Editor's Note

I am pleased to present in the following pages articles that address an array of matters involving both technology and public policy.

• Guru Madhavan and colleagues write on a subject of interest to all Americans, health policy decisions. They describe a systems-based tool that ...

Modern times bring modern complexities that call for strategic priority setting. Markets effect some prioritization through the willingness of people to buy and sell products at competitive prices. Other activities—such as public investments in defense, regulation, research, and health ...

The world’s most pressing challenges are testing the limits of existing approaches to problem exploration, innovation, and design. Be it equitable provision of clean water (OECD 2012), creation of single-dose vaccines (Varmus et al. 2003), clean-energy agriculture (Ferguson 2014), or restored ...

The water contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan, vividly demonstrates that the current approach to technology stewardship in the face of problems that may lead to calamity is not working. Lessons often are tragically not learned or used during decision making.

A more proactive approach to ...

In 2002 the US Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) released a benchmark study, Corrosion Costs and Preventive Strategies in the United States (Koch et al. 2002), on costs associated with metallic corrosion in a wide range of industries. It revealed that the total annual estimated direct cost of ...

Increasing numbers of roads and bridges in unsatisfactory condition, along with shrinking funds for maintenance and repair, are of great national concern. For decades, the motor fuel tax, an indirect excise tax on the sale of fuel, has been the primary source of federal and state highway revenue in ...

Effective teaching is essential to guide student learning toward improved outcomes and ensure US innovation and economic development in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (the STEM fields).

The increasing assimilation of students of diverse abilities in a single, ...

In 1882, 82 customers with 400 of Thomas Edison’s new electric lamps signed on to America’s first central electrical supply system. Direct current (DC), at 110 volts, fed those loads through copper cables that emanated from dynamos at Edison’s Pearl Street generating station in ...

The symbiosis of science and technology plays an integral role in innovation. Science is needed for innovation regardless of whether science or technology leads. We propose mission-oriented research and fortuitous observation as the dominant trajectories for discovery that are not based on ...

Sandra H. Magnus, engineer and former astronaut, is executive director, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

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RON LATANISION (RML): Sandy, we’re very happy to have this opportunity to talk with you. I understand you studied electrical engineering and ...