Editorial Comment to Issue No. 9 of ESNF

July 30, 2009.  The paper selection in this Issue is somewhat limited.  Unfortunately, we were unable to accept some papers submitted to ESNF.  Rejections or requests for a major revision are entirely normal part of daily business at any professional journal, but become a problem when the amount of submitted contributions is limited.  This was the case this time. 

The present issue contains the previously announced Part II of the critical review by Braginski and Donaldson (CR-12-II), devoted to SQUID activities in Europe.  In this Part II, SQUID applications are reviewed.  Two papers address progress in the preparation of YBCO coated conductors (CCs) by chemical methods.  In the paper by Millon et al., (ST115) a novel approach of fabricating coated tubular wires is attempted.  Stadel and Muydinov (RN11) report on their progress in fabricating CCs by entirely chemical route, which includes not  only MOCVD of YBCO, but also chemical preparation of the textured buffer layer on textured NiW metallic substrate.  Wördenweber et al. (ST116) present an expanded version of a paper on transition from unguided to guided vortex motion in micropatterned thin YBCO films in the vicinity of T_c. 

Last, but not least, we pre-publish a preliminary report by Sytnikov et al. (ST117) on testing of the Russian 30-m-long, three-phase HTS power cable.