb during World War II, the United States continued to build nuclear weapons throughout the Cold War. Thousands of people mined and milled uranium, conducted research on nuclear warfare, or worked in nuclear munitions factories around the country from the 1940s through the 1980s. Such work continues today, albeit to a smaller extent. The Department of Energy (DOE) is now responsible for overseeing those sites and facilities, many of which were, and continue to be, run by government contractors. The materials used at those sites were varied and ranged from the benign to the toxic and highly radioactive. Workers at DOE facilities often did not know the identity of the materials with which they worked and often were unaware of health risks related to their use. In many instances, the work was considered top secret, and employees were cautioned not to reveal any work-related information to family or others. Workers could be exposed to both radioactive and nonradioactive toxic substances for weeks or even years. Consequently, some of the workers have developed health problems and continue to have concerns about potential health effects of their exposures to occupational hazards during their employment in the nuclear weapons industry.</p> <p>In response to the concerns expressed by workers and their representatives, DOL asked the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to review the SEM database and its use of a particular database, Haz-Map, as the source of its toxic substance-occupational disease links. Accordingly, this IOM consensus report reflects careful consideration of its charge by the committee, and describes the strengths and shortcomings of both. To complete its task, IOM formed an ad hoc committee of experts in occupational medicine, toxicology, epidemiology, industrial hygiene, public health, and biostatistics to conduct an 18-month study to review the scientific rigor of the SEM database. The committee held two public meetings at which it heard from DOL Division of Energy Employee Occupational Illness Compensation (DEEOIC) representatives, the DOL contractor that developed the SEM database, the developer of the Haz-Map database, DOE worker advocacy groups, and several individual workers. The committee also submitted written questions to DOL to seek clarification of specific issues and received written responses from DEEOIC. The committee's report considers both the strengths and weaknesses of the SEM and the Haz-Map databases, recognizing that the latter was developed first and for a different purpose. The committee then discusses its findings and recommends improvements that could be made in both databases with a focus on enhancing the usability of SEM for both DOL claims examiners and for former DOE workers and their representatives. <em>Review of the Department of Labor's Site Exposure Matrix Database </em>summarizes the committee's findings.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18266">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/lDyMO-4fJpY" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18266 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18279#final 2013-03-27T00:00:00-04:00 2013-05-09T09:26:40-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>The standard incandescent light bulb, which still works mainly as Thomas Edison invented it, converts more than 90% of the consumed electricity into heat. Given the availability of newer lighting technologies that convert a greater percentage of electricity into useful light, there is potential to decrease the amount of energy used for lighting in both commercial and residential applications. Although technologies such as compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) have emerged in the past few decades and will help achieve the goal of increased energy efficiency, solid-state lighting (SSL) stands to play a large role in dramatically decreasing U.S. energy consumption for lighting. This report summarizes the current status of SSL technologies and products—light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and organic LEDs (OLEDs)—and evaluates barriers to their improved cost and performance.</p> <p><em>Assessment of Advanced Solid State Lighting</em> also discusses factors involved in achieving widespread deployment and consumer acceptance of SSL products. These factors include the perceived quality of light emitted by SSL devices, ease of use and the useful lifetime of these devices, issues of initial high cost, and possible benefits of reduced energy consumption. </p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18279">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=283'>Energy and Energy Conservation</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=284'>Engineering and Technology</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/jElpXY_RJO8" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18279 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13563#final 2013-03-27T00:00:00-04:00 2013-03-28T11:34:40-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p><em>The Childhood Immunization Schedule and Safety: Stakeholder Concerns, Scientific Evidence, and Future Studies</em> reviews scientific findings and stakeholders concerns related to the safety of the recommended childhood immunization schedule. This report also identifies potential research approaches, methodologies and study designs that could inform this question, considering strengths, weaknesses as well as ethical and financial feasibility of each approach.</p> <p>This report draws on data from existing surveillance systems, such as the Vaccine Safety Datalink, could be used and offers the best means for ongoing research efforts regarding the safety of the schedule. In recognition of this, future federal research approaches should: collect and assess evidence regarding public confidence in and concerns about the entire childhood immunization schedule, with the goal to improve communication with health care professionals, and between health care professionals and the public regarding safety; standardize definitions of key elements of the schedule, and relevant health outcomes; establish research priorities on the basis of epidemiological evidence, biological plausibility, and feasibility; and continue to fund and support the Vaccine Safety Datalink project to study the safety of the recommended immunization schedule.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13563">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/v0wubhO0hw0" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13563 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13499#final 2013-03-26T09:35:28-04:00 2013-05-24T10:27:29-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>As of December 2012, Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) in Iraq have resulted in the deployment of about 2.2 million troops; there have been 2,222 US fatalities in OEF and Operation New Dawn (OND)1 and 4,422 in OIF. The numbers of wounded US troops exceed 16,000 in Afghanistan and 32,000 in Iraq. In addition to deaths and morbidity, the operations have unforeseen consequences that are yet to be fully understood.</p> <p>In contrast with previous conflicts, the all-volunteer military has experienced numerous deployments of individual service members; has seen increased deployments of women, parents of young children, and reserve and National Guard troops; and in some cases has been subject to longer deployments and shorter times at home between deployments. Numerous reports in the popular press have made the public aware of issues that have pointed to the difficulty of military personnel in readjusting after returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of those who have served in OEF and OIF readjust with few difficulties, but others have problems in readjusting to home, reconnecting with family members, finding employment, and returning to school.</p> <p>In response to the return of large numbers of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan with physical-health and mental-health problems and to the growing readjustment needs of active duty service members, veterans, and their family members, Congress included Section 1661 of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2008. That section required the secretary of defense, in consultation with the secretary of veterans affairs, to enter into an agreement with the National Academies for a study of the physical-health, mental-health, and other readjustment needs of members and former members of the armed forces who were deployed in OIF or OEF, their families, and their communities as a result of such deployment.</p> <p>The study consisted of two phases. The Phase 1 task was to conduct a preliminary assessment. The Phase 2 task was to provide a comprehensive assessment of the physical, psychologic, social, and economic effects of deployment on and identification of gaps in care for members and former members, their families, and their communities. The Phase 1 report was completed in March 2010 and delivered to the Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and the relevant committees of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The secretaries of DOD and VA responded to the Phase 1 report in September 2010. <em>Returning Home from Iraq and Afghanistan: Assessment of Readjustment Needs of Veterans, Service Members, and Their Families </em>fulfills the requirement for Phase 2.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13499">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/rw3kxq0be3Y" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13499 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18276#prepub 2013-03-26T08:46:15-04:00 2013-03-26T09:33:48-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Prepublication Now Available</strong></p> <p>The sequencing of the human genome and the identification of links between specific genetic variants and diseases have led to tremendous excitement over the potential of genomics to direct patient treatment toward more effective or less harmful interventions. Still, the use of whole genome sequencing challenges the traditional model of medical care where a test is ordered only when there is a clear indication for its use and a path for downstream clinical action is known. This has created a tension between experts who contend that using this information is premature and those who believe that having such information will empower health care providers and patients to make proactive decisions regarding lifestyle and treatment options.</p> <p>In addition, some stakeholders are concerned that genomic technologies will add costs to the health care system without providing commensurate benefits, and others think that health care costs could be reduced by identifying unnecessary or ineffective treatments. Economic models are frequently used to anticipate the costs and benefits of new health care technologies, policies, and regulations. Economic studies also have been used to examine much more specific issues, such as comparing the outcomes and cost effectiveness of two different drug treatments for the same condition. These kinds of analyses offer more than just predictions of future health care costs. They provide information that is valuable when implementing and using new technologies. Unfortunately, however, these economic assessments are often limited by a lack of data on which to base the examination. This particularly affects health economics, which includes many factors for which current methods are inadequate for assessing, such as personal utility, social utility, and patient preference.</p> <p>To understand better the health economic issues that may arise in the course of integrating genomic data into health care, the Roundtable on Translating Genomic-Based Research for Health hosted a workshop in Washington, DC, on July 17-18, 2012, that brought together economists, regulators, payers, biomedical researchers, patients, providers, and other stakeholders to discuss the many factors that may influence this implementation. The workshop was one of a series that the roundtable has held on this topic, but it was the first focused specifically on economic issues. <em>The Economics of Genomic Medicine</em> summarizes this workshop.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18276">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/TpeGtIiVLqs" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18276 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13424#final 2013-03-26T00:00:00-04:00 2013-03-27T16:07:11-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Digital health data are the lifeblood of a continuous learning health system. A steady flow of reliable data is necessary to coordinate and monitor patient care, analyze and improve systems of care, conduct research to develop new products and approaches, assess the effectiveness of medical interventions, and advance population health. The totality of available health data is a crucial resource that should be considered an invaluable public asset in the pursuit of better care, improved health, and lower health care costs.</p> <p><br /> The ability to collect, share, and use digital health data is rapidly evolving. Increasing adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) is being driven by the implementation of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, which pays hospitals and individuals incentives if they can demonstrate that they use basic EHRs in 2011. Only a third had access to the basic features necessary to leverage this information for improvement, such as the ability to view laboratory results, maintain problem lists, or manage prescription ordering.</p> <p><br /> In addition to increased data collection, more organizations are sharing digital health data. Data collected to meet federal reporting requirements or for administrative purposes are becoming more accessible. Efforts such as Health.Data.gov provide access to government datasets for the development of insights and software applications with the goal of improving health. Within the private sector, at least one pharmaceutical company is actively exploring release of some of its clinical trial data for research by others. <em>Digital Data Improvement Priorities for Continuous Learning in Health and Health Care: Workshop Summary </em>summarizes discussions at the March 2012 Institute of Medicine (2012) workshop to identify and characterize the current deficiencies in the reliability, availability, and usability of digital health data and consider strategies, priorities, and responsibilities to address such deficiencies.