Böcker av Engineering National Academies of Sciences

Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are a type of unconventional explosive weapon that can be deployed in a variety of ways, and can cause loss of life, injury, and property damage in both military and civilian environments. Terrorists, violent extremists, and criminals often choose IEDs because the ingredients, components, and instructions required to make IEDs are highly accessible. In many cases, precursor chemicals enable this criminal use of IEDs because they are used in the manufacture of homemade explosives (HMEs), which are often used as a component of IEDs.Many precursor chemicals are frequently used in industrial manufacturing and may be available as commercial products for personal use. Guides for making HMEs and instructions for constructing IEDs are widely available and can be easily found on the internet. Other countries restrict access to precursor chemicals in an effort to reduce the opportunity for HMEs to be used in IEDs. Although IED attacks have been less frequent in the United States than in other countries, IEDs remain a persistent domestic threat. Restricting access to precursor chemicals might contribute to reducing the threat of IED attacks and in turn prevent potentially devastating bombings, save lives, and reduce financial impacts.Reducing the Threat of Improvised Explosive Device Attacks by Restricting Access to Explosive Precursor Chemicals prioritizes precursor chemicals that can be used to make HMEs and analyzes the movement of those chemicals through United States commercial supply chains and identifies potential vulnerabilities. This report examines current United States and international regulation of the chemicals, and compares the economic, security, and other tradeoffs among potential control strategies.

On March 19, 2014, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine held a workshop on the topic of the sharing of data from environmental health research. Experts in the field of environmental health agree that there are benefits to sharing research data, but questions remain regarding how to effectively make these data available. The sharing of data derived from human subjects--making them both transparent and accessible to others--raises a host of ethical, scientific, and process questions that are not always present in other areas of science, such as physics, geology, or chemistry. The workshop participants explored key concerns, principles, and obstacles to the responsible sharing of data used in support of environmental health research and policy making while focusing on protecting the privacy of human subjects and addressing the concerns of the research community. Principles and Obstacles for Sharing Data from Environmental Health Research summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

In recent years, the field of oncology has witnessed a number of technological advances, including more precise radiation therapy and minimally invasive surgical techniques. Three-dimensional (3D), stereotactic, and proton-beam radiation therapy, as well as laparoscopy and robotic surgery, can enhance clinician's ability to treat conditions that were clinically challenging with conventional technologies, and may improve clinical outcomes or reduce treatment-related problems for some patients. Both patients and physicians seek access to these new technologies, which are rapidly being adopted into standard clinical practice. Such demand is often propelled by marketing that portrays the new technologies as the latest and greatest treatments available. However, evidence is often lacking to support these claims, and these novel technologies usually come with higher price tags and are often used to treat patients who might have achieved similar benefits from less expensive, conventional treatment.The increased cost of novel treatments without adequate assessment of how they affect patient outcomes is a pressing concern given that inappropriate use of expensive technologies is one of the key factors that threaten the affordability of cancer care in the United States. To explore these issues further, the National Cancer Policy Forum (NCPF) of the Institute of Medicine organized a workshop in July 2015. This is the third NCPF workshop in a series examining the affordability of cancer care. Participants explored clinical benefits and comparative effectiveness of emerging advanced technologies for cancer treatment in radiation therapy and surgery and potential strategies to assess the value and promote optimal use of new technologies in cancer treatment. This report summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.