Looks at quality management in a new way; Offers a very different mathematical tool set than traditionally employed for quality control problems; Yao is a leading researcher in the area of stochastic modeling and the author of a previous Springer book

Margot P. C. Weijnen, Zofia Lukszo and Geert Deconinck Abstract The infrastructures for electric power and information and telecommunication services are critical enablers for all economic activity. Both of these infrastructure systems evolved over time as networks-of-networks in an institutionally fr- mented landscape. In understanding and steering the emergent behaviour of these infrastructure systems both their physical network complexity and their social n- work complexity pose a formidable challenge. On top of the socio-technical c- plexity of the electricity infrastructure and the information and telecommunication infrastructure as such, the two infrastructure systems show unprecedented mutual interdependency. Unravelling this multi-level interdependency and identifying strategies to curb the new risks and vulnerabilities it implies for the reliability of electric power services is the goal of this book. It clearly shows that technical so- tions alone will not suffice to ensure the future reliability and security of electricity infrastructure operations. Keywords Cybersecurity * infrastructure vulnerability * infrastructure depend- cies * power systems 1. 1 Infrastructures Are Critical Infrastructures are the backbone of the economy and society. Especially the network bound infrastructures operated by public utilities and network industries provide essential services that are enabling for almost every economic and social activity. M. P. C. Weijnen (*) and Z. Lukszo Technology Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, P. O. Box 5015, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands e-mail: M. P. C. Weijnen@tudelft. nl; Z. Lukszo@tudelft. nl G. Deconinck K. U.

We think we have scientific knowledge when we know the cause. (Aristotle, Posterior Analytics Book II, Part 11) About 12 years ago, when I was a graduate student, many people were concerned about my Ph. D. topic - investigating the effect of the complexity of procedu- lized tasks on the performance of human operators working in nuclear power plants. Although they agreed with the fact that procedures (especially emergency operating procedures) play a crucial role in securing the safety of nuclear power plants, it was amazing that most of them pointed out a very similar issue: "I cannot understand why operating personnel see any difficulty (or complexity) in condu- ing procedures, because all that they have to do is to follow a simple IF-THEN- ELSE rule as written. " Actually, this issue is closely related to one of the main questions I was recently asked, such as "Don't you think your work is too acad- ic to apply to actual procedures?" or "I guess we don't need to consider the c- plexity of procedures, because we can develop a good procedure using many pr- tical procedure writers' guidelines. Then what is the real contribution of your work?" I absolutely agree with the latter comment. Yes, we can develop a good pro- dure with the support of many practical and excellent guidelines.

In many engineering design and optimisation problems, the presence of uncertainty in the data is a central and critical issue. Different fields of engineering use different ways to describe this uncertainty and adopt a variety of techniques to devise designs that are at least partly insensitive or robust to uncertainty.

Probabilistic and Randomized Methods for Design under Uncertainty examines uncertain systems in control engineering and general decision or optimisation problems for which data is not known exactly. Gathering contributions from the world s leading researchers in optimisation and robust control; this book highlights the interactions between these two fields, and focuses on new randomised and probabilistic techniques for solving design problems in the presence of uncertainty:

• Part I describes general theory and solution methodologies for probability-constrained and stochastic optimization problems, including chance-constrained optimisation, stochastic optimization and risk measures;
• Part II focuses on numerical methods for solving randomly perturbed convex programs and semi-infinite optimisation problems by probabilistic techniques such as constraint sampling and scenario-based optimisation;
• Part III details the theory and applications of randomised techniques to the analysis and design of robust control systems.

Probabilistic and Randomized Methods for Design under Uncertainty will be of interest to researchers, academics and postgraduate students in control engineering and operations research as well as professionals working in operations reasearch who are interested in decision-making, optimisation and stochastic modelling."