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13424">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=279'>Computers and Information Technology</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/eAd0XyOGpvg" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13424 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18317#prepub 2013-03-25T10:46:14-04:00 2013-03-25T11:58:39-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Prepublication Now Available</strong></p> <p>National Patterns of R&D Resources is an annual report issued by the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) of the National Science Foundation, which provides a national view of current 'patterns' in funding of R&D activities in government, industry, academia, federally funded research and development centers, and non-profits. Total R&D funds are broken out at the national level by type of provider, type of recipient, and whether the R&D is basic, applied, or developmental. These patterns are compared both longitudinally versus historical R&D amounts, and internationally. </p> <p>This report series, which is based on input from several censuses and surveys, is used to formulate policies that, e.g., might increase incentives to support different types, sources, or recipients of R&D than is currently the case. To communicate these R&D patterns, each report is composed of a set of tabulations of national R&D disaggregated by type of donor, type of recipient, and type of R&D. While this satisfies many key user groups, the question was whether some modifications of the report could attract a wider user community and at the same time provide more useful information for current users.</p> <p><em>National Patterns of R&D Resources: Future Directions for Content and Methods </em>addresses the following questions: (1) what additional topics and tabulations could be presented without modifying the current portfolio of R&D censuses and surveys, (2) what additional topics and tabulations might be presented by expanding these current data collections, (3) what could be done to enhance international comparability of the tabulations, (4) since much of the information on non-profit R&D providers and recipients is estimated from 15 year-old data, what impact might this be having on the quality of the associated National Patterns tabulations, (5) what statistical models could be used to support the issuance R&D estimates at state-level and geographic regions below the national level, (6) what use could be made from the recent development of administrative sources of R&D information, and finally, (7) what graphical tools could be added to the current tabulations to enhance the communication of R&D patterns to the users of this series of publications.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18317">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=277'>Behavioral and Social Sciences</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=423'>Policy for Science and Technology</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/mKKW6Uce18A" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18317 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13530#final 2013-03-25T00:00:00-04:00 2013-03-26T12:40:32-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Nervous system diseases and disorders are highly prevalent and substantially contribute to the overall disease burden. Despite significant information provided by the use of animal models in the understanding of the biology of nervous system disorders and the development of therapeutics; limitations have also been identified. Treatment options that are high in efficacy and low in side effects are still lacking for many diseases and, in some cases are nonexistent. A particular problem in drug development is the high rate of attrition in Phase II and III clinical trials. Why do many therapeutics show promise in preclinical animal models but then fail to elicit predicted effects when tested in humans?</p> <p>On March 28 and 29, 2012, the Institute of Medicine Forum on Neuroscience and Nervous System Disorders convened the workshop "Improving Translation of Animal Models for Nervous System Disorders" to discuss potential opportunities for maximizing the translation of new therapies from animal models to clinical practice. The primary focus of the workshop was to examine mechanisms for increasing the efficiency of translational neuroscience research through discussions about how and when to use animal models most effectively and then best approaches for the interpretation of the data collected. Specifically, the workshop objectives were to: discuss key issues that contribute to poor translation of animal models in nervous system disorders, examine case studies that highlight successes and failures in the development and application of animal models, consider strategies to increase the scientific rigor of preclinical efficacy testing, explore the benefits and challenges to developing standardized animal and behavioral models. <em>Improving the Utility and Translation of Animal Models for Nervous System Disorders: Workshop Summary </em>also identifies methods to facilitate development of corresponding animal and clinical endpoints, indentifies methods that would maximize bidirectional translation between basic and clinical research and determines the next steps that will be critical for improvement of the development and testing of animal models of disorders of the nervous system.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13530">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=278'>Biology and Life Sciences</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/CcMltWPLXxM" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13530 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13509#final 2013-03-25T00:00:00-04:00 2013-03-26T10:34:41-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Following a 2011 report by the National Research Council (NRC) on successful K-12 education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), Congress asked the National Science Foundation to identify methods for tracking progress toward the report's recommendations. In response, the NRC convened the Committee on an Evaluation Framework for Successful K-12 STEM Education to take on this assignment. The committee developed 14 indicators linked to the 2011 report's recommendations. By providing a focused set of key indicators related to students' access to quality learning, educator's capacity, and policy and funding initiatives in STEM, the committee addresses the need for research and data that can be used to monitor progress in K-12 STEM education and make informed decisions about improving it.</p> <p><br /> The recommended indicators provide a framework for Congress and relevant deferral agencies to create and implement a national-level monitoring and reporting system that: assesses progress toward key improvements recommended by a previous National Research Council (2011) committee; measures student knowledge, interest, and participation in the STEM disciplines and STEM-related activities; tracks financial, human capital, and material investments in K-12 STEM education at the federal, state, and local levels; provides information about the capabilities of the STEM education workforce, including teachers and principals; and facilitates strategic planning for federal investments in STEM education and workforce development when used with labor force projections. All 14 indicators explained in this report are intended to form the core of this system. <em>Monitoring Progress Toward Successful K-12 STEM Education: A Nation Advancing? </em>summarizes the 14 indicators and tracks progress towards the initial report's recommendations.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13509">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=282'>Education</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/u9uRcJ20bqE" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13509 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18308#final 2013-03-22T13:46:02-04:00 2013-04-24T09:41:08-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p><em>Interim Report of the Committee on Geographic Variation in Health Care Spending and Promotion of High-Value Health Care: Preliminary Committee Observations </em>is designed to provide the committee's preliminary observations for the 113th Congress as it considers further Medicare reform. This report contains only key preliminary observations related primarily to the committee's commissioned analyses of Medicare Parts A (Hospital Insurance program), B (Supplementary Medical Insurance program) and D (outpatient prescription drug benefit), complemented by other empirical investigations. It does not contain any observations related to the committee's commissioned analyses of the commercial insurer population, Medicare Advantage, or Medicaid, which will be presented in the committee's final report after completion of quality-control activities.</p> <p>This interim report excludes conclusions or recommendations related to the committee's consideration of the geographic value index or other payment reforms designed to promote highvalue care. Additional analyses are forthcoming, which will influence the committee's deliberations. These analyses include an exploration of how Medicare Part C (Medicare Advantage) and commercial spending, utilization, and quality vary compared with, and possibly are influenced by, Medicare Parts A and B spending, utilization, and quality. The committee also is assessing potential biases that may be inherent to Medicare and commercial claims-based measures of health status. Based on this new evidence and continued review of the literature, the committee will confirm the accuracy of the observations presented in this interim report and develop final conclusions and recommendations, which will be published in the committee's final report.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18308">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/LyyLFcO3WD8" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18308 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11263#final 2013-03-22T11:48:03-04:00 2013-03-22T11:48:37-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> In response to a request from Congress, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Homeland Security sponsored a National Academies study to assess the safety and security risks of spent nuclear fuel stored in cooling pools and dry casks at commercial nuclear power plants. The information provided in this book examines the risks of terrorist attacks using these materials for a radiological dispersal device. <i>Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel</i> is an unclassified public summary of a more detailed classified book. The book finds that successful terrorist attacks on spent fuel pools, though difficult, are possible. A propagating fire in a pool could release large amounts of radioactive material, but rearranging spent fuel in the pool during storage and providing emergency water spray systems would reduce the likelihood of a propagating fire even under severe damage conditions. The book suggests that additional studies are needed to better understand these risks. Although dry casks have advantages over cooling pools, pools are necessary at all operating nuclear power plants to store at least the recently discharged fuel. The book explains it would be difficult for terrorists to steal enough spent fuel to construct a significant radiological dispersal device. <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11263">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=280'>Conflict and Security Issues</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=285'>Environment and Environmental Studies</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/onHu4Wcy7fc" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11263 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18250#prepub 2013-03-21T10:46:20-04:00 2013-03-21T10:46:20-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Prepublication Now Available</strong></p> <p>Energy and mineral resources are essential for the nation's fundamental functions, its economy, and security. Nonfuel minerals are essential for the existence and operations of products that are used by people every day and are provided by various sectors of the mining industry. Energy in the United States is provided from a variety of resources including fossil fuels, and renewable and nuclear energy, all with established commercial industry bases. The United States is the largest electric power producer in the world. The overall value added to the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) in 2011 by major industries that consumed processed nonfuel mineral materials was $2.2 trillion.</p> <p><br /> Recognizing the importance of understanding the state of the energy and mining workforce in the United States to assure a trained and skilled workforce of sufficient size for the future, the Department of Energy's (DOE's) National Energy technology Laboratory (NETL) contracted with the National Research Council (NRC) to perform a study of the emerging workforce trends in the U.S. energy and mining industries. <em>Emerging Workforce Trends in the U.S. Energy and Mining Industries: A Call to Action </em>summarizes the findings of this study.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18250">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=289'>Industry and Labor</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=283'>Energy and Energy Conservation</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/hwSmjPfj1F0" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18250 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18312#prepub 2013-03-20T11:50:13-04:00 2013-03-20T12:03:31-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Prepublication Now Available</strong></p> <p><em>Adapting to a Changing World </em>was commissioned by the National Science Foundation to examine the present status of undergraduate physics education, including the state of physics education research, and, most importantly, to develop a series of recommendations for improving physics education that draws from the knowledge we have about learning and effective teaching. Our committee has endeavored to do so, with great interest and more than a little passion.</p> <p>The Committee on Undergraduate Physics Education Research and Implementation was established in 2010 by the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Research Council. This report summarizes the committee's response to its statement of task, which requires the committee to produce a report that identifies the goals and challenges facing undergraduate physics education and identifies how best practices for undergraduate physics education can be implemented on a widespread and sustained basis, assess the status of physics education research (PER) and discuss how PER can assist in accomplishing the goal of improving undergraduate physics education best practices and education policy.