This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Workshop on Augemented Environments for Computer-Assisted Interventions, held in conjunction with MICCAI 2012, in Nice, France in September 2012. The 16 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 22 submissions. The papers cover the topics of image registration and fusion, calibration, visualization and 3D perception, hardware and optical design, real-time implementation, as well as validation, clinical applications, and clinical evaluation.

The two-volume set LNAI 8265 and LNAI 8266 constitutes the proceedings of the 12th Mexican International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, MICAI 2013, held in Mexico City, Mexico, in November 2013. The total of 85 papers presented in these proceedings were carefully reviewed and selected from 284 submissions. The first volume deals with advances in artificial intelligence and its applications and is structured in the following five sections: logic and reasoning; knowledge-based systems and multi-agent systems; natural language processing; machine translation; and bioinformatics and medical applications. The second volume deals with advances in soft computing and its applications and is structured in the following eight sections: evolutionary and nature-inspired metaheuristic algorithms; neural networks and hybrid intelligent systems; fuzzy systems; machine learning and pattern recognition; data mining; computer vision and image processing; robotics, planning and scheduling and emotion detection, sentiment analysis and opinion mining.

The four-volume set LNCS 7724--7727 constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 11th Asian Conference on Computer Vision, ACCV 2012, held in Daejeon, Korea, in November 2012. The total of 226 contributions presented in these volumes was carefully reviewed and selected from 869 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on object detection, learning and matching; object recognition; feature, representation, and recognition; segmentation, grouping, and classification; image representation; image and video retrieval and medical image analysis; face and gesture analysis and recognition; optical flow and tracking; motion, tracking, and computational photography; video analysis and action recognition; shape reconstruction and optimization; shape from X and photometry; applications of computer vision; low-level vision and applications of computer vision.

The two-volume set LNAI 7629 and LNAI 7630 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th Mexican International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, MICAI 2012, held in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, in October/November 2012. The 80 revised papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 224 submissions. The second volume includes 40 papers focusing on soft computing. The papers are organized in the following topical sections: natural language processing; evolutionary and nature-inspired metaheuristic algorithms; neural networks and hybrid intelligent systems; fuzzy systems and probabilistic models in decision making.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Persuasive Technology, PERSUASIVE 2013, held in Sydney, NSW, Australia, in April 2013. The 16 revised full papers and 12 revised short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 47 submissions. The papers address not only typical persuasive domains like health and environment, but also cover emerging research topics, such as data safety and evaluation of persuasive technologies.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 5th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies, BIOSTEC 2012, held in Vilamoura, Portugal, in February 2012. The 26 revised full papers presented together with one invited lecture were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 522 submissions. The papers cover a wide range of topics and are organized in four general topical sections on biomedical electronics and devices; bioinformatics models, methods and algorithms; bio-inspired systems and signal processing; health informatics.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the workshops co-located with the 4th International Joint Conference on Ambient Intelligence, AmI 2013, held in Dublin, Ireland, in December 2013. The 33 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions to the following workshops: 5th International Workshop on Intelligent Environments Supporting Healthcare and Well-being (WISHWell 13) 3d International workshop on Pervasive and Context-Aware Middleware (PerCAM 13), 2nd International Workshop on Adaptive Robotic Ecologies (ARE'13), International Workshop on Aesthetic Intelligence (AxI'13), First International Workshop on Uncertainty in Ambient Intelligence (UAmI13). The papers are organized in topical sections on intelligent environments supporting healthcare and well-being; adaptive robotic ecologies; uncertainty in ambient intelligence; aesthetic intelligence; pervasive and context-aware middleware."

