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. The papers have been divided into three sections: statistical methods, probabilistic methods, and special techniques and appli- cations. Of course, as with any classification, some papers could be as well assigned to other sections. Problems in reliability are encountered in items in everyday usage. Relia- bility is an important feature of...