ABSTRACT
On behalf of the Government of Upper Austria I would like to welcome the honourable Attendees of the TBM Tunnelling Trends Conference here in Hagenberg, the beautiful village of Upper Austria surrounded by the scenic Muhlviertel. My special welcome is addressed to Prof. Sebastiano Pelizza, President of the International Tunnelling Association, co-sponsoring this conference, and to Prof. Bruno Buchberger, heading the Research Institute for Symbolic Computation, in short RISC, who is hosting this conference. I also have the pleasure to mention, that the American Society for Civil Engineers in New York is co-sponsoring this conference and represented by Prof. Herbert Einstein from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Mr. Manish Kothari. In addition I would like to mention the members of the organizing institutions with Prof. Gunter Swoboda from the Geomechatronic Center Linz and the team of D2 Consult, Dr. Wagner and Dr. Schulter, Linz.
