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The extent of work related fatal accidents has been analysed statistically by agencies throughout the world. As a result of this analysis there is a wealth of information available categorised by industry types, sub-industry, occupation, sex, age, nature of occurrence, bodily location, agency of occurrence and mechanism of injury. It is however extremely difficult to identify information pertaining to confined space fatalities such as contributory factors, mechanisms of injury and other data of an epidemiological nature.

In 2010, with globalization, and economic integration, the world is brought even closer together by satellite technology. Satellites have revolutionized modern military operations and have become essential to ensuring national security regimes. The number of space faring nations has increased, and the US no longer holds a monopoly in space. With China’s successful ASAT test in 2007 and increasing military buildup and cooperation between China and Russia, the US must carefully develop space policies that do not appear antagonistic and unilateral in an attempt to dominate, otherwise a new cold war in space will ensue. Already at the precipice of an all out arms race, the militarization of space has set the stage for the next phase: the weaponization of outer space. In order to prevent this, the laws of outer space should be clear and specifically dictate the rules. Unfortunately, the laws of space are outdated, vague, with marginal controls written before the technology of modern times. The hypothesis for this thesis is based on the belief that the current treaties governing space are insufficient, and in order to preserve peace, they must evolve, along with increased international cooperation, communication, and transparency measures to prevent an all out conflict. This thesis is divided into five sections, the first of which provides an introduction and review of the existing legal system in space. This is followed by current issues and growing concerns, a summary of China, Russia and the US’s strategic capabilities, and finally the assessment of international legal regime in place to help mitigate the use of space. In order to ensure space security for all, transparent, multilateral policies should be pursued. The militarization of space will continue until it reaches a point of confrontation. In order to preserve the peaceful use of space, arms control agreements and the existing space legislation needs to be clarified and updated. International dialogue must promote progress and advancement in shared technology, not an arms race. Through cooperation and collaborative efforts, the continued development of space can be achieved for the benefit of all.

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The words of Octavio Paz, from his Drift of Shadows, poetically describe the cycle of water in nature involving the erosion and weathering of stone by the force of water, further enhanced by the force of wind. This succession of events in nature is one of inter-dependency. It is also one of temporality: one element of nature perpetually affecting another, a temporality engaging elements either by impeding or by propelling. The landscape embraces, as created or destroyed by these natural forces. So, too, does architecture. As a natural force,flooding intrudes upon the landscape endangers architecture by filling the low-lying space with water, thus altering architecture and the perception of that space, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Erosion is an offspring of moving water that occurs more subtly, more gradually, over a long period of time and alters the landscape by way of addition and subtraction. As water immerses the land, it [the water] moves and moves sediment with it. Whole some land is sheared of its topsoil and stones are smoothed of their roughness (subtraction), other land is deposited with the richness of the sediment through the force of the water that carried it (addition). The photograph (Figure 1) of Ciudad Encantada (the Enchanted City) near Madrid, Spain, evokes a strong imagery of the consequence of the subtractive quality of erosion. One imagines that these boldly-cantilevered structures were once stoic with their uniform connection to the earth and connected to each other, forming ground at a higher plane. Water, however, was relentless over time and eroded the sandstone into a cavernous garden of stone pillars. Time and weather, as conjoined elements of nature, act upon the material of architecture with an inevitable and implacable force. Time and Man are the architects in partnership with nature. Architecture, therefore has an obligation, to not only its place, but also to respect these elements as co-designers. An architecture can be created that is both responsive and proactive to the dimension of time and the dynamic of nature over time.

Thesis (M.S.)--Worcester Polytechnic Institute. / Keywords:Spacecraft; electric propulsion; LEO; GRACE; Drag-free. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 111-112).

