January 17, 1983

Two committees of the New York State Legislature will conduct a joint investigation into the causes of the 53-hour inmate takeover at the state prison in Ossining, the chairmen of the panels said yesterday. ''We are going to see what officials knew prior to the outbreak,'' said Senator Ralph J. Marino, a Republican of Muttontown, L.I., who heads the Committee on Crime and Corrections. ''There was a riot. That means something went wrong. That means that we should look into this.''

The relative academic prestige of the country's top research universities has changed little over the last decade, according to a $500,000 study sponsored by four national academic organizations. The University of California at Berkeley emerged as the strongest graduate institution across the board on a ''reputational'' scale in which faculty members rated the academic quality of their peers across the country. Thirty-two fields were assessed on the relatively narrow basis of how successful they are perceived to be at turning out professional scholars and researchers. The reputations of Berkeley's departments were listed among the top 10 in 28 of them. Stanford University was in the top 10 in 24 fields, and Harvard University in 22.

When Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone arrives in Washington Monday after only 50 days in office, he will have to listen to a long string of complaints about the trading practices of his country. In spite of the trade liberalization measures announced last week to smooth the way for the trip, American officials are insisting that Japan still has a long way to go to provide the kind of access to its market that Japanese and other foreign products enjoy in this country. ''There are some impressive elements in the latest program, but the problems haven't gone away,'' said David Macdonald, the deputy United States trade representative. Hitting the High Points President Reagan has been briefed to hit the high points on the trade agenda - such issues as bigger quotas for beef and citrus fruits from the United States and the failure of Japan to purchase American telecommunications equipment, despite an agreement two years ago that it would.

Frank J. Macchiarola plans to resign today, after nearly five years as Chancellor of the city's public schools, to become the chief executive of the New York City Partnership, a business and civic group that directs projects in areas ranging from housing to summer jobs. Mr. Macchiarola's appointment to the $150,000-a-year post is expected to be announced at a news conference this morning by the chairman of the group, David Rockefeller, at 200 Madison Avenue. Officials of the Board of Education said yesterday that the Chancellor was leaving with a sense of achievement in improving educational standards but with concern over the system's future. The board faces layoffs of as many as 1,800 of its 55,000 teachers on Feb. 1 if it cannot close close a $37 million deficit.

Two of New York City's largest private teaching hospitals are pulling back on nearly $1 billion in planned rebuilding in response to Governor Cuomo's intention to freeze all hospital construction in the state for a year. At the Mount Sinai Medical Center, which had announced a $458 million building program, the director, Samuel Davis, said: ''It's clear that there will not be enough money to do all the things we would like to do. In light of the fiscal and public policy realities, we have redirected our architects to develop a more austere rebuilding plan and to look to less costly alternatives.'' At New York Hospital at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, the director, Dr. David J. Thompson, said the institution would be willing to begin almost $400 million in planned renovations gradually, rather than as part of one huge project.