The four-volume set LNCS 7724--7727 constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 11th Asian Conference on Computer Vision, ACCV 2012, held in Daejeon, Korea, in November 2012. The total of 226 contributions presented in these volumes was carefully reviewed and selected from 869 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on object detection, learning and matching; object recognition; feature, representation, and recognition; segmentation, grouping, and classification; image representation; image and video retrieval and medical image analysis; face and gesture analysis and recognition; optical flow and tracking; motion, tracking, and computational photography; video analysis and action recognition; shape reconstruction and optimization; shape from X and photometry; applications of computer vision; low-level vision and applications of computer vision.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of the PAKDD 2012 International Workshops: Third Workshop on Data Mining for Healthcare Management (DMHM 2012), First Workshop on Geospatial Information and Documents (GeoDoc 2012), First Workshop on Multi-view data, High-dimensionality, External Knowledge: Striving for a Unified Approach to Clustering (3Clust 2012), and the Second Doctoral Symposium on Data Mining (DSDM 2012); held in conjunction with the 16th Pacific-Asia Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (PAKDD 2012), in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May/June 2012.
The 12 revised papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. DMHM 2012 aimed at providing a common platform for the discussion of challenging issues and potential techniques in this emerging field of data mining for health care management; 3Clust 2012 focused on solving emerging problems such as clustering ensembles, semi-supervised clustering, subspace/projective clustering, co-clustering, and multi-view clustering; GeoDoc 2012 highlighted the formalization of geospatial concepts and relationships with a focus on the extraction of geospatial relations in free text datasets to offer to the database community a unified framework for geodata discovery; and DSDM 2012 provided the opportunity for Ph.D. students and junior researchers to discuss their work on data mining foundations, techniques and applications.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings at PAKDD Workshops 2013, affiliated with the 17th Pacific-Asia Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (PAKDD) held in Gold Coast, Australia in April 2013. The 47 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 92 submissions. The workshops affiliated with PAKDD 2013 include: Data Mining Applications in Industry and Government (DMApps), Data Analytics for Targeted Healthcare (DANTH), Quality Issues, Measures of Interestingness and Evaluation of Data Mining Models (QIMIE), Biologically Inspired Techniques for Data Mining (BDM), Constraint Discovery and Application (CDA), Cloud Service Discovery (CloudSD).

This is the second of a two-volume set (CCIS 373 and CCIS 374) that constitutes the extended abstracts of the posters presented during the 15th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2013, held in Las Vegas, USA, in July 2013, jointly with 12 other thematically similar conferences. The total of 1666 papers and 303 posters presented at the HCII 2013 conferences was carefully reviewed and selected from 5210 submissions. These papers address the latest research and development efforts and highlight the human aspects of design and use of computing systems. The papers accepted for presentation thoroughly cover the entire field of human-computer interaction, addressing major advances in knowledge and effective use of computers in a variety of application areas. The extended abstracts were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in this two-volume set. The papers included in this volume are organized in the following topical sections: learning and education; health and medicine; media, art and culture; transport; Web and social media; information search and retrieval; work, collaboration and creativity; text and storytelling; agents, avatars and robots; smart environments; virtual and mixed environments; security and privacy.

The three-volume set LNCS 8009-8011 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction, UAHCI 2013, held as part of the 15th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2013, held in Las Vegas, USA in July 2013, jointly with 12 other thematically similar conferences. The total of 1666 papers and 303 posters presented at the HCII 2013 conferences was carefully reviewed and selected from 5210 submissions. These papers address the latest research and development efforts and highlight the human aspects of design and use of computing systems. The papers accepted for presentation thoroughly cover the entire field of human-computer interaction, addressing major advances in knowledge and effective use of computers in a variety of application areas. The total of 230 contributions included in the UAHCI proceedings were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in this three-volume set. The 74 papers included in this volume are organized in the following topical sections: design for all methods, techniques and tools; eInclusion practice; universal access to the built environment; multi-sensory and multimodal interfaces; brain-computer interfaces.

