This issue of Inverse Problems in Science and Engineering is the third of a series containing papers presented at the 4th International Conference on Inverse Problems in Engineering: Theory and Practice (4th ICIPE). This conference was organized under the auspices of the United Engineering Foundation and held during May 26–31, 2002 in the beautiful Hotel Portobello Resort & Safari, located near the city of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. The resort provided a unique atmosphere for 99 conference participants from 21 countries to present their most recent research results and for the technical discussion of their findings. The 4th ICIPE was co-promoted by the Brazilian Society of Mechanical Sciences (ABCM), the Brazilian Society of Computational and Applied Mathematics (SBMAC), and by COPPE, which is the graduate school of engineering of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). It was co-sponsored by the Taylor & Francis Publishers group and by the following agencies of the Brazilian Government: CNPq (from the Ministry of Science and Technology), CAPES (from the Ministry of Education and Culture), and the National Oil Agency – ANP (from the Ministry of Mines and Energy).
The ICIPE series finds its roots in the informal seminars organized by Prof. James V. Beck at Michigan State University, which were initiated in the late 80's. Initially, the inverse heat transfer community was the leading organizing group. However, this conference series has evolved to reach a much broader scope. Nowadays, the ICIPE has established the hallmark as being the main event for the inverse problems community.
The 4th ICIPE had 159 submitted abstracts resulting in 104 accepted papers. In recognition of the importance of this international event for the inverse problems community, Prof. George S. Dulikravich, the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Inverse Problems in Science and Engineering, offered the possibility to conference authors to submit simultaneously their papers to this journal. A total of 73 papers were simultaneously submitted to the conference and to the journal. After receiving further evaluation from competent and recognized reivewers in the area, 48 conference papers were accepted for publication in Inverse Problems in Science and Engineering.
I would like to express my gratitude to the members of the organizing and scientific committees for their fundamental role towards the success of the conference, as well as to the invited speakers for accepting my invitation to share with the participants their knowledge on important subjects in the inverse problems field. Because of the large number of papers submitted, several additional reviewers were invited to contribute to the conference and to the journal by evaluating papers, in addition to the members of the organizing and scientific committees. The include Prof. J. P. Kaipio (Finland), Prof. L. Olson (USA), Prof. A. Haji-Sheikh (USA), Prof. J. G. Berryman (USA), Prof. R. Y. Qassim (Brazil), Prof. B. H. Dennis (Japan), Prof. G. R. Liu (Taiwan), Prof. H. Telega (Poland), Prof. V. Steffen, Jr. (Brazil), Prof. F. Rochinha (Brazil) and Prof. M. D. Mikhailov (Brazil).
It was a great honor for Brazil to host the 4th ICIPE and, personally for myself, to be its chairman and the guest-editor of Inverse Problems in Science and Engineering for the special issues dedicated to the conference. The next conference shall take place in the United Kingdom in 2005 and Dr. Daniel Lesnic has agreed to lead the organizing committee for that event.
May 1, 2003