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18312">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=282'>Education</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/10HYYwcMggk" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18312 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18309#prepub 2013-03-20T10:46:15-04:00 2013-03-21T09:33:37-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Prepublication Now Available</strong></p> <p>The Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration (FIMA) manages the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which is a cornerstone in the U.S. strategy to assist communities to prepare for, mitigate against, and recover from flood disasters. The NFIP was established by Congress with passage of the National Flood Insurance Act in 1968, to help reduce future flood damages through NFIP community floodplain regulation that would control development in flood hazard areas, provide insurance for a premium to property owners, and reduce federal expenditures for disaster assistance. The flood insurance is available only to owners of insurable property located in communities that participate in the NFIP. Currently, the program has 5,555,915 million policies in 21,881 communities3 across the United States.</p> <p>The NFIP defines the one percent annual chance flood (100-year or base flood) floodplain as a Special Flood Hazard Area (SFHA). The SFHA is delineated on FEMA's Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRM's) using topographic, meteorologic, hydrologic, and hydraulic information. Property owners with a federally back mortgage within the SFHAs are required to purchase and retain flood insurance, called the mandatory flood insurance purchase requirement (MPR). Levees and floodwalls, hereafter referred to as levees, have been part of flood management in the United States since the late 1700's because they are relatively easy to build and a reasonable infrastructure investment. A levee is a man-made structure, usually an earthen embankment, designed and constructed in accordance with sound engineering practices to contain, control, or divert the flow of water so as to provide protection from temporary flooding. A levee system is a flood protection system which consists of a levee, or levees, and associated structures, such as closure and drainage devices, which are constructed and operated in accordance with sound engineering practices.</p> <p>Recognizing the need for improving the NFIP's treatment of levees, FEMA officials approached the National Research Council's (NRC) Water Science and Technology Board (WSTB) and requested this study. The NRC responded by forming the ad hoc Committee on Levee and the National Flood Insurance Program: Improving Policies and Practices, charged to examine current FEMA treatment of levees within the NFIP and provide advice on how those levee-elated policies and activities could be improved. The study addressed four broad areas, risk analysis, flood insurance, risk reduction, and risk communication, regarding how levees are considered in the NFIP. Specific issues within these areas include current risk analysis and mapping procedures behind accredited and non-accredited levees, flood insurance pricing and the mandatory flood insurance purchase requirement, mitigation options to reduce risk for communities with levees, flood risk communication efforts, and the concept of shared responsibility. The principal conclusions and recommendations are highlighted in this report.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18309">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=281'>Earth Sciences</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/YNVyTxW2Dr4" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18309 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18260#final 2013-03-20T00:00:00-04:00 2013-04-02T08:55:06-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p><em>Collecting Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Data in Electronic Health Records: Workshop Summary</em> reviews the statement of task set to the committee which required them to collect sexual orientation and gender identity data in electronic health records. This report summarizes the invited presentations and facilitated discussions about current practices around sexual orientation and gender identity data collection, the challenges in collecting these data, and ways in which these challenges can be overcome.</p> <p>Areas of focus for the workshop include the clinical rationale behind collecting these data, standardized questions that can be used to collect these data, mechanisms for supporting providers and patients in the collection of these data, technical specifications involved in creating standards for sexual orientation and gender identity data collection and exchange, and policy considerations related to the health information technology (HIT) Meaningful Use process being overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services. This report summarizes the workshop agenda, select invited speakers and discussants, and moderate the discussions. Invited participants will include lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) health care consumer advocates, providers with experience working with LGBT populations, HIT vendors and other HIT specialists, health care administrators, and policy makers.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18260">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=279'>Computers and Information Technology</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/0o8nYep2nT8" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18260 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13517#final 2013-03-20T00:00:00-04:00 2013-03-20T11:57:16-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Nanotechnology has become one of the defining ideas in global R&D over the past decade. In 2001 the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) was established as the U.S. government interagency program for coordinating nanotechnology research and development across deferral agencies and facilitating communication and collaborative activities in nanoscale science, engineering, and technology across the federal government. The 26 federal agencies that participate in the NNI collaborate to (1) advance world-class nanotechnology research and development; (2) foster the transfer of new technologies into products for commercial and public benefit; (3) develop and sustain educational resources, a skilled workforce and the supporting infrastructure and tools to advance nanotechnology; and (4) support the responsible development of nanotechnology. As part of the third triennial review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative, the Committee on Triennial Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative: Phase II was asked to provide advice to the Nanoscale Science, Engineering, and Technology (NSET) Subcommittee and the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office in three areas:</p> <p><br /> Task 1 - Examine the role of the NNI in maximizing opportunities to transfer selected technologies to the private sector, provide an assessment of how well the NNI is carrying out this role, and suggest new mechanisms to foster transfer of technologies and improvements to NNI operations in this area where warranted.<br /> Task 2 - Assess the suitability of current procedures and criteria for determining progress towards NNI goals, suggest definitions of success and associated metrics, and provide advice on those organizations (government or non-government) that could perform evaluations of progress.<br /> Task 3 - Review NNI's management and coordination of nanotechnology research across both civilian and military federal agencies.</p> <p><em>Interim Report for the Triennial Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative, Phase II</em> offers initial comment on the committee's approach to Task 2 and offers initial comments on the current procedures and criteria for determining progress toward and achievement of the desired outcomes.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13517">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=284'>Engineering and Technology</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/BZ2_QbvMjGs" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13517 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18249#final 2013-03-20T00:00:00-04:00 2013-06-03T10:56:14-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Lead is a ubiquitous metal in the environment, and its adverse effects on human health are well documented. Lead interacts at multiple cellular sites and can alter protein function in part through binding to amino acid sulfhydryl and carboxyl groups on a wide variety of structural and functional proteins. In addition, lead mimics calcium and other divalent cations, and it induces the increased production of cytotoxic reactive oxygen species. Adverse effects associated with lead exposure can be observed in multiple body systems, including the nervous, cardiovascular, renal, hematologic, immunologic, and reproductive systems. Lead exposure is also known to induce adverse developmental effects in utero and in the developing neonate.</p> <p>Lead poses an occupational health hazard, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) developed a lead standard for general industry that regulates many workplace exposures to this metal. The standard was promulgated in 1978 and encompasses several approaches for reducing exposure to lead, including the establishment of a permissible exposure limit (PEL) of 50 &mu;g/m3 in air (an 8-hour time-weighted average [TWA]), exposure guidelines for instituting medical surveillance, guidelines for removal from and return to work, and other risk-management strategies. An action level of 30 &mu;g/m3 (an 8-hour TWA) for lead was established to trigger medical surveillance in employees exposed above that level for more than 30 days per year. Another provision is that any employee who has a blood lead level (BLL) of 60 &mu;g/dL or higher or three consecutive BLLs averaging 50 &mu;g/dL or higher must be removed from work involving lead exposure. An employee may resume work associated with lead exposure only after two BLLs are lower than 40 &mu;g/dL. Thus, maintaining BLLs lower than 40 &mu;g/dL was judged by OSHA to protect workers from adverse health effects. The OSHA standard also includes a recommendation that BLLs of workers who are planning a pregnancy be under 30&mu;g/dL.</p> <p>In light of knowledge about the hazards posed by occupational lead exposure, the Department of Defense (DOD) asked the National Research Council to evaluate potential health risks from recurrent lead exposure of firing-range personnel. Specifically, DOD asked the National Research Council to determine whether current exposure standards for lead on DOD firing ranges protect its workers adequately.The committee also considered measures of cumulative lead dose. Potential Health Risks to DOD Firing-Range Personnel from Recurrent Lead Exposure will help to inform decisions about setting new air exposure limits for lead on firing ranges, about whether to implement limits for surface contamination, and about how to design lead-surveillance programs for range personnel appropriately.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18249">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=280'>Conflict and Security Issues</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/R9lzxgmA4Kg" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18249 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18264#final 2013-03-18T13:46:17-04:00 2013-03-18T13:46:17-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p> <p>For a century, almost all light-duty vehicles (LDVs) have been powered by internal combustion engines operating on petroleum fuels. Energy security concerns about petroleum imports and the effect of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on global climate are driving interest in alternatives. <em>Transitions to Alternative Vehicles and Fuels</em> assesses the potential for reducing petroleum consumption and GHG emissions by 80 percent across the U.S. LDV fleet by 2050, relative to 2005.</p> <p>This report examines the current capability and estimated future performance and costs for each vehicle type and non-petroleum-based fuel technology as options that could significantly contribute to these goals. By analyzing scenarios that combine various fuel and vehicle pathways, the report also identifies barriers to implementation of these technologies and suggests policies to achieve the desired reductions. Several scenarios are promising, but strong, and effective policies such as research and development, subsidies, energy taxes, or regulations will be necessary to overcome barriers, such as cost and consumer choice.</p> </p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18264">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=283'>Energy and Energy Conservation</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=281'>Earth Sciences</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/Cc9s4RoayNw" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18264 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18300#prepub 2013-03-14T10:45:29-04:00 2013-03-14T11:55:17-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Prepublication Now Available</strong></p> <p>Coal mine disasters in the United States are relatively rare events; many of the roughly 50,000 miners underground will never have to evacuate a mine in an emergency during their careers. However, for those that do, the consequences have the potential to be devastating. U.S. mine safety practices have received increased attention in recent years because of the highly publicized coal mine disasters in 2006 and 2010. Investigations have centered on understanding both how to prevent or mitigate emergencies and what capabilities are needed by miners to self-escape to a place of safety successfully. This report focuses on the latter - the preparations for self-escape.</p> <p>In the wake of 2006 disasters, the U.S. Congress passed the Mine Improvement<br /> and New Emergency Response Act of 2006 (MINER Act), which was designed to strengthen existing mine safety regulations and set forth new measures aimed at improving accident preparedness and emergency response in underground coal mines. Since that time, the efforts of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) have contributed to safety improvements in the mining industry. However, the Upper Big Branch mine explosion in 2010 served as a reminder to remain ever vigilant on improving the prevention of mine disasters and preparations to help miners survive in the event of emergencies.