U.S.-Japan Joint Seminar on Civil Infrastructure Systems Research

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9603203 Shinozuka This award supports the participation of American scientists/engineers in a U.S.-Japan seminar on Civil Infrastructure Systems Research to be held in Hawaii from April 1-3, l997. The co-organizers are Professors Masanobu Shinozuka of the University of Southern California and Makoto Watabe of Keio University in Japan. This seminar will provide a forum for identifying and comparing common issues, for promoting cooperative research between the two nations and formulating action plans involving the following themes of study; science of aging and deterioration, health monitoring and condition assessment, renewal engineering, socio-economic issues, institutional effectiveness and productivity, and research coordination. Civil infrastructure systems (CIS) provide the societies' basic ability to transport people and goods, to deliver clean water, electric power, gas and liquid fuel, to facilitate communications, to mitigate the impact of natural disasters, and to serve many other functions for the enhancement of the welfare and freedom of the general public. Accelerating rapid growth of the societal activities and resulting demand for CIS is suppressing the rate of new construction and retrofitting of existing CIS. Both the U.S. and Japan share common problems of CIS and are in need of cost-effective strategies for planning, design, construction, maintenance and retrofit of their respective CISs. The exchange of ideas and data with Japanese experts in this field will enable U.S. participants to advance their own work, and will set the stage for future collaborative projects. ***