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Considers legislation to provide for more effective regulation of railroad freight car service; to enact tax credits to assist in building of new freight-carrying equipment; and to establish a Bureau of Service in the ICC to administer freight car matters.
Whether the result of an oil well blowout, vessel collision or grounding, leaking pipeline, or other incident at sea, each marine oil spill will present unique circumstances and challenges. The oil type and properties, location, time of year, duration of spill, water depth, environmental conditions, affected biomes, potential human community impact, and available resources may vary significantly. Also, each spill may be governed by policy guidelines, such as those set forth in the National Response Plan, Regional Response Plans, or Area Contingency Plans. To respond effectively to the specific conditions presented during an oil spill, spill responders have used a variety of response optionsâ€"including mechanical recovery of oil using skimmers and booms, in situ burning of oil, monitored natural attenuation of oil, and dispersion of oil by chemical dispersants. Because each response method has advantages and disadvantages, it is important to understand specific scenarios where a net benefit may be achieved by using a particular tool or combination of tools. This report builds on two previous National Research Council reports on dispersant use to provide a current understanding of the state of science and to inform future marine oil spill response operations. The response to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill included an unprecedented use of dispersants via both surface application and subsea injection. The magnitude of the spill stimulated interest and funding for research on oil spill response, and dispersant use in particular. This study assesses the effects and efficacy of dispersants as an oil spill response tool and evaluates trade-offs associated with dispersant use.
Here are more than two hundred oral tales from some of Louisiana's finest storytellers. In this comprehensive volume of great range are transcriptions of narratives in many genres, from diverse voices, and from all regions of the state. Told in settings ranging from the front porch to the festival stage, these tales proclaim the great vitality and variety of Louisiana's oral narrative traditions. Given special focus are Harold Talbert, Lonnie Gray, Bel Abbey, Ben Guiné, and Enola Matthews—whose wealth of imagination, memory, and artistry demonstrates the depth as well as the breadth of the storyteller's craft. For tales told in Cajun and Creole French, Koasati, and Spanish, the editors have supplied both the original language and English translation. To the volume Maida Owens has contributed an overview of Louisiana's folk culture and a survey of folklife studies of various regions of the state. Car Lindahl's introduction and notes discuss the various genres and styles of storytelling common in Louisiana and link them with the worldwide are of the folktale.
"This publication represents the views and expert opinions of an IARC working group on the evaluation of carcinogenic risks to humans, which met in Lyon, 9-16 October 2001."
America's health care system has become too complex and costly to continue business as usual. Best Care at Lower Cost 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. 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. 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. Best Care at Lower Cost 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. 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.
The interagency process was the focus of a Capstone project and Research Symposium at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University during the 2006-07 academic year. The Bush School's Capstone seminar is a semester-long graduate course in the Master's Program in International Affairs that provides a research experience for students in the final semester of the 2-year program. As part of their leadership development, the students operate in teams to address an important policy issue (under the direction of a faculty member) and in support of a client. In this case, the client was the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Stability Operations. Our thanks to Colonel Richard Lacquement and Dr. Janine Davidson for sponsoring our Capstone interagency project.
The revolutionary appeal of Communism in 20th-century Britain is analyzed in this examination of why Communist Party members joined, how they participated in the party's activities, and why, in many cases, they left the party. Archival resources, hundreds of interviews, and sociological analyses document the nature of left-wing activism in Britain from its earliest incarnations to the schisms of the 1980s. The role of Communism in British politics and society is illuminated by discussions of constructions of political authority; the role of gender, generation, and social class; and the significance of political space and mobility in recruitment.
Discussing the profound changes and possibilities for writing and writing instruction that are evident at this stage of the computer revolution, this book contains 17 articles which focus on implications for teaching, learning, and teacher education and highlight questions that teachers and researchers must address to realize the potential of the new technology. The book's four main sections deal with the profound influence of the new electronic age on teachers' lives, the ways computers change the responsibilities of students and teachers, the significance of hypertext for writers and teachers, and the political implications of the computer revolution for education. The articles and their authors are as follows: "Ideology, Technology, and the Future of Writing Instruction" (Nancy Kaplan); "Taking Control of the Page: Electronic Writing and Word Publishing" (Patricia Sullivan); "Computing and Collaborative Writing" (Janis Forman); "Prospects for Writers' Workstations in the Coming Decade" (Donald Ross); "Computers and Teacher Education in the 1990s and Beyond" (Kathleen Kiefer); "Computers and Instructional Strategies in the Teaching of Writing" (Elizabeth Klem and Charles Moran); "Evaluating Computer-Supported Writing" (Andrea W. Herrmann); "Hypertext and Composition Studies" (Henrietta Nickels Shirk); "Toward an Ecology of Hypermedia" (John McDaid); "Reconceiving Hypertext" (Catherine F. Smith); "The Politics of Hypertext" (Stuart Moulthrop); "Technology and Authority" (Ruth Ray and Ellen Barton); "The Politics of Writing Programs" (James Strickland); "The Equitable Teaching of Composition with Computers: A Case for Change" (Mary Louise Gomez); and "Feminism and Computers in Composition Instruction" (Emily Jessup). (SR)