"Automatic Speech Signal Analysis for Clinical Diagnosis and Assessment of Speech Disorders "provides a survey of methods designed to aid clinicians in the diagnosis and monitoring of speech disorders such as dysarthria and dyspraxia, with an emphasis on the signal processing techniques, statistical validity of the results presented in the literature, and the appropriateness of methodsthat do not requirespecialized equipment, rigorously controlled recording procedures or highly skilled personnel to interpret results.
Such techniques offer the promise of a simple and cost-effective, yet objective, assessment of a range of medical conditions, which would be of great value to clinicians. The ideal scenario would begin with the collection of examples of the clients' speech, either over the phone or using portable recording devices operated by non-specialist nursing staff.
The recordings could then be analyzed initially to aid diagnosis of conditions, and subsequently to monitor the clients' progress and response to treatment. The automation of this process would allow more frequent and regular assessments to be performed, as well as providing greater objectivity."

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 7th Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems, MCIS 2012, held in Guimaraes, Portugal, in September 2012. MCIS 2012 comprised theories, research, and practices based on knowledge management and innovations in organizations, society, and businesses. The 18 full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 89 submissions. They are organized in topical sections on: emerging and innovative information systems, enterprise systems and enterprise engineering, Web 2.0 enabled business models, information quality management and data accuracy in innovative IS, and ICT applications in healthcare.

Despite its high cost, the US healthcare system produces relatively short life spans, and is wasteful, inefficient and has serious safety and quality issues. While other industries have surmounted similar challenges by transforming themselves through information technology, healthcare lags behind. Major reasons are that our approaches to care delivery and financial incentives were designed for a bygone era. Beyond that the technology offered to practitioners has often been overly expensive, poorly designed, overly proprietary, hard to implement and difficult to use. Spurred by a unique, one-time Federal stimulus and the new mobile, wireless and cloud technologies now available, this landscape is rapidly changing. To succeed going forward practitioners, and those interested in entering the field, need to understand the new driving forces and have a basic understanding of contemporary clinical informatics. Practitioners, in particular, need to understand the alternative technologies and approaches available for their use in individual patient care and more continuous management of their chronic disease patients. To efficiently meet these needs, this book provides an introduction to the rationale for care transformation through clinical informatics; its application to patient care outside of hospitals; and a look at its future. Key points are illustrated throughout by actual examples of open source and commercial health IT products and services. While written with practitioners and students entering the field of clinical informatics in mind, the book eschews technical terminology and is easily accessible by the lay reader not proficient in clinical medicine or information technology."

Anonymization of Electronic Medical Records to Support Clinical Analysis closely examines the privacy threats that may arise from medical data sharing, and surveys the state-of-the-art methods developed to safeguard data against these threats.

To motivate the need for computational methods, the book first explores the main challenges facing the privacy-protection of medical data using the existing policies, practices and regulations. Then, it takes an in-depth look at the popular computational privacy-preserving methods that have been developed for demographic, clinical and genomic data sharing, and closely analyzes the privacy principles behind these methods, as well as the optimization and algorithmic strategies that they employ. Finally, through a series of in-depth case studies that highlight data from the US Census as well as the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, the book outlines a new, innovative class of privacy-preserving methods designed to ensure the integrity of transferred medical data for subsequent analysis, such as discovering or validating associations between clinical and genomic information.

Anonymization of Electronic Medical Records to Support Clinical Analysis is intended for professionals as a reference guide for safeguarding the privacy and data integrity of sensitive medical records. Academics and other research scientists will also find the book invaluable.

Virtual reality (VR) techniques are becoming increasingly popular. The use of computer modeling and visualization is no longer uncommon in the area of ergonomics and occupational health and safety. This book explains how studies conducted in a simulated virtual world are making it possible to test new solutions for designed workstations, offering a high degree of ease for introducing modifications and eliminating risk and work-related accidents. Virtual reality techniques offer a wide range of possibilities including increasing the cognitive abilities of the elderly, adapting workstations for people with disabilities and special needs, and remote control of machines using collaborative robots. Detailed discussions include: Testing protective devices, safety systems, and the numerical reconstruction of work accidents Using computer simulation in generic virtual environments On the one hand, it is a self-study book made so by well-crafted and numerous examples. On the other hand, through a detailed analysis of the virtual reality from a point of view of work safety and ergonomics and health improvement. Ewa Grabska, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland Noteworthy is the broad scope and diversity of the addressed problems, ranging from training employees using VR environments with different degrees of perceived reality; training and rehabilitation of the elderly; to designing, testing, modifying, and adapting workplaces to various needs including those of disabled workers; to simulation and investigation of the cause of accidents at a workplace. Andrzej Krawiecki, Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland

