December 2006
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| . |
New ASCE International Region FormedAt the ASCE Annual Conference held in Chicago in October, the new international Region 10 was formed. This completes the reorganization of ASCE’s governance structure, which includes nine domestic regions and the international region. The new Region 10 has a six-member Board of Governors and is chaired by the ASCE International Director, who serves on the ASCE Board. The Region 10 Board of Governors will look after the interests of ASCE’s international members, sections, and groups. Also new: an international member is eligible to become ASCE president. The members of the Region 10 Board of Governors are: Jaime Santamaria Serrano, Chair, Colombia Munirud Dean, Australia Carlos Garcia-Reyes MacLellan, Colombia Gamal Elsaeed, Egypt Albert Yeung, Hong Kong C.R. Dutta, India Potenciano Leoncio, Philippines
________________________________________________________________ Press Briefs“China’s Great Expansion Fuels Boom in High-Profile Designs,” by Aileen Cho, Engineering News Record, October 2, 2006—Engineering consultants from outside China are finding a growing role in that country’s booming infrastructure expansion, which includes a wide variety of major bridge projects, reports ENR. The Chongqing region in central China, with the Yangtze and Jialing rivers running through it, has about 20 new bridges planned for the next ten years. The firm T.Y. Lin International (TYLI) of San Francisco has ridden this wave of work to grow its Chongqing office from five to 100 staff members in the past five years, the article says. About one quarter of the firm’s total revenue comes from work in China. One project represents the world’s longest box girder bridge, with a navigation clearance of 300 meters over the Yangtze. In a joint venture with the Chongqing Communications Research Institute, TYKI is also working on the world’s longest tied-arch span, which will carry both rail and highway traffic. According to the article, the choice of design type is often tied to non-technical influences, such as the preferences of the mayor. Special conditions in China have an impact on materials, as well. The lack of vehicle weight limit enforcement and high temperatures in the Yangtze delta led to the use of epoxy asphalt, for example. To do actual bridge design in China on spans longer than 60 meters, a firm needs a Class A bridge design license, which requires foreign firms to maintain a full local staff, according to the article. The other option for non-Chinese firms is to pursue consultant work on major projects, the article says. http://www.enr.com (full article requires payment on enr.com) “Will Foreign Universities Come to India?”, By Nandini Lakshman, BusinessWeek Online, October 9, 2006—Traditionally, India’s top students have gone abroad to earn their university degrees—and often stayed there to work—but some in India argue that the world’s top universities should come to their country and thereby save India the huge investment in foreign tuition and living expenses, reports an article in BusinessWeek Online. Might the best universities, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale, Oxford, and the London School of Economics, set up campuses, hire faculty, and conduct research in India if some of the bureaucratic barriers were removed? Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government thinks so and is trying to open up the country's heavily regulated educational system for foreign investment. However, there is opposition from some quarters, such as India's Union Human Resource Development Ministry, the article reports. India's quota system, which reserves seats at universities for underprivileged castes, is also seen as a potential disincentive on foreign higher education investment. Clearly, India has some world-class universities, such as the Indian Institute of Technology campuses, but these are the exception, according to the article. A recent study by McKinsey concluded that only one quarter of India-trained engineers and 15% of finance and accounting graduates had the skills to work for a multinational company. Even Indian companies are being forced to hire foreign talent for critical positions, given the domestic shortages, says the article. Some big foreign universities have shown interest in India, including Harvard's Southeast Asia Initiative in Bombay; the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, which is associated with Kellogg, Wharton, and the London Business School for managerial training; and the University of Michigan business school’s economic research center in Bangalore, the article reports. http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/oct2006/gb20061009
“Africa Insight: We must redesign our economies for take-off,” Daily Nation Online (nationmedia.com, Kenya), October 27, 2006—Engineering and investment in infrastructure must be at the center of economic renewal if Africa is to solve its own problems, says Professor Calestous Juma, Director of the Science, Technology and Globalization Project at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. In an article based on a recent lecture by Juma, donor countries are called on to double spending on infrastructure in Africa—from rural roads and small-scale irrigation to regional highways, railways, larger power projects, and information and communications technology. A growing recognition of the role of infrastructure in sustainable development has stimulated such