One impediment to increasing the fuel economy standards for light-duty vehicles is the long-standing argument that reducing vehicle mass to improve fuel economy will inherently make vehicles less safe. This technical paper summarizes and examines the research that is cited in support of this argument, and presents more recent research that challenges it. We conclude that the research claiming that lighter vehicles are inherently less safe than heavier vehicles is flawed, and that other aspects of vehicle design are more important to the on-road safety record of vehicles. This paper was prepared for a workshop on experts in vehicle safety and fuel economy, organized by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, to discuss technologies and designs that can be taken to simultaneously improve vehicle safety and fuel economy; the workshop was held in Washington DC on October 3, 2006.

LOCO is a computer code for analysis of the linear optics in a storage ring based on the closed orbit response to steering magnets. The analysis provides information on focusing errors, BPM gain and rotation errors, and local coupling. Here, we discuss the details of the LOCO implementation at the KEK-ATF Damping Ring, and report the initial results. Some of the information obtained, for example on the BPM gain and coupling errors, has not previously been determined. We discuss the possibility of using the data provided by the LOCO analysis to reduce the vertical emittance of the ATF beam.

LOCO is a code for analysis of the linear optics in a storage ring based on the closed orbit response to steering magnets. The analysis provides information on focusing errors, BPM gain and rotation errors,and local coupling. Here, we report the results of an application of LOCO to the KEK-ATF. Although the analysis appears to have provided useful information on the optics of the machine, it appears that one of the main aims of the study to reduce the vertical emittance by correcting the local coupling was not successful, and we discuss some possible reasons for this.

The damping rings of a future linear collider will have demanding alignment and stability requirements in order to achieve the low vertical emittance necessary for high luminosity. The Accelerator Test Facility (ATF) at KEK has successfully demonstrated the vertical emittance below 5 pm that is specified for the GLC/NLC Main Damping Rings. One contribution to this accomplishment has been the use of Beam Based Alignment (BBA) techniques. The mode of operation of the ATF presents particular challenges for BBA, and we describe here how we have deduced the offsets of the BPMs with respect to the quadrupoles. We also discuss a technique that allows for direct measurements of the beam-to-quad offsets.