The 2009 Katahira Award Presentation was presented in conjunction with the 13th REAAA Conference in Incheon, Korea. This was the 7th presentation for this award. The Award is in honour of the late Dr. Nobutaka Katahira, a former President of REAAA, who set up a trust fund to encourage the professional development of young engineers in the region. A judging panel reviewed eligible papers and made recommendations regarding the awards.
Six technical papers were rated to be recipients for the Katahira Awards for the 13th REAAA Conference.
Two awards were given for the ‘Best Technical Paper’ went to Japan’s Masato Matsumoto, Yoshinori Wada and Shuhei Sakai of West Nippon Expressway Co Ltd, Japan ,Nippon Expressway Research Institute, Japan for their paper entitled ‘Development of Lifetime Bridge Management System for Expressway Bridges in Japan’ and to Australian’s Rob McInerney and Greg Smith of International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP), Australia with their paper entitled ‘Saving Lives Through Investment in Safer Roads: the iRAP Partnership’. They received USD1, 000.00 and a framed certificate.
The runner-up award for the ‘Outstanding Paper’ was presented to Masaki Nishioka, Tetsuo Matsuda and Seiichi Nagaoka from West Nippon Expressway Co Ltd, Japan, Sumitomo Osaka Cement Co Ltd, Japan for their paper entitled ‘Reinforcing Method with Overlaid Ultra-High-Early-Strength Concretes’. The winner received USD500 and a framed certificate.
Three others were presented with USD250 and a framed certificate each for winning the ‘Highly Commended Paper’ were Gyungja Jung, Jonghong Jung, and Hong-Jong Kim of Infrastructure Research Division for their paper entitled ‘Long-Term Settlement of Traffic-Opened Expressway on Soft Ground’, Seungjun Lee, Yoonhyuk Choi, Taeyoung Kim and Jeonggyu Kang of Transportation Research Division, Expressway & Transportation Research Institute, Korea for their paper entitled ‘A Study of Support System for Traffic Operating Condition Audit on Expressways’, and Hirotaka Sekiya, Masanori Kobayashi, Hiroyuki Nambu and Katsumi Uesaka of Traffic Engineering Division, National Institute for Land and Infrastructure Management, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, Japan for the paper entitled ‘Factors Influencing Freight Truck Route Selection’
The ratings were carried out by a five of Member Judging Panel headed by Mr. Kieran Sharp of Australia. The judges were from Australia, Japan, Korea and Singapore. The papers were earlier nominated and submitted by the Korean Technical Committee for the consideration of the Judging Panel. The Katahira Award presentation ceremony was held as one of the highlights to mark the closing of the 13th REAAA Conference.
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