Subject: Letter of support for Xiaobiao Huang. From: ohnuma@phys.hawaii.edu Date: October 10, 2005 5:27:31 PM EDT To: drubin@physics.cornell.edu Dear Prof. Rubin: I am very happy to write this letter of support on behalf of Xiaobiao Huang, now at Fermilab. His adviser, SY Lee at Indiana University, tells me that he is submitting Xiaobiao's dissertation for the consideration of your committee. I have known Xiaobiao since the summer of 2002 when I had an opportunity to work with him for the study of Booster at Fermilab. We have exchanged many emails during the past four years to discuss the progress of his work. One must realize that magnets in the booster have never been properly measured and our understanding of its lattice pro- perty was very poor. As one who struggled for several years to make sense out of its beam behaviors while working at Fermilab, I can truly appreciate what Xiaobiao has achieved. In particular, his application of independent component analysis(ICA) is quite original in accelerator beam dynamics and it should become a standard way of analysing the data, especially in proton machines. Unlike electron machines with well-understood beam properties, proton beams are notoriously vague in many respects. Xiaobiao's analysis of the booster beam behaviors promises to open a new approach in this area. I support his dissertation for the award without any reservation. Sincerely, Shoroku Ohnuma University of Hawaii Honolulu, HI 96822