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IAC News No.7, March 2013

Japan Society of Civil Engineers  International Activities Center March 15, 2013 IAC News No.7 

The 100th Anniversary of JSCE in 2014

Greentings from the 100th Anniversary Planning Committee (Prof. Yozo Fujino, Ph.D., Chair)

 

 Civil Engineering which is a central part of “engineering” became independent of The Japan Federation of Engineering Society on 24th November, 1914 as the Japan Society of Civil Engineers (JSCE) after other engineering such as electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and architectural engineering had been independent.  JSCE will have taken the 100th anniversary of its founding in 2014.

 Japan experienced significant changes in the last 100 years. In the last 20 years, especially, environment around Japan and social needs demanded of civil engineering were changing rapidly. Then there are so many challenges such as population decline and aging population, globalization, deterioration of economic situation, exhaustion in countryside, increase of maintenance and operation cost on infrastructure, frequent disaster, problems of resource, energy and global environment and so on. It is responsibility for civil engineering to keep long-term and comprehensive vision, to meet the social needs with viewing changes of the time and to keep working hard in order to seek increase of public benefit. And in addition to advance individual technique, activity and spirit which contributes to human life and work as well as symbiosis between human being and nature with putting in synthesis are permanence since founding of the Society.

 Based on this concept, JSCE will carry out the 100th anniversary project between 2012 and 2014 focused on “social contribution,” “international contribution” and “civil interaction” for the purpose of realization of attractive and vital local community, country and world and, moreover, creation of society next generation can live with dream and hope. As a part of “social contribution”, especially, we hope that activity determining “social security” remains foundation for abundant civil life in the future by expanding it quite intensively. And moreover, we focus on the activation of the action in branch office and the buildup of its network with overseas branch office then we develop the Society’s activities.

As the international projects, we are planning several projects like a publication of the collection of paper written by English and the international conference scheduled before the ceremony for 100th anniversary in November, 2014. Thank you for your cooperation.

ACECC 24th ECM in Taipei

ACECC 24th ECM in Taipei, February 22, 2013

ACECC 24th Executive Council Meeting (ECM) was held in Taipei, Taiwan on February 22 and 23. 51 representatives from American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Chinese Institute of Civil and Hydraulic Engineering (CICHE), Engineers Australia (EA), the Indonesian Society of Civil and Structural Engineers (HAKI), The Institution of Civil Engineers, India (ICE, India), Korean Society of Civil Engineers (KSCE), , the Philippine Institute of Civil Engineers (PICE) and JSCE sent their delegates attended the meeting.

The ECM focused on the ACECC Awards and the 6th Civil Engineering Conference in the Asia Region (CECAR6) which is held in Jakarta in August this year. The ACECC Awards Committee reported the meeting the award winners; the ACECC Awards recognize the projects and civil engineering professionals who have made significant contributions to civil engineering progress in the Asian region, and are conferred at the triennial CECAR. Those winners included JSCE’s nominees.

Outstanding ACECC Civil Engineering Project Awards

・Shin-Tomei Expressway Construction Project by Central Japan Expressway Co., Ltd. and the project nominated by KSCE, followed by the projects nominated by CICHE and PICE

 ACECC Civil Engineering Achievement Awards

・Dr. Hiroshi Okada (Vice President of Japan Transportation Association, the 86th JSCE President) and the nominees by KSCE and HAKI.

JSCE representatives will continue to work for the CECAR 6, and be thankful for support and assistance from the JSCE members.

 

 

 The Minister of Construction, Myanmar visited JSCE

H.E. U Kway Lwin the Minister of Construction, the Republic of Union of Myanmar, U. Khin Maung Tin, Ambassador of Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar to Japan and eight other representatives visited the JSCE HQs on February 28. Mr. Takehiko Ono, the 100th President, Mr. Takuro Yamamoto the 99th President and Mr. Kotaro Hashimoto the 101st President. Prof. Shigeru Morichi of GRIPS, Prof. Tamon Ueda the IAC Senior Director, Mr. Hirofumi Ohnishi, Executive Director and other executives of JSCE welcomed them. Both parties exchanged views actively in a relaxed atmosphere all through the meeting.

 H.E. U Lwin discussed the ministry’s efforts, public works projects, and challenges facing infrastructure development in the country.

 Also he gave his approval and encouragement to us to realize a joint symposium with Myanmar Engineering of Society as a promising step forward to build a partnership between the two societies.

 The IAC will continue to work with the Myanmar partner, aiming at the development of cooperation and collaboration between the civil engineers of two countries.

 

 

What's Happening

 May 27-29: The 1st International Conference on Concrete Sustainability at Toshi Central Hotel, Tokyo (http://www.jci-iccs13.jp/ )

March18-20: International Symposium on Tunneling and Underground Space Construction for Sustainable Development at COEX in Seoul, Korea (http://www.tu-seoul2013.org/guide01.html )

March 6&7, 13&14: JSCE 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake Commemorative Symposium at the JSCE HQs (Yotsuya, Tokyo)  *Language: Japanese only

Updates

ACECC 6th CECAR in Jakarta, Indonesia (August 20-22, 2013) http://committees.jsce.or.jp/acecc/6thcecar

The summary of feature articles in the JSCE Magazine is now on the JSCE website:

http://www.jsce-int.org/pub/magazine

Concrete Committee International Newsletter No. 32

http://www.jsce.or.jp/committee/concrete/e/newsletter/newsletter32/index.htm

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President's Mumbling

Japanese Infrastructure Sustainability

In the morning of December 2nd 2012, about 130m concrete ceiling boards of Japanese Central Highway Sasago Tunnel bound for Tokyo at Yamanashi prefecture collapsed. 9 people died and 2 people injured by this accident. This accident is one of the most serious accidents in the history of Japanese highways. Each ceiling board is 5m of length, 1.2m of width, 8 or 9cm of thickness, and about 1.2 or 1.4t of weight. The boards were the part of the ventilation duct and set by anchors to the top of the tunnel. The causes of this accident are now under investigation.

In response to this accident, we JSCE started the taskforce to consider the issue of Japanese social foundations’sustainability on December 21st 2012. Since Japanese social foundations were abruptly constructed during the years from 1955 to 1973, most of them have become older and deteriorated and their structural problems have been reported. Although social foundations are the bases of our lives and social/ economic activities, their durability depends on the adequacy of maintenance. Therefore, inadequately maintained social foundation finally causes the serious problems for our society. On the other hand, we have problems of not enough engineers with specific technologies, inadequate management systems, and less budget.

Our taskforce is going to discuss the technology development, engineers’ education, management method, and improvement of administrative systems including budget through the co-operation of specialists in various fields. We also utilize the information of the committees that investigate into and discuss about the social foundations’ maintenance; one of which is sponsored by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, and the other is sponsored by the Japan Federation of Construction Contractors. Our target is not only to propose realistic strategies for the maintenance of social foundations to the administrators but also to support putting into them practice.