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More and more farmers adopt a range of alternative practices designed to reduce dependence on synthetic chemical pesticides, cut costs, and increase profits. This book describes the increased use of these practices and other changes in agriculture since World War II, and examines the role of federal policy in encouraging this evolution.

The AIDS virus is spread by human behaviors enacted in a variety of social situations. In order to prevent further infection, we need to know more about these behaviors. This volume explores what is known about the number of people infected, risk-associated behaviors, facilitation of behavioral change, and barriers to effective prevention efforts.

Ozone depletion in the stratosphere and increases in greenhouse gases in the troposphere are both subjects of growing concern. This volume presents the data and theories available on ozone depletion, greenhouse gases, and climatic change, and addresses the question: What is the understanding of the processes that destroy ozone in the atmosphere?

Congress asked the Institute of Medicine to find out whether various health care programs were ignoring the homeless or delivering care to them inefficiently. This book is the report prepared by a committee of experts who examined these problems through visits to city slums and impoverished rural areas.

Contains proposals for ensuring that public health service programs are efficient and effective enough to deal not only with the modern topics, but also with those of tomorrow. This book also makes recommendations for core functions in public health assessment, policy development, and service assurances.

Describes hazards from radon progeny and other alpha-emitters that humans may inhale or ingest from their environment. Techniques for estimating the risks to humans posed by radon and other internally deposited alpha-emitters are offered, with a discussion of formulas, models, methods, and the level of uncertainty inherent in the risk estimates.

The economic and social challenges confronting the nation demand that all citizens acquire and learn to use complex reasoning and thinking skills. This volume highlights successful learning strategies, and makes specific recommendations about problems and directions requiring further study.

Part of the "Drinking Water and Health" series, this seventh volume addresses methods of drinking water disinfection and compares standard chlorination techniques with alternative methods. Various techniques are discussed in terms of their chemical activity, and their efficacy against waterborne pathogens is compared.

Surveys the relationship between economic activity and electricity use, showing how trends in the growth of electricity demand may be affected by changes in the economy, and examines the connection between the use of electrotechnologies and productivity. This book contains a mix of historical perspective and a synthesis of econometric findings.

Based on a symposium sponsored by the Board on Agriculture, this comprehensive book explores the problem of pesticide resistance. It also suggests different approaches to monitor, control, or prevent resistance, and identifies the changes in public policy necessary to protect crops and human health from the ravages of pests.

Asks three questions: is additional port construction and maintenance dredging needed? What would prevent dredging if it is needed? And what alternatives could make dredging possible? This book also identifies many problems in dredging ports, including the interval between a decision to deepen a port and the time the alterations are complete.

To complement the knowledge on the physical aspects of radioactive waste disposal, this report identifies the socioeconomic and institutional; and policy issues that must be addressed in implementing the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. It also addresses site location, transportation modes, disposal schedules, regulatory systems, and more.

Alcohol is a killer. One of every thirteen deaths in the United States is alcohol-related. This book takes a look at the problem, and is useful for those in the alcoholism prevention business. It is also aimed at counselors, politicians, judges, medical professionals, and law enforcement officials throughout the country.

Even though women have made substantial progress in a number of formerly male occupations, sex segregation in the workplace remains a fact of life. This volume probes pertinent questions: Why has the overall degree of sex segregation remained stable in this century? What informal barriers keep it in place?

Deregulation, higher costs, foreign competition, and financial risks are causing profound changes in civil aviation. This book reviews these trends along with federal involvement in trade, technology transfer, technological developments in airframes and propulsion, and military-civil aviation relationships.

States that there is no consistent evidence between sodium intake and either a beneficial or adverse effect on direct health outcomes other than some CVD outcomes and all-cause mortality. This book offers the findings and conclusions on evidence for associations between sodium intake and risk of Cardiovascular disease.

Provides an assessment of earthquake engineering research issues and the role of information technology in that research effort. This work presents an overview of the challenge, including six critical research problems making up that challenge. It also provides a research plan for NEES.

The Institute of Medicine's Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine sponsored a workshop to understand the biological mechanism of normal labor and delivery, and how environmental influences can interact with the processes of normal pregnancy to result in preterm birth. This report is a summary of the themes presented.

Examines how to update human subjects protections regulations so that they effectively respond to current research contexts and methods. This book addresses the dramatic alterations in the research landscapes that institutional review boards (IRBs) have come to inhabit during the past 40 years.

After decades of stability from the 1920s to the early 1970s, the rate of imprisonment in the United States has increased fivefold during the last four decades. The US penal population of 2.2 million adults is by far the largest in the world. This book examines research and analysis of the dramatic rise of incarceration rates and its affects.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics' (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) measures the rates at which Americans are victims of crimes, including rape and sexual assault, but there is concern that rape and sexual assault are undercounted on this survey. This book concludes that it is likely that the NCVS is undercounting sexual assault.

During the past decade, the STEM acronym has developed wide currency in US education and policy circles. This book examines efforts to integrate the STEM disciplines in K-12 education and to develop a research agenda that if carried out could provide the data needed to inform such efforts going forward.

Reviews the technical specifications that underlie federally-implemented rebuilding plans, and the outcomes of those plans. This title discusses the methods and criteria used to set target fishing mortality and biomass levels for rebuilding overfished stocks, and to determine the probability that a particular stock will rebuild by a certain date.

Offers a study on the ethical, legal, and societal issues relating to the research on, development of, and use of rapidly changing technologies with low barriers of entry that have potential military application, such as information technologies, synthetic biology, and nanotechnology.