On reading the federal budget

Within the scientific community there seem to be at least two schools of thought as far as the federal budget is concerned. One holds that more money would be made available for research if only spokesmen for research could gain access to high government officials. The other view is that the research budget of the United States reflects well-considered policy and cannot be changed by friendly persuasion. Rashi Fein, professor of the economics of medicine at Harvard Medical School, believes the latter. He expressed his point of view recently in an address before the American Public Health Association. His remarks were directed to last year's budget but apply equally to the President's budget for fiscal 1975. Excerpts from his talk, "The new national health spending policy-who pays and who gets?" follow.     

Correction

An article reporting a congressional hearing on the National Cancer Institute (NCI) (News and Comment, 20 Nov., p. 887) incorrectly states that the institute allowed an unnamed individual to produce a preparation called "Jim's Juice" under what is known as a "compassionate investigational new drug" permit. The NCI, which does not have authority to issue such IND's, was not involved in the matter. The article also refers to an internal memo written by an NCI researcher about the alleged misuse of an experimental drug called Mitoxantrone. The drug in question was one known as M-AMSA, a new agent against acute leukemia.     

Office of management and budget: the view from the executive office

The federal budget will make its annual appearance at the end of the month under the seal of the Office of Management and Budget, a highly influential but reticent agency cloistered in the Executive Office of the President. This first of three articles on OMB discusses the development of the budget agency since World War II and looks at the evolution of the science budget from the OMB perspective.     

给飞机装个降落伞

<正>飞机遇险时,如何逃生?跳下飞机并在适当的时候打开降落伞。如果你有幸正好坐在舱口,这还是可行的。但如果是一架载有300人左右的飞机飞冲直下时,所有的人都能有时间有序的顺利逃生吗?"老实说,一点机会都没有。"英国布鲁内尔大学的航天研究员葛兰顿先生如是说。     

Research policy. Report tracks federal funding in each state

Maryland is the most research-intensive state in the country, according to a new report that describes in unprecedented detail where the federal government's annual $80 billion research budget is spent. Its authors hope the report will raise public awareness about research as well as inform politicians.     

SCIENCE PRIORITIES: An Opportunities-Based Science Budget

Newt Gingrich introduces the concept of an "opportunities-based budget", as an approach to federal research and development funding. Policy-makers should not frame the debate on science funding in terms of percentage of increase. Rather, a systematic analysis of the promise of opportunities should be conducted and the funds allotted accordingly. This article is a call to rethink how lawmakers are funding the discoveries upon which future generations will rely.     

Stanford School of Medicine. I. Problems over more than money

Since World War II the American medical school has become a highly complex institution and, like other American institutions today, the medical school is being challenged to respond to diverse and often conflicting demands. In part the pressure comes from activists who insist that the medical school more fully meet the needs of the community by reforming both training and the delivery of medical care. But another sort of pressure is exerted as a result of changes in internal relationships that have occurred in the last two decades in large measure because of the federal support of biomedical research. As in most institutional conflicts the dispute is expressed in contests over power and money, but, at a more fundamental level, what is involved is the value and reward system of academic medicine and the question of how the medical school is to be governed. This is the first of three articles which will attempt to discuss these issues in the context of the development of one medical school-Stanford's. The first article will describe the pattern and policies of expansion since World War II, and the other two will examine the effects of internal and external pressures for change.     

COMPUTER SCIENCE: Flushing Out Nasty Viruses in the Balkans

Bulgaria created a pioneering center in late 1990 to tackle the threat that its homegrown computer viruses posed to the world; according to experts, it has been a major force in reining in that threat. Now the lab is struggling to stave off obsolescence on a budget of roughly half of what a single Western whiz kid fresh out of college might earn in a year.     

Carbon dioxide in the ocean surface: the homogeneous buffer factor

The amount of carbon dioxide that can be dissolved in surface seawater depends at least partially on the homogeneous buffer factor, which is a mathematical function of the chemical equilibrium conditions among the various dissolved inorganic species. Because these equilibria are well known, the homogeneous buffer factor is well known. Natural spatial variations depend very systematically on sea surface temperatures, and do not contribute significantly to uncertainties in the present or future carbon dioxide budget.     

Swiss research questioned

The University of Geneva has notified the National Cancer Institute that work on nuclear transplantation done by one of its researchers, Karl Illmensee, is under review for alleged irregularities. Other scientists have had difficulty in reproducing the results of Illmensee's research, which was thought to have important implications for the cloning of mammals. Illmensee, an NCI grant recipient, had performed similar experiments as a visiting professor at Bar Harbor's Jackson Laboratory in collaboration with Peter Hoppe. An investigation into that work is now being planned.     

Larger public sector role sought on biotech

Increasing opposition to field tests of genetically altered organisms is causing the biotechnology industry to look to some form of government regulation as a way to calm the public's fears. Industry leaders are concerned that future developments will be subject to costly legal delays unless an efficient regulatory system is in place, although neither the federal government nor industry has been able to determine what standards are needed or what classes of products should be regulated. The two biotechnology trade associations have begun to work on their positions, regulatory legislation has been introduced in Congress, and the roles of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Agriculture are about to be defined. There is a divergence of opinion about federally-supported intermediate test facilities, which some industry spokesmen believe would be unnecessary.     

