Water and carbohydrate ingestion during prolonged exercise increase maximal neuromuscular power. Water turnover and body composition during long-term exposure to high altitude (4,900 7,600 m). Physical fitness influences water turnover and body water changes during trekking. Death from hyponatremia as a result of acute water intoxication in an Army basic trainee. Fluid consumption and the risk of bladder cancer: Results of a multicenter case-control study. Dehydration markedly impairs cardiovascular function in hyperthermic endurance athletes during exercise. Comparison of body fat estimates derived from underwater weight and total body water. Effects of exercise on fluid exchange and body composition in man during 14day bed rest. Single- and multifrequency models for bioelectrical impedance analysis of body water compartments. Validity of urine-blood hydrational measures to assess total body water changes during mountaineering in the Sub-Arctic. Hamada K, Doi T, Sakura M, Matsumoto K, Yanagisawa K, Suzuki T, Kikuchi N, Okuda J, Miyazaki H, Okoshi H, Zeniya M, Asukata I. Effects of hydration on fluid balance and lower-extremity blood viscosity during long airplane flights. Effect of hydration on some orthostatic and hematological responses to head-up tilt. The response of arginine vasopressin to intravenous ethanol and hypertonic saline in man: the impact of aging. Effects of dehydration upon physical working capacity of wrestlers under competitive conditions. Impact of hydration status on body composition as measured by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry in normal volunteers and patients on haemodialysis. Nutritional Needs in Hot Environments: Applications for Military Personnel in Field Operations. Age and hypohydration independently influence the peripheral vascular response to heat stress. Dilutional hyponatremia during hysteroscopic myomectomy with sorbitol-mannitol distention medium. Individual differences in serum sodium levels in schizophrenic men with self-induced water intoxication. Case report: Severe hyponatremia after water intoxication: A potential cause of rhabdomyolsis. The effects of water and salt intake upon the performance of men working in hot and humid environments. Hyperhydration: Tolerance and cardiovascular effects during uncompensable exercise-heat stress. Mild dehydration induces echocardiographic signs of mitral valve prolapse in healthy females with prior normal cardiac findings. The effect of heat stress on reaction time to centrally and peripherally presented stimuli. Comparison of water turnover rates in men undertaking prolonged cycling exercise and sedentary men. A specific cystic fibrosis mutation (T338I) associated with the phenotype of isolated hypotonic dehydration. Physiologic strain associated with wearing toxic-environment protective systems during exercise in the heat. Influence of age, renal disease, hypertension, diuretics, and calcium on the antidiuretic responses to suboptimal infusions of vasopressin.
In a 6-week study of the metabolic effects of a low carbohydrate/ high protein diet ingested by 10 adult subjects, a doubling of urinary net acid excretion was attended by a 50 percent increase in urinary excretion of calcium, which was not compensated by a commensurate increase in fractional intestinal calcium absorption (Reddy et al. Failure of intestinal compensation has been consistently demonstrated for acidosis-induced urine calcium losses (Breslau et al. Urinary excretion of citrate and serum osteocalcin also concurrently decreased with the increase in urinary excretion of calcium (Reddy et al. It was concluded that the diet delivered a marked acid load to the kidney, increased the risk of stone formation, led to negative calcium balance, and may have increased bone loss. There are no published studies of the long-term metabolic effects of this kind of diet in any group of individuals. Replacement of Diuretic-Induced Potassium Losses Substantial numbers of individuals receive treatment with diuretic therapies for medical conditions, primarily high blood pressure, but also congestive heart failure and chronic kidney disease. Accordingly, many individuals on diuretic therapy are given a potassium supplement. The most common of these conditions are chronic kidney disease, heart failure, and type 1 diabetes, each of which can impair renal excretion of potassium. Whether a higher dietary intake of potassium would precipitate hyperkalemia is uncertain. Since the 95th percentile estimates of potassium intake for men and women in the United States range from 4. This case illustrates the difficulty of using serum creatinine levels to diagnose early chronic kidney disease. Among older individuals, women who are non-African American often have serum creatinine values that appear to be "normal" (0. While meat, milk, and cereal products contain potassium, their content of bicarbonate precursors does not sufficiently balance the amount of acid-forming precursors, such as sulfur amino acids, found in higher protein foods (Lemann et al. Tables of citrate and bicarbonate content of foods are lacking, making it difficult to estimate the amount consumed of these other food components. On a calorie basis, the comparative amounts of potassium in various food groups, expressed in mg/100 kcal, are shown in Table 5-10. Salt substitutes currently available in the marketplace range from 440 mg to 2,800 mg (11 to 72 mmol)/tsp of potassium, all as potassium chloride (Pennington, 1998; Riccardella and Dwyer, 1985). The median potassium intakes of white respondents exceeded that of African-American respondents. The median intakes of potassium by adults obtained from Canadian surveys conducted between 1990 and 1999 in 10 provinces ranged from 3. These dietary intake surveys do not include estimates of the usage of salt substitutes. No other data were found that estimate the intake of potassium from various salt substitutes on the market. