BRIEFS.

The article presents news on the uses of computer technologies in the various departments and industries of the United States. It reports about the uses of computer in the U.S. Congress. As part of an overall reorganization, the U.S. Congress is looking at the use of data processing in the Legislative Reference Service, the part of the Library of Congress that serves as a research arm of the Congress. Bills introduced in the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House will permit several computer applications in the Legislative Reference Service. Fisher-Stevens Inc., a data processing firm in Clifton, New Jersey, has been selected by the American Physical Society, headquartered at Brookhaven National Laboratories, to study and make recommendations on automation of its editorial procedures. The Society expects to use a computer to aid in the selection of qualified referees for hundreds of technical papers, which are submitted each month. The U.S. National Bureau of Standard's Institute for Applied Technology has analyzed the tufted carpet industry by means of a mathematical model, which stimulates operations of the industry and makes it possible to explore the consequences of change in policy.