Emerging technologies have been successfully employed within different disciplines improving the quality of life globally in India these have been employed to address the multifarious issues in a limited manner to improve the way of life for individuals with different disabilities. Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad, therefore, organized International and National Seminars since 2008 to deliberate on the application of information communication technologies ICT] in the rehabilitation of people with disabilities . Domain experts have recognized that management of differently abled individuals requires participation of multidisciplinary experts. We also require an enormous bank of skilled, qualified trained manpower with support to keep themselves in tune with latest technology and developments. We also face the problems of having to deal with individuals located countrywide; inadequate ICT-based infrastructure to assist with accessing services of experts that are based in urban areas. This is one of the major constraints for a sustained and effective therapeutic program. This is the fifth publication under the IIIT-A Series on e-Governance. It is a collection of 20 articles based on the presentations made in the Seminars. This book will of interest to all stakeholders in the disability rehabilitation management as the population of people with disabilities in growing. The articles cover the following four areas on disability rehabilitation management: Rehabilitation of Differently Abled Persons: Overview and Issues Infrastructure and potentials for use of ICT in Disability Rehabilitation ICT Initiatives for Rehabilitation of Differently Abled Persons Assistive Technology for Differently Abled Persons - the road ahead

This edited book provides information on emerging fields of next-generation healthcare informatics with a special emphasis on emerging developments and applications of artificial intelligence, deep learning techniques, computational intelligence methods, Internet of medical things (IoMT), optimization techniques, decision making, nanomedicine, and cloud computing. The book provides a conceptual framework and roadmap for decision-makers for this transformation. The chapters involved in this book cover challenges and opportunities for diabetic retinopathy detection based on deep learning applications, deep learning accelerators in IoT and IoMT, health data analysis, deep reinforcement-based conversational AI agent in healthcare systems, examination of health data performance, multisource data in intelligent medicine, application of genetic algorithms in health care, mental disorder, digital healthcare system with big data analytics, encryption methods in healthcare data security, computation and cognitive bias in healthcare intelligence and pharmacogenomics, guided imagery therapy, cancer detection and prediction techniques, medical image processing for coronavirus, and imbalance learning in health care.

This book presents a comprehensive study in the field of advances in medical data science and contains carefully selected articles contributed by experts of information technology. Continuous growth of the amount of medical information and the variety of multimodal content necessitates the demand for a fast and reliable technology able to process data and deliver results in a user-friendly manner at the time and place the information is needed. Computational approaches for understanding human complexity, AI-powered applications in image and signal processing, bioinformatics, sound and motion as activity stimulus, joint activities in biomedical engineering and physiotherapy, disorder in children, selected comparative studies give new meaning to optimization of the functional requirements of the healthcare system for the benefit of the patients. It is an interdisciplinary collection of papers that have both theoretical and applied dimensions. It includes the following research areas: Computational methods for understanding human complexity Image and signal analysis Multidimensional medical data analysis Sound and motion Joint activities in biomedical engineering and physiotherapy This book is a great reference tool for scientists who deal with problems of designing and implementing information processing tools employed in systems that assist the clinicians, radiologists, and physiotherapists in patient diagnosis and treatment. It also serves students in exploring innovations in quantitative medical data analysis, data mining, and artificial intelligence.