thinking, especially with the rapid growth of urban areas in recent decades, the article says. In the 1980s and 1990s, policy-makers looked to the private sector to help finance infrastructure, but over a 20-year period, Africa has generated only 230 projects in partnership with foreign operators, about half of which are in South Africa. According to the article, public-private partnerships might provide a better solution. Expanding indigenous engineering expertise also remains crucial. Rwanda provides an example through its 1997 decision to convert the premises of a military academy into a base for a new technical university, the Kigali Institute of Science, Technology and Management (KIST). Technology transfer represents another key issue, says the article. Algeria, for example, initially purchased complex technology systems from foreign firms on a turn-key basis, but technology transfer was minimal. Later the government supported contracts under which infrastructure projects were more fragmented and involved more local firms than under the integrated contracts. The article argues that bringing engineering to the center of Africa's economic renewal will require more than just political commitment; it will need positive executive leadership. This will depend on how well political leaders are informed about the role of engineering and infrastructure in sustainable development. This theme promises to receive emphasis when the African Union devotes its January 2007 presidential summit to “scientific research and technology for socio-economic development,” the article reports. http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp? premiumid0&categoryid39&newsid84275 “Canal Upgrade Plan Approved: Voters in Panama Favor $5 Billion Expansion by Wide Margin,” by Will Weissert, The Washington Post, October 23, 2006—In October, Panamanian voters overwhelmingly backed a plan to give their famous 92-year-old canal a $5-billion overhaul, with the goal of allowing the world’s largest ships to pass through. The government hopes the ambitious project, which won a voter support of four-to-one, will provide additional revenues that can help address the country’s economy and alleviate poverty, the article reports. The major expansion entails building two sets of new locks between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts by 2015. Modern container ships, cruise ships, and tankers are too large for the current 110-foot-wide locks. The canal project will double its capacity. President Martin Torrijos, a supporter of the expansion, was quoted as saying the referendum was “probably the most important decision of this generation.” Supporters say expansion of the canal, an engineering wonder first opened in 1914, will create thousands of jobs for Panama’s three million people and boost economic growth. Critics warn that the plan will benefit the canal's customers more than Panamanians and worry about spiraling costs and the potential for corruption, the article reports. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2006/10/22/AR2006 102201110.html “The Challenge of Sustainable Water,” by Jeffrey Sachs, Scientific American, December 2006—Water scarcity represents a growing challenge for the world, requiring the best of science, engineering, ecology, economics, ethics, and international cooperation to solve, notes an article in Scientific American. Water often becomes a zero-sum game—more water for one region can mean less water and ecological destabilization for another. In drought-prone southern India, poor rains lead to upstream states cutting off the water flow to the south, with disastrous results for local farmers. In northern India, tens of millions of bore wells are using up the ground water faster than it can be replaced, the article reports. Similar conditions exist in various parts of China, while scarce river flows often lead to bitter disagreements in western states of the U.S. and in Mexico. In Asia, millions of people depend on the melting glaciers in the Himalayas for their river flows. According to the article, climate change will cause many of these glaciers to disappear, and even if snow is there to melt, climate change will make the melting earlier in the spring, leaving less water for the long, dry summers. The solutions will be difficult, including better pricing of water, greater use of drip irrigation, desalinization, and water storage systems, the article notes. Unfortunately, many of these require great capital expenditures and do not often address the needs of the poor, who cannot pay for this capital. In addition, the ecological consequences of these solutions are often not known, the article says. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=D2C48BCD-E7F2-99DF-372061295BF1F175&sc=I100322 “Engineers Without Borders reach out to El Salvador,” by Mary Ann Albright, Corvallis Gazette-Times, October 5, 2006—Students from the Oregon State University chapter of Engineers Without Borders are working with professional engineers to provide clean water to two isolated villages in El Salvador. According to the article, the villagers in El Naranjito and Las Mercedes face long and difficult walks to reach potable water sources, where they find spring water that is often contaminated and inconsistent in supply, depending on the season. Teams of OSU students and engineer mentors traveled to the area in March and September to establish a relationship with the people of the community, evaluate the overall health conditions, and perform a detailed