This book addresses an important, but so far neglected, topic: the application of sensory evaluation to quality control. Although several articles have been pub lished that have discussed concepts of quality control/sensory evaluation (QC/sen sory) programs, Sensory Evaluation in Quality Control is the first publication that addresses this topic in a comprehensive and practical way. This book is com prehensive, in that it presents the sensory and statistical information that is needed to design and implement several types of QCfsensory programs at the plant level. The book is practical, in that it provides a step-by-step description of the complete process to implement such programs, and it illustrates this process through real examples encountered by various consumer products companies (e. g. , foods, personal care products, paper products). With this practical information, sensory and quality professionals can design and implement sound QC/sensory programs at the plant level. This book was developed to provide the sensory and quality professional with an overview and guide to apply, in a production facility, the unique techniques that are used to measure sensory responses. Therefore, the book is intended for QC and/or R&D personnel (e. g. , sensory managers and analysts, and quality profes sionals) in charge of implementing an in-plant program, as well as for the plant management and plant technical personnel (sensory coordinator and quality pro fessionals) who are ultimately responsible for the routine operation of the estab lished program.

Modern society depends heavily upon a host of systems of varying complexity to perform the services required. The importance of reliability assumes new dimensions, primarily because of the higher cost of these highly complex machines required by mankind and the implication of their failure. This is why all industrial organizations wish to equip their scientists, engineers, managers and administrators with a knowledge of reliability concepts and applications. Based on the author's 20 years experience as reliability educator, researcher and consultant, Reliability Engineering introduces the reader systematically to reliability evaluation, prediction, allocation and optimization. It also covers further topics, such as maintainability and availability, software reliability, economics of reliability, reliability management, reliability testing, etc. A reliability study of some typical systems has been included to introduce the reader to the practical aspects. The book is intended for graduate students of engineering schools and also professional engineers, managers and reliability administrators as it has a wide coverage of reliability concepts.

The proceedings contain papers accepted for the 17th ISPE International Conference on Concurrent Engineering, which was held in Cracow, Poland, September 6-10, 2010. Concurrent Engineering (CE) has a history of over twenty years. At first, primary focus was on bringing downstream information as much upstream as possible, by introducing parallel processing of processes, in order to prevent errors at the later stage which would sometimes cause irrevocable damage and to reduce time to market. During the period of more than twenty years, numerous new concepts, methodologies and tools have been developed. During this period the background for engineering/manufacturing has changed extensively. Now, industry has to work with global markets. The globalization brought forth a new network of experts and companies across many different domains and fields in distributed environments. These collaborations integrated with very high level of profesionalism and specialisation, provided the basis for innovations in design and manufacturing and succeeded in creating new products on a global market.

The brief will describe how to develop a risk analysis applied to a project , through a sequence of steps: risk management planning, risk identification, risk classification, risk assessment, risk quantification, risk response planning, risk monitoring and control, process close out and lessons learning. The project risk analysis and management process will be applied to large engineering projects, in particular related to the oil and gas industry. The brief will address the overall range of possible events affecting the project moving from certainty (project issues) through uncertainty (project risks) to unpredictability (unforeseeable events), considering both negative and positive events. Some quantitative techniques (simulation, event tree, Bayesian inference, etc.) will be used to develop risk quantification. The brief addresses a typical subject in the area of project management, with reference to large engineering projects concerning the realization of large plants and infrastructures. These projects are characterized by a high level of change, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. The brief represents an extension of the material developed for the course Project Risk Analysis and Management of the Master in Strategic Project Management (Erasmus Mundus) developed jointly by Politecnico di Milano, Heriot Watt University (Edimburgh) and Umea (Sweden). The brief may be used both in courses addressing project management subjects and by practitioners as a guide for developing an effective project risk management plan.