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service, Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 16. While this population group had over-representation by African-American and Hispanic pregnant women, in two other studies in which potassium excretion was measured serially throughout gestation, 24-hour urinary excretion averaged 2. Ulceration of gastrointestinal tract mucosa and perforation of the small bowel have been reported in patients using various potassium chloride supplements (Lambert and Newman, 1980; Leijonmarck and Raf, 1985). Overall, the specific product/vehicle appears to be a critical determinant of the risk of gastrointestinal side effects from supplemental potassium. Arrhythmia from Hyperkalemia Cardiac arrhythmias from hyperkalemia are the most serious consequence of excessive potassium intake. Such consequences result from either a high plasma concentration of potassium or from rapid and extreme changes in its concentration (Kallen et al. At typical dietary intakes of potassium, the normal range of plasma concentration of potassium is 3. The actual level at which hyperkalemia increases the risk of serious arrhythmias is uncertain, but is likely at a level greater than 5. Acute toxicity from accidental or intentional consumption of large quantities of potassium chloride or potassium-containing salt substitutes by apparently healthy individuals has been reported (Kallen et al. However, such evidence of acute toxicity is of limited value in assessing the potential hazards from chronic ingestion of high levels of potassium. In clinical trials that assessed the effects of potassium supplementation as high as 15. However, in individuals whose urinary potassium excretion is impaired by a medical condition, drug therapy, or both, instances of life-threatening hyperkalemia have been reported.
Defining the scope of the risk assessment and choosing an appropriate model may require several iterations, especially if the risk assessment addresses risks or scenarios that have not been modeled previously. During problem formulation and developing the first drafts of the risk assessment, it should be possible to determine how complex the risk assessment model needs to be to address the questions posed by risk managers. In some cases where the risk assessment questions are simple and limited in scope, a qualitative risk assessment or a simple risk assessment model may be adequate-even when robust data sets are available. As a general guideline, models should only be as complex as they need to be to address the specific risk management questions. A useful model can help the Agency allocate resources and develop a research agenda as well as provide transparency. A simplified model may help the public better understand the process and should thus accompany a very complex model. Within this context, the conceptual model can also be used by the Agency to consider resource allocation and to develop a research agenda. In this example, the model summarizes how waterborne risk from Cryptosporidium is thought to occur. The risk hypotheses are the proposed answers to risk assessment questions about how exposure occurs and what endpoints are important for the human health hazard. It should be noted that risk hypotheses are not equivalent to statistical testing of null and alternative hypotheses. However, predictions generated from risk hypotheses can be tested in a variety of ways, including standard statistical approaches (U. The top tier model should clearly indicate how exposure occurs to provide a conceptual understanding of the magnitude, duration, and frequency of exposure. Planning and Scoping: Analysis (Operational) Plan the operational plan should include strategies for dealing with data needs, peer review plans, and any other relevant logistical needs. Information such as lists of relevant experts (for consultation or data contribution) and literature search strategies can be included. This plan may contain a risk assessment process diagram that is a graphical representation of the operational plan that helps explain the logistics of conducting the risk assessment. Other essential management activities that are part of planning and scoping include timelines, planned deliverables. Planning and scoping activities beyond the core scientific issues of problem formulation may be referred to in the risk assessment if those details help increase understanding and transparency. Within this context, more complex models should be considered or used under conditions in which the added complexity may provide sufficient 28 Microbial Risk Assessment Tools U. The problem formulation should include information on the following topics: Tools. The tools section of the problem formulation