</p> <p>This study was set in the context of human-systems integration (HSI), a systems approach that examines the interaction of people, tasks, and equipment and technology in the pursuit of a goal. It recognizes this interaction occurs within, and is influenced by, the broader environmental context. A key premise of human-systems integration is that much important information is lost when the various tasks within a system are considered individually or in isolation rather than in interaction with the whole system. <em>Improving Self-Escape from Underground Coal Mines</em>, the task of self-escape is part of the mine safety system. </p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18300">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=289'>Industry and Labor</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=277'>Behavioral and Social Sciences</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/tOTmyw7p8lQ" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18300 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18277#final 2013-03-14T00:00:00-04:00 2013-03-27T12:41:28-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>In the fall of 2010, the U.S. National Academies (consisting of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine) and the Russian Academy of Sciences (in cooperation with the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences and the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences) initiated a joint study of U.S.-Russian bilateral engagement in the biological sciences and biotechnology (hereinafter collectively referred to as bioengagement). The U.S. Department of State and the Russian Academy of Sciences provided support for the study. The academies established a joint committee of 12 leading scientists from the two countries to assess bioengagement activities since 1996 and to provide recommendations as to collaborative efforts in the near future. <em>The Unique U.S.-Russian Relationship in Biological Science and Biotechnology: Recent Experience and Future Directions </em>summarizes the principal conclusions and recommendations of the study.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18277">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=278'>Biology and Life Sciences</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/m5uRMPK1YBs" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18277 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13497#final 2013-03-12T00:00:00-04:00 2013-03-20T09:22:15-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. </p> <p>In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. </p> <p><em>U.S. Health in International Perspective</em> presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage. </p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13497">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=277'>Behavioral and Social Sciences</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/h3ujrUNvsDI" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13497 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18295#final 2013-03-12T00:00:00-04:00 2013-05-08T02:45:59-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Overall Air Force weapon system sustainment (WSS) costs are growing at more than 4 percent per year, while budgets have remained essentially flat. The cost growth is due partly to aging of the aircraft fleet, and partly to the cost of supporting higher-performance aircraft and new capabilities provided by more complex and sophisticated systems, such as the latest intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms. Furthermore, the expectation for the foreseeable future is that sustainment budgets are likely to decrease, so that the gap between budgets and sustainment needs will likely continue to grow wider. Most observers accept that the Air Force will have to adopt new approaches to WSS if it is going to address this problem and remain capable of carrying out its missions.</p> <p>In this context, the original intent of this 3-day workshop was to focus on ways that science and technology (S&T) could help the Air Force reduce sustainment costs. However, as the workshop evolved, the discussions focused more and more on Air Force leadership, management authority, and culture as the more critical factors that need to change in order to solve sustainment problems. Many participants felt that while S&T investments could certainly help--particularly if applied in the early stages ("to the left") of the product life cycle--adopting a transformational management approach that defines the user-driven goals of the enterprise, empowers people to achieve them, and holds them accountable, down to the shop level. Several workshop participants urged Air Force leaders to start the process now, even though it will take years to percolate down through the entire organization. These sustainment concerns are not new and have been studied extensively, including recent reports from the National Research Council's Air Force Studies Board and the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18295">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=280'>Conflict and Security Issues</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=293'>Space and Aeronautics</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/x32qCr6IDL4" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18295 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18297#final 2013-03-06T14:58:13-05:00 2013-03-06T14:58:30-05:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>The Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) collaborated in this study with the Board on Maternal, Child, and Family Health Research of the Commission on Life Sciences of the National Research Council (NRC) to determine methodologies needed to evaluate current childbirth settings in the United States. Although the proportion of non-hospital births runs as high as 4.4 percent annually in Oregon, insufficient data exist to permit complete evaluation of the various birth settings. The application of good research methods should lead to scientific findings that provide the basis for informed, rational decision making about alternative settings for childbirth.</p> <p>A committee of 11 experts was appointed to review current knowledge, provide background knowledge, and identify the kinds of research designs useful for assessing such matters as the safety, quality of maternity care, costs, psychological factors, and family satisfaction of different birth settings. The committee was also charged with preparing a report that could be used to solicit, evaluate, and fund proposals for studies on childbirth settings. The committee did not design specific studies to be carried out, but rather attempted to point out issues that should be considered by researchers because it believed that the best proposals would arise from investigator-initiated research. Gaps in research could be filled by requests for proposals developed by agency staff and the agency peer review committee. In addition, IOM staff members and several consultants provided background papers for the committee's consideration. The research that results from this report will be useful to policymakers and to consumers searching for information to aid in making decisions about birth settings. <em>Research Issues in the Assessment of Birth Settings </em>summarizes the study.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18297">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/PfyBuhNa1D8" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18297 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18291#final 2013-03-04T16:43:50-05:00 2013-03-04T16:43:55-05:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Being healthy is a topic that is on everyone's mind these days. If you are pregnant or may become pregnant in the future, it's really important. In 2009, the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council published updated guidelines on weight gain during pregnancy that enhances your ability to have a healthy pregnancy and baby. This book provides vital information for expectant mothers or those trying to conceive.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18291">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/-39Se0WKLko" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18291 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18292#final 2013-03-04T16:39:30-05:00 2013-03-04T16:39:36-05:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Being healthy is a topic that is on everyone's mind these days. If you are pregnant or may become pregnant in the future, it's really important. In 2009, the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council published updated guidelines on weight gain during pregnancy that enhances your ability to have a healthy pregnancy and baby. This book provides vital information for expectant mothers or those trying to conceive. Health care providers can do a lot to help women learn about the follow the guidelines. This book features the key points from the guidelines.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18292">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/vLyJqkprqb8" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18292 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13496#final 2013-03-01T00:00:00-05:00 2013-04-22T12:04:45-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>U.S. agencies with responsibilities for enforcing equal employment opportunity laws have long relied on detailed information that is obtained from employers on employment in job groups by gender and race/ethnicity for identifying the possibility of discriminatory practices. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the Office of Federal Contract Compliance programs of the U.S. Department of Labor, and the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice have developed processes that use these employment data as well as other sources of information to target employers for further investigation and to perform statistical analysis that is used in enforcing the anti-discrimination laws. The limited data from employers do not include (with a few exceptions) the ongoing measurement of possible discrimination in compensation.</p> <p>The proposed Paycheck Fairness Act of 2009 would have required EEOC to issue regulations mandating that employers provide the EEOC with information on pay by the race, gender, and national origin of employees. The legislation was not enacted. If the legislation had become law, the EEOC would have been required to confront issues regarding currently available and potential data sources, methodological requirements, and appropriate statistical techniques for the measurement and collection of employer pay data.</p> <p>The panel concludes that the collection of earnings data would be a significant undertaking for the EEOC and that there might be an increased reporting burden on some employers. Currently, there is no clearly articulated vision of how the data on wages could be used in the conduct of the enforcement responsibilities of the relevant agencies.<em> Collecting Compensation Data from Employers </em>gives recommendations for targeting employers for investigation regarding their compliance with antidiscrimination laws.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13496">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=289'>Industry and Labor</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/dpn-eXT48jw" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13496 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13498#final 2013-03-01T00:00:00-05:00 2013-03-01T11:12:34-05:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is responsible for securing and managing the nation's borders. Over the past decade, DHS has dramatically stepped up its enforcement efforts at the U.S.-Mexico border, increasing the number of U.S. Border patrol (USBP) agents, expanding the deployment of technological assets, and implementing a variety of "consequence programs" intended to deter illegal immigration. During this same period, there has also been a sharp decline in the number of unauthorized migrants apprehended at the border.</p> <p><br /> Trends in total apprehensions do not, however, by themselves speak to the effectiveness of DHS's investments in immigration enforcement. In particular, to evaluate whether heightened enforcement efforts have contributed to reducing the flow of undocumented migrants, it is critical to estimate the number of border-crossing attempts during the same period for which apprehensions data are available. With these issues in mind, DHS charged the National Research Council (NRC) with providing guidance on the use of surveys and other methodologies to estimate the number of unauthorized crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border, preferably by geographic region and on a quarterly basis. <em>Options for Estimating Illegal Entries at the U.S.-Mexico Border </em>focuses on Mexican migrants since Mexican nationals account for the vast majority (around 90 percent) of attempted unauthorized border crossings across the U.S.-Mexico border.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13498">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=277'>Behavioral and Social Sciences</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/YVz4C8NbD1o" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13498 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=14670#final 2013-02-28T10:45:14-05:00 2013-03-15T10:48:42-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>For thousands of years, the underground has provided humans refuge, useful resources, physical support for surface structures, and a place for spiritual or artistic expression. More recently, many urban services have been placed underground. Over this time, humans have rarely considered how underground space can contribute to or be engineered to maximize its contribution to the sustainability of society. As human activities begin to change the planet and population struggle to maintain satisfactory standards of living, placing new infrastructure and related facilities underground may be the most successful way to encourage or support the redirection of urban development into sustainable patterns. Well maintained, resilient, and adequately performing underground infrastructure, therefore, becomes an essential part of sustainability, but much remains to be learned about improving the sustainability of underground infrastructure itself. </p> <p>At the request of the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Research Council (NRC) conducted a study to consider sustainable underground development in the urban environment, to identify research needed to maximize opportunities for using underground space, and to enhance understanding among the public and technical communities of the role of underground engineering in urban sustainability. </p> <p><em>Underground Engineering for Sustainable Urban Development </em>explains the findings of researchers and practitioners with expertise in geotechnical engineering, underground design and construction, trenchless technologies, risk assessment, visualization techniques for geotechnical applications, sustainable infrastructure development, life cycle assessment, infrastructure policy and planning, and fire prevention, safety and ventilation in the underground. This report is intended to inform a future research track and will be of interest to a broad audience including those in the private and public sectors engaged in urban and facility planning and design, underground construction, and safety and security.