Minutes from the Emerging Computing Technologies Committee Meeting

May 22, 2004, 3:00 pm – 7:00 pm

2004 Structures Congress

Nashville Renaissance Hotel, Nashville, TN

 

 

1. Attendance:

 

Members:

 

Eduardo De Santiago, Vice Chair (Illinois Institute of Technology)

Chris Foley, (Marquette University)

Abhinav Gupta, Secretary (North Carolina State University)

Jun Peng, (Stanford University)

Shahram Pezeshk, (University of Memphis)

Colby Swan, Chair (University of Iowa)

 

Visitors:

            Arzhang Alimoradi, (University of Memphis)

Jasbir Arora, (University of Iowa)

            Don Grierson, (University of Waterloo)

Sherif El-Tawil (University of Michigan)

 

2. Call to Order

 

The meeting was called to order by Colby Swan. All members and guests introduced themselves.

 

3. Meeting Agenda

 

Colby Swan had emailed an agenda prior to the meeting which was agreed upon by the members in attendance

 

4. Review/Discussion of Committee’s Mission Statement and Fields of Interests

 

Colby Swan summarized committee’s past activities and focus areas. He emphasized the changing nature of its focus area to keep up with the emerging issues. He also described the role of Associate Editor for the Journal of Structural Engineering. He invited members and guests to review and suggest update on the field of interests for the committee.

 

5. Discussion of Current Activities

 

5.1  The ECT committee sponsored one session on High Performance Computing in Structural Engineering at 2004 Congress. The session is chaired jointly by Swan and De Santiago. It has four papers that are likely to be presented.

 

5.2  The ECT committee has proposed two sessions for the 2005 Congress to be held in New York. The session titles and their organizers are:

 

                  1.            Hybrid Simulation:  Testing and Verification of Real-Time Control Systems, proposed by Abhinav Gupta and Elisa Sotelino

                  2.            Artificial Life Optimization Algorithms, proposed by Chris Foley

 

Gupta and Foley reported that they have not received any notification on the decision regarding the acceptance of these sessions.

 

5.3  The attendees discussed and agreed that the ECT Committee should develop a Workshop on Information Technology in Structural Eng. Education for the 2006 Congress to be held at St. Louis. While the education aspect can be general, attendees agreed to emphasize the undergraduate education wherever possible.

 

Format of workshop: It was agreed upon that a minimum of half day format would be desirable.

 

Topics: Four primary sub-topics were identified for the workshop. These include (a) Data modeling and Validation, (b) Computation and Simulation, (c) Visualization, and (d) Distance Education.

 

Speakers: The following persons agreed to identify the actual presentation topics and speakers for each of the four sub-topics. Chris Foley for Data modeling and Validation; Jun Peng for Computation and Simulation; Colby Swan for visualization; and Eduardo De Santiago and Abhinav Gupta for Distance Education.

 

Timeline: It was agreed upon that everyone in organizing team would provide their feedback to Colby Swan by September 1, 2004.

 

Other Aspects: Colby Swan would explore the funding to reimburse travel expenses of invited presenters. Colby Swan will also explore if PDH hours can be awarded for the attendees of this workshop.

 

6. Special Publication Activities

 

Members of the ECT Committee agreed to explore the possibility of developing a Special Issue of the Journal of Structural Engineering on the topic of Emerging Computing Technology. The suggested topics include grid computing, evolutionary techniques, hybrid simulation (experimental and verification studies), soft computing, visualization, data modeling, and simulation. It was indicated that about 15 to 20 papers will need to be solicited for peer review to be facilitated by the editors of the special issue. Abhinav Gupta, Chris Foley, and Sherif El-Tawil who are currently Associate Editors for the Journal of Structural Engineering agreed to jointly share the responsibility for exploring it further. Abhinav Gupta will solicit and collect information on potential authors from the ECT committee members. The list of potential authors and topics will then be used to make a decision on going further with the special publication.

 

7. Report by Associated Editor

 

Associate editor’s report summarized that a total of 10 papers were received for facilitating the review. 1 paper was accepted and 3 were declined. 6 papers are currently under review.

 

Colby Swan will communicate with Sashi Kunath, Chief Editor of the Journal of Structural Engineering, to expand ECT’s list of keywords and areas of expertise.

 

8. New Technologies of Potential Interest to the Committee

 

Colby Swan discussed the work on Digital Human Modeling being conducted at the Virtual Soldier Research Center at the University of Iowa. ECT members suggested that the a potential topic of interest in future could be Digital Human Modeling: A demonstration and discussion of potential applications in structural engineering.

 

9. Adjournment

 

The meeting was adjourned at 6:00 pm.

 

Minutes of the meeting prepared by:             

Abhinav Gupta

                                                            Assistant Professor

                                                            Department of Civil Construction & Environmental Engg.

                                                            Campus Box 7908

                                                            NC State University

                                                            Raleigh, NC 27695-7908

                                                            Ph: (919)-515-1385

                                                            Fax: (919)-515-5301

                                                            Email: agupta1@eos.ncsu.edu