Committee on Emerging Computing Technology
Analysis and Computation TAC
ASCE Structural Division
Minutes of Meeting, June 8, 1993
Fifth International Conference on
Computing in Civil and Building Engineering,
Anaheim, California
Tuesday June 8, 1993
Attendance: 12
Name Affiliation
Akhras, George (*) - Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston,
(Ontario)
Baugh, John - North Carolina State University
Chen, Stuart - State University of New York at Buffalo
Citko, Steve (*) - Teng & Associates, Chicago
Garrett, Jim - Carnegie-Mellon University
Lakmazaheri, Sivand - Auburn University
Melhem, Hani - Kansas State University
Neggers, Meg - The Premisys Corporation
Roddis, Kim - University of Kansas
Schwartz, David (*) - State University of New York at Buffalo
Smith, Ian (*) - Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne,
(Switzerland)
Turkiyyah, George - University of Washington
________
(*) Visitors
Agenda: It was announced that an agenda similar to the one used in
the Irvine meeting (4/17/93) will be followed in this meeting.
1. Call to Order
The meeting was called to order at 6PM in Room Coronado F at the
Disneyland Hotel. During the introduction of the attendees,
Garrett distributed copies of the following:
a) minutes from the April ECT meeting at Irvine;
b) an updated version of the ECT "Statement of Proposed Mission;"
c) a proposal for a workshop on neural networks for the 1994
Structures Congress, to be organized by Garrett and Ghaboussi
in Atlanta.
Lakmazaheri distributed copies of his proposal for a workshop on
logic programming for structural engineering, to be organized by
himself, Roddis, and Chen, and possibly Melhem, during the 1995
Structures Congress in Boston.
Melhem circulated a copy of an abstract for a session on fuzzy
logic applications in structural engineering that he is proposing
also for the 1995 structures congress.
2. New Recording Secretary
Garrett reaffirmed his decision expressed in the e-mail sent to all
committee members on May 14, 1993, to appoint Hani Melhem as
secretary for the ECT subcommittee. No negative comments regarding
this decision were received since that date. As there was no
disapproval from the attendees but rather a support for the idea,
the designation of Melhem as the ECT secretary was then confirmed.
3. Review and Acceptance of Minutes from Last Meeting
The minutes of the April 1993 meeting at Irvine were reviewed and
accepted as is. Garrett expressed his recommended policy that
the participation of the ECT subcommittee in the structures
congress should be limited to carefully selected activities. An
update of the subcommittee membership roster and application
forms received and/or processed was discussed.
Garrett also expressed that his position of Subcommittee Chair
can be subject to possible change in the future and may be open
to re-election in two or three years.
4. Status Report
4.a. 1994 Structures Congress
Garrett informed the attendance that the 1994 Congress Sessions
were now established and papers were being reviewed. He repeated
his statements made during the Irvine meeting regarding this
matter which were recorded in the minutes of that meeting.
Originally, the ECT has proposed three sessions. Two were
combined together into one session, and the third was recommended
to be in form of a poster session. Two papers were moved to a
different session.
A discussion followed which included some discontentment that
such decision were made without consulting our subcommittee
chair. Comments were made on the fact that a paper was given to
one of the subcommittee members to review after the deadline was
passed, and on the procedure to possibly include this paper in
the session. Garrett presented again his recommended policy for
future planning of our activity in upcoming structures
congresses, as he previously stated (in Item 3 above).
Roddis expressed her feelings about the poster session in the 94
congress. Garrett reported Nelson Bakers' suggestion of an "open
house" at Georgia Tech during the conference. Lakmazaheri, Chen,
and Roddis were asked to write a letter to Emile Troupe proposing
their workshop. Roddis agreed to take this responsibility.
Garrett reported that he received good feedback from Franklin
Cheng for the remarkable effort made in organizing the session in
this year's congress.
4.b. Special Issue of the Journal of Computing in CE (JCCE)
Garrett thanked the reviewers of the papers pertaining to this
special issue which will be about neural networks. It looks that
most probably it will be moved back to April of next year due to
papers backlog and other considerations. Garrett said he will
contact those authors who might be affected by this delay.
A total of 14 papers are being considered. Seven has been sent
out for review and seven are moving in that direction. Two have
been declined, four tentatively accepted (2 w/re-review, 2 w/o
re-review) and one accepted with minor modifications.
Garrett reported that ASCE is pleased with the coordination and
interaction between the ECT and TCCP committees. However, we
were asked at the same time to justify our standing and the
difference between our activity and that of the TCCP.
In response to the potential of a joint international joint
activity with the European community, Ian Smith announced the
formation of a European Group for Structural Engineering
Applications of AI (20-30 persons). This group stemmed for the
somewhat fragmented situation in Europe in AI research and
development. Smith and Garrett promised to stay in contact
through e-mail and other means for possible joint activity
between this group and the ECT (further discussion is reported
below).
4.c. Research Needs Session at the 1993 Structures Congress
In addition to what appeared in the minutes of the Irvine meeting
concerning this matter, Garrett reported that one of the three
sessions proposed by the ECT was a duplication of a proposal made
by the Analysis and Computation TAC, Committee on wind safety
standards (?).
5. Joint Activity with TCCP and New Items
The idea of an ASCE monograph on Neural Networks in CE was
discussed as a joint activity with the ES/AI committee of the
TCCP since Garrett was involved in this activity. Nabil Kartam
form the AI/ES committee will be taking the lead in this activity
with Garrett helping him and representing the ECT committee. The
idea was welcomed by the attending members and an invitation was
made to all ECT members to do the same in similar activities in
the future.
Roddis pointed out that, in line with a memo that she e-mailed to
Garrett on February 10, 1993, the sessions jointly sponsored with
the ES/AI committee in this year computing conference should be
considered as activities of our committee as well.