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=14670">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=284'>Engineering and Technology</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/AT0B47tlqps" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=14670 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18259#final 2013-02-28T10:45:01-05:00 2013-02-28T10:45:14-05:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>In June 2012, the Committee on National Statistics (sponsored by the U.S. Census Bureau) convened a Workshop on the Benefits (and Burdens) of the American Community Survey (ACS)---the detailed demographic and economic survey that began full-scale data collection in 2005 and that replaced the traditional "long form" in the 2010 census. ACS data are used by numerous federal agencies to administer programs, yet the ACS only moved from abstraction to reality for most users in 2010, when the first ACS estimates for small areas (based on 5 years of collected data) were made available. Hence, the workshop marked the opportunity to develop a picture of the breadth of the nonfederal user base of the ACS---among them, the media, policy research and evaluation groups (that distill ACS results for the media and broader public), state and local agencies, businesses and economic development organizations, and local and regional planning authorities---and to gather information on users' experiences with the first full releases of ACS products.</p> <p>In addition to covering innovative uses of the information now available on a continuous basis in the ACS, the workshop gave expression to the challenges and burdens associated with the survey: the time burden places on respondents, the challenges of explaining and interpreting estimates with increased levels of variability, and the privacy and confidentiality implications of some of the ACS content. Benefits, Burdens, and Prospects of the American Community Survey: Summary of a Workshop provides a factual summary of the workshop proceedings and hints at the contours of the ACS user constituency, providing important input to the ongoing review and refinement of the ACS program.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18259">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=277'>Behavioral and Social Sciences</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/SzjQnqXc-qc" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18259 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=14668#final 2013-02-27T17:39:24-05:00 2013-02-27T17:39:24-05:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Across the United States, thousands of hazardous waste sites are contaminated with chemicals that prevent the underlying groundwater from meeting drinking water standards. These include Superfund sites and other facilities that handle and dispose of hazardous waste, active and inactive dry cleaners, and leaking underground storage tanks; many are at federal facilities such as military installations. While many sites have been closed over the past 30 years through cleanup programs run by the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. EPA, and other state and federal agencies, the remaining caseload is much more difficult to address because the nature of the contamination and subsurface conditions make it difficult to achieve drinking water standards in the affected groundwater.</p> <p><em>Alternatives for Managing the Nation's Complex Contaminated Groundwater Sites</em> estimates that at least 126,000 sites across the U.S. still have contaminated groundwater, and their closure is expected to cost at least $110 billion to $127 billion. About 10 percent of these sites are considered "complex," meaning restoration is unlikely to be achieved in the next 50 to 100 years due to technological limitations. At sites where contaminant concentrations have plateaued at levels above cleanup goals despite active efforts, the report recommends evaluating whether the sites should transition to long-term management, where risks would be monitored and harmful exposures prevented, but at reduced costs.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=14668">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=285'>Environment and Environmental Studies</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=281'>Earth Sciences</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/Hyc_j8-XJSs" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=14668 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18296#final 2013-02-27T09:45:01-05:00 2013-02-27T09:45:06-05:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>In 2012, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) approached the National Research Council's TIGER standing committee and asked it to develop a list of workshop topics to explore the impact of emerging science and technology. One topic that came out of that list was adaptive structural materials. This workshop was held on July 11-12, 2012. </p> <p>The objectives for the workshop were to explore the potential use of adaptive structural materials science and technology for military application. Understanding the current research in this area, and the potential opportunities to use this research by U.S. adversaries, allows the Defense Warning Office to advise U.S. policy makers in an appropriate and timely manner to take action on those areas deemed a national security risk. The workshop featured invited presentations and discussions that aimed to:<br /> 1. Review the latest advances and applications both nationally and internationally related to adaptive structural materials scientific research and technology development.<br /> 2. Review adaptive materials related to shape memory, magnetostrictive materials, magnetic shape memory alloys, phase change materials, and other metal and non-metallic materials research that may be uncovered during the course of workshop preparation and execution, to include all soft or nanoscale materials such as those used in human bone or tissue.<br /> 3. Review modeling, processing and fabrication related to defining designs or design requirements for future military or dual-use air, space, land, sea or human systems.<br /> 4. Review dual-use applications of commercial adaptive structural materials research and development, and the potential impacts on U.S. national security interests.<br /> 5. The workshop then focused on the application of adaptive structural materials technology and the national security implications for the United States, discussing U.S. and foreign researchers' current research, why the state or non-state actor application of a technology is important in the context of technological and military capabilities, and what critical breakthroughs are needed to advance the field.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18296">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=280'>Conflict and Security Issues</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/RWjbjfW1Vxg" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18296 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13438#final 2013-02-25T00:00:00-05:00 2013-02-26T18:47:15-05:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>The principal goals of the study were to articulate the scientific rationale and objectives of the field and then to take a long-term strategic view of U.S. nuclear science in the global context for setting future directions for the field. Nuclear Physics: Exploring the Heart of Matter provides a long-term assessment of an outlook for nuclear physics.</p> <p><br /> The first phase of the report articulates the scientific rationale and objectives of the field, while the second phase provides a global context for the field and its long-term priorities and proposes a framework for progress through 2020 and beyond. In the second phase of the study, also developing a framework for progress through 2020 and beyond, the committee carefully considered the balance between universities and government facilities in terms of research and workforce development and the role of international collaborations in leveraging future investments.</p> <p><br /> Nuclear physics today is a diverse field, encompassing research that spans dimensions from a tiny fraction of the volume of the individual particles (neutrons and protons) in the atomic nucleus to the enormous scales of astrophysical objects in the cosmos.<em> Nuclear Physics: Exploring the Heart of Matter </em>explains the research objectives, which include the desire not only to better understand the nature of matter interacting at the nuclear level, but also to describe the state of the universe that existed at the big bang. This report explains how the universe can now be studied in the most advanced colliding-beam accelerators, where strong forces are the dominant interactions, as well as the nature of neutrinos.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13438">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=290'>Math, Chemistry and Physics</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/h-p_0wdsuQs" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13438 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=9267#final 2013-02-21T16:34:57-05:00 2013-02-21T16:35:04-05:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Astronomy occupies a special place in the research portfolio of this country. Understanding the cosmos is one of the oldest intellectual goals of humanity, and the discoveries of astronomers clearly excite the imagination of the public at large. From primary schools to universities, from planetaria to features in the media, astronomy offers numerous opportunities to improve the scientific literacy of this nation, and astronomers are increasingly engaged in these educational activities. Although for many people astronomy is a clear example of one of the noblest of basic research activities, it is often less recognized that it can and does contribute to other national goals. In particular, its research activities depend on and contribute to the applied development of sophisticated sensors, an essential enabling technology for many scientific fields and for the defense, medical, and commercial sectors, modern astronomical facilities, and their sophisticated instrumentation, utilizing state-of- the-art detectors, computing resources, and optical design, are expensive.<br /> <br /> Astronomers are fortunate that the Congress has authorized the construction of numerous major national facilities. National ground-based astronomical facilities are supported primarily by the National Science Foundation (NSF), both in the construction and operations phases. Still, roughly half of U.S. astronomers must rely entirely on the National Optical Astronomy Observatories (NOAO) for access to telescopes, and nearly all rely on NOAO facilities for some aspects of their work. In this eventuality, the panel recommends that the proper instrumentation and operation of the Gemini telescopes should have first priority. The panel also affirms the high priority for the ATI program, which was recommended by the Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey Committee (AASC) report.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=9267">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=293'>Space and Aeronautics</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/3EnNQyJZvv8" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=9267 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13484#final 2013-02-21T08:45:01-05:00 2013-03-15T10:31:40-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>The Institute of Medicine (IOM) Roundtable on Health Literacy focuses on bringing together leaders from the federal government, foundations, health plans, associations, and private companies to address challenges facing health literacy practice and research and to identify approaches to promote health literacy in both the public and private sectors. The roundtable serves to educate the public, press, and policy makers regarding the issues of health literacy, sponsoring workshops to discuss approaches to resolve health literacy challenges. It also builds partnerships to move the field of health literacy forward by translating research findings into practical strategies for implementation. The Roundtable held a workshop March 29, 2012, to explore the field of oral health literacy.</p> <p>The workshop was organized by an independent planning committee in accordance with the procedures of the National Academy of Sciences. The planning group was composed of Sharon Barrett, Benard P. Dreyer, Alice M. Horowitz, Clarence Pearson, and Rima Rudd. The role of the workshop planning committee was limited to planning the workshop. Unlike a consensus committee report, a workshop summary may not contain conclusions and recommendations, except as expressed by and attributed to individual presenters and participants. Therefore, the summary has been prepared by the workshop rapporteur as a factual summary of what occurred at the workshop.