Whether ongoing electroencephalogram (EEG) signal contributes to event related potential (ERP) generation is currently a matter of discussion for all sensory modalities. Resolving the controversy between additive and the oscillatory models has become crucial because evoked potentials are increasingly used in clinical practice as a physiological and neuropsychological index of brain areas or as a link with other functional approaches such as fMRI and the underlying network. The key issue is the search for a function underlying these mechanisms. Somatosensory evoked potentials are robust indicators of the afferent information at cortical level. In particular, the frontal N30 component of SEP can serve as a reliable physiological index of the dopaminergic motor pathway (Insola et al., 1999, Pierantozzi et al., 1999). Its properties in sensory-motor gating and cognitive processes make its fine analysis particularly interesting. The physiological interpretation and the origin of the frontal N30 are still debated (Allison et al., 1991, Cheron et al., 1994, Karnovsky et al., 1997, Balzamo et al., 2004, Barba et al., 2005). In this thesis we have investigated the mechanisms generating the N30 SEP component produced by electrical stimulation at median nerve at wrist, with reference to the current questioning of the additive and oscillatory models of the ERP (Sayers et al., 1974; Basar et al., 1980). We have applied analysis of the spectral content of neuronal oscillatory activity recorded in electroencephalographic (EEG) in order to study of dynamic brain processing underlying the N30 component. Concretely for studying whether the occurrence of the N30 related input induce amplitude modulation and/or reorganization of EEG rhythms we have analyzed separately power perturbation and phase synchrony of single EEG oscillations trials by means of event-related spectral perturbation (ERSP) and intertrial coherence (ITC) measurements. In addition, in order to model brain localizations of phase synchrony and power enhancement and to compare them to model localization of the N30 SEP we used swLORETA, a discrete method of source analysis. We have demonstrated that: (1) Ongoing EEG signals contribute to the generation of the N30 component (Cheron et al., 2007). (2) Dynamics of ongoing EEG signals underlie the specific behavior of the N30 during gating produced by movement execution (Cebolla et al., 2009). (3) Localization of brain sources generating the N30 SEP component overlaps those generating beta-gamma ongoing oscillations at the same short latency (Cebolla et al., 2010). Additionally the work developed during this thesis has served to develop a comprehensive, pragmatic paradigm to identify, evaluate and understand the somatosensory alterations in defined contexts, as illustrated by our recent work on perturbations and adaptations in astronauts over long term microgravity stay. We think that addressing this topic is essential in order to optimize and objectively evaluate adaptation to microgravity. We therefore proposed a detailed project to European Space Agency entitled “The frontal N30 somatosensory evoked potential for the study of sensory-motor and cognitive adaptations in weightlessness: NeuroSEP” (ILSRA 2009) in which we also proposed direct applications for quality of life aboard International Space Station, for the medical field and industry.

Waves in the mHz frequency range are prominent features of the terrestrial magnetosphere. In this frequency range the waves have wavelengths comparable to the lengths of the geomagnetic field lines. The waves are then standing waves along closed field lines with endpoints in the southern and northern ionosphere. Waves play an important role in the distribution of energy in the magnetosphere and mHz waves can accelerate electrons to MeV energies and have been proposed as driving mechanism for auroral arcs. They can also be used as diagnostic tools for determining the plasma density. There are two important classes of these low frequency waves. One has large azimuthal wavelength and is usually associated with driving mechanisms outside the magnetosphere, such as the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability at the magnetopause. The other has small azimuthal wavelength and is associated with plasma instabilities inside the magnetosphere. Both types of waves are studied in this thesis with a slight emphasis on the large azimuthal wavelength waves. For the type of wave with large azimuthal wavelength there is however, a considerable debate about the driving mechanism. One recently suggested driver is coherent magnetohydrodynamic waves in the solar wind. Part of this thesis studies this experimentally and we conclude that, at least on some occasions, this driving mechanism comes into play. The Cluster satellites are used to study the morphology of the waves. We demonstrate the ability of Cluster to determine the azimuthal wave number of the waves and also how the structure along the magnetic field lines can be determined. This gives information regarding the harmonic number of the standing waves, which in turn says something about the driver of the waves. We also look at possible excitation mechanisms for the small azimuthal wavelength waves. / QC 20100707