should indicate what software will be used for the risk assessment and may include why the software was chosen. The tools list should also include mathematical tools such as options for dose-response models. The data inventory should list publications that might be consulted during the risk assessment process and sources of data that are being considered for the risk assessment. The list does not need to be comprehensive in the beginning and can be presented in an appendix of the problem formulation if it is overly long. The data inventory can refer to a literature search strategy that can be presented in an appendix. Literature search strategies should identify which search engines and databases will be used, keywords, key authors, language limitations, and timeframe for the search. The summary of assumptions can be organized in different ways; however, listing assumptions that are related to essential risk assessment factors is a systematic way to start. How assumptions limit the scope of the risk assessment and contribute to uncertainty should be explained. The sources of variability and uncertainty should be introduced in this section, which should also describe the degree to which variability and uncertainty is or is not captured in the assessment.
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Moreover, sulfite, as well as other inorganic sulfur compounds in the +4 valence state. Sulfate ingestion from drinking water is highly variable and depends on the area of the country from which the water is obtained. Some well water in rural areas of the United States has been known to contain upwards of 500 mg/L (Moore, 1952), and some of the "mineral" waters sold with health claims have been reported to exceed this level (Allen et al. Distilled water contains very little, if any, sulfate, and deionized water contains no sulfate. Intake Surveys of sulfate intake from food and beverages are currently not available. The Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey has not estimated sulfate intake directly. Indirect estimates of sulfate intake can be calculated from the intakes of sulfurcontaining amino acids. Table 7-4 provides estimates of sulfate intake that would be derived from metabolism of cysteine and methionine. The estimates provided in the table thus do not include sulfate from food, beverages, or drinking water, nor that derived from organic sulfur compounds other than methionine and cysteine. Osmotic diarrhea and loose stools have been reported with high intakes of sulfate consumed in water (Backer, 2000). Such adverse effects are usually short term, but they may be more severe in infants. Sulfate concentrations (from sodium sulfate) tested in drinking water were 0, 250, 500, 800, and 1,200 mg/L. While the study did not indicate how much water was consumed, nor the season of the study, there were no statistically significant differences in the number of bowel movements for days 1, 2, and 6 compared with those for days 3, 4, and 5. In regression analyses of diarrhea frequency by sulfate dose (dose/kg of body weight), sulfate intake was not a significant predictor of diarrhea. Evaluation of data from 248 private wells in North Dakota indicated that 62 percent of consumers experienced a laxative effect when the sulfate concentration in the well water exceeded 1,000 mg/L (Moore, 1952). In the dose-ranging study, the mean sulfate intake coming from drinking water in the 1,200 mg/L group was 2. In both studies at the 1,200-mg/L sulfate dose, a small increase in stool mass occurred, but no complaints of diarrhea or changes in stool frequency were reported. Although magnesium hydroxide and magnesium oxide are the primary salts utilized for this purpose, magnesium sulfate (Epsom salts) is also used. These poorly absorbed ions exert an osmotic effect in the intestinal lumen and cause water to be retained, thus increasing the fluidity of the intraluminal contents (Izzo et al. High oral doses of magnesium sulfate can lead to severe magnesium toxicity in patients with impaired renal function, but toxicity is uncommon in healthy individuals (Mordes, 1978). The comparatively poor absorption of magnesium thus may be the primary ion responsible for the diarrhea seen since absorption of sulfate was much greater. A number of studies have been conducted in human infants and very young animals because of their vulnerability to the adverse consequences of osmotic diarrhea. One hundred seventy households participating in the study also submitted water samples. In approximately 83 percent of the households that submitted water samples, no significant association was found between sulfate ingestion and the reported incidence of diarrhea. The median sulfate concentration of water samples and the mean daily sulfate intake for infants who did not develop diarrhea were 258 mg/L and 29 mg/kg/day, respectively. For infants who developed diarrhea, the median water sulfate concentration was 289 mg/L, and the mean daily sulfate intake was 28 mg/kg/day. At least one small case-history study suggested that infants exposed to water sulfate concentrations above 600 mg/L may develop diarrhea (see Table 7-5) (Chien et al. In a swine study, water con- Comments Developed frequent green and watery stools promptly after consuming formula made with well water; prior to consumption, the infant tended to be constipated Developed watery brown stools promptly after consuming formula made with well water; stools contained no bacterial pathogens, ova, or parasites Developed persistent diarrhea after several days of consuming well water; parents and two siblings developed intermittent diarrhea after consuming well water for 1 wk; stools contained no bacterial pathogens, ova, or parasites c Mean of daily intake of drinking and beverage water for infants and children 712 mo and 13 yr of age (Appendix Table D-3).
