Since 1979, when it was first established by the Technical Committee on Reliability, Safety and Security of the European Workshop on Industrial Computer Systems (EWICS TC7), the SAFECOMP Conference series has regularly and continuously contributed to improving the state of the art of highly dependable computer-based systems, since then increasingly applied to safety-relevant industrial domains.
In this expanding technical field SAFECOMP offers a platform for knowledge and technology transfer between academia, industry, research and licensing institutions, providing ample opportunities for exchanging insights, experiences and trends in the areas of safety, reliability and security regarding critical computer applications. In accordance with the growing spread of critical infrastructures involving both safety and security threats, this year’s SAFECOMP program included a considerable number of contributions addressing technical problems and engineering solutions across the border between safety-related and securityrelated concerns.
The reaction to our call for papers was particularly gratifying and impressive, including 136 full papers submitted by authors representing 29 countries from Europe, Asia, North and South America as well as Australia. The selection of 33 full papers and 16 short papers for presentation and publication was a challenging task requiring a huge amount of reviewing and organizational effort. In view of the particularly high number of articles submitted, obvious practical constraints led – to our regret – to the rejection of a considerable amount of high-quality work. To all authors, invited speakers, members of the International Program Committee and external reviewers go our heartfelt thanks!
The local organization of SAFECOMP 2007, hosted in Nuremberg, is also gratefully acknowledged.