Invitation

Contact
Annette Walzer
E-Mail: icasp11@ethz.ch
Phone: +41 44 633 23 47

Welcome Address

Over the last century society has undergone tremendous changes. Developments in science and technology have facilitated the exploitation of resources, development of infrastructure, production and traffic systems - core societal activities of key importance for the safety and welfare as we know it today.
Despite the many positive achievements the societal activities are also associated with risks - risks which need to be managed. In this respect there are still substantial challenges to overcome. Large parts of the world population, under the pressures of harsh environmental conditions and natural hazards, are struggling to maintain their livelihoods. Population growth, increasing land utilization and reducing natural resources necessitate improved efficiency of existing technologies and the development of new ones. Increasing complexity of societal functionalities and interdependencies between infrastructures and urban habitats amplify consequences of malfunctions and failures. Malevolence is yet another hazard with potentially devastating consequences and most recently sustainable development and how to deal with climatic changes have been added to the international list of challenges.
From the perspective of assessing and quantifying risks we as a profession have achieved very substantial progress over the last decades. However, in regard to the broader utilization of risk assessment as a means for societal strategic and operational planning there is still a great need for further development.
With the present conference it is my intention not only to focus on the more traditional technical issues relating to the assessment of reliability and risks for individual structures, facilities and activities but to encourage some emphasis on the societal context of the decision making problems including the interaction between stakeholders. By such a more holistic perspective the aim is to contribute to an enhanced and sustainable allocation of limited resources for the improvement of safety, environment and economy.
The decision problems we are facing are complex and subject to significant uncertainties, however, as stated by Henry Ford; “The best we can do is size up the chances, calculate the risks involved, estimate our ability to deal with them, and then make our plans with confidence”.
I warmly invite you to join the conference at ETH in Zurich and look forward to welcoming you at our downtown campus in the scenic city centre, close to the lake and the rivers and within walking distance from any hotel category of your preference. The weather at the time of the conference should statistically be very nice with temperatures typically around 20-25 degrees Celsius. The conference opening reception will take place at the rooftop faculty club of ETH with a view to the spectacular Swiss national day fireworks. The conference program will include a selection of keynote lectures by invited high profile industrial and public managers. Besides sessions organized according to themes, the conference will also comprise organized sessions and mini-symposiums whereby specific research areas of interest of the participants can be accommodated for.
In addition to an expected highly interesting technical program we have arranged for a spouses’ program and a post conference program including excursions to some of the most picturesque mountain locations in the world and visits to ongoing infrastructure projects in Switzerland.

Background and Objective

The International Conference on Applications of Statistics and Probability in Civil Engineering (ICASP), one of the two major conferences on statistics, reliability, probability and risk in engineering, is realized through the International Civil Engineering Risk and Reliability Association (CERRA). CERRA has been formed for the purpose of promoting professional analysis of risk and reliability associated with civil engineering systems, see also http://www.ce.berkeley.edu/~cerra/. The principal activity of CERRA is the sponsoring and overseeing of the organization of the ICASP conferences. These conferences have been and will be held about every four years. The first conference took place in Hong Kong in 1971 and the latest in Tokyo in 2007. The conferences address all relevant aspects of safety and reliability of civil engineering systems, including probabilistic structural engineering, soil mechanics, and risk analysis. The emphasis is on applications as well as on theory.

Call for Paper

The ICASP11 event is getting closer and authors are kindly asked to submit full paper(s) and two-page abstract(s) for review by September 30, 2010.

Please download the template for papers/abstracts and instruction documents.

The online submission facility will be available after August 1, 2010.

Invitation to Organize Sessions and Mini-symposia

The program for the conference will comprise three full days of technical presentations organized into a number of parallel sessions according to themes and applications. In order to facilitate a more interactive organization of the contents and structure of the conference, members of CERRA are invited to organize their own sessions and mini-symposia focusing on a specific theme, presenting results of joint research projects or applications of relevance for the conference. A session should comprise 4 papers, a mini-symposium 8 papers. Proposals to organize sessions or mini-symposia should be communicated to the conference secretariat by January 31, 2010.