LDEF was carried into orbit in April 1984 by the Space Shuttle Challenger. The 11-ton satellite contained 57 experiments to assess the effects of the space environment, i.e., ionizing radiation, meteoroids, cosmic dust, and high altitude atomic oxygen on materials and mechanical, electronic, optical, and living systems. In January 1990, after 69 months in low Earth orbit, LDEF was retrieved by the Space Shuttle Columbia and returned to Earth. The retrieval occurred 57 months after it was originally planned, due in part to the Challenger tragedy. The 69 months in space provided experimenters the unique opportunity to sample and measure the space environment over a longer time period than originally planned. The 57 LDEF experiments were returned to the Principal Investigators and their science teams for analyses and interpretation. In June 1991, over 400 LDEF researchers and data users met in Kissimmee, Florida for the First LDEF Post-Retrieval Symposium. The papers presented contained important new information about space environments and their impact on materials, systems, and biology.

The Post-Communist World in the Twenty-First Century presents studies by senior scholars and practitioners that are highly relevant to contemporary political challenges. The democratic vision that accompanied the collapse of communist regimes in the Soviet Union and East Central Europe has been replaced by a range of authoritarian, semi-authoritarian and democratic regimes, and growing division between Western and Russian influence. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to renewed tensions and international crisis. China, which presents major challenges to the US, Europe, and the global order, has emerged as a critical actor in the international conflict. The need to understand the internal dynamics and international behavior of communist and authoritarian regimes is more urgent at this time. The expertise provided by the volume’s contributors is especially timely, offering new insights into the past and contemporary politics of these states, the agendas driving their behavior, regimes’ domestic strengths and weaknesses, and the role of leaders’ differing perceptions in exacerbating international conflict. Practitioners demonstrate how such knowledge can inform effective policy and ameliorative efforts.

Inside the Museums views Toronto’s heritage museums for the first time as a single community — linked by events, personalities, and function. In this special excerpt we visit Toronto’s first post office at 260 Adelaide Street East, a handsome red-brick building still flying the Union Jack, and built in 1834. John Goddard takes us on a detailed tour of the house, providing fascinating historical background and insight.

This book offers an original and distinct analysis of NATO's post-Cold War evolution. Unlike so much of the available literature, it is not focused on what in the author's opinion NATO should be doing now that the Cold War is over. Rather, the author offers a comprehensive analysis and overview of the extent to which NATO can undertake new roles, tasks and missions in light of the extent to which it has retained significance and vitality as an international institution. The book's originality also lies in the way in which the author discusses NATO's adaptation within a framework provided by international relations theory, and in particular concepts which stress the role and importance of transnational political processes and international regimes. So far these have been little used in the analysis of military security relations and institutions. The book will be of interest to those researching and teaching international relations, European politics and security studies, as well as all those seeking a better understanding of the post-Cold War survival and development of a key international security institution.

These Agreements have not been ratified by the United Kingdom