Mitigating the Vulnerability of Critical Infrastructures to Catastrophic Failures

减轻关键基础设施易受灾难性故障影响的脆弱性讲习班关键基础设施构成了全世界发达国家和发展中国家经济的支柱。 它们包括电力网络、燃料网络、供水网络、运输网络、电信网络和计算机网络。要评估和减轻它们对灾难性故障的脆弱性，就需要开发一套新的知识，以统一的方式进行整合，并建立在与许多工程和科学领域有关的概念和方法的基础上。2001年6月举办的题为“关键基础设施：跨学科研究和研究生培训的需要”的OSTP/NSF讲习班讨论了关键基础设施之间的相互依存关系。“虽然这次研讨会强调了在关键基础设施保护方面进行多学科研究工作的必要性，但没有讨论和分析电力系统、电信网络和计算机网络中的重大故障。 这是将于2001年9月10日至11日在弗吉尼亚州亚历山大市的Lyceum举行的研讨会的重点，该研讨会由美国国家科学基金会（NSF）、国际关键国家结构研究所（CRIS）、世界灾害风险管理研究所（DRM）和国际信息技术研究所（IIIT）联合赞助。 本次研讨会将汇集来自北美、欧洲和亚洲的约40名关键基础设施和灾害风险管理专家。 这将使他们有机会讨论各种新出现的概念，如隐藏故障、脆弱性、连锁故障、相互依存、风险评估和自我修复等，并确定研究专题，为处理相互依存的重要基础设施的脆弱性的新的专门知识领域奠定基础。 将邀请主要发言者发表演讲并提交立场文件。 会议记录将以电子形式印发，并张贴在重要基础设施和灾害风险管理界研究人员和工程师普遍欢迎的几个网站上。

Workshop on Mitigating the Vulnerability of Critical Infrastructures to Catastrophic FailuresCritical infrastructures form the backbone of the economies of both the developed and the developing countries throughout the world. They include electric power networks, fuel networks, water networks, transportation networks, telecommunications networks, and computer networks to cite a few. Assessing and mitigating their vulnerability to catastrophic failures call for the development of a new body of knowledge that integrates in a unified manner and builds on concepts and methodologies pertaining to many engineering and scientific fields. Interdependencies between critical infrastructures were addressed by the OSTP/NSF workshop held in June 2001, which was entitled "Critical Infrastructures: Needs in Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Training." While this workshop highlighted the need of multi-disciplinary research work in critical infrastructure protection, major failures in electric power systems, telecommunications networks, and computer networks were not discussed and analyzed. This is the focus of the workshop that will be held at the Lyceum, in Alexandria, Virginia, on September 10-11, 2001, under the joint patronage of the National Science Foundation (NSF), the International Institute for Critical National Infrastructures (CRIS), the World Institute for Disaster Risk Management (DRM), and the International Institute for Information Technology (IIIT). This workshop will bring together about forty experts in critical infrastructures and disaster risk management from North America, Europe, and Asia. It will give them the opportunity to discuss various emerging concepts such as hidden failure, vulnerability, cascading failure, interdependency, risk assessment, and self-healing, among others, and identify research topics aimed at laying out the foundation of a new field of expertise dealing with the vulnerability of interdependent critical infrastructures. Key speakers will be invited to give presentations and to submit position papers. Proceedings will be issued in an electronic form and posted on several web sites that are popular among researchers and engineers of the critical infrastructure and disaster risk management communities.