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13484">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/LgoxA5l4zVU" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13484 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13441#final 2013-02-21T00:00:00-05:00 2013-02-21T13:58:28-05:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Problems stemming from the misuse and abuse of alcohol and other drugs are by no means a new phenomenon, although the face of the issues has changed in recent years. National trends indicate substantial increases in the abuse of prescription medications. These increases are particularly prominent within the military, a population that also continues to experience long-standing issues with alcohol abuse. The problem of substance abuse within the military has come under new scrutiny in the context of the two concurrent wars in which the United States has been engaged during the past decade--in Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom) and Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn). Increasing rates of alcohol and other drug misuse adversely affect military readiness, family readiness, and safety, thereby posing a significant public health problem for the Department of Defense (DoD).</p> <p>To better understand this problem, DoD requested that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) assess the adequacy of current protocols in place across DoD and the different branches of the military pertaining to the prevention, screening, diagnosis, and treatment of substance use disorders (SUDs).<em> Substance Use Disorders in the U.S. Armed Forces </em>reviews the IOM's task of assessing access to SUD care for service members, members of the National Guard and Reserves, and military dependents, as well as the education and credentialing of SUD care providers, and offers specific recommendations to DoD on where and how improvements in these areas could be made.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13441">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=280'>Conflict and Security Issues</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/cM4rfpVilYE" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13441 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18289#prepub 2013-02-20T11:20:33-05:00 2013-02-20T11:20:51-05:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Prepublication Now Available</strong></p> <p>The potential for using fusion energy to produce commercial electric power was first explored in the 1950s. Harnessing fusion energy offers the prospect of a nearly carbon-free energy source with a virtually unlimited supply of fuel. Unlike nuclear fission plants, appropriately designed fusion power plants would not produce the large amounts of high-level nuclear waste that requires long-term disposal. Due to these prospects, many nations have initiated research and development (R&D) programs aimed at developing fusion as an energy source. Two R&D approaches are being explored: magnetic fusion energy (MFE) and inertial fusion energy (IFE).</p> <p><em>An Assessment of the Prospects for Inertial Fusion Energy </em>describes and assesses the current status of IFE research in the United States; compares the various technical approaches to IFE; and identifies the scientific and engineering challenges associated with developing inertial confinement fusion (ICF) in particular as an energy source. It also provides guidance on an R&D roadmap at the conceptual level for a national program focusing on the design and construction of an inertial fusion energy demonstration plant.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18289">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=283'>Energy and Energy Conservation</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=284'>Engineering and Technology</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=290'>Math, Chemistry and Physics</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/vWGwcGjZA4o" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18289 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18288#prepub 2013-02-20T10:45:01-05:00 2013-02-20T10:45:12-05:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Prepublication Now Available</strong></p> <p>In the fall of 2010, the Office of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Secretary for Science asked for a National Research Council (NRC) committee to investigate the prospects for generating power using inertial confinement fusion (ICF) concepts, acknowledging that a key test of viability for this concept—ignition —could be demonstrated at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in the relatively near term. The committee was asked to provide an unclassified report. However, DOE indicated that to fully assess this topic, the committee's deliberations would have to be informed by the results of some classified experiments and information, particularly in the area of ICF targets and nonproliferation. Thus, the Panel on the Assessment of Inertial Confinement Fusion Targets ("the panel") was assembled, composed of experts able to access the needed information. The panel was charged with advising the Committee on the Prospects for Inertial Confinement Fusion Energy Systems on these issues, both by internal discussion and by this unclassified report.</p> <p><br /> A Panel on Fusion Target Physics ("the panel") will serve as a technical resource to the Committee on Inertial Confinement Energy Systems ("the Committee") and will prepare a report that describes the R&D challenges to providing suitable targets, on the basis of parameters established and provided to the Panel by the Committee. The Panel on Fusion Target Physics will prepare a report that will assess the current performance of fusion targets associated with various ICF concepts in order to understand:<br /> 1. The spectrum output; 2. The illumination geometry; 3. The high-gain geometry; and 4. The robustness of the target design. The panel addressed the potential impacts of the use and development of current concepts for Inertial Fusion Energy on the proliferation of nuclear weapons information and technology, as appropriate. The Panel examined technology options, but does not provide recommendations specific to any currently operating or proposed ICF facility.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18288">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=283'>Energy and Energy Conservation</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=284'>Engineering and Technology</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=290'>Math, Chemistry and Physics</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/y179O4T_jL4" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18288 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18256#prepub 2013-02-20T08:45:02-05:00 2013-02-20T08:45:50-05:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Prepublication Now Available</strong></p> <p>The U.S. government supports programs to combat global HIV/AIDS through an initiative that is known as the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). This initiative was originally authorized in the U.S. Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003 and focused on an emergency response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic to deliver lifesaving care and treatment in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) with the highest burdens of disease. It was subsequently reauthorized in the Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde U.S. Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008 (the Lantos-Hyde Act).</p> <p>Evaluation of PEPFAR makes recommendations for improving the U.S. government's bilateral programs as part of the U.S. response to global HIV/AIDS. The overall aim of this evaluation is a forward-looking approach to track and anticipate the evolution of the U.S. response to global HIV to be positioned to inform the ability of the U.S. government to address key issues under consideration at the time of the report release.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18256">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/g0Si11TLYGc" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18256 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13491#final 2013-02-19T00:00:00-05:00 2013-02-19T13:40:49-05:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Optics and photonics technologies are ubiquitous: they are responsible for the displays on smart phones and computing devices, optical fiber that carries the information in the internet, advanced precision manufacturing, enhanced defense capabilities, and a plethora of medical diagnostics tools. The opportunities arising from optics and photonics offer the potential for even greater societal impact in the next few decades, including solar power generation and new efficient lighting that could transform the nation's energy landscape and new optical capabilities that will be essential to support the continued exponential growth of the Internet.</p> <p>As described in the National Research Council report <em>Optics and Photonics: Essential Technologies for our Nation</em>, it is critical for the United States to take advantage of these emerging optical technologies for creating new industries and generating job growth. The report assesses the current state of optical science and engineering in the United States and abroad--including market trends, workforce needs, and the impact of photonics on the national economy. It identifies the technological opportunities that have arisen from recent advances in, and applications of, optical science and engineering. The report also calls for improved management of U.S. public and private research and development resources, emphasizing the need for public policy that encourages adoption of a portfolio approach to investing in the wide and diverse opportunities now available within photonics.</p> <p><em>Optics and Photonics: Essential Technologies for our Nation</em> is a useful overview not only for policymakers, such as decision-makers at relevant Federal agencies on the current state of optics and photonics research and applications but also for individuals seeking a broad understanding of the fields of optics and photonics in many arenas.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13491">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=284'>Engineering and Technology</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=290'>Math, Chemistry and Physics</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/zrJ4nAnlYko" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13491 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18293#prepub 2013-02-15T10:45:28-05:00 2013-06-10T08:50:15-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Prepublication Now Available</strong></p> <p>For many household surveys in the United States, responses rates have been steadily declining for at least the past two decades. A similar decline in survey response can be observed in all wealthy countries. Efforts to raise response rates have used such strategies as monetary incentives or repeated attempts to contact sample members and obtain completed interviews, but these strategies increase the costs of surveys. This review addresses the core issues regarding survey nonresponse. It considers why response rates are declining and what that means for the accuracy of survey results. These trends are of particular concern for the social science community, which is heavily invested in obtaining information from household surveys. The evidence to date makes it apparent that current trends in nonresponse, if not arrested, threaten to undermine the potential of household surveys to elicit information that assists in understanding social and economic issues. The trends also threaten to weaken the validity of inferences drawn from estimates based on those surveys. High nonresponse rates create the potential or risk for bias in estimates and affect survey design, data collection, estimation, and analysis.</p> <p>The survey community is painfully aware of these trends and has responded aggressively to these threats. The interview modes employed by surveys in the public and private sectors have proliferated as new technologies and methods have emerged and matured. To the traditional trio of mail, telephone, and face-to-face surveys have been added interactive voice response (IVR), audio computer-assisted self-interviewing (ACASI), web surveys, and a number of hybrid methods. Similarly, a growing research agenda has emerged in the past decade or so focused on seeking solutions to various aspects of the problem of survey nonresponse; the potential solutions that have been considered range from better training and deployment of interviewers to more use of incentives, better use of the information collected in the data collection, and increased use of auxiliary information from other sources in survey design and data collection. <em>Nonresponse in Social Science Surveys: A Research Agenda</em> also documents the increased use of information collected in the survey process in nonresponse adjustment.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18293">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=277'>Behavioral and Social Sciences</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/aqiZpxrRRFw" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18293 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13520#final 2013-02-15T00:00:00-05:00 2013-02-19T13:28:34-05:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>The Consumer Expenditure (CE) surveys are the only source of information on the complete range of consumers' expenditures and incomes in the United States, as well as the characteristics of those consumers. The CE consists of two separate surveys: (1) a national sample of households interviewed five times at three-month intervals; and (2) a separate national sample of households that complete two consecutive one-week expenditure diaries. For more than 40 years, these surveys, the responsibility of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), have been the principal source of knowledge about changing patterns of consumer spending in the U.S. population.</p> <p>In February 2009, BLS initiated the Gemini Project, the aim of which is to redesign the CE surveys to improve data quality through a verifiable reduction in measurement error with a particular focus on underreporting. The Gemini Project initiated a series of information-gathering meetings, conference sessions, forums, and workshops to identify appropriate strategies for improving CE data quality. As part of this effort, BLS requested the National Research Council's Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT) to convene an expert panel to build on the Gemini Project by conducting further investigations and proposing redesign options for the CE surveys.</p> <p>The charge to the Panel on Redesigning the BLS Consumer Expenditure Surveys includes reviewing the output of a Gemini-convened data user needs forum and methods workshop and convening its own household survey producers workshop to obtain further input. In addition, the panel was tasked to commission options from contractors for consideration in recommending possible redesigns. The panel was further asked by BLS to create potential redesigns that would put a greater emphasis on proactive data collection to improve the measurement of consumer expenditures. <em>Measuring What We Spend</em> summarizes the deliberations and activities of the panel, discusses the conclusions about the uses of the CE surveys and why a redesign is needed, as well as recommendations for the future.