Solar irradiance is a vital source of energy input for the Earth's climate system and its variability has the potential to mitigate or exacerbate a human-created climate. Maintaining an unbroken record of Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) is critical in resolving ongoing debates regarding the potential role of solar variability in influencing Earth's climate. Space-borne instruments have acquired TSI data since 1978. Currently, the best calibrated and lowest noise source of TSI measurements is the Total Irradiance Monitor (TIM) onboard NASA's Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE). These TIM-era data are of higher quality than the older data in the full record. Thus, the TSI climate data record (CDR) has two components. There is the shorter, but more accurate record of the TIM era and the full (33+ year) space-based TSI measurement record. Both are important and require preservation. Review of NOAA Working Group Report on Maintaining the Continuation of Long-Term Satellite Total Irradiance Observations evaluates NOAA's plan for mitigating the loss of total solar irradiance measurements from space, given the likelihood of losing this capacity from instruments currently on the SORCE satellite in coming years and the short term/experimental nature of the currently identified method of filling the data gap. This report evaluates NOAA's plan for mitigating the gap in total solar irradiance data.

Solar irradiance is a vital source of energy input for the Earth's climate system and its variability has the potential to mitigate or exacerbate a human-created climate. Maintaining an unbroken record of Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) is critical in resolving ongoing debates regarding the potential role of solar variability in influencing Earth's climate. Space-borne instruments have acquired TSI data since 1978. Currently, the best calibrated and lowest noise source of TSI measurements is the Total Irradiance Monitor (TIM) onboard NASA's Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE). These TIM-era data are of higher quality than the older data in the full record. Thus, the TSI climate data record (CDR) has two components. There is the shorter, but more accurate record of the TIM era and the full (33+ year) space-based TSI measurement record. Both are important and require preservation. Review of NOAA Working Group Report on Maintaining the Continuation of Long-Term Satellite Total Irradiance Observations evaluates NOAA's plan for mitigating the loss of total solar irradiance measurements from space, given the likelihood of losing this capacity from instruments currently on the SORCE satellite in coming years and the short term/experimental nature of the currently identified method of filling the data gap. This report evaluates NOAA's plan for mitigating the gap in total solar irradiance data.

In spite of recent progress in the harmonization of terminology and processes affecting work on the clinical safety of medicines consensus is needed on standards for many difficult aspects of day-to-day pharmacovigilance that continue to pose problems for both the pharmaceutical industry and drug regulators. The CIOMS V Working Group has generated proposals for pragmatic approaches to dealing with such issues as: classification and handling of individual safety case reports from a variety of sources (spontaneous consumer reports solicited reports literature the Internet observational studies and secondary data bases disease and other registries regulatory ADR databases and licensor-licensee interactions); new approaches to case management and regulatory reporting practices (proper clinical evaluation of cases incidental vs other events patient and reporter identifiability seriousness criteria expectedness criteria case follow-up criteria and the role and structure of case narratives); improvements and efficiencies in the format content and reporting of periodic safety update reports (PSURs) (including results of an industry survey on PSUR workloads and practices; proposals for high case volume and long time-period reports simplification of certain PSURs summary bridging reports addendum reports license renewal reports for EU and Japan dealing with old products and other technical details); determination and use of population exposure (denominator) data (sources of data and a guide to analytical approaches for a variety of circumstances).The Group has also taken stock of the current state of expedited and periodic clinical safety reporting requirements around the world with summary data on regulations from more than 60 countries. Recommendations are made for enhancing the harmonization steps already taken as a result of previous CIOMS publications and the ICH process. In addition to dealing with unfinished and unresolved issues from previous CIOMS initiatives the report covers many emerging topics such as those involving new technologies. Its 20 Appendices provide a wealth of detailed explanations and reference information. It is the most comprehensive and recent treatment of difficult pharmacovigilance issues affecting the working practices and systems of drug safety and other pharmaceutical professionals.

The National Research Council was asked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to review the draft report of the National Cancer Institute (NCI)-CDC's working group charged with revising the 1985 radioepidemiological tables. To this end, a subcommittee was formed consisting of members of the Council's Committee on an Assessment of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Radiation Programs and other experts. The original tables were mandated under Public Law 97-414 (the "Orphan Drug Act") and were intended to provide a means of estimating the probability that a person who developed any of a series of radiation-related cancers, developed the cancer as a result of a specific radiation dose received before the onset of the cancer. The mandate included a provision for periodic updating of the tables. The motivation for the current revision reflects the availability of new data, especially on cancer incidence, and new methods of analysis, and the need for a more thorough treatment of uncertainty in the estimates than was attempted in the original tables.