This volume constitutes the proceedings of the 1983 Denver Conference on Applications of X-ray Analysis and is the 27th in the series. The conference was held jointly with the American Crystal­ lographic Association at Snowmass Resort, Colorado, from August 1 to 5, 1983. The papers appearing in this volume are only from pre­ dominantly Denver Conference (DC) sessions and from joint DC/ACA sessions. The early plans for holding a joint conference were initiated some three years ago by Q. C. Johnson of Lawrence Livermore Lab, J. B. Cohen of Northwestern University and P. K. Predecki of the University of Denver and were eventually brought to fruition by a jOint organizing committee consisting of: O. P. Anderson, Colorado State University (ACA) , D. E. Leyden, Colorado State University (DC), R. D. Witters, Colorado School of Mines (ACA) and P. K. Predecki (DC). We take this opportunity to thank the committee members and the early planners for their vision, ingenuity and hard work without which the conference would not have materialized. There was no plenary session in 1983, instead a number of special sessions were organized and chaired by various individuals.