Over the longer term, industry and government leaders might structure their collaboration to provide additional security benefits. To meet the technical and organizational complexities of preparing for advanced biological threats, for example, the use of common planning cases offers unique opportunities to strengthen publicprivate and interagency coordination. However, to develop template emergency orders and contingency plans to implement them, power companies will need to conduct extensive operational and engineering studies and use enhanced modeling to understand the potential impact of such orders. Determining which specific public and private sector organizations should help shape template orders constitutes a critical first step in preparing for grid security emergencies. Participants in Drafting and Implementing Emergency Orders: the Bulk Power System and the Broader Electricity Subsector An initial task in developing emergency orders will be to determine which components of the electricity subsector should participate in that effort. Chief among them are "any owner, use or operator of critical electric infrastructure or of defense critical electric infrastructure within the United States. Critical electric infrastructure comprises grid systems or assets whose incapacity or destruction would "negatively affect national security, economic security, public health and safety, or any combination of such matters. Danzig, Catastrophic Bioterrorism, 57; and Blue Ribbon Study Panel, National Blueprint, 13, 4244. Local distribution systems often provide the "last mile" of connectivity between transmission systems and military bases and other critical customers. Renamed the North American Electric Reliability Corporation in 2007, it has served in that role since. Interconnections are defined as the "geographic area in which the operation of Bulk Power System components is synchronized such that the failure of one or more of such components may adversely affect the ability of the operators of other components within the system to maintain Reliable Operation of the Facilities within their control. Owners, users, and operators of critical electric infrastructure or defense critical electric infrastructure within the United States. Local Distribution Providers and Other Grid Resilience Stakeholders the analysis that follows later in this section examines the definition of "users" of critical electric infrastructure and defense critical electric infrastructure. However, local distribution infrastructure is critical for overall resilience against cyber and physical attacks. For example, if the secretary orders transmission systems to protect reliability by shedding load, yet at the same time sustain the flow of power to city water systems and other priority customers, local distribution infrastructure will be essential to conduct such prioritized load shedding. Holistic preparedness for grid security emergencies therefore requires engagement with local distribution systems. These systems will also have strong incentives to participate in the emergency order planning process. By integrating local distribution utilities operated by individual utilities or utility holding companies. Regional transmission organizations and independent system operators are independent membership-based nonprofit organizations that ensure reliability and optimize supply and demand bids for wholesale electric power. The act states that emergency orders may apply to "any owner, user, or operator of critical electric infrastructure or defense critical electric infrastructure" within the United States. This preplanning will be essential to strengthen comprehensive, end-to-end protection of grid reliability against attacks. These utilities will find it relatively easy to include distribution assets in their emergency planning. Such planning will be easiest for "vertically integrated" utilities that own and operate assets for all three functions. However, many municipally owned electric utilities and rural electric cooperatives (including those that serve critical and defense critical electric infrastructure) are not part of vertically integrated companies. Including state regulators and other state officials in these integrative efforts could offer additional benefits. State public utility commissions have primary regulatory jurisdiction over distribution systems. Adding such additional partners to help design emergency orders and plan for their implementation would complicate an already far-reaching engagement process. Nevertheless, incorporating perspectives from state commissioners and other officials would help advance comprehensive state-level preparedness for grid security emergencies. While this applies to high-voltage, interstate electricity transmission, it does not apply to lower-voltage retail distribution.
