Minutes of the Subcommittee on Emerging Computing Technology
                                  (ECT)
                      Analysis and Computation TAC
                        ASCE Structural Division

                        Structures Congress XIII
                             Sheraton Hotel

                             April, 2, 1995
                          Boston, Massachusetts


email: emerging-tech@eiffel.ce.gatech.edu
URL:  http://www.ce.cmu.edu:8000/people/user/jg9d/www/ect/home.html


Attendance: 6

     Name           Affiliation

Baker, Nelson       - Georgia Institute of Technology
Cheng, Franklin     - University of Missouri-Rolla
Chen, Stuart        - State University of New York at Buffalo
Garrett, Jim        - Carnegie-Mellon University
Melhem, Hani        - Kansas State University
Neggers, Meg        - The Premisys Corporation



1. Call to order and introduction of attendees.

The meeting was called to order by the committee chairperson, Jim
Garrett.  The meeting began around 8:30 am.

A package was distributed to the attendees.  This included:
   - Proposed agenda
   - Minutes of the April 26, 1994 meeting in Atlanta
   - Minutes of the June 20, 1994 meeting in Washington, D.C.
   - Copy of the February 17, 1994 letter from Kim Roddis to Emile
     Troup, with abstract and update on the Logic Programming
     session at Structures Congress (SC) '95.
   - Copy of the February 23, 1995 letter from Jim Garrett to
     Franklin Cheng along with our committee activity report in
     FY95 and plans for FY96.
   - Copy of the June 28, 1994 letter from Meg Neggers to Franklin
     Cheng along with the session proposals for the 1996 Structures
     Congress from our ECT committee.  A related cover letter to
     Jim Garrett dated July 27, 1994 was also included.
   - Copy of a letter dated February 13, 1994 from Meg Neggers to
     Franlkin Cheng with abstracts of both a technical session and
     a tutorial session for SC'96.
   - Copy of the Call-for-Abstracts for the ASCE Artificial
     Networks Monograph and its Table of Contents.
   - Copy of a Call for Papers for the International Conference on
     Information Technology in Civil and Structural Engineering
     Design, Aug. 14-16, 1996, in Glasgow, Scotland.
   - Copy of a February 6, 1995 letter to Jim Garrett from Cary
     Junior, chair of the Liaison Subcommittee - ASCE Construction
     Division, Committee on Computing in Construction.

The proposed agenda was discussed.  It was suggested to add agenda
items on the WWW/homepage, the Virtual Library, the joint activity
with TCCP Educational Committee, and the IEEE magazine - special
issue, under Discussion of Current Business (Item 4).


2. Acceptance of Minutes from last meeting.

Meg noted that Richard Sause's last name was misspelled in the
minutes of the June 20, 1994 meeting.   (Apologies of the
secretary).  A motion was made to accept the minutes and it was
carried.

3.  Review of Old Business.

Garrett mentioned his appreciation to the efforts of Hani Melhem
and John Baugh to get the committee established as an ASCE full
standing committee when he was abroad on sabbatical.   He also
thanked John Baugh for taking the minutes of the June 94 meeting.

 3.a  Session Planned for the 1995 SC.

Two sessions were scheduled in the SC'95 program.
     - "Logic Programming for Structural Engineering," organized by
     K. Roddis, S. Lakmazaheri, and S. Chen.  (Later, attendance
     was recorded to be around 25 persons).
     - "Fuzzy Logic Applications in Structural Engineering,"
     organized by Hani Melhem.  (Attendance was around 35 persons).

Garrett mentioned that the participation of speakers from outside
our committee in our technical sessions is very much encouraged.
Examples of such sessions are the one on Fuzzy Logic organized by
Melhem and that proposed by Neggers for next year.


3.b  ECT Annual report sent to F. Cheng.

The report was reviewed and discussed.
-  It was suggested that the third Item under V-c (Other activities
- Planned for the future) which deals with multimedia products
considered by ASCE continuing education department be considered as
an activity under category VI (Plans for the Future).  Nelson Baker
will rework  the goal and purpose of this activity to closely
relate it to continuing education.  The theme will include
"information dissemination"as its main goal.  He will work on an
example of a model along with an appropriate time schedule to be
presented to the TAC meeting Tuesday, April 4, 1995.

- A discussion took place on the ASCE continuing education position
towards possible future requirements of Continuing Education Units
(CEU) that practicionners would have to take in order to maintain
their PE license.  Short courses or tutorials may need to issue a
diploma to the attendees to help them satisfy the CEU requirements.

- The issue of continuing Ed. was brought up in the 1997 Structures
Congress "rap-up meeting."  A Model of a Cont. Ed. course and topic
are desirable.

-  A motion was called and approved that the ECT committee should
accept, as one of its missions, to investigate suitable mechanisms
(e.g. electronically) of disseminating information and technology
with the purpose of supporting continuing education for structural
engineers and practitioners.


4.  Discussion of Current Business.

4.a  Sessions/Tutorials planned for 1996 SC.

This congress is scheduled for April 15-18, 1996 in Chicago.  Meg
Neggers sent out the session proposals to Bill Baker.  Garrett
thanked Neggers for her effort and the authors for their
participation and contributions.  The timetable is as follows:
May 5:  Papers titles and author names due
Set. 8:  Camera ready manuscripts to reach the session chairperson
Oct. 6:  Comments sent back to authors
Nov. 10:  Final Manuscripts sent to editor of the proceedings.