Considering the ability of food processing companies to consistently manu facture safe foods with uniform quality over the past 20 or 30 years without these new tools and new systems, one might expect that quality control improvements would be marginal. On the other hand, these changes have already provided sub stantial opportunities for process and product improvement. This second edition is intended to update the basic concepts and discuss some of the new ones. Preface to the First Edition If an automobile tire leaks or an electric light switch fails, if we are short-changed at a department store or erroneously billed for phone calls not made, if a plane de parture is delayed due to a mechanical failure-these are rather ordinary annoy ances which we have come to accept as normal occurrences. Contrast this with failure of a food product. If foreign matter is found in a food, if a product is discolored or crushed, if illness or discomfort occurs when a food product is eaten-the consumer reacts with anger, fear, and sometimes mass hys teria. The offending product is often returned to the seller, or a disgruntled letter is written to the manufacturer. In an extreme case, an expensive law suit may be filed against the company. The reaction is almost as severe if the failure is a dif ficult-to-open package or a leaking container. There is no tolerance for failure of food products."

Electrical grids are, in general, among the most reliable systems in the world. These large interconnected systems, however, are subject to a host of challenges - aging infrastructure, transmission expansion to meet growing demand, distributed resources, and congestion management, among others. Innovations in Power Systems Reliability aims to provide a vision for a comprehensive and systematic approach to meet the challenges of modern power systems. Innovations in Power Systems Reliability is focused on the emerging technologies and methodologies for the enhancement of electrical power systems reliability. It addresses many relevant topics in this area, ranging from methods for balancing resources to various reliability and security aspects. Innovations in Power Systems Reliability not only discusses technological breakthroughs and sets out roadmaps in implementing the technology, but it also informs the reader about current best practice. It is a valuable source of information for academic researchers, as well as those working in industrial research and development.

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 31 The continual effort to improve performance in business processes attracts 4 increasing attention in research and industry alike. The impact of design 5 development performance on the overall business positions this area as an 6 important performance improvement opportunity. However, design devel- 7 opment is characterised by novelty, uniqueness and non-repeatability, which 8 provides particular challenges in de?ning, measuring and managing its 9 performance to achieve improvement. 2011 This book explores the support provided by both general research in busi- 1 ness process performance and design research for supporting performance 2 improvement in design development. The nature of design development in industrial practice is further revealed, and requirements for its modelling and 3 analysis to achieve improvement are highlighted. 4 A methodology for the modelling and analysis of performance in design 5 development that encapsulates a formalism of performance and an approach 6 for its analysis is established. The formalism is composed of three models, 7 which capture the nature of design development performance and support its 8 2 measurement and management. The E model formalises and relates the key 9 3011 elements of performance, i. e. , ef?ciency and effectiveness. The Design Activity 1 Management (DAM) model distinguishes design and design management 2 activities in terms of the knowledge processed, while the Performance 3 Measurement and Management (PMM) model describes how these activities 4 relate within a process of measuring and managing performance.

This book provides an overview of key topics related to space business and management. Case studies and an integrative section are included to illustrate the fundamental concepts and to build intuition. Key topics in the field, such as risk management and cost management, are covered in detail.

Engineering Decisions for Life Quality: How Safe is Safe Enough? provides a foundation and a theoretical basis for managing risk to an acceptable level under the real-world constraint of limited resources. The focus is not on risks as such, but on what can be done to maximize the positive outcomes of risk in terms of improvements to the quality of life. The principal focus of Engineering Decisions for Life Quality: How Safe is Safe Enough? is on the development of guidance for establishing rational standards of practice. Standards should meet the requirement of utilizing resources to achieve the maximum net overall benefit to society within society's capacity to commit such resources. The ideas discussed within this book will be of interest to engineers; advanced undergraduate and graduate students; public health officials; and risk specialists.

Ernst G. Frankel This book has its origin in lecture notes developed over several years for use in a course in Systems Reliability f r engineers concerned with the design of physical systems such as civil structures, power plants, and transport systems of all types. Increasing public concern with the reliability of systems for reasons of human safety, environmental protection, and acceptable investment risk limitations has resulted in an increasing interest by engineers in the formal application of reliability theory to engineering design. At the same time there is a demand for more effective approaches to the design of procedures for the operation and use of man made systems, more meaningful assessment of the risks introduced, and use such a system poses both when operating as designed and when operating at below design performance. The purpose of the book is to provide a sound, yet practical, introduction to reliability analysis and risk assessment which can be used by professionals in engineering, planning, management, and economics to improve the design, operation, and risk assessment of systems of interest. The text should be useful for students in many disciplines and is designed for fourth-year undergraduates or first-year graduate students. I would like to acknowledge the help of many of my graduate students who contributed to the development of this book by offering comments and criticism. Similarly, I would like to thank Mrs. Sheila McNary who typed untold drafts of the manuscript, and Mr."