WelcometoRotterdamandtotheInternationalConferenceSafecomp2000,on thereliability,safetyandsecurityofcriticalcomputerapplications. Thisalready marksthe19thyearoftheconference,showingtheundiminishedinterestthe topicelicitsfrombothacademiaandindustry. Safecomphasproventobean excellentplacetomeetandhavediscussions,andwehopethistrendcontinues thisyear. Peopleandorganisationsdependmoreandmoreonthefunctioningofc- puters. Whetherinhouseholdequipment,telecommunicationsystems,o?ce- plications,banking,peoplemovers,processcontrolormedicalsystems,theoft- embeddedcomputersubsystemsaremeanttoletthehostingsystemrealiseits intendedfunctions. Theassuranceofproperfunctioningofcomputersin- pendableapplicationsisfarfromobvious. Themillenniumstartedwiththebug andthefullendorsementoftheframeworkstandardIEC61508. Thevariety ofdependablecomputerapplicationsincreasesdaily,andsodoesthevarietyof risksrelatedtotheseapplications. Theassessmentoftheserisksthereforeneeds re?ectionandpossiblynewapproaches. Thisyear'sSafecompprovidesabroad mixofpapersontheseissues,onprogressmadeindi?erentapplicationdomains andonemergingchallenges. Oneofthespecialtopicsthisyearistransportandinfrastructure. Onewould behardpressedto?ndabetterplacetodiscussthisthaninRotterdam. The reliability,safetyandsecurityofcomputersisofprominentimportancetoRott- dam,asafewexamplesillustrate. Itsharbourdependsonthereliablefunctioning ofcontainerhandlingsystems,onthesafefunctioningofitsradarsystems,and, asofrecently,onthesafeandreliablefunctioningoftheenormousstormsurge barrieratHoekvanHolland. AnewtopicforSafecompis medicalsystems. Theseprogressivelydepend on-embedded-programmableelectronicsystems. Experienceshowsthatthe medicalworldlacksthemethodsforapplyingthesesystemssafelyandreliably. Wewelcomeagroupofpeoplereadytodiscussthistopic,andhope,bydoing so,tocontributetothis?eldofapplicationsofsafe,reliableandsecuresystems. SoftwareprocessimprovementalsorepresentsaspecialtopicofSafecomp 2000. Itprovedtobethemostfruitfulofthethreeintermsofsubmittedpapers. Thereweremanycontributionsfromahostofcountries,whichhadtobespread amongstdi?erentsessiontopics. WewishtothanktheInternationalProgramCommittee'smembers,41in total,fortheire?ortsinreviewingthepapersandfortheirvaluableadvicein organisingthisconference. Wearealsogratefulfortheircontributiontod- tributingcallsforpapersandannouncements. Withouttheirhelptheburdenof organisingthisconferencewouldhavebeenmuchgreater. VI Preface Finally,letusonceagainwelcomeyoutoRotterdam,atrulyinternational cityandhometopeopleofmanynationalities. Wehopeyoutakethetimenot onlytoenjoythisconference,butalsoto?ndyourwayaroundthecity,sinceit surelyhasmuchtoo?er. FloorKoornneef MeinevanderMeulen Table of Contents InvitedPaper TheTenMostPowerfulPrinciplesforQualityin(Softwareand) SoftwareOrganizationsforDependableSystems...1 TomGilb Veri?cationandValidation EmpiricalAssessmentofSoftwareOn-LineDiagnostics UsingFaultInjection...14 JohnNapier,JohnMayandGordonHughes Speeding-UpFaultInjectionCampaignsinVHDLModels...27 B. Parrotta,M. Rebaudengo,M. SonzaReordaandM. Violante Speci?cationandVeri?cationofaSafetyShellwithStatechartsand ExtendedTimedGraphs...37 