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13520">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=289'>Industry and Labor</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=277'>Behavioral and Social Sciences</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/9e62AVBd0FE" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13520 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13522#final 2013-02-13T00:00:00-05:00 2013-02-26T14:40:55-05:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>The Food Forum convened a public workshop on February 22-23, 2012, to explore current and emerging knowledge of the human microbiome, its role in human health, its interaction with the diet, and the translation of new research findings into tools and products that improve the nutritional quality of the food supply. <em>The Human Microbiome, Diet, and Health: Workshop Summary</em> summarizes the presentations and discussions that took place during the workshop. Over the two day workshop, several themes covered included:</p> <ol> <li>The microbiome is integral to human physiology, health, and disease.</li> <li>The microbiome is arguably the most intimate connection that humans have with their external environment, mostly through diet.</li> <li>Given the emerging nature of research on the microbiome, some important methodology issues might still have to be resolved with respect to undersampling and a lack of causal and mechanistic studies.</li> <li>Dietary interventions intended to have an impact on host biology via their impact on the microbiome are being developed, and the market for these products is seeing tremendous success. However, the current regulatory framework poses challenges to industry interest and investment.</li> </ol> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13522">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=287'>Food and Nutrition</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/VJKxOV-yVCg" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13522 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13538#final 2013-02-08T10:45:18-05:00 2013-02-27T09:06:08-05:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Since 1991, the National Research Council, under the auspices of the Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy, has undertaken a program of activities to improve policymakers' understandings of the interconnections of science, technology, and economic policy and their importance for the American economy and its international competitive position. The Board's activities have corresponded with increased policy recognition of the importance of knowledge and technology to economic growth.</p> <p><br /> One important element of STEP's analysis concerns the growth and impact of foreign technology programs. U.S. competitors have launched substantial programs to support new technologies, small firm development, and consortia among large and small firms to strengthen national and regional positions in strategic sectors. Some governments overseas have chosen to provide public support to innovation to overcome the market imperfections apparent in their national innovation systems. They believe that the rising costs and risks associated with new potentially high-payoff technologies, and the growing global dispersal of technical expertise, underscore the need for national R&D programs to support new and existing high-technology firms within their borders.</p> <p><br /> Similarly, many state and local governments and regional entities in the United States are undertaking a variety of initiatives to enhance local economic development and employment through investment programs designed to attract knowledge-based industries and grow innovation clusters. These state and regional programs and associated policy measures are of great interest for their potential contributions to growth and U.S. competitiveness and for the "best practice" lessons that they offer for other state and regional programs. STEP's project on State and Regional Innovation Initiatives is intended to generate a better understanding of the challenges associated with the transition of research into products, the practices associated with successful state and regional programs, and their interaction with federal programs and private initiatives. The study seeks to achieve this goal through a series of complementary assessments of state, regional, and federal initiatives; analyses of specific industries and technologies from the perspective of crafting supportive public policy at all three levels; and outreach to multiple stakeholders. <em>Building the Ohio Innovation Economy: Summary of a Symposium</em> explains the of the study, which is to improve the operation of state and regional programs and, collectively, enhance their impact.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13538">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=289'>Industry and Labor</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/64cOpJcGtyU" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13538 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13489#final 2013-02-06T00:00:00-05:00 2013-02-07T11:42:37-05:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>The past 25 years have seen a major paradigm shift in the field of violence prevention, from the assumption that violence is inevitable to the recognition that violence is preventable. Part of this shift has occurred in thinking about why violence occurs, and where intervention points might lie. In exploring the occurrence of violence, researchers have recognized the tendency for violent acts to cluster, to spread from place to place, and to mutate from one type to another. Furthermore, violent acts are often preceded or followed by other violent acts.</p> <p><br /> In the field of public health, such a process has also been seen in the infectious disease model, in which an agent or vector initiates a specific biological pathway leading to symptoms of disease and infectivity. The agent transmits from individual to individual, and levels of the disease in the population above the baseline constitute an epidemic. Although violence does not have a readily observable biological agent as an initiator, it can follow similar epidemiological pathways.</p> <p><br /> On April 30-May 1, 2012, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Forum on Global Violence Prevention convened a workshop to explore the contagious nature of violence. Part of the Forum's mandate is to engage in multisectoral, multidirectional dialogue that explores crosscutting, evidence-based approaches to violence prevention, and the Forum has convened four workshops to this point exploring various elements of violence prevention. The workshops are designed to examine such approaches from multiple perspectives and at multiple levels of society. In particular, the workshop on the contagion of violence focused on exploring the epidemiology of the contagion, describing possible processes and mechanisms by which violence is transmitted, examining how contextual factors mitigate or exacerbate the issue. <em>Contagion of Violence: Workshop Summary </em>covers the major topics that arose during the 2-day workshop. It is organized by important elements of the infectious disease model so as to present the contagion of violence in a larger context and in a more compelling and comprehensive way.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13489">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/8MeEqf2kXB0" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13489 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13524#final 2013-02-06T00:00:00-05:00 2013-02-07T11:55:02-05:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>To effectively treat patients diagnosed with drug-resistant (DR) tuberculosis (TB) and protect the population from further transmission of this infectious disease, an uninterrupted supply of quality-assured (QA), second-line anti-TB drugs (SLDs) is necessary. Patients diagnosed with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB)—a disease caused by strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb.) resistant to two primary TB drugs (isoniazid and rifampicin)—face lengthy treatment regimens of 2 years or more with daily, directly observed treatment (DOT) with SLDs that are less potent, more toxic, and more expensive than those used to treat drug-susceptible TB. From 2000 to 2009, only 0.2-0.5 percent of the estimated 5 million MDR TB cases globally were treated with drugs of known quality and in programs capable of delivering appropriate care (Keshavjee, 2012). The vast majority of MDR TB patients either died from lack of treatment or contributed to the spread of MDR TB in their communities. A strengthened global supply chain for SLDs could save lives by consistently delivering high quality medicines to more of the people who need them.</p> <p>This public workshop explored innovative solutions to the problem of how to get the right SLDs for MDR TB to people who critically need them. More specifically, the workshop examined current problems and potential opportunities for coordinated international efforts to ensure that a reliable and affordable supply of high-quality SLDs is available. <em>Developing and Strengthening the Global Supply Chain for Second-Line Drugs for Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis: Workshop Summary</em> covers the objectives of the workshop, which were to review:</p> <p><br /> -To what extent and in what ways current mechanisms are or are not effectively accomplishing what is needed, including consideration of bottlenecks.<br /> -The advantages and disadvantages of centralization in the management of the global drug supply chain, and potential decentralized approaches to improve operations of the supply chain.<br /> -What can be learned from case studies and examples from other diseases (e.g., the Affordable Medicines Facility-malaria (AMFm) and the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief [PEPFAR])<br /> - The current allocation of responsibilities and roles of the private (including industry and nonprofit public health organizations) and public sectors, and examination of opportunities for enhancing and optimizing collaboration<br /> -Identification of potential innovative solutions to the problem</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13524">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'>Health and Medicine</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/XPsqmFvlRN8" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13524 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18281#final 2013-02-04T11:38:54-05:00 2013-02-21T14:00:49-05:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>The Department of Defense (DoD) is the largest consumer of energy in the federal government. In turn, the U.S. Air Force is the largest consumer of energy in the DoD, with a total annual energy expenditure of around $10 billion. Approximately 84 percent of Air Force energy use involves liquid fuel consumed in aviation whereas approximately 12 percent is energy (primarily electricity) used in facilities on the ground. This workshop was concerned primarily with opportunities to reduce energy consumption within Air Force facilities that employ energy intensive industrial processes—for example, assembly/disassembly, painting, metal working, and operation of radar facilities—such as those that occur in the maintenance depots and testing facilities. Air Force efforts to reduce energy consumption are driven largely by external goals and mandates derived from Congressional legislation and executive orders. To date, these goals and mandates have targeted the energy used at the building or facility level rather than in specific industrial processes.</p> <p><br /> In response to a request from the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Energy and the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Science, Technology, and Engineering, the National Research Council, under the auspices of the Air Force Studies Board, formed the Committee on <em>Energy Reduction at U.S. Air Force Facilities Using Industrial Processes: A Workshop</em>. The terms of reference called for a committee to plan and convene one 3 day public workshop to discuss: (1) what are the current industrial processes that are least efficient and most cost ineffective? (2) what are best practices in comparable facilities for comparable processes to achieve energy efficiency? (3) what are the potential applications for the best practices to be found in comparable facilities for comparable processes to achieve energy efficiency? (4) what are constraints and considerations that might limit applicability to Air Force facilities and processes over the next ten year implementation time frame? (5) what are the costs and paybacks from implementation of the best practices? (6) what will be a proposed resulting scheme of priorities for study and implementation of the identified best practices? (7) what does a holistic representation of energy and water consumption look like within operations and maintenance?</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18281">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=283'>Energy and Energy Conservation</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=280'>Conflict and Security Issues</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/ZFpdhpikdS0" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18281 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18185#final 2013-01-30T13:19:15-05:00 2013-01-30T13:19:28-05:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>This volume highlights the papers presented at the National Academy of Engineering's 2012 U.S. Frontiers of Engineering Symposium. Every year, the symposium brings together 100 outstanding young leaders in engineering to share their cutting-edge research and technical work. The 2012 symposium was held September 13-15, and hosted by General Motors at the GM Technical Center in Warren, Michigan. Speakers were asked to prepare extended summaries of their presentations, which are reprinted here. The intent of this book is to convey the excitement of this unique meeting and to highlight cutting-edge developments in engineering research and technical work.