4.b  Sessions at the 1995 TCCP Congress.

This coming congress will be held in Atlanta in June 1995.  Nelson
Baker will have a tutorial on Multimedia.  Jim Garrett may be
giving a tutorial on Neural Network.


4.c   Monograph on Neural Network.

The monograph is now ready.  The content of the monograph is
included in the package distributed to the attendees.  It should be
delivered to the ECT committee from the ASCE editors between the
end of April and early/middle of  May.


4.d  Form and Content of the ECT Mosaic Homepage.

It was generally agreed that the ECT homepage should be our
repository of minutes of the meetings, databases (members'
addresses and contacts, etc.), and activity reports.  Electronic
mail should remain our main means of communication and discussion
of committee activity.

The ECT Mosaic WWW should regularly include:
     - minutes and agendas of the committee meetings
     - link with the European Group's homepage
     - link to the Virtual Library that Nelson is working on

The frontpage image is a picture of a lighthouse symbolizing the
ECT committee as the light source and means of new technologies and
information dissemination.

It should be posted on the front page how to make changes to the
homepage, if possible (and who will be authorized to do so), and
how to insert new documents.

Action items:

Garrett will bring a hardcopy of the picture to the Atlanta meeting
for discussion.  All ECT members should look at the homepage and
come to the June meeting with ideas, comments and suggestions to
improve the homepage.  Garrett will be the editor of the ECT
homepage for the next two to three years at least.  Baker will
bring a digital camera to the Atlanta meeting to take a picture of
the committee members as a possible graphics for the homepage.
(The June meeting will be either Monday or Tuesday night.)


4.e  IEEE Magazine Special Issue

Guest editors are Ian Smith and Jim Garrett.  Jim and Ian were
invited by IEEE to be guest editors of this special issue.  They
put out the call for participation that all ECT members should have
received.  A total of 36 abstracts were submitted and 12 of them
were selected.  Help form ECT members in reviewing the papers will
be much appreciated.  It was noted that approval from ECT committee
was not sought prior to getting engaged into this issue and
associate it to the committee activities.

Garrett mentioned that, in the future, ECT members (including
himself) should ask for the committee members' approval and do a
better job in communicating any possible activity before getting
involved in it.


5.  New Business

Discussion included the following topics:

5.a  Session tutorials for the 1997 SC.

The congress will take place in Portland, Oregon.  Garrett will put
on the network a call for session proposal.  The announcement
should be successfully distributed through email.  No more than two
sessions should be planned for 1997.  One session could be on
Telecommunication and Information Sharing and the other could be on
Collaborative Engineering Experience.  Others can include
distributed communication capabilities or codes and standards.
Neggers will be responsible for one session.  A model/position
paper should be presented expressing the role of ECT committee in
information and new technology dissemination (Nelson !).

5.b  Track of sessions planned for the 1998 SC.

This congress will be a world congress and will take place in
Southern California.  It will be in conjunction with the analysis
and computation conference.  ECT committee should sponsor three and
preferably four sessions.

At least two sessions should cover the individual group members'
activities.  A paper should include the results of the
model/position paper presented at the 1997 SC (mentioned above).
Tutorials should also be proposed (topic to be identified later).

We should try to involve the EG-SEA-AI in this activity.  Garrett
will be to their meeting in August 1996 (on the evening of the
13th) and may be able to coordinate that.


5.c  Interaction with EG-SEA-AI

As mentioned above, we should include a joint activity in future
structures congresses.

Their last meeting was in Bergamo, last March.  From ECT committee,
Garrett, Roddis and Melhem were present.  Melhem reported that ECT
representation was much welcome and joint activity was appreciated.
During their meeting, they decided to carry on a survey of
engineering industries, firms and companies  that have used, or are
using, AI and emerging computing technologies in their practice.
This will exclude finite element programs, CAD, and the like.
IABSE is formed of about 55% industry persons.  A questionnaire
will be prepared, distributed and followed up by telephone.  ECT
was asked to participate in this activity.  Melhem will work on the
survey with Ian Smith.

Garrett announced the Glasgow, Scotland conference and made a call
to participate in the activity.  (A copy of the brochure is
included in the package distributed at the beginning of the
meeting).  He suggested that ECT should organize a session in this
conference.  Similarly, EG-SEA-AI should be invited to participate
in the 1988 SC with possibly a full session all on European
applications and activities.


5.d  Letter from Committee on Computing in Construction

The letter from Cary Junior was read and discussed.  Garrett will
give him Melhem's name and address and the URL for our homepage.


5.e  Officer elections

Elections will take effect in 1977.  Garrett will put out a
description of duties expected from the different officers before
SC'96.  Nominations will be accepted before that meeting.  He will
bring to the meeting a list of candidates and a final description
of duties.  Rules for the election will be discussed in upcoming
meetings.

5.f  Additional activities

The idea of a model mechanism for communication and information
dissemination was brought up again including Distant Learning.
Case studies can be investigated in the Fall of 1995.  In 1996, the
evaluation of the model can be made and presented as a "white"
paper describing the experience and its successes or shortcomings.
In 1997 a summary can be presented.  Chen can give some input on
this based on a graduate course he will be teaching via satellite.
Baker will finalize a proposal that he will send to Franklin Cheng
for the TAC Tuesday meeting relating this issue to ASCE continuing
education aspirations.



6. Adjournment.

Meeting was adjourned around 1:45 pm.




Submitted by:

Hani Melhem (secretary)