This preparation laid some of the intellectual groundwork for mathematics reform and ensured broad involvement in the developmental process. Its efforts also were enhanced by far-reach- Mathematics Articulation and Coalition Building Today, mathematics and science curriculum developers are bridging the gap between legislation and the classroom by specifying content, assessment, and performance standards, while at the same time trying to give teachers and local school districts a meaningful "zone of local discretion" over how to achieve the goals of Articulation and Mathematical Literacy: Political and Policy Issues 115 ing review and feedback processes. The organization embarked on an extensive consensus-building process among thousands of practitioners, academics, and other professionals as well as among members of the general public. In contrast to science, mathematics does not tend to galvanize debate on pressing social issues or political concerns. The mathematics community has relatively few national organizations, and many have overlapping membership. These elements strengthen communication and provide a more solid foundation for consensus. If there is no mechanistic answer finding, there will be no conjecturing, inventing, and problem solving. Judicious use of old-fashioned rote memory and drill are as necessary today as they were in generations past (Carlson 1995, 9). Other mathematics educators believe that classrooms should be student centered with emphasis on mathematical reasoning learned through constructing and solving problems. Traditional teaching emphases on practice in manipulating expressions and practicing algorithms as a precursor to solving problems ignore the fact that knowledge often emerges from the problems. This suggests that instead of the expectation that skill in computation should precede word problems, experience with problems helps develop the ability to compute. This experience shows that any attempt to improve mathematics articulation in grades 11 to 14 will encounter difficulties in reaching and sustaining a consensus. For articulated standards in mathematics to be accepted, the people of this nation must want to have them, and the standards must be flexible enough to allow for local elaboration and variation. Thus while schools have the ultimate responsibility to educate thoughtful, competent, and responsible citizens, the state-representing the public-has the responsibility to define what "thoughtful, competent, and responsible citizens" will mean in the coming century. Developers of standards for mathematics thus may find it undesirable to enforce a particular set of practices or materials. Rather, mathematics articulation could be designed to direct and guide local choice instead of determining and prescribing practice and teaching. No rigid or specific implications for practice would be inferred from the standards (Ball 1992; Myers 1994; Sykes and Plastrik 1992). In allowing this flexibility, however, policymakers trying to link high school mathematics courses to the first two years of university may confront the problem of not knowing when their standards lack the specificity required to provide strong leadership (Massell 1994a). This same concern emerged among experts who were trying to design teacher knowledge assessments for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards: By not creating standards at what we would call a finegrained level. Therefore, "a certain level of detail in the content standard is necessary to guide the construction of Grades 11 to 14 course sequence standards, which will then guide test specifications, and finally the development of the tests themselves" (Massell 1994a, 192). If the mathematics content standards do not provide sufficient detail, they will not pave the way for other policy components such as assessment and instructional materials; this is the problem mathematics frameworks are struggling with today. These must be the first steps; a syllabusbased examination system will have to wait until standards are established, because we cannot ensure that students have a fair chance to learn what is tested until we have a curricula in place" (Koretz, Madaus, Haertel, and Beaton, 1992, 12). But with more specificity comes less flexibility for individuals at various levels in the system and the potential for greater politically based opposition to policymakers telling teachers what to teach. A possible solution to the flexibility/specificity dilemma is to develop numerous, relatively detailed strands of content for grades 11 to 14 keyed to a common set of standards. These standards could include relative emphasis and sequencing for quantitative, mathematical, and symbol literacy. California currently revises its curricular frameworks on a staggered eight-year schedule. That is, each particular contentarea framework is reviewed every eight years, with a new subject being addressed each year by state policymakers. Eight years may seem like a long time, but if we break the process up into the time it takes to complete each step we can see that eight years can become a very short time. For example, it takes approximately two years to revise the curricular framework, and then publishers must be given enough time to align their textbooks accordingly. Furthermore, staff development programs, assessments, and other facets of the system must be constructed and implemented in the schools. California frequently has been criticized for having its frameworks and assessments ready before the staff development programs and curriculum materials were in place (Massell 1994a).