JanvanKatwijk,HansToetenel,Abd-El-KaderSahraoui,EricAnderson andJanuszZalewski ValidationofControlSystemSpeci?cationswithAbstractPlantModels...53 WenhuiZhang AConstantPerturbationMethodforEvaluation ofStructuralDiversityinMultiversionSoftware...63 LupingChen,JohnMayandGordonHughes ExpertError:TheCaseofTrouble-ShootinginElectronics...74 DenisBesnard TheSafetyManagementofData-DrivenSafety-RelatedSystems ...86 A. G. Faulkner,P. A. Bennett,R. H. Pierce,I. H. A. Johnston andN. Storey SoftwareSupportforIncidentReportingSystems inSafety-CriticalApplications...96 ChrisJohnson SoftwareProcessImprovement ADependability-ExplicitModelfortheDevelopment ofComputingSystems...107 MohamedKaan iche,Jean-ClaudeLaprieandJean-PaulBlanquart VIII Table ofContents DerivingQuanti?edSafetyRequirementsinComplexSystems ...117 PeterA. Lindsay,JohnA. McDermidandDavidJ. Tombs ImprovingSoftwareDevelopmentbyUsing SafeObjectOrientedDevelopment:OTCD...131 XavierM'ehautandPierreMor'ere ASafetyLicensablePESforSIL4Applications...141 WolfgangA. Halang,PeterVogrinandMatja?zColnari?c SafetyandSecurityIssuesinElectricPowerIndustry ...151 ? Zdzis lawZurakowski DependabilityofComputerControlSystemsinPowerPlants ...165 Cl'audiaAlmeida,AlbertoArazo,YvesCrouzetandKaramaKanoun AMethodofAnalysisofFaultTreeswithTimeDependencies ...176 JanMagottandPawe lSkrobanek Formal Methods AFormalMethodsCaseStudy:UsingLight-WeightVDM fortheDevelopmentofaSecuritySystemModule...187 GeorgDroschl,WalterKuhn,GeraldSonneckandMichaelThuswald FormalMethods:TheProblemIsEducation...198 ThierryScheurer FormalMethodsDi?usion:PastLessonsandFutureProspects...211 R. Bloom?eld,D. Craigen,F. Koob,M. UllmannandS. Wittmann InvitedPaper SafeTech:AControlOrientedViewpoint...227 MaartenSteinbuch SafetyGuidelines,StandardsandCerti?cation DerivationofSafetyTargetsfortheRandomFailure ofProgrammableVehicleBasedSystems...240 RichardEvansandJonathanMo?ett IEC61508-ASuitableBasisfortheCerti?cation ofSafety-CriticalTransport-InfrastructureSystems??...250 DerekFowlerandPhilBennett Table of Contents IX HardwareAspects AnApproachtoSoftwareAssistedRecovery fromHardwareTransientFaultsforRealTimeSystems...264 D. BasuandR. Paramasivam ProgrammableElectronicSystemDesign&Veri?cationUtilizingDFM...275 MichelHoutermans,GeorgeApostolakis,AarnoutBrombacher andDimitriosKarydas SIMATICS7-400F/FH:Safety-RelatedProgrammableLogicController...286 AndreasSchenk SafetyAssessmentI AssessmentoftheReliabilityofFault-TolerantSoftware: ABayesianApproach...294 BevLittlewood,PeterPopovandLorenzoStrigini EstimatingDependabilityofProgrammableSystemsUsingBBNs...309 BjornAxelGran,GustavDahll,SiegfriedEisinger,EivindJ. Lund, JanGerhardNorstrom,PeterStrockaandBrittJ. Ystanes DesignforSafety ImprovementsinProcessControlDependability throughInternetSecurityTechnology...321 FerdinandJ. Dafelmair ASurveyonSafety-CriticalMulticastNetworking ...333 JamesS. PascoeandR. J. Loader InvitedPaper CausalReasoningaboutAircraftAccidents...344 PeterB. Ladkin Transport&Infrastructure ControllingRequirementsEvolution:AnAvionicsCaseStudy...361 StuartAndersonandMassimoFelici HAZOPAnalysisofFormalModels ofSafety-CriticalInteractiveSystems...