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18185">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=284'>Engineering and Technology</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/m_4_lKBrhgo" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18185 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18270#prepub 2013-01-29T16:28:23-05:00 2013-01-29T16:28:30-05:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Prepublication Now Available</strong></p> <p>A letter dated December 21, 2011, to National Academy of Sciences President Dr. Ralph Cicerone from the Chief of Naval Operations, ADM Jonathan W. Greenert, U.S. Navy, requested that the National Research Council's (NRC's) Naval Studies Board (NSB) conduct a study to examine the issues surrounding capability surprise—both operationally and technically related—facing the U.S. naval services. Accordingly, in February 2012, the NRC, under the auspices of its NSB, established the Committee on Capability Surprise for U.S. Naval Forces. The study's terms of reference, provided in Enclosure A of this interim report, were formulated by the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) in consultation with the NSB chair and director. The terms of reference charge the committee to produce two reports over a 15-month period. The present report is the first of these, an interim report issued, as requested, following the third full committee meeting.</p> <p>The terms of reference direct that the committee in its two reports do the following: (1) Select a few potential capability surprises across the continuum from disruptive technologies, to intelligence inferred capability developments, through operational deployments and assess what U.S. Naval Forces are doing (and could do) about these surprises while mindful of future budgetary declines; (2) Review and assess the adequacy of current U.S. Naval Forces' policies, strategies, and operational and technical approaches for addressing these and other surprises; and (3) Recommend any changes, including budgetary and organizational changes, as well as identify any barriers and/or leadership issues that must be addressed for responding to or anticipating such surprises including developing some of our own surprises to mitigate against unanticipated surprises.</p> <p><em>Capability Surprise for U.S. Naval Forces: Initial Observations and Insights: Interim Report </em>highlights issues brought to the committee's attention during its first three meetings and provides initial observations and insights in response to each of the three tasks above. It is very much an interim report that neither addresses in its entirety any one element of the terms of reference nor reaches final conclusions on any aspect of capability surprise for naval forces. The committee will continue its study during the coming months and expects to complete by early summer 2013 its final report, which will address all of the elements in the study's terms of reference and explore many potential issues of capability surprise for U.S. naval forces not covered in this interim report.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18270">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=280'>Conflict and Security Issues</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/ELRiH7dbhCU" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18270 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18254#final 2013-01-25T15:05:43-05:00 2013-01-25T15:05:54-05:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>The National Academy of Engineering's 2012 forum, "Educating Engineers: Preparing 21st Century Leaders in the Context of New Modes of Learning," opened with presentations by six speakers who looked at the future of engineering and engineering education from their perspectives as educators, administrators, entrepreneurs, and innovators. Each speaker focused on just one facet of a tremendously complex picture. Yet together they outlined a new vision for engineering education based on flexible, interactive, lifelong learning and the merge of activities long held to be distinct. This summary of a forum recaps the six speaker's presentations.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18254">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=282'>Education</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=284'>Engineering and Technology</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/e6IiMWeS0Nc" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18254 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13462#final 2013-01-25T12:39:59-05:00 2013-01-25T12:40:36-05:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>The central goal of the <em>In the Light of Evolution</em> (ILE) series is to promote the evolutionary sciences through state-of-the-art colloquia--in the series of Arthur M. Sackler colloquia sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences--and their published proceedings. Each installment explores evolutionary perspectives on a particular biological topic that is scientifically intriguing but also has special relevance to contemporary societal issues or challenges.</p> <p>This book is the outgrowth of the Arthur M. Sackler Colloquium "Brain and Behavior," which was sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences on January 20-21, 2012, at the Academy's Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center in Irvine, CA. It is the sixth in a series of Colloquia under the general title "In the Light of Evolution." Specifically, <i>In Light of Evolution: Brain and Behavior</i> focuses on the field of evolutionary neuroscience that now includes a vast array of different approaches, data types, and species.</p> <p>This volume is also available for purchase with the <a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18280"><em>In the Light of Evolution</em> six-volume set</a>.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13462">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=278'>Biology and Life Sciences</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/pDwhaPQQtTY" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13462 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13338#final 2013-01-24T16:20:49-05:00 2013-06-08T20:24:07-04:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>This is the 16th Volume in the series <em>Memorial Tributes</em> compiled by the National Academy of Engineering as a personal remembrance of the lives and outstanding achievements of its members and foreign associates. These volumes are intended to stand as an enduring record of the many contributions of engineers and engineering to the benefit of humankind. In most cases, the authors of the tributes are contemporaries or colleagues who had personal knowledge of the interests and the engineering accomplishments of the deceased. Through its members and foreign associates, the Academy carries out the responsibilities for which it was established in 1964.</p> <p>Under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering was formed as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. Members are elected on the basis of significant contributions to engineering theory and practice and to the literature of engineering or on the basis of demonstrated unusual accomplishments in the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology. The National Academies share a responsibility to advise the federal government on matters of science and technology. The expertise and credibility that the National Academy of Engineering brings to that task stem directly from the abilities, interests, and achievements of our members and foreign associates, our colleagues and friends, whose special gifts we remember in this book.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13338">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=292'>Biography and Autobiography</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/nH-V9s-2xAc" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13338 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=14682#final 2013-01-14T00:00:00-05:00 2013-01-16T13:44:08-05:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>Climate change can reasonably be expected to increase the frequency and intensity of a variety of potentially disruptive environmental events--slowly at first, but then more quickly. It is prudent to expect to be surprised by the way in which these events may cascade, or have far-reaching effects. During the coming decade, certain climate-related events will produce consequences that exceed the capacity of the affected societies or global systems to manage; these may have global security implications. Although focused on events outside the United States, <em>Climate and Social Stress: Implications for Security Analysis</em> recommends a range of research and policy actions to create a whole-of-government approach to increasing understanding of complex and contingent connections between climate and security, and to inform choices about adapting to and reducing vulnerability to climate change.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=14682">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=285'>Environment and Environmental Studies</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=277'>Behavioral and Social Sciences</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=281'>Earth Sciences</a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=280'>Conflict and Security Issues</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/BVdv3ZofceQ" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=14682 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=17018#prepub 2013-01-10T10:45:02-05:00 2013-01-11T09:59:52-05:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Prepublication Now Available</strong></p> <p>The world's ocean has already experienced a 30% rise in acidity since the industrial revolution, with acidity expected to rise 100 to 150% over preindustrial levels by the end of this century. Potential consequences to marine life and also to economic activities that depend on a healthy marine ecosystem are difficult to assess and predict, but potentially devastating. To address this knowledge gap, Congress passed the Federal Ocean Acidification Research and Monitoring (FOARAM) Act in 2009, which, among other things, required that an interagency working group create a "Strategic Plan for Federal Research and Monitoring of Ocean Acidification."</p> <p><em>Review of the Federal Ocean Acidification Research and Monitoring Plan</em> reviews the strategic plan on the basis of how well it fulfills program elements laid out in the FOARAM Act and follows the advice provided to the working group in the NRC's 2010 report, <a href="http://dels.nas.edu/Report/Ocean-Acidification-National-Strategy/12904"><em>Ocean Acidification: A National Strategy to Meet the Challenges of a Changing Ocean</em></a>. This report concludes that, overall, the plan is strong and provides a comprehensive framework for improving our understanding of ocean acidification. Potential improvements include a better defined strategy for implementing program goals, stronger integration of the seven broad scientific themes laid out in the FOARAM Act, and better mechanisms for coordination among federal agencies and with other U.S. and international efforts to address ocean acidification.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=17018">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=281'>Earth Sciences</a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/mvfU6MBexA0" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=17018 tag:nap.edu,2013:http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13525#final 2013-01-10T00:00:00-05:00 2013-01-12T14:10:32-05:00 The National Academies Press http://www.nap.edu <p><strong>Final Book Now Available</strong></p> <p>The United States has seen major advances in medical care during the past decades, but access to care at an affordable cost is not universal. Many Americans lack health care insurance of any kind, and many others with insurance are nonetheless exposed to financial risk because of high premiums, deductibles, co-pays, limits on insurance payments, and uncovered services. One might expect that the U.S. poverty measure would capture these financial effects and trends in them over time. Yet the current official poverty measure developed in the early 1960s does not take into account significant increases and variations in medical care costs, insurance coverage, out-of-pocket spending, and the financial burden imposed on families and individuals. Although medical costs consume a growing share of family and national income and studies regularly document high rates of medical financial stress and debt, the current poverty measure does not capture the consequences for families' economic security or their income available for other basic needs.</p> <p>In 1995, a panel of the National Research Council (NRC) recommended a new poverty measure, which compares families' disposable income to poverty thresholds based on current spending for food, clothing, shelter, utilities, and a little more. The panel's recommendations stimulated extensive collaborative research involving several government agencies on experimental poverty measures that led to a new research Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), which the U.S. Census Bureau first published in November 2011 and will update annually. Analyses of the effects of including and excluding certain factors from the new SPM showed that, were it not for the cost that families incurred for premiums and other medical expenses not covered by health insurance, 10 million fewer people would have been poor according to the SPM.</p> <p>The implementation of the patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) provides a strong impetus to think rigorously about ways to measure medical care economic burden and risk, which is the basis for <em>Medical Care Economic Risk</em>. As new policies - whether part of the ACA or other policies - are implemented that seek to expand and improve health insurance coverage and to protect against the high costs of medical care relative to income, such measures will be important to assess the effects of policy changes in both the short and long term on the extent of financial burden and risk for the population, which are explained in this report.</p> <p>[<a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13525">Read the full report</a>]</p> <p><strong>Topics:</strong> <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=288'></a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=289'></a> | <a href='http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?id=277'></a></p><br /> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nap/new/~4/5lBJPXSnbfU" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13525