The joint activity and interaction with the emerging European
group was raised again. The idea was considered worth pursuing.
Smith noted that research needs will result in activity that
would be considered first of its kind and as non-drafting
applications in the European community. Issues pertaining to
codes and standards (the Eurocode), standards processing for the
1994 computing congress, and the results of a 15/20-year of
French research were presented. Smith was requested to
disseminate such information especially regarding the French
System mentioned.
Roddis noted that she submitted by e-mail on May 6, 1993, a
proposal to both Garrett and Tommelein (Chair of the ES/AI
committee) for a joint session entitled: Delivering Knowledge-
Based Expert Systems in Civil Engineering: Moving from Research
to Practice.
6. 1995 Structures Congress
Presently our committee has a conference session to propose on fuzzy
logic and a workshop on logic programming. Since the notion of
workshops in the structures congress is relatively new, it may not
materialize. The session proposal on virtual reality that Garrett was
planning to organize has been delayed due to a lack of enthusiasm
regarding workshops by the structures congress organizing committees.
A long discussion followed including combining the session on
fuzzy logic with the logic programming workshop and/or proposing
a separate session on logic programming. Turkiyyah inquired
about the intended audience of the logic programming workshop and
Roddis suggested that it be spelled out in the workshop proposal.
It was also mentioned that it may be possible to break up the
topics and present them in more than one workshop (the 1995
workshop to be followed by subsequent workshops). A comment was
made that the workshop content appears more like a tutorial than
a workshop.
Melhem agreed to send his proposal on the fuzzy logic session and
Roddis to send the one on the logic programming workshop to Emile
Troupe. Alternatively, Chen suggested the idea of having several
sessions instead of the workshop. Turkiyyah inquired about the
evolution of thinking in choosing the topics of the session/workshop.
It was left to the organizing group (Lakmazaheri, Chen, Roddis, and
Melhem) to decide how they are going to handle this situation. A
subsequent discussion followed the committee meeting, as reported
below under 1995 structures congress organizing sub-group meeting.
Roddis suggested that as a possible growth path, the sessions
presented in the different structures congresses could be grouped
in an ASCE monograph. Further reviews and comments were to be
posted in the ECT e-mail "bulletin" (regular correspondence on
bitnet).
7. Discussion of our Mission/Status
It was suggested by Garrett that if any name change will be
needed, it should wait until after our committee is officially
approved. He also briefed the attendance of the discussion that
took place in the Irvine meeting concerning this matter.
Turkiyyah asked for a show of hands for those who have an
objection with the present name; nobody showed a real objection
with the name.
Roddis proposed that modification of the mission statement and/or
committee name remains open forum to all members on the e-mail
bulletin, and when the discussion is finished it will be
submitted to Garrett.
Garrett regrettably announced our present status: during its
last meeting in Irvine, the TAC on Analysis and Computation
recommended that we get elevated to a full ASCE technical
committee status. However, the executive committee (EXCOM) of
the Structures Division decided that this elevation be postponed
till next year. Garrett also expressed his great disappointment
and that it will be extremely difficult - at least for him but to
everybody else as well - to continue our activity for more than
another year, since the ECT has been already operating for more
than two years with no ASCE support or funding. He stated that
he would not be able to act as the subcommittee chair if we are
not elevated next year. The reason is surely not a lack of
activity or organization from our part.
Roddis raised her concern about industry participation in the
committee, her unsuccessful attempts to get participation from Black
and Veetch, and Stone and Webster. Garrett agreed to contact Ken Reed
at the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST).
Regarding this matter, a call was made to all members to identify
potential industrial persons at the next structures Congress (or
elsewhere) and invite them to attend our meeting and possibly join our
committee. For that fact, the presence of Neggers was appreciated,
and a formal invitation was made to Steve Citko (attending) to join
the committee.
8. New Business
Chen suggested that a tutorial on FORTRAN 90 could be a useful
committee activity, but that he was not offering to conduct it.
Neggers suggested a tutorial on C++. Baugh supported the C++ idea and
stated that he would be willing to take the lead in this activity.
Neggars, Baugh and Turkiyyah agreed to act as a subcommittee to form a
proposal and send it off to Emil Troupe and the 1995 Structures
Congress organizing committee.
9. Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned at 7:50 PM by Garrett who thanked the
attending members and visitors for their participation and active
discussion.
The next meeting will be at the structures congress in Atlanta,
in April 1994. Garrett may be out of the Country at that time,
but he asked the committee to still meet without him. He also
delegated Melhem to attend the TAC meeting for him if this is the
case.
Submitted by:
Hani Melhem (Secretary)
Jim Garrett (Chairperson)
-------END of ECT Committee Meeting-------
The 1995 Structures Congress Organizing Sub-group Meeting
*********************************************************
Immediately following the ECT committee meeting, Lakmazaheri,
Chen, Roddis, and Melhem in addition to guest David Schwartz, met
for about 1-1/2 hour to discuss the session/workshop proposal for
the 1995 Structures Congress. The purpose of the workshop and
the expected audience was discussed. An attendance of 30
participants was considered a reasonable estimate. Consequently,
the proposed budget was reduced from $4,750 to $2,900.
It was decided not to combine the session and the workshop, and
that Melhem will go ahead and submit his proposal for the session
on fuzzy logic, while Lakmazaheri will revise the workshop
proposal and give it to Roddis for submittal to Emile troupe
before June 15, 1993.
A technical session on Logic Programming may also be submitted by
Chen to the TCCP 1994 computing congress, as well as another
possible session on fuzzy logic applications in civil
engineering, both to be organized and submitted to Iris Tommelein
by August 20, 1993, as ECT and ES/AI joint activities.