This application-oriented professional book explains why components fail, addressing the needs of engineers who apply reliability principles in design, manufacture, testing and field service. A detailed index, a glossary, acronym lists, reliability dictionaries and a rich specific bibliography complete the book.

Risk has become one of the main topics in fields as diverse as engineering, medicine and economics, and it is also studied by social scientists, psychologists and legal scholars. This Springer Essentials version offers an overview of the in-depth handbook and highlights some of the main points covered in the Handbook of Risk Theory. The topic of risk also leads to more fundamental questions such as: What is risk? What can decision theory contribute to the analysis of risk? What does the human perception of risk mean for society? How should we judge whether a risk is morally acceptable or not? Over the last couple of decades questions like these have attracted interest from philosophers and other scholars into risk theory. This brief offers the essentials of the handbook provides for an overview into key topics in a major new field of research and addresses a wide range of topics, ranging from decision theory, risk perception to ethics and social implications of risk. It aims to promote communication and information among all those who are interested in theoretical issues concerning risk and uncertainty. The Essentials of Risk Theory brings together internationally leading philosophers and scholars from other disciplines who work on risk theory. The contributions are accessibly written and highly relevant to issues that are studied by risk scholars. The Essentials of Risk Theory will be a helpful starting point for all risk scholars who are interested in broadening and deepening their current perspectives.

For the first time four crucial aspects of gastrointestinal endoscopy are combined in a single text. Drugs for sedation and monitoring of the patient are addressed with particular reference to safety issues and comfort and acceptability for the patient. Resource management and health economic techniques are applied to endoscopy to determine quality and outcome. Problems of negligence and informed consent form the basis of a medico-legal examination of endoscopic practices.

The theory of stochastic processes, for science and engineering, can be considered as an extension of probability theory allowing modeling of the evolution of systems over time. The modern theory of Markov processes has its origins in the studies of A.A. Markov (1856-1922) on sequences of experiments connected in a chain and in the attempts to describe mathematically the physical phenomenon Brownian motion. The theory of stochastic processes entered in a period of intensive development when the idea of Markov property was brought in. This book is a modern overall view of semi-Markov processes and its applications in reliability. It is accessible to readers with a first course in Probability theory (including the basic notions of Markov chain). The text contains many examples which aid in the understanding of the theoretical notions and shows how to apply them to concrete physical situations including algorithmic simulations. Many examples of the concrete applications in reliability are given.Features: * Processes associated to semi-Markov kernel for general and discrete state spaces * Asymptotic theory of processes and of additive functionals * Statistical estimation of semi-Markov kernel and of reliability function * Monte Carlo simulation * Applications in reliability and maintenance The book is a valuable resource for understanding the latest developments in Semi-Markov Processes and reliability. Practitioners, researchers and professionals in applied mathematics, control and engineering who work in areas of reliability, lifetime data analysis, statistics, probability, and engineering will find this book an up-to-date overview of the field.

The series Advances in Industrial Control aims to report and encourage technology transfer in control engineering. The rapid development of control technology impacts all areas of the control discipline. New theory, new controllers, actuators, sensors, new industrial processes, computer methods, new applications, new philosophies ... , new challenges. Much of this development work resides in industrial reports, feasibility study papers and the reports of advanced collaborative projects. The series offers an opportunity for researchers to present an extended exposition of such new work in all aspects of industrial control for wider and rapid dissemination. The steel industry world-wide is highly competitive and there is significant research in progress to ensure competitive success prevails in the various companies. From an engineering viewpoint, this means the use of increasingly sophisticated techniques and state-of-the-art theory to optimise process throughput and deliver ever more exacting dimensional and material property specifications. Dr. Bjoem Sohlberg's monograph demonstrates this interplay between fundamental control engineering science and the demands of a particular applications project in the steel strip production business. It is an excellent piece of work which clearly shows how these industrial engineering challenges can be formulated and solved.

