This project will support the travel of 11 US scientists and engineers to participate in the joint conference combining the well established conferences -- 7th Conference on Urban Earthquake Engineering and the 5th International Conference on Earthquake Engineering (5th ICEE) Conference -- in Earthquake Engineering to be held in Tokyo, Japan on March 3-5, 2010. The combined conference is organized on the four major themes: (1) vulnerability of mega-cities to seismic hazards, (2) multi-hazard mitigation solutions, (3) adoption of new sensors, actuation and control technologies within future mitigation strategies, and (4) education initiatives aimed toward cultivating interdisciplinary and cross-cultural earthquake engineering curricula. This is a major forum that provides excellent opportunity for the exchange of scientific information and ideas in area of earthquake hazard mitigation. The project will provide the US researchers an opportunity to present technical papers for dissemination of their research results, to interact with international researchers who are working in the area of earthquake engineering and to explore the opportunities for future collaborations. The participants will be selected to represent a broad spectrum of researchers including the underrepresented groups.
