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Proceedings of the 18
th
International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Paris 2013
Appendix 3: ISSMGE Bulletin
I. Towhata
Editor-in-Chief, ISSMGE Bulletin
1
INTRODUCTION.
I have been devoted to publication of ISSMGE Bulletin since
the beginning of my term. I took over this job from the previous
board member, Prof. O. Kusakabe, and was fortunately able to
take over the editing team that he established. Since 2011, the
ISSMGE Bulletin has been published 6 times a year, increasing
from the previous number of 4 times a year.
ISSMGE Bulletin has two aims. The first aim is the
notification of societal activities, whether those of ISSMGE or
of member societies, such as messages from President and VPs,
international conferences, and others. The second aim is the
dissemination of technical knowledge that is interesting to
individual readers. My policies on these two aims are described
in what follows.
2
SOCIETAL ACTIVITIES
• The cover articles have been written by presidents of
sister societies and ISSMGE VPs but this series of
articles are going to finish soon. New group of authors
are sought for now. Probably past presidents, and
leaders of Board Level Committees (AWAC, IDC,
MPAC, SYMPG, TOC, CAPG) are promising. Further,
now newly-established technical committees may be
able to make some contributions.
• Many interesting conferences and symposia are taking
place with ISSMGE sponsorship. ISSMGE Bulletin has
been inviting organizers to write articles on those events
after their completion. I felt, however, that organizers
may be tired to write anything further after the
completion of their long and heavy working, leading to
delay or reluctance in submitting a draft. To cope with
this problem, I prepared a kind of template draft in
which a rough structure of a conference report is
available. The organizer should only fill in information
such as number of participants, date of the event, etc.
and paste a nice photograph of the conference. Because
this simple job can be done in 15 minutes, most
organizers have successfully submitted drafts in a short
time.
• Message from member societies is a fun to read because
we can learn about local activities and traditional
geotechnical problems as well as enthusiastic people. So
far, Ghana, Thailand, and Chinese Taipei have made
contributions. Other member societies are encouraged to
follow them.
• A special issue is being planned to celebrate the 75-year
platinum jubilee of ISSMGE.
• Condolences are always important for those people and
groups of people who had intimate relationships with
the person who passed away. This is particularly true
when the missed person had a deep and wide influence
on his/her geotechnical community. As one of the duties
of the community, there have been a good number of
offers to write condolences articles of respect. On the
other hand, opinions have been heard that there should
not be too many sad news items in the Bulletin. The
basic policy was therefore decided by President Briaud
that articles of condolence articles can be published in
the Bulletin if and only if a member society or one of
the Board Members proposes or supports its submission.
3
DISSEMINATION OF TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE
It appears that most individual readers, who are mostly
practitioners, are not significantly interested in articles on
societal activities as stated above. On the other hand, they are
delighted to read technical information in the Bulletin. In this
respect, there are three kinds of articles in the Bulletin as shown
below.
• News on geotechnical natural disasters: the Bulletin has
published news on extremely heavy rainfall and slope
failures in Taiwan, effects of M=8 earthquake in Chile,
terrible influence of Haiti earthquake on people, natural
dam produced by landslide in north Pakistan,
liquefactions during repeated earthquakes in New
Zealand, and a summary of geotechnical damages
caused by M=9 gigantic earthquake in Japan. The
Bulletin has been successful in delivering vivid
information to readers quickly after the occurrence of
those disasters.
• Reports on new technologies and projects: urban
reconstruction in London, harbor construction in
Australia, road pavement technology in USA, coastal
structures in Southeast Asia, and a new cone
penetrometer in Japan were published. I believe that the
Bulletin is offering to the involved people free-of-
charge a good opportunity to demonstrate what a great
job they have done. Certainly, the size of the project
does not matter. Currently, the Bulletin is interested in
articles on long tunnels and foundation of high-rise
buildings but articles on other kinds of project are
welcome as well.
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