The safe and secure operation ofcomputer systems continues to be the major issue in many applications where there is a threat to people, the environment, investment or goodwill. Such applications include medical devices, railway signalling, energy distribution, vehicle control and monitoring, air traffic control, industrial process control, telecommunications systemsand manyothers. This book represents the proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Computer Safety, Reliability and Security, held in York, UK, 7-10 September 1997. The conference reviews the state ofthe art, experience and new trends in the areas of computer safety, reliability and security. It forms a platform for technology transfer between academia, industry and research institutions. In an expanding world-wide market for safe, secure and reliable computer systems SAFECOMP 97 provides an opportunity for technical developers, users and legislators to exchange and review the experience, to consider the best technologies now available and to identify the skills and technologies required for the future. The papers were carefully selected by the Conference International Programme Committee. The authors of the papers come from twelve different countries. The subjects covered include safe software, safety cases, management & development, security, human factors, guidelines standards & certification, applications & industrial experience, formal methods & models andvalidation, verification and testing. SAFECOMP '97 continues the successful series of SAFECOMP conferences first held in 1979 in Stuttgart. SAFECOMP is organised by the European Workshop on Industrial Computer Systems, Technical Committee 7 on Safety, Security and Reliability (EWICS TC7).

Safety-related computer systems are those which may lead to loss of life, injury or plant and environmental damage. Such systems therefore have to be developed and implemented so that they meet strict require and security because their applications cover ments on safety, reliability nearly all areas of daily life and range from controlling and monitoring industrial processes, through robotics and power generation, to transport systems. Highly reliable electronic systems for safety-related applications represent an area in which industry has been involved for many years and which is now gaining increasing importance in academia. Their relevance also results from an increased perception of safety by society. Therefore, not only are technicians involved in this area, but psycho logical and sociological aspects also play a major role. Dealing with safety-related systems we have to consider the whole lifecycle of these systems, starting from specification up to implementation, assessment and operation. All those issues mentioned above are covered in this book, which represents the proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Computer Safety, Reliability and Security, SAFECOMP '95, held in Belgirate, Italy, 11-13 October 1995. The conference continues the series of SAFECOMP conferences which was originated by the European Workshop on Industrial Computer Systems, Technical Committee 7 on Safety, Security and Reliability (EWICS TC7) and reflects the state of the art, experience and new trends in the area of safety-related computer systems."

Each year there are improvements in safety-critical system technology. These arise both from developments in the contributing technologies, such as safety engineering, software engineering, human factors and risk assessment, and from the adoption or adaptation of appropriate techniques from other domains, such as security. For these improvements to be of real benefit, they need to be applied during the appropriate stage in the life cycle of the system, whether it be development, assessment, or operation. For this to occur, they must be communicated and explained. Each year the Safety-critical Systems Symposium offers a distinguished forum for the presentation of papers on such developments, and also for papers from industry on the lessons learned from the use of technologies and methods. The results of many collaborative research projects, with components from both industry and academia, are reported in a universally understandable form. In 1995 the Symposium was held in Brighton, a venue calculated to stimulate not just the presenters of papers, but all the delegates. Yet, this book of Proceedings is intended not only for the delegates but also for readers not able to attend the event itself. We welcome both categories of reader. Delegates have the benefit of attending the presentations and the opportunity to participate in the discussions; those who take up this book after the event can peruse it attheir leisure and, perhaps, on account of it will resolve to attend subsequent symposia.

The HIB 79 Congress is the second one organized by the European Federation for l-iedical Informatics (EFMI). The host society is the "Deutsche Gesellschaft fur l-ledizinische Dokurnentation, Informatik und Statistik (GMDS) who are holding their 24th annual meeting at this time. The program of MIB 79 covers every aspect of the application of information science to medicine and public health, and as such respresents the state of the art. Medical Informatics (M. I. ) is now at a turning pOint. To date, despite the efforts made by specialists in many countries, the balance sheet of M. I. remains rather poor. One of the reasons for this situation is the fact that the computers of yesterday were the prerogative of an elite of users. They were expensive, difficult to use, remot. e from the users, and mainly in the hands of a sacerdotal caste of data processing speciali sts * In the future, data processing facilities will be cheap, easy to handle, and immediately accessible. Data processing will have a chance of becoming truly democratic thanks to two important and complementary trends in computer technology: 1. a network due to computer communication partnership; 2. miniaturization due to the dramatic expansion of micro-processor and computer technology. IV The combination of these two main hardware achievements for which some neologisms have been invented - "compunication" \ in the USA and "telEnnatique" in France - will lead to a completely new way of processing data which may be called "distributed informatics.