Kohji Tokimatsu
Editor, Soils and Foundations

Soils and Foundations has been abstracted and indexed in various international services including Science Citation Index Expanded, ISI. This facilitates worldwide reference search of our journal. In addition, subscription of our free e-mail information service at the website www.jiban.or.jp/e/sf/ allows one to receive a list of contents information as our new journal issues are published. This information service is linked to abstracts of the current and previous issues and will be soon linked to full texts of past issues, making oversea access to our past papers remarkably easy.

The increase in the annual number of issues from four to six since 1999 has not only increased the number of pages but also reduced the time taken from submission of a good paper to publication. This allows us to publish special issues related to one specific and timely topic being attractive to most of potential readers of Soils and Foundations at an appropriate interval.

This August 2003 issue is the fifth special issue of Soils and Foundations, published in conjunction with the International Symposium on "Deformation Characteristics of Geomaterials," held in Lyon, France, in September 2003. The response to the "call for papers" to this special issue was substantial, reflecting worldwide interest and importance of this topic. According to our ordinal and yet rapid review process, a total of 19 technical papers have been selected and published in time for the symposium.

It is hoped that the papers included in this issue together with those in the symposium proceedings provide valuable information and guidance in fostering the progress in this field.

Herve Di Benedetto
Chairman, Scientific Committee, International Symposium on
"Deformation Characteristics of Geomaterials", IS-Lyon 03, Lyon, France 22nd to 24th September 2003

Solutions for soil engineering and soil-structure interaction problems require the use of realistic and pertinent experimental and modelling tools. Geomaterials show very complex behaviour, which may change with the amplitude of the loading domain. Generally, the behaviour is rather linear for very small strain amplitude while strong non linearities and irreversibilities appear when loading increases. Failure occurs as a localised or diffused pattern depending on materials and boundary conditions. Anisotropy and time effects may have very high influence in some practical cases. Considering this complex behaviour, research and developments aiming to improve modelling of soils and soft rocks over a wide range of loading, from very small up to beyond failure is still a big challenge with important practical applications. These developments include interpretation of laboratory, in-situ and field observations.

This special issue of "Soils and Foundations" is published in conjunction with the International Symposium on "Deformation Characteristics of Geomaterials", IS-Lyon 03, held in Lyon, France, in September 2003. The Symposium is being organised under the auspices of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE - Committee TC29) and follows from earlier highly successful symposia: IS-Hokkaido (1994) and IS-Torino (1999).

The main themes of the Conference, which was co-sponsored by the French Geotechnical Society (CFMS) and the French Society of Rock Mechanics (CFMR), include:
- experimental investigations into deformation properties - from very small strains to beyond failure;
- laboratory, in-situ and field observation interpretations;
- behaviour characterisation and modelling;
- case histories.
Emphasis was placed on exploring recent investigations into anisotropy and non-linearity, the effects of stress-strain-time history, ageing and time effects, yielding, failure and flow, cyclic and dynamic behaviour. In addition it was also aimed to apply advanced geotechnical testing to real engineering problems, and to ways of synthesising information from a range of different sources when engaging in practical site characterisation studies.

The rapid review of the editorial committee of "Soils and Foundations" led to this special issue, including 19 papers, in time for the conference. On behalf of the Scientific and Organising Committees of "IS-Lyon 03", I would like to thank the board members of the journal for their efforts and efficiency.

In addition to this Issue, the proceedings of "IS-Lyon 03", delivered to each participant, include classical conference papers in the proceedings volume I and a post-conference proceedings volume II covering keynote lectures, panel presentations and written discussions.

I sincerely hope that these proceedings, including around 200 papers, could be considered as an excellent and privileged source of information, data and ideas for researchers and engineers involved in this complex and fascinating topic.