The present volume is the second one in the Space Sciences Series of
ISSI (Inter- national Space Science Institute) and the October 1997
issue of Space Science Reviews. It contains the proceedings of the first
workshop in the ISSI study project on "Source and Loss Processes of
Magnetospheric Plasma", which was held at ISSI in Bern on October 1-5,
1996. The participants in the project, the project team, numbered at
that time 51, of whom 45 participated in the workshop. The main tasks of
the first workshop were to provide a basis for the further work by means
of presentation and discussion of those 16 review papers which are pub-
lished in this volume and to prepare plans for the work of six working
groups in the year up to the second workshop in October 1997. The ISSI
study project on "Source and Loss Processes of Magnetospheric Plas- ma"
was selected by ISSI in December 1995 as the first in the
solar-terrestrial physics field after consulting a number of groups of
senior scientists represent- ing the international space physics
community at large. The undersigned, Bengt Hultqvist, is the project
leader. A Core Group, consisting of two co-chairs for each of six
working groups and four ex-officio members from the Space Science Com-
mittee of ISSI (H. Balsiger, A. Galeev, G. Haerendel, and D. Southwood),
con- vened at ISSI in March 1996.