Improving Human Health and Physical Capabilities environmental factors proceed normally but enculturation is withdrawn, symbolic skills and language fail to develop, with drastic effects. The unprecedented growth of the cortex exposed to culture allowed us to develop more complex skills, language, and unmatched human performance. It is thought that it is our capacity to acquire symbolic skills that has led to our higher intelligence. Once we added symbols, alphabets, and mathematics, biological memory became inadequate for storing our collective knowledge. That is, the human mind became a "hybrid" structure built from vestiges of earlier biological stages, new evolutionarily-driven modules, and external (cultural "peripherals") symbolic memory devices (books, computers, etc. That is, just as we use our brain power to continue to develop technology, that technological enculturation has an impact on the way we process information, on the way our brain is shaped. This implies that we are more complex than any creatures before, and that we may not have yet reached our final evolutionary form. Since we are still evolving, the inescapable conclusion is that nanotechnology can help drive our evolution. This should be the charge to our nanoscientists: Develop nanoscale hybrid technology. It is tempting to focus nanotechnology research on brain-machine integration, to develop implantable devices (rather than peripheral devices) to "optimize" detection, perception, and responsiveness, or to increase "computational power" or memory storage. If we can ever hope to do this, we need to know how the brain processes information. Recent progress in information processing in the brain sciences, in a sense, parallels that of advances in computation. Similarly, brain research has given us a wealth of information on the hardware of the brain, its anatomical connectivity and synaptic interactions, but this explosion of information has revealed little about the software the brain uses to process information and direct voluntary movement. Moreover, there is reason to believe that we tailor our software, developing more efficient "lines of code" as we grow and interact with the environment and culture. In neurobiological terms, the architecture of the brain is determined genetically, the connectivity pattern is set by experience, and we undergo plastic changes throughout our lives in the process of enculturation. The brain does not work like a computer; it is not a digital device; it is an analog device. The majority of computations in the brain are performed in analog format, in the form of graded receptor and synaptic potentials, not all-or-none action potentials that, after all, end up inducing other grade potentials. Even groups of neurons, entire modules, and multi-module systems all generate waveforms of activity, from the 40 Hz rhythm thought to underlie binding of sensory events to slow potentials that may underlie long-term processes. Before we can ever hope to implant or drive machines at the macro, micro, or nano scale, the sciences of information technology and advanced computing need to sharpen our skills at analog computing. This should be the charge to our information technology colleagues: Develop analog computational software. Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance 229 However, we do not have to wait until we make breakthroughs in that direction, because we can go ahead and develop nanoscale peripherals in the meantime. Improving Human Performance Sensory Gating Human performance, being under direct control from the brain, is dependent on a pyramid of processes. Accurate human performance depends on practice gained from learning and memory, which in turn depend on selective attention to the performance of the task at hand, which in turn depends on "preattentional" arousal mechanisms that determine a level of attention. Human performance can be improved with training, which involves higher-level processes such as learning and memory. However, the most common factor leading to poor human performance is a lower-level process, lack of attention, or distractibility. Is it possible to decrease the degree of distractibility, or at least to monitor the level of distractibility? Can nanotechnology provide a critical service in the crucial area of distractibility? It is therefore critical to develop a method for measuring our susceptibility under stress to respond inappropriately to features of the environment. By monitoring our sensory gating capability, our ability to appraise and filter out unwanted stimuli can be assessed, and the chances of successful subsequent task performance can be determined.
