[en] The utility industry and its regulatory environment are at a crossroads. Utilities, intervenors and even public utility commissions are no longer able to initiate and sustain changes unilaterally. Traditional approaches to regulation are often contentious and costly, producing results that are not perceived as legitimate or practical. Consensus building and alternative dispute resolution have the potential to help utilities, intervenors and regulators resolve a host of regulatory issues. This book traces the decline of consensus in utility regulation and delineates current controversies. It presents the theory and practice of alternative dispute resolution in utility regulation and offers a framework for evaluating the successes and failures of attempts to employ these processes. Four regulatory cases are analyzed in detail: the Pilgrim nuclear power plant outage settlement, the use of DSM collaboratives, the New Jersey resource bidding policy and the formation of integrated resource management rules in Massachusetts

[en] The Michel parameters ρ, η, Δ_l, ξ_l are measured using correlations between the decays of the τ⁺ and τ^- produced on the Z resonance and observed in the ALEPH detector at LEP. The preliminary results for ρ, η, Δ_l, ξ_l are respectively, 0.751±0.039±0.029, -0.04±0.15±0.11, 0.88±0.11±0.07, 1.18±0.15±0.06. The preliminary value of the hadronic ξ_h parameter which equals the average τ-neutrino helicity is ξ_h= left angle h(ν_τ) right angle =-1.006±0.032±0.023. ((orig.))

[en] During the recent restructuring process, the Czech steel industry has undergone a drastic reduction in the steel production by around 40%. Under such situation, previously exported volumes have been diverted into domestic markets. For the export, the Czech steel industry had to make its efforts in enhancing the quality of products and in improving the technologies in accordance with ISO standards (ISO 9000 and also ISO 14000). Among the various new quality demands in the export market, the radioactive contamination of steel products has received a very high attention. The Czech Iron and Steel Federation has organized a working team specialized in solving the problems arising from radioactive contaminated metallurgical scrap and steel products. The working team is made up of specialists from steel producers and scrap handling firms of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic, of experts from the State Office for Nuclear Safety, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Metrological Institute. Members of the Inspectorate for Ionizing Radiation and the General Directory for Customs are also included. This working team takes part in the elaboration of the legislative norms in that area. This paper deals with all the detailed functions of the working team. At present, all the major Czech steel producers have installed stationary radiation monitoring systems for detecting the possible radioactivity in all materials entering into factories. Under an agreement arranged between the producers of the Czech Iron and Steel Federation, the tolerable range of radionuclide contents in steel scrap and steel products has been set at the maximum of 100 Bq/kg in ( scrap and steel products. In this respect, the large firms collecting and treating scrap have also installed stationary radiation monitoring systems. In such monitoring systems, the detector will measure and check the values of radioactivity above 10 - 15% higher than the natural background level. In the case that radioactivity higher than 10-15% is detected, the source of radiation will be retrieved and isolated. Reality shows that there do not exist any international standards or norms in the field of radioactive contamination. Each country has its own standards and limits regarding imports and exports of scrap and of steel products. Moreover, when standards have been agreed upon, their applications and p measurements vary depending on countries. We strongly support the adoption of the so called international 'business limits' which would decide on the regulations for international trade of scrap and steel products. (author)

[en] This paper reports on a search for Z⁰ decays into acoplanar pairs of leptons or jets using data collected with the OPAL detector during the 1989 LEP run. The authors present model independent limits on branching ratios for the Z⁰ to decay into pairs of heavy particles with subsequent decays leading to the above topologies. The authors place lower bounds on the masses of the scalar leptons and the chargino

[en] We discuss the impact of the recent measurements of the Michel parameter in τ decay. These measurements are used to extract limits on the charged current couplings beyond the Standard Model, first in a model independent way and then with some additional but very general assumptions. The measurements substantiate the Standard Model V-A hypothesis and restrict right handed couplings of the τ. On the other hand, left handed scalar and tensor couplings of the τ channot be bounded in the model independent framework with presently available data. (orig.)

[en] The small High Efficiency pulse tube Cooler (HEC) cooler, that has been produced and flown on a number of space infrared instruments, was originally designed to provide cooling of 10 W @ 95 K. It achieved its goal with >50% margin when limited by the 180 W output ac power of its flight electronics. It has also been produced in 2 stage configurations, typically for simultaneously cooling of focal planes to temperatures as low as 35 K and optics at higher temperatures. The need for even higher cooling power in such a low mass cryocooler is motivated by the advent of large focal plane arrays. With the current availability at NGAS of much larger power cryocooler flight electronics, reliable long term operation in space with much larger cooling powers is now possible with the flight proven 4 kg HEC mechanical cooler. Even though the single stage cooler design can be re-qualified for those larger input powers without design change, we redesigned both the linear and coaxial version passive pulse tube cold heads to re-optimize them for high power cooling at temperatures above 130 K while rejecting heat to 300 K. Small changes to the regenerator packing, the re-optimization of the tuned inertance and no change to the compressor resulted in the increased performance at 150 K. The cooler operating at 290 W input power achieves 35 W@ 150 K corresponding to a specific cooling power at 150 K of 8.25 W/W and a very high specific power of 72.5 W/Kg. At these powers the cooler still maintains large stroke, thermal and current margins. In this paper we will present the measured data and the changes to this flight proven cooler that were made to achieve this increased performance

[en] This report describes the 1991 implementation of the data acquisition system of the OPAL detector at LEP including the additional services and infrastructure necessary for its correct and reliable operation. The various tasks in this 'on-line' environment are distributed amongst many VME subsystems, workstations and minicomputers which communicate over general purpose local area networks and special purpose buses. The tasks include data acquisition, control, monitoring, calibration and event reconstruction. The modularity of both hardware and software facilitates the upgrading of the system to meet new requirements. (orig.)