LTPP Award Winner Announced at TRB Daniel P. Franta winner of the 2012 International Contest on LTPP Data Analysis accepting his award from T&DI President C. Michael Walton at the State Coordinators meeting during the Transportation Research Board.  The contest was initiated in August 1998 and is designed to encourage students, professors, State Highway Officials, and consultants from around the world to get involved in using the LTPP data compiled by the FWKA over the past 17 years.  Daniel’s winning paper is entitled “Classification of Features of Pavement Profiles Using Empirical Mode Decomposition”.  Click here for the rest of the article.

Presidents Message I believe that the activities of T&DI during TRB were very successful and I enjoyed visiting so many of the attendees.  We had 16 committee meetings and task force meetings, formal and informal, but successful none the less.  The TRB Annual Meeting event was attended by approximately 12,000 attendees (11,700 officially) and serves as an excellent venue for recruiting others to T&DI activities.  The T&DI reception was outstanding with “elbow” room only.  I wish to express our appreciation to Andrea and Jon for the excellent arrangements—the food and hors d'oeuvres were among the best of the receptions I attended but the crowd and quality of attendees was second to none!  We had the pleasure of the ASCE Leadership attend the event with former and future Society Presidents along with Pat Natale, Executive Director, who has from the beginning of T&DI been a strong and consistent supporter.  For me, I saw many old friends in addition to meeting people with whom I had engaging conversations.  As we all know, the networking opportunities are, to paraphrase Emerson, “the wine of the human experience.” I wish to express my appreciation to each individual who made T&DI activities a priority during the TRB. Click here for more on this article.

NCEES seeks civil engineers for online survey NCEES is currently seeking licensed civil engineers to participate in a professional activities and knowledge study, or PAKS, for the PE Civil exam. The results of this study will be used to update specifications for the exam, which is used throughout the United States for licensing purposes. NCEES requires a cross section of licensed professional engineers practicing civil engineering—including those working in consulting, the public sector, and academia—to complete an online survey about the tasks and knowledge required of a licensed civil engineer with 4 to 6 years of experience to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public. The survey can be completed in about an hour. For access to the online survey, visit http://ncees.org/civilsurvey. Responses must be received by February 25, 2013.