Yet, of the three fundamental questions of science, the most profound may be, "What is mind? Who we are, what makes us unique, and what distinguishes us from the rest of creation lies not in our physical elements, or even in our biological makeup, but in our minds. It is only the mind that sharply distinguishes the human race from all the other species. It is the mind that enables humans to understand and use language, to manufacture and use tools, to tell stories, to compute with numbers, and to reason with rules of logic. It is the mind that enables us to compose music and poetry, to worship, to develop technology, and to organize political and religious institutions. It is the mind that enabled humans to discover how to make fire, to build a wheel, to navigate a ship, to smelt copper, refine steel, split the atom, and travel to the moon. Compared to the brain, the atom is an uncomplicated bundle of mass and energy that is easily studied and well understood. Compared to the brain, the molecular mechanisms that replicate and retrieve information stored in the genes are quite primitive. One of the greatest mysteries in science is how the computational mechanisms in the brain generate and coordinate the images, feelings, memories, urges, desires, conceits, loves, hatreds, beliefs, pleasures, disappointment, and pain that make up human experience. The really great scientific question is "What causes us to think, imagine, hope, fear, dream, and act like we do? Intelligent machines will have a profound impact on the production of goods and services. However, the introduction of the computer into the production process is enabling the creation of wealth with little or no human labor. The first industrial revolution was triggered by the invention of the steam engine and the discovery of electricity. It was based on the substitution of mechanical energy for muscle power in the production of goods and services. The first industrial revolution produced an explosion in the ability to produce material wealth. A prosperous middle class based on industrial production and commerce replaced aristocracies based on slavery. In all the thousands of centuries prior to the first industrial revolution, the vast majority of humans existed near the threshold of survival, and every major civilization was based on slavery or serfdom. Yet, less than 300 years after the beginning of the first industrial revolution, slavery has almost disappeared, and a 288 D. There is good reason to believe that the next industrial revolution will change human history at least as profoundly as the first. The application of computers to the control of industrial processes is bringing into being a new generation of machines that can create wealth largely or completely unassisted by human beings. The next industrial revolution, sometimes referred to as the robot revolution, has been triggered by the invention of the computer. It is based on the substitution of electronic computation for the human brain in the control of machines and industrial processes. As intelligent machine systems become more and more skilled and numerous in the production process, productivity will rise and the cost of labor, capital, and material will spiral downward. It will undoubtedly give rise to new social class structures and new political and economic institutions (Albus 1976). The Role of Productivity the fundamental importance of productivity on economic prosperity can be seen from the following equation: Output = Productivity x Input where Input = labor + capital + raw materials and Productivity = the efficiency by which the input of labor, capital, and raw material is transformed into output product Productivity is a function of knowledge and skill, i. The rapid growth in computer technology has produced an unexpectedly rapid increase in productivity that has confounded predictions of slow economic growth made by establishment economists only a decade ago (Symposia 1988; Bluestone and Harrison 2000). In the future, the introduction of truly intelligent machines could cause productivity to grow even faster. Given only conservative estimates of growth in computer power, unprecedented rates of productivity growth could become the norm as intelligent machines become pervasive in the productive process. Intelligent systems have the potential to produce significant productivity improvements in many sectors of the economy, both in the short term and in the long term. Already, computer-controlled machines routinely perform economically valuable tasks in manufacturing, construction, transportation, business, communications, entertainment, education, waste management, hospital and nursing support, physical security, agriculture and food processing, mining and drilling, and undersea and planetary exploration.
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