RESEARCH AND THERAPEUTICS

Progressive therapeutics depends on research, but at the same time it is a marked stimulant for promoting research. Through research will come much of the post-war advancement which may occur in medicine and allied sciences, drug manufacturing and educational centers. Success and survival will depend not only on cooperation, leadership and a shrewd business sense but on an adequate appreciation of opportunities, limitations and the value of fostering research by providing grants and fellowships. Much material assistance can be provided with mutual gain for all participants when such fellowships are established. This gain may extend past current problems into lifelong associations. If the manufacturer recognizes his opportunities and obligations and forges ahead to challenge or accept them instead of remaining on the defensive, there will be less likelihood of being fettered by purblind policies. Each one interested in research and therapeutics has responsibilities peculiar to himself, but there are few, regardless of occupation, who, at the completion of a job well done, does not feel as Pasteur, who said of the researcher: It is indeed a hard task when you believe you have found an important scientific fact and are feverishly anxious to publish it, to constrain yourself for days, weeks, years sometimes, to fight with yourself, to try to ruin your own experiments and only to proclaim your discovery after having exhausted all contrary hypotheses. But when, after so many efforts, you have at last arrived at certainty, your joy is one of the greatest which can be felt by a human soul, and the thought that you will have contributed to the honor of your country renders that joy still deeper.     

略论高校图书馆财务管理

图书馆在高校中起着名片的作用,每年有几百上千万元的资金预算,在这庞大的数字面前,如何做好财务管理工作,已成为一项重要的工作。本文从财务管理角度出发,来探讨一些平时不被人重视的问题,希望对图书馆管理工作有一定益处。     

High-Latitude Stratospheric Aerosols Measured by the SAM II Satellite System in 1978 and 1979

Results of the first year of data collection by the SAM (Stratospheric Aerosol Measurement) II satellite system are presented. Almost 10,000 profiles of stratospheric aerosol extinction in the Arctic and Antarctic regions are used to construct plots of weekly averaged aerosol extinction versus altitude and time and stratospheric optical depth versus time. Corresponding temperature fields are presented. These data show striking similarities in the aerosol behavior for corresponding seasons. Wintertime polar stratospheric clouds that are strongly correlated with temperature are documented. They are much more prevalent in the Antarctic stratosphere during the cold austral winter and increase the stratospheric optical depths by as much as an order of magnitude for a period of about 2 months. These clouds might represent a sink for stratospheric water vapor and must be considered in the radiative budget for this region and time.     

Federal funding of basic research: the red tape mill

Federal regulations and concerns about accountability for public funds have added greatly to the administrative burden associated with federal support of research at universities. Much of the added burden is viewed as unnecessary and counterproductive by the scientists and administrators who must bear the load. They feel that funds and effort intended for research are being diverted and wasted. The various types of costs are reviewed, including some thoughts as to their origin and estimates of their magnitude. Topics covered include project versus programmatic support, the indirect cost game, accountability, federal regulations, and the bureaucratic syndrome. There are no simple solutions, but several promising initiatives have been taken and more should be forthcoming.     

Corrections and clarifications

The 1994 and 1995 federal science budget appropriations for two of the activities were inadvertently transposed in a table that accompanied the article "Hitting the President's target is mixed blessing for agencies" by Jeffrey Mervis (News & Comment, 14 Oct., p. 211). The correct figures for Defense Department spending on university research are $1.460 billion in 1994 and $1.279 billion in 1995; for research and development at NASA, the correct figures are $9.455 billion in 1994 and $9.824 billion in 1995.     

Budget priorities of the nation

Changes in the federal budget over the last several decades have raised current consumption at the expense of the investment needed for stronger economic growth. These changes have occurred in the budget's fiscal policy, which has reduced national saving and private investment; in its expenditure policy, which has emphasized short-term benefits rather than public investments; and in its transfer policy, which has not adequately addressed the increasing child poverty that threatens the productivity of our future labor force.     

Federal R & d and industrial policy

Long-term U.S. economic growth requires better use of R & D resources and closer interaction of the academic, government, and industrial research communities. The federal government has proposed to increase support for university research as a key means of addressing national needs for new knowledge in fields important to industrial development and for training of technical personnel. But continuing growth in support for basic research depends on how well the science community can agree on what research investments will have the greatest impact in producing new knowledge.     

从对毕业生的调查报告看高职高专英语教学

讨论高职高专英语教学如何能够尽快适应企业的发展需要,围绕该主题来开展教学。要想把高职高专英语教好,首先应该了解企业需要什么样人才,要使用什么样人才,高职高专学生在企业中要做什么。通过对毕业生的调查,课堂教学要贯彻以学生为主体,教师为主导的教学模式,要把两种能力的培养始终贯彻于高职高专英语教学之中。     

Mission-oriented R & d

Mansfield's Section 203 has triggered a searching review by DOD of its research. Using the general budget constraints of the past few years as an effective springboard, Mansfield went on to question and then challenge all of the federal government's policies for R & D. The entire post-World War II institutional machinery and rhetoric for R & D are now in some disarray and, thus, are open to imaginative, constructive change. Mission-oriented R & D, still central to progress toward our national goals, must be comprehensively rethought in order to restore the public confidence necessary for adequate support of science and technology.