Special Issues
Special Issues of The Computer Journal
1. "Agent Technologies for Sensor Networks"
Sensor networks are increasingly seen as a solution to the problem of performing wide-area monitoring and surveillance within many environmental, security and military scenarios. Such networks consist of multiple sensors, deployed over a wide area, connected through a communication network (wired or otherwise). To ensure minimal human intervention the sensors within these networks should be able to self-organise, autonomously manage their own resources, and co-ordinate their behaviour to achieve system wide goals.
The distributed nature of these networks, and the autonomous behaviour expected of them, naturally lend themselves to a multi-agent methodology, and many of the technical challenges posed by these systems (e.g. decentralised control, co-ordination, resource allocation) form the basis of main-stream research within the agent community. However, such systems pose many additional challenges, not least how to manage limited computation and energy resources, constrained communication, and unreliable or fault prone network components within a dynamic and uncertain environment. Furthermore, the increasing availability of sensor network data, and the need to make use of it in real-time for informed decision making, requires the development of intelligent agents that can autonomously acquire data from these networks, and perform information processing tasks such as fusion, inference and prediction.
Thus, this special issue will focus on research that extends and applies agent technologies, both within the networks themselves (where agents represent the actual sensors), and also for the collection and processing of sensor network data. As such, topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
• Agent based management of sensor networks
• Novel paradigms for sensor network management (e.g. game theoretic and market-oriented programming approaches).
• Co-ordination and planning
• Adaptive and learning agents for sensor networks
• Energy and resource aware sensor networks
• Emergent behaviour
• Computational issues
• Data fusion and aggregation within sensor networks
• Reasoning with incomplete or uncertain information
• Security and trust in sensor networks
• Applications and real-world deployments of sensor networks
• Agent-based architectures for sensor networks
• Agent-based simulation of sensor networks
• Reliability, efficiency, and fault tolerance
Important Dates
Submission Deadline: 1st August 2009
Acceptance Notice: 1st November 2009
Final Manuscripts Due: 1st January 2010
Publication Date: To be confirmed
Submission Guidelines
The work submitted must be in the form of high quality, original papers, which are not simultaneously submitted for publication elsewhere. The papers should be formatted according to the journal style. The papers must be submitted via the journal web submission route (please indicate that the submission is for “the special issue on ATSN” in the cover letter) and simultaneously submit a PDF version of complete manuscript to acr@ecs.soton.ac.uk. Submitted papers will be peer reviewed according to their originality, quality and relevance to this special issue and the journal.
Guest Editor
Alex Rogers
School of Electronics and Computer Science
University of Southampton, UK
Email: acr@ecs.soton.ac.uk
2. "Algorithms, Protocols, and Future Applications of Wireless Sensor Networks"
The remarkable advances of embedded micro-sensing MEMS and wireless communication technologies have promoted the development of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) which offer a new opportunity for pervasive and context-aware monitoring of physical environments. However, due to their limited resources and energy, WSNs can face many significant design challenges, and furthermore the WSN’s deployment and topology will also influence the detection capability of a WSN. Once deployed, maintaining network operations (such as coverage and communication) while preserving sensors’ energy is also a critical issue. To track objects, we need localization algorithms to accurately locate the objects and data aggregation algorithms to efficiently collect sensing data. Since sensors are often prone to error, security and fault-tolerance algorithms are necessary.
Recently, WSNs have been standardized by ZigBee and IEEE 802.15.4. In addition, mobile and vehicular sensor networks have opened a new frontier of research in WSNs. With mobility, sensor nodes can be dispatched to certain locations to conduct various missions. With WSNs and RFIDs together, we can develop many novel and e-life applications. The above are some of the many challenges of WSNs.
This special issue of The Computer Journal solicits the submission of papers on state-of-the-art research in algorithms, protocols, and future applications for WSNs. Submitted papers may address, but are not limited, to the following subjects:
- Network deployment and self-organization
- Adaptive topology management
- Network coverage and connectivity
- Communication protocol designs
- Energy and resource management
- Detection and tracking
- Localization algorithms
- Query processing and data aggregation
- Cross-layer designs and optimization algorithms
- Mobile and hybrid sensor networks
- Vehicular sensor networks
- ZigBee/IEEE 802.15.4 networks
- Novel applications of WSNs
- RFID techniques and applications
- Simulation frameworks and real-world testbeds
- Security and fault-tolerance algorithms
- Performance modeling and analysis
Guest Editors
You-Chiun Wang, National Chiao-Tung University, Taiwan. Email: wangyc@cs.nctu.edu.tw
Tomoaki Ohtsuki, Keio University, Japan. Email: ohtsuki@ics.keio.ac.jp
Athanasios (Thanos) Vasilakos, University of Western Macedon, Greece. Email: vasilako@ath.forthnet.gr
Ashutosh Sabharwal, Rice University, USA. Email: ashu@rice.edu
Yuh-Shyan Chen, National Taipei University, Taiwan. Email: yschen@mail.ntpu.edu.tw
Yu-Chee Tseng, National Chiao-Tung University, Taiwan. Email: yctseng@cs.nctu.edu.tw
Submission Guidelines
Only original and unpublished high-quality research papers are considered, and manuscripts must be in English. Instructions for authors can be found in http://comjnl.oxfordjournals.org/. The papers must be submitted via the journal web submission route (submission site is: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/compj) (Please provide a cover letter to indicate that the submission is for “the special issue on Algorithms, Protocols, and Future Applications of Wireless Sensor Networks”) and simultaneously submit the PDF version of complete manuscript with its serial number to Dr. You-Chiun Wang (e-mail: wangyc@cs.nctu.edu.tw).
