This volume consists of twenty-four papers selected by the editors from the sixty-one papers presented at the 1st International Conference on Mathemati­ cal Methods in Reliability held at the Politehnica University of Bucharest from 16 to 19 September 1997.

I: Statistical Methods.- 1 Statistical Modeling and Analysis of Repairable Systems.- 2 CPIT Goodness-of-Fit Tests for Reliability Growth Models.- 3 On the Use of Minimally Informative Copulae in Competing Risk Problems.- 4 Model Building in Accelerated Experiments.- 5 On Semiparametric Estimation of Reliability From Accelerated Life Data.- 6 Analysis of Reliability Characteristics Estimators in Accelerated Life Testing.- 7 Chi-Squared Goodness of Fit Test for Doubly Censored Data With Applications in Survival Analysis and Reliability.- 8 Estimation of Kernel, Availability and Reliability of Semi-Markov Systems.- II: Probabilistic Methods.- 9 Stochastical Models of Systems in Reliability Problems.- 10 Markovian Repairman Problems. Classification and Approximation.- 11 On Limit Reliability Functions of Large Systems. Part I.- 12 On Limit Reliability Functions of Large Systems. Part II.- 13 Error Bounds for a Stiff Markov Chain Approximation Technique and an Application.- 14 On the Failure Rate of Components Subjected to a Diffuse Stress Environment.- 15 Modelling the Reliability of a Complex System Under Stress Environment.- 16 On the Failure Rate.- 17 Asymptotic Results for the Failure Time of Consecutive k-out-of-n Systems.- III: Special Techniques and Applications.- 18 Two-State Start-Up Demonstration Testing.- 19 Optimal Prophylaxis Policy for Systems With Partly Observable Parameters.- 20 Exact Methods to Compute Network Reliability.- 21 On Matroid Base Families and the Reliability Computation of Totally Amenable Systems.- 22 The Computer-Assisted Analysis of the Semi-Markovian Stochastic Petri Nets and an Application.- 23 Incremental Approach for Building Stochastic Petri Nets for Dependability Modeling.- 24 Lifetime of High Temperature Working Pipes.