assessment of the degree and type of water contamination and the possible treatment options, the article reports. OSU students from various engineering disciplines are working together to apply the skills they are learning in the classroom to create a long-term, sustainable water treatment and distribution system. The group hopes to build two 70,000-gallon tanks to collect rainwater that can supply families during the dry season, and to build a dam. According to the article, the group is planning to return to El Salvador in the spring or early summer to oversee construction of the first tank, which would serve between 20 and 25 families. First, the students will have to raise the $80,000 needed to build the tank, cover travel costs, and finance geographical survey expenses, says the article. http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2006/10/05/news/community/3aaa ________________________________________________________________
News from ASCEInternational Program a Highlight at ASCE Annual ConferenceComplementing the presence of the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO) Executive Council, the ASCE International Activities Committee organized several events related to infrastructure, investment, and sustainability at this year’s annual meeting. Officers of ASCE’s Agreement of Cooperation Societies and WFEO and ASCE members joined the various international events. A highlight of the WFEO Executive Council meetings included an opening address by Scott Gration, CEO of Millennium Villages, titled "Engineers Helping to Eradicate Extreme Poverty". The Millennium Villages is based on a single powerful idea: impoverished villages can transform themselves and meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 if they are empowered with proven, powerful, practical technologies. It is a "bottom up" approach to lifting villages in developing countries out of the poverty trap that confines more than one billion people worldwide. Engineers and engineering have much to contribute, and the profession is being invited to join. http://www.millenniumpromise.org/site/PageServer?pagename=mv_main Dr George Bugliarello, P.E., F.ASCE, delivered the International Luncheon keynote address “Urban Sustainability: Challenges, Paradigms and Policies.” Bugliarello is President Emeritus and Professor at Polytechnic University and also Foreign Secretary of the National Academy of Engineering. The sustainability theme was also at the center of a half-day symposium that focused on “Sustainability in Practice and Education: A Global Perspective” and included a number of speakers. The Symposium was moderated by Albert A. Grant, P.E., F.ASCE, 1988 ASCE President, who provided an overview of ASCE’s role and activities in sustainable development. Kamel Ayadi, President of WFEO, gave a keynote speech " WFEO – An Active Partner in Delivering the Millennium Development Goals," which provide a global agenda for all countries and leading development institutions to follow. ASCE is supporting WFEO in this effort by working in collaboration with other domestic and international organizations to engage engineers in addressing the needs of the poor through capacity building and the development of sustainable and appropriate solutions to poverty. Continuing these themes, the International Roundtable provided civil engineers from around the world the opportunity to discuss global investment in basic, sustainable civil infrastructure—roads, power, water, and telecommunications. These civil engineered systems increase economic growth and reduce poverty, and engineers are key to conceptual and detailed design, project execution, implementation, and operation. ASCE Immediate past President Dennis Martenson welcomed over 100 international and domestic guests to the roundtable, moderated by Lt. Gen. Henry “Hank” Hatch, P.E., Hon.M.ASCE, outgoing Chair of the ASCE International Activities Committee.
A white paper presented by Katherine Sierra, Vice President of Sustainable Development at the World Bank addressed “Investing in Sustainable Infrastructure Worldwide” and was followed by prepared responses from international panelists discussing the following key questions:
ASCE Agreements of Cooperation
At the ASCE Annual Conference, ASCE outgoing President Dennis R. Martenson renewed the ASCE Agreements of Cooperation with the:
WFEO Presents Saîd Khoury Award for Engineering Construction ExcellenceEng. Curtis Edwards, PE, Vice President with the San Diego office of Psomas, and chairman of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Earthquake Investigations Committee received the Said Khoury Award 2006 from the World Federation of Engineering Organizations. An awards ceremony was held in October 2006 in Chicago on the occasion of the WFEO Executive Council Meeting at the ASCE Annual Conference
The Said Khoury award is granted every two years to an engineer or team of engineers without regard to WFEO membership on the basis of a successfully completed project that has a positive impact on the improvement of quality of life. New Feature on ASCE WebsiteThe Society’s inventory of awards is comprehensive. It may seem daunting if you are a prospective nominator. Now there is a brand new tool on the Web that will help match your candidate to an appropriate Society award. Visit www.asce.org/awards and click on What Award Am I Eligible For? Society awards are listed, along with membership requirements and whether the award is for a paper or an achievement. Global Options for ASCE Membership PaymentThe 2007 ASCE Membership Renewal was mailed to members Sept. 5, 2006. To ensure that payments from all International Members are correctly processed, please take advantage of the following payment tips, and make sure you don’t miss a minute of your ASCE benefits:
Sun Trust Bank-Mid-Atlantic Region, 919 E. Main St., Richmond, VA 23219, Account number: 20286-0213, ABA number 061000104, Federal ID number 13-1635293. Please include your membership and invoice number. NOTE: Members using Sun Trust will incur an additional $25 fee. Groups or Sections can share the fee across several members by making a consolidated payment. For additional information about making payments to ASCE, contact Member Services at member@asce.org or (703) 295-6300. ASCE Offers New Online Course on Water-Related GISA new on-demand, online course on “GIS Applications in Water, Wastewater, and Stormwater Systems” is now available from ASCE. This course will teach you how to use GIS in planning, design, mapping, modeling, monitoring, inspection, maintenance, and operation of your water, wastewater, and stormwater systems. This course will not train you in the use of specific GIS software. Instead, with the help of new methods, case studies, and software demonstrations it will show you how to use GIS to develop mapping, monitoring, modeling, and maintenance applications. You will learn how to integrate your water, wastewater, and stormwater system hydrologic and hydraulic (H&H) models with GIS. ASCE’s videostreamed online courses are similar to attending a live seminar. You listen to and watch the instructor and view their PowerPoint slides as the course progresses. You can attend different segments of the course at times convenient for you and easily navigate from one section of the course to another. With ASCE’s on-demand, online courses you can learn anytime, anywhere and work at your own pace. By taking and passing an online test upon completion of the course, you will earn 1.1 Continuing Education Units (CEUs)/11 Professional Development Hours (PDHs). For additional information on the course or to place an order, call 1-800-548-2723 extension 6153 or go to http://www.asce.org/conted/distancelearning/environmental.cfm#GISApplications Get Certified As a Water Resources Engineer The American Academy of Water Resources Engineers (AAWRE) offers a voluntary, post-license credential that will provide professionals and practitioners an opportunity to gain further recognition in the field of water resources engineering. AAWRE is currently accepting online applications for spring 2007 at a one-time reduced program fee of $100 ($300 regular fee). Please take this opportunity to join your peers and colleagues from around the globe and become a Diplomate, Water Resources Engineer of the Academy! The current online application deadline is February 28, 2007. For more information and to apply for AAWRE's Diplomate, Specialty Certification program, please visit: http://www.aawre.org/appaawre.cfm. If you have questions, please send an email to certification@aawre.org. _____________________________________________________________ ASCE International PartnersASCE-EWRI, India Partner to Hold Water ConferenceThe Environmental & Water Resources Institute (EWRI) of ASCE, in collaboration with the Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, is hosting An International Perspective on Environmental and Water Resources in New Dehli, India. The conference will take place December 18-20, 2006, and will focus primarily on environment and water resources throughout the world. Speakers will feature prominent engineers, scientists, and planners, including 2006 Stockholm Water Prize Laureate, Professor Asit K. Biswas, and Chan Yoon Kum, assistant chief executive of the Singapore Public Utilities Board. Although the emphasis of the conference will be on developing countries, especially those in Asia, the broad range of topics offered in the seminars will also cover themes regarding developed nations.
The Japan Society of Civil Engineers recently published an article by ASCE Past President Patricia Galloway, Ph.D., P.E., PMP, F.ASCE, on how engineering can attract more women into the profession. Appearing in the JSCE magazine (October 10, 2006), “The Need for Women in Engineering” notes that statistics on the number of women engineers in Japan are difficult to find but that the membership statistics of the Japan Society of Civil Engineers may give a picture. Of JSCE’s nearly 40,000 members, about 1000 are women, or 2.5%. About 9% of the student members are women, but there are only 3 female fellows among the total of 2,268. The statistics for the U.S. are also worrying, the article notes, with only about 11% of the American engineering workforce being women. Why is that? According to the article, the issue is not women’s ability or their preparation. One problem is how engineering is portrayed to the public. Girls and the people who influence them—teachers, school counselors, parents, peers, and the media—do not understand what a career in engineering looks like and therefore do not consider it as a career option. For example, girls do not understand how engineering connects to things they care about and that engineering in today’s world is a collaborative profession—a team sport that girls might want to be a part of. In addition, girls also do not have many engineering role models. Several initiatives in the U.S. are trying to counteract these factors. For example, the Extraordinary Women Engineers project (EWEP) is a national