From September 19-29, a NATO Advanced Study Institute on Non­ destructive Evaluation of Semiconductor Materials and Devices was held at the Villa Tuscolano in Frascati, Italy. A total of 80 attendees and lecturers participated in the program which covered many of the important topics in this field. The subject matter was divided to emphasize the following different types of problems: electrical measurements; acoustic measurements; scanning techniques; optical methods; backscatter methods; x-ray observations; accele­ rated life tests. It would be difficult to give a full discussion of such an Institute without going through the major points of each speaker. Clearly this is the proper task of the eventual readers of these Proceedings. Instead, it would be preferable to stress some general issues. What came through very clearly is that the measurements of the basic scientists in materials and device phenomena are of sub­ stantial immediate concern to the device technologies and end users.

Shortly after the establishment of the Brown Boveri Research Center in 1967, plans were developed to organize a series of Brown Boveri Scientific Symposia, each hav­ ing a different topic, to be held every other year in Baden. We choose the subject for a symposium with the following requirements in mind: It should characterize a part of a scientific discipline; in other words it should concern an area of scholarly study and research. It should be of current interest in the sense that important results have recent­ ly been obtained and considerable research is under \\dY in the world's scientific community. It should bear some relation to the scientific and technological activity of the Company. These symposia are intimately related to one of the very basic concepts which have governed the work of many modern manufacturing companies: close coupling be­ tween science and engineering. It is to this coupling that we owe the technical stan­ dard of our products, and it is this coupling which we hope to be furthered by our symposia.

FUNDAMENTAL ASPECTS OF STRUCTURAL ALLOY DESIGN is the proceedings of the tenth Battelle Colloquium in the Materials Sciences, held in Seattle, Washington, and Harrison Hot Springs, B.C., September 15-19, 1975. The theme of the conference was the emerging science of alloy design. Although the relationships of properties of alloys to their composition and structure have long been a dominant theme in physical metallurgy, it is only recently that metallurgists have turned their attention from the analytical, post hoc study of the structure-property relationship to the synthesis approach of alloy design. As usual in the Battelle colloquia, the first day started with a group of introductory lectures presented by leaders in the field, each emphasizing his personal approach to the problem. This provided a historical perspective for the colloquium. These papers, together with the banquet address of Professor J. R. Low, Jr., who was honored at the colloquium, comprise the introductory section of these proceedings. Alloy design is generally specific to a given application. Thus, the needs in alloy design in a number of important applications, gas turbines, electrical-power-generation equipment, airframes, pressure vessels, and nuclear applications were presented in a group of papers. An agenda discus­ sion on "Needs in Alloy Design" followed. These papers give the external constraints on alloy design applications, and criteria for mechanical, physical, and chemical properties for which the alloys must be designed.

Energy Storage explains the underlying scientific and engineering fundamentals of all major energy storage methods. These include the storage of energy as heat, in phase transitions and reversible chemical reactions, and in organic fuels and hydrogen, as well as in mechanical, electrostatic and magnetic systems. Updated coverage of electrochemical storage systems considers exciting developments in materials and methods for applications such as rapid short-term storage in hybrid and intermittent energy generation systems, and battery optimization for increasingly prevalent EV and stop-start automotive technologies. This nuanced coverage of cutting-edge advances is unique in that it does not require prior knowledge of electrochemistry. Traditional and emerging battery systems are explained, including lithium, flow and liquid batteries. Energy Storage provides a comprehensive overview of the concepts, principles and practice of energy storage that is useful to both students and professionals.

This international conference was organized by the sponsoring agencies with the following objectives in mind: to bring together active researchers involved in energy compression, switching, and storage who have a major interest in plasma physics, electron beams, electric and magnetic energy storage systems, and high voltage and high current switches. Areas of interest include: Slow systems: 50-60 Hz machinery, transformers, flywheel-homopolar generators, slow capacitors, inductors, and solid state switches. Inter­ mediate systems: fast capacitor banks, superconducting storage and switch­ ing, gas, vacuum, and dielectric switching, nonlinear (magnetic) switching, 5 6 fast (10 - 10 Hz) capacitors and fuses. Fast systems: Marx, Blumlein, oil, water, and pressurized water dielectrics, switches, magnetic insula­ tion, electron beams, and plasmas. The Editors extend thanks to all the authors, and attendees (and their supporting institutions, and companies), everyone of whom in his own measure helped to make the conference a success. The Editors further wish to thank the members of the Scientific Committee for the help they have given in organizing the conference and in editing, especially J. C. Martin and H. L. Laquer. Special recognition is due the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory whose Electrical Engineering Department provided the Secretary of the Scientific Committee and one of the Editors, and the yeowoman services of Sharon Dodson and Cheri Johnson in all the mailings, correspondence, and receiving and organizing of the manuscripts. The LLL Technical Information Department provided the design and printing of the conference announcements and the instructional formats for the authors' manuscripts.

Power system reliability is in the focus of intensive study due to its critical role in providing energy supply to the modern society. This book is not aimed at providing the overview of the state of the art in power system reliability. On the contrary, it describes application of some new specific techniques: universal generating function method and its combination with Monte Carlo simulation and with random processes methods, Semi-Markov and Markov reward models and genetic algorithm. The book can be considered as complementary to power system reliability textbooks. It is suitable for different types of readers. It primarily addresses practising reliability engineers and researchers who have an interest in reliability and performability analysis of power systems. It can also be used as a textbook for senior undergraduate or graduate courses in electrical engineering.

V.A. Vasil’ev and E.B. Yanovskaya 1 Game theory in the USSR before 1990 In this introductory chapter ?rst a short historical information about the development of game theory in the USSR before the 1990s is given. It should help to understand the choice of the papers in this volume. The development of game theory in the USSR began in the early sixties. N.N.Vorob’ev (1925- 1995) was the author of the ?rst papers about game theory in Russian; he was also the leader of a group of PhD students and young researchers at Leningrad who studied this new ?eldinmathematics. The early papers by Vorob’ev on enumerating equilibrium points in - matrix games ([74]), coalitional games where a player may belong to di erent coalitions ([77] and [78]) and equivalence of di erent types of strategies in games in extensive form ([75] and [76]), were published in Soviet journals having English translations, and so they became known in the West. Later on, game theory in the USSR exhibited signi?cant progress, which deserved world-wide attention. However, many game-theoretic papers were published in Soviet journals and edited volumes which have never been translated into English. In the 1960s, the theory of zero-sum games was popular in the USSR.

Europe witnessed in the last years a number of significant power contingencies. Some of them revealed the potentiality of vast impact on the welfare of society and triggered pressing questions on the reliability of electric power systems. Society has incorporated electricity as an inherent component, indispensable for achieving the expected level of quality of life. Therefore, any impingement on the continuity of the electricity service would be able to distress society as a whole, affecting individuals, social and economic activities, other infrastructures and essential government functions. It would be possible to hypothesize that in extreme situations this could even upset national security.