Reliability data collection and its use in risk and availability assessment is a subject of increasing importance. The founders of EuReDatA, and in particular, Arne Ullman, the originator 'and first Chairman of the Association, recognised the need for a body capable of acting as a catalyst and providing a unified approach to this subject. It is therefore a prevailing objective of the European Reliability Databank Association to initiate and support contact between experts, companies and institutions active in reliability engineering and research. Although the first and principle interest of EuReDatA is reliability data and data banks, the Association is aware that these are tools that are used with others to establish and maintain reliability and safety. It is with this objective that EuReDatA regularly holds conferences and seminars covering a range of reliability topics. C.A. Campbell H.J. Wingender EuReDatA Chairman Organiser, Editor Contents CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEWS Data Situation and the Quality of Risk Assessment (FRG) A. Birkhofer, K. Koberlein (GRS) ..****....*.*...**.....*.*.. 3 Reliability Engineering in Europe (CEC) G. Volta (JRC-Ispra) *...****... *...........***.*....*.**..**. 16 1984: A Year of Industrial Catastrophies.

Modern product development means problem solving by teams in complex working environments. Thereby, the design process is influenced by factors from various fields, the task, the individual, the team, and the organisational context. This complex network of influences turns product development into a challenge with requirements for the designers aside from technical problems. This book contains the proceedings of the international symposium Designers - The Key to Successful Product Development held in Darmstadt, Germany, December 1997. During this meeting exponents from different leading research groups in engineering design came together to present and discuss their results. Within this volume different aims, issues and methods of design research are addressed in 23 contributions by different research groups. Structured in six sections according to the main fields of influence, it provides a survey of the state of scientifically-based knowledge and the trends of engineering design research on the influences leading to successful product development.

This 2-volume work represents the proceedings of the First European Workshop on Fault Diagnostics, Reliability and Re- lated Knowledge-Based Approaches held in the Island of Rho- des, Greece (August 3l-September 3, 1986). This Workshop was organized in the framework of a joint research project spon- sored by the Commission of the European Communi ties under the Stimulation Action Programme. The principal aim of the Workshop was to bring together people working on the numeric and symbolic (knowledge-based) treatment of reliability and fault diagnosis problems, in order to promote the interaction and exhange of ideas, expe- riences and results in this area. The workshop was a real success, with SS papers presen- ted and 70 participants. A second Workshop of the same na- ture has been decided to be held in Manchester (UMIST), - gland, in April 1987. . The two volumes contain sufficient amount of informa- tion which reflects very well the state-of-the-art of the field, and shows the current tendency towards knowledge-ba- sed (expert systems) and fault-tolerant approaches. Volume 1 contains the contributions on fault diagnostics and reliability issues (numeric treatment), and Vo*lume 2 the contributions on knowledge~based and fault-tolerant techni- ques. We are grateful to the Commission of the European Com- munities for having sponsored the Workshop, and to all au- thors for their high quality contributions and presenta- tions.

This book contains contributions from various authors on different important topics related with probabilistic methods used for the design of structures. Initially several of the papers were prepared for advanced courses on structural reliability or on probabilistic methods for structural design. These courses have been held in different countries and have been given by different groups of lecturers. They were aimed at engineers and researchers who already had some exposure to structural reliability methods and thus they presented overviews of the work in the various topics. The book includes a selection of those contributions, which can be of support for future courses or for engineers and researchers that want to have an update on specific topics. It is considered a complement to the existing textbooks on structural reliability, which normally ensure the coverage of the basic topics but then are not extensive enough to cover some more specialised aspects. In addition to the contributions drawn from those lectures there are several papers that have been prepared specifically for this book, aiming at complementing the others in providing an overall account of the recent advances in the field. It is with sadness that in the meanwhile we have seen the disappearance of two of the contributors to the book and, in fact two of the early contributors to this field.