Important Dates
Manuscript submission deadline: 2009/08/15
Notification of acceptance: 2009/12/15
Submission of final revised paper: 2010/1/15
Publication of special issue: around 2010
Further details.
3. "Architecture/OS Support for
Embedded Multi-Core Systems"
Recent advances in the complexity of handheld devices and their applications have lead to multi-core processors becoming more appealing as a viable solution for embedded systems. Although most of the commercial multi-core processors are currently available in the high performance segment, hardware vendors such as ARM have started to offer multi-core solutions for embedded applications. However, multi-core research thrusts have been largely concentrated on high-performance computer systems where applications are drastically different from those found in embedded systems.
The use of on-chip network and distributed shared resources leads to non-trivial performance asymmetry, which could result in a failure to achieve the desired performance levels for co-scheduled programs. Non-deterministic latency variations and technology-induced reliability issues pose further complications and challenges to the designers of future multi-cores. As the Operating System (OS) is the centerpiece of a computer system managing various platform hardware resources, multi-core embedded systems (including multi-core system-on-chips) will inevitably require a fundamental re-examination of the OS design. Many important OS issues, including support for Quality of Service (QoS), fault tolerance, power and thermal control and efficient virtual machine support, can be best dealt with architectural and OS techniques.
The purpose of this special issue is to solicit papers discussing the latest advancements in embedded multi-core system designs, with a focus on computer architecture and operating systems. It is intended to provide an opportunity to exchange the most recent research ideas and results, initiating constructive discussion between international researchers from industry and academia. Additionally, we expect this special issue will bring to the attention of a wider audience the critical problems that need to be addressed in embedded multi-core systems and thus stimulate future research in this area.
Submitted papers may address, but are not limited, to the following subjects:
- Architecture/OS support for processor management in embedded multi-core systems (including multi-core based system-on-chip)
- Architecture/OS support for reliability in embedded multi-core systems (including multi-core based system-on-chip)
- Architecture/OS support for power management in embedded multi-core systems (including multi-core based system-on-chip)
- Architecture/OS support for thermal management in embedded multi-core systems (including multi-core based system-on-chip)
- Architecture/OS support for storage in embedded multi-core systems (including multi-core based system-on-chip)
- Architecture/OS support for security in embedded multi-core systems (including multi-core based system-on-chip)
- Tools for embedded multi-core systems (including multi-core based system-on-chip)
- Experience of embedded multi-core systems (including multi-core based system-on-chip)
Guest Editors
Sung Woo Chung (Korea University) swchung@korea.ac.kr
Hsien-Hsin S. Lee (Georgia Institute of Technology) leehs@gatech.edu
Woo Hyong Lee (Samsung) woohyong.lee@samsung.com
Submission Guidelines
Only original and unpublished high-quality research papers are considered, and manuscripts must be in English. Instructions for Authors can be found in http://comjnl.oxfordjournals.org/. The papers must be submitted via the journal web submission route (submission site is: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/compj) (You must provide a cover letter to indicate that the submission is for “The Special Issue on Architecture/OS Support for Embedded Multi-Core Systems”).
Important Dates
Manuscript submission deadline: 15th July 2009
Notification of acceptance: 1st October 2009
Submission of final revised paper: 15th December 2009
Publication of special issue: around March 2010
Further details.
4. "Multimedia Security and Privacy (MSP)"
Multimedia technologies are vital in many areas of computing and networks, and privacy and security issues are emerging rapidly as a
key problem area in such systems. Thus, this special issue (SI) of The Computer Journal solicits the submission of papers on state-of the-art research in multimedia security and privacy. In particular, extended versions of papers presented at the following conferences: MPIS 2009 and CSA 2009, are encouraged to submit to this special
issue. The extended version of paper must have at least 30% fresh material over and above the corresponding conference paper.
Submissions should be high-quality original unpublished research articles, not currently under review for another journal or conference.
Instructions for Authors
Submissions must conform to the layout, format and page limit guidelines of The Computer Journal. Authors must follow the
guidelines provided in the manuscript preparation instructions.
A copy of submitted papers should also be forwarded in PDF format by email to: Prof. Shiuh-Jeng Wang with “SI Submission – MSP, The Computer Journal” as the subject. The submission must include a cover letter containing the title, abstract, authors and the corresponding author's name and affiliation along with the manuscript. All papers will be rigorously refereed based on originality, high scientific quality, organisation and relevance to this special issue. For further questions or inquiries, you may also contact: Prof. Chin-Feng Lee.
Important dates
Manuscripts Due: February 28, 2010
Notification of Acceptance/Rejection/Revision: June 30, 2010
Final Manuscript Due: August 15, 2010
Publication Date: 1Q or 2Q 2011 (Tentative)
Further details.