[en] One key to the impact of deregulation being transmitted to residential customers is the successful formation of aggregation groups and their expansion to include different classes of customers with convergent usage interests. This activity currently is being sponsored not only by for-profit brokerage entities, but also by associations of not-for-profit corporations such as hospitals and universities and by countries. The issues presented fall into several categories. (1) Technical rate taking--feasibility of making appropriate arrangements for alternative supply to consumers on a basis which appropriately reflects customer characteristics and also confers benefit on them all; (2) Legal--Compatibility of proposed arrangements with FERC wholesale regulation under Order No. 888 and emerging state regulation under the different restructuring regimes which their state utility commissions are implementing; (3) Marketing/Sociopolitical--Utilization of modern marketing techniques to effect the political consensus which is a precursor of alternative aggregation arrangements; (4) Financing--identification of capital costs; techniques for financing such costs, including monetization of the savings to be realized. The presentation will extrapolate the potential future significance of aggregation as a force in both restructuring and the development of merchant power projects. It will also assess the extent to which institutional, legal, technical or financial factors may modify the ultimate significance of aggression in the North American Power Industry

[en] In uranium production the conversion of impure uranium tetrafluoride by sodium hydroxide was chosen as a current process. A rapid method for determination of fluoride in uranyl-nitrate solution was developed. The method includes precipitation of uranium as diuranate, separation by centrifugation, and subsequent determination of fluoride in supernate by titration with thorium nitrate. Fluoride can be measured over the range 0.15-2.5 gr/gr U, with accuracy of +-5%, within 15 minutes. (author)

[en] This paper determines the value of sequential, multi-modality imaging for preoperative detection of hepatic tumor nodules in candidates for liver resection. Prospectively and preoperatively, we evaluated 26 patients (seven with hepatocellular carcinoma, one with liver cell adenoma, and 18 with metastatic colorectal carcinoma) to determine number and location of tumor nodules. After bolus dynamic CT (BDCT), patients underwent hepatic angiography, CT angiography (CTA), delayed iodine CT scanning (DIS), and MR imaging. Fifty-six tumor nodules were confirmed by surgery and biopsy, 20 patients had hepatic resection

[en] The University of Maryland electron ring (UMER) is a low-energy, high current recirculator for beam physics research with relevance to any applications that rely on intense beams of high quality. We review the space-charge physics issues, both in transverse and longitudinal beam dynamics, which are currently being addressed with UMER: emittance growth and halo formation, strongly asymmetric beams, Montague resonances, equipartitioning, bunch capture and shaping, etc. Furthermore, we report on recent developments in experiments, simulations, and improved diagnostics for space-charge dominated beams