collaborative initiative, including ASCE, that aims at encouraging girls to consider pursuing a degree and subsequent career in engineering. The objectives of this project include assessing the level of awareness of careers in the engineering field among teen girls, studying the motivators and barriers relative to careers in engineering, and determining the messaging opportunities for increasing female enrollment in the field. A key is communicating the benefits and rewards of being an engineer—how this career complements and supports community interests, family interests, and self-interests, the article notes. If more women are not brought into engineering, countries will lose the opportunity to maximize their potential intellectual capital and increase their competitiveness, the author notes. _______________________________________________________________ Around the WorldASCE, Bangladesh Representatives Discuss CooperationCooperation was sought from the American Society of Civil Engineers to enrich the academic and research environment of a university in one of the poorest Asian countries. In a joint meeting between Khulna University of Engineering & Technology (KUET) Bangladesh and ASCE, Dr. Muhammed Alamgir, Professor of Civil Engineering at KUET, presented his views with some specific proposals for how ASCE can play a constructive role to enhance the professional, research and academic activities of engineers in Bangladesh. He suggested ASCE and its members work to: 1. Upgrade library facilities by donating books, journals, periodicals. 2. Seek donations to modernize the laboratory facilities. 3. Facilitate involvement of civil engineering professionals of Bangladesh in ASCE activities. 4. Deliver seminars, training, workshops and outreach activities with ASCE to enrich the professional, academic and research capabilities of faculty members. 5. Deliver seminars on various related aspects of civil engineering education to enhance the quality of undergraduate and post-graduate education of students. 6. Establish exchange programs among faculty members from Bangladesh and experts from the USA. As an outcome of this meeting, ASCE contributed a variety of books and interactive education materials for students of Khulna University of Engineering & Technology. If you have suggestions on how best to support our Bangladeshi engineering colleagues, please send your offers of assistance directly to Dr. Muhammed Alamgir at e-mail: alamgir63dr@yahoo.com or alamgir@ce.kuet.ac.bd
________________________________________________________________ ASCE Publications |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Civil Engineering Magazine |
The following international-relateed articles appeared in the October and November Issues of ASCE's Civil Engineering magazine. (Please log in as a member at www.asce.org ["Members Only"] before logging into articles.) |
October “Ancient Water System Unearthed in Israel” (multiple articles on page) http://www.asce.org/cemagazine/1006/ceoct_content.cfm?id=17 |
“Extending the Possibilities”, |
“Automated Access”, http://www.asce.org/cemagazine/1006/ceoct_content.cfm?id=4 |
“High-Speed Freight and Passenger Line to Connect Spain and France”, http://www.asce.org/cemagazine/1006/ceoct_content.cfm?id=14 |
“Hybrid Extradosed Bridge Under Way in British Colombia”, |
November "Maglev Train Crashes in Germany", "Clean Drinking Water Continues to Elude Many", "Report CitesI Sewage as Ocean Pollutant", http://www.asce.org/cemagazine/1106/cenov_content.cfm?id=13 |
“Chinese TV Headquarters Will Feature Braced Continuous Tube Structure”, http://www.asce.org/cemagazine/1106/cenov_content.cfm?id=3 |
Students Only
Win a Free Trip to Taiwan Through Student Competition
Engineering students are invited to participate in the student essay contest and try for the chance to attend the 4th Civil Engineering Conference in the Asian Region (CECAR). Papers should be no longer than 20 pages and the focus should be on a sustainability topic, preferably on sustainability in Asia. Papers are due December 15, 2006 and the winner will be notified at the end of January. Winners will be provided free airfare and accommodations to Taipei, Taiwan, and the opportunity to present their papers. Please send papers to Al Ang, ASCE representative to CECAR at ahang2@aol.com by the deadline.
Save on Test Preparation Courses
ASCE’s partnership with Kaplan now entitles members and their immediate family to a $50 savings on all GMAT, GRE, LSAT and SAT courses. This discount is available for all classroom and online test preparation courses offered by Kaplan as well as their private tutoring programs. For additional information or to register, go to www.asce.org/conted/distancelearning/prefkaplan.cfm
________________________________________________________________
Conferences
Upcoming Conferences
|
|||||||||||||||||||
Submit Articles for the February issue! Please send us current news and events from your organization and be sure to include a Web link and the email address of the contact person. Articles should be sent to Katerina Lachinova at klachinova@asce.org no later than January 15, 2007. |
|||||||||||||||||||
| NOTICE FROM ASCE: You are receiving this e-mail as an information service that is integrated with your ASCE membership. If you would rather receive ASCE e-mails at another e-mail address, please go to www.asce.org/myprofile or call (800) 548-ASCE (2723), (703) 295-6300, or e-mail member@asce.org. Thank you for your membership and support of the civil engineering profession. |
