Dear Readers,
It gives me great pleasure to introduce
you to the first issue of Seismic Isolation and Protection
Systems, the journal of ASSISi. The Society has felt for some
time that these technologies have lacked the focussed forum
that their own specialist journal could provide. The aim is
to complement the biennial ASSISi Conference, and bring
together refereed articles covering research, development and
implementation from academia, research institutes,
consultancies, device suppliers and the construction
industry. We hope that those in any of these sectors will
find the journal an essential aid to keeping abreast of the
latest advances, and that they will regard it as the obvious
choice for publication of their own work.
Initially, the journal will be published
three times a year only in electronic format. Members of
ASSISi will have free access to the journal, thus ensuring a
strong readership base from the outset.
This first issue covers a range of
topics, including device performance, industrial and civil
applications, state of the art, design criteria and health
monitoring. We expect to maintain the same, high standard of
articles in future.
Earthquakes continue to cause material
devastation and human suffering, the recent events in China,
Haiti, Italy, Chile and New Zealand being the most recent
examples. Given the potential of seismic isolation and energy
dissipation systems to minimize the seismic risk to
structures, it is the hope and wish of ASSISi that this new
journal, by improving the dissemination of ideas, will
facilitate the work of the earthquake engineering community
towards its goal of reducing the casualties and financial
losses associated with structural damage and collapse.
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