As chairperson of the JSCE Concrete Committee, I wish you a Happy New Year and hope this will be another great year for you.

In late 2008, we published the revised version of JSCE Standard Specification for Concrete Structures. This is the most-advanced performance-based specification around the world, which covers material, structural design, construction, and maintenance. Last year, we made the best effort to prepare the English edition for publication. Now the process is in the final proofreading stage. It will be published in March 2010. I hope our advanced specification will be widely used around the world.

Contents of the revised English edition are:

･Conventional descriptions in the volumes, [Design] and [Materials and Construction], are divided into, "principal part" and "standard part". Standard part is like a technical manual so that they are suitable for practical use.
･Two volumes, [Structural performance] and [Seismic Performance Verification], are combined to form one volume, [Design].
･A volume, [Dams] is newly translated.

Though they are one of the outcomes of our activities on the performance based specification containing presentation and verification of the performance, we are also continuing activities for promotion of the performance based specification to make design, construction and maintenance system of concrete structure more reasonable. The following new research subcommittees were started last year and are working energetically into the problems on the specification.
･Subcommittee on performance check and inspection system of concrete based on the constructive performance
･Subcommittee on design system of reinforced concrete
We will report on outcomes of them by The Newsletter, international conferences and so on.

English edition of JSCE Standard Specifications for Concrete Structures will be published as free downloadable electronic medium. JSCE concrete committee also provides free downloadable English guidelines, engineering references and journals on our website as an international contributions activity. The publication issued last year is, Concrete Engineering Series No.82, Recommendations for Design and Construction of High Performance Fiber Reinforced Cement Composites with Multiple Fine Cracks (HPFRCC), 2008. We also hold international joint-seminar each year and promote exchanges of technology as another international activity. In last November, the Technical Chamber of Greece and JSCE held the TCG-JSCE Joint Seminar in Athens. We are also going to promote international contribution by publication, joint-seminar and the other activities this year.

JSCE Concrete Committee has focused the environment-conscious concrete engineering. Following research subcommittee on that was also started last year. ･Subcommittee on creation of environmentally conscious concrete material science Last year, the Japanese government commented that Japan is aiming to reduce CO2 emissions by 25% compared to the 1990 level by 2010 and play a leading role in the ecological activities around the world. And so we are continuing to promote these activities and also take a global leadership role in the concrete engineering field.