Special Issue on Facebook as an Educational Tool - IJSMILE

Call for papers

Int. J. of Social Media and Interactive Learning Environments

Special Issue on: "Facebook as an Educational Tool"

Editor:
Dr. Qiyun Wang, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

With the rapid development of information and communication technology, many virtual social tools – such as Facebook, msn, Linkedin, Google +, Twitter, weblogs and wikis – are available on the Internet for people to communicate and interact with others. Among the tools, Facebook is likely to be the most popular social media platform used by students. This special issue invites papers to report on various ways of using Facebook as an educational tool for teaching and learning.

Facebook was not initially designed for educational purposes. Because of its social affordances, however, it has great potential for teaching and learning. It can be used by a teacher as a learning management system to share course resources with students and conduct discussions, by a group of students to support their group collaboration, or as a social platform to improve the student-student or student-teacher relationship.

Nevertheless, the use of Facebook may also have implementation issues. For instance, some students may not want their teachers to be their online friends, or do not want social friends to know about their academic performance in a course. Also, there might be cyber safety concerns.

Rather than reporting the use of various social media tools, this issue will focus on using Facebook as an educational tool. Research and conceptual papers related to the use of Facebook for teaching and learning, such as social learning theories, personal experiences, practical design of Facebook-mediated learning environments and implementation issues and concerns of using Facebook for teaching and learning, are welcome.

Subject Coverage

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• Social learning theories or models
• Learning motivation and Facebook
• Literature review on using Facebook in education
• Pedagogical and social affordances of Facebook for teaching and learning
• Instructional strategies for effective use of Facebook
• Practical experiences of using Facebook for teaching and learning
• Case studies of Facebook in education
• Implementation issues and/or concerns with using Facebook for learning
• Facebook-mediated collaborative/interactive/social learning environments
• Design considerations for Facebook-mediated learning environments
• Challenges of classroom management in Facebook-mediated learning environments
• Facebook for collaborative learning
• Formal and informal learning with Facebook
• Teachers' professional development using Facebook
• Effects of using Facebook for teaching and learning
• Using Facebook as an online learning community or a knowledge building community
• Content generation or knowledge creation on Facebook
• Promoting 21st century competencies using Facebook

Notes for Prospective Authors

Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. (N.B. Conference papers may only be submitted if the paper was not originally copyrighted and if it has been completely re-written).

All papers are refereed through a peer review process. A guide for authors, sample copies and other relevant information for submitting papers are available on the Author Guidelines page.

Important Dates

Full paper submission: 30 April, 2013

Notification of acceptance: 15 June, 2013

Final submission: 31 July, 2013

Editors and Notes

All papers must be submitted online. To submit a paper, please go to Online Submissions of Papers. If you experience any problems submitting your paper online, please contact submissions@inderscience.com, describing the exact problem you experience. Please include in your submission the title of the Special Issue, the title of the Journal and the name of the Editor

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International Workshop on Big-Data Analytics for the Temporal Web

Call for Participation

International Workshop on 

Big-Data Analytics for the Temporal Web

Paris, November 13, 2012

Keynotes by

Ricardo Baeza-Yates: "Time in Web IR"
Yahoo! Research, Barcelona

Wolfgang Nejdl: "Web Science, Web Analytics and Web Archives - Humans in the Loop"
L3S Research Center, Hanover


The LAWA project organizes an one-day workshop with researchers using (or planning to use) the Web as a corpus for their studies. The focus is on methods, tools, and platforms for big-data analytics, including requirements on and experiences with such technologies. Topics of interest include but are not limited to: Web dynamics, history, and archives; text mining and contents classification, temporal/longitudinal studies, scalable methods (e.g., cloud-based map-reduce), large scale data storage, community detection and evolution.

The workshop will have presentations by participating researchers and big-data users, including the LAWA project team. Emphasis will be on experience-sharing and discussing mutual interests in big-data analytics for the temporal Web. The workshop is free of charge and open to public, but registration is compulsory by sending an email to: lawa@mpi-inf.mpg.de

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Deadline Extension: The 7th FTRA International Conference on Multimedia and Ubiquitous Engineering (MUE 2013)

MUE-13 Call for Papers (Springer-LNEE Proceedings)

The 7th FTRA International Conference on Multimedia and Ubiquitous Engineering (MUE 2013)

http://www.ftrai.org/mue2013 (Pending)

Seoul, Korea, May 9-11, 2013

Important Dates

Workshop Proposal Due        Oct. 30, 2012

Paper Submission Due         Nov. 20, 2012

Acceptance Notification      Dec. 15, 2012

Camera-ready paper Due        Jan. 1,   2012   

Registration Due        Jan. 15,  2013

Conference/Workshop Dates    May 9-11, 2013

Published by Springer-LNEE (indexed by EI and SCOPUS)

The new multimedia standards (for example, MPEG-21) facilitate the seamless
integration of multiple modalities into interoperable multimedia frameworks,
transforming the way people work and interact with multimedia data. These
key technologies and multimedia solutions interact and collaborate with each
other in increasingly effective ways, contributing to the multimedia
revolution and having a significant impact across a wide spectrum of
consumer, business, healthcare, education, and governmental domains.

This conference provides an opportunity for academic and industry
professionals to discuss recent progress in the area of multimedia and
ubiquitous environment including models and systems, new directions, novel
applications associated with the utilization and acceptance of ubiquitous
computing devices and systems.

The goals of this conference are to provide a complete coverage of the areas
outlined and to bring together the researchers from academic and industry as
well as practitioners to share ideas, challenges, and solutions relating to
the multifaceted aspects of this field.

MUE-13 is the next event in a series of highly successful the International
Conference on Multimedia and Ubiquitous Engineering,
MUE-12 (Madrid, Spain, July 2012), MUE-11 (Loutraki, Greece, June 2011),
MUE-10 (Cebu, Philippines, August 2010), MUE-09 (Qingdao, China, June 2009),
MUE-08 (Busan, Korea, April 2008), and MUE-07 (Seoul, Korea, April 2007).

--------------------
Topics
--------------------
We are inviting new and unpublished papers on, but not limited to, the
following topics:


1. Multimedia Modeling and Processing
- Media Representation and Algorithms
- Audio, Image, Video Processing, Coding and Compression
- Computer Graphics and Simulation
- Image and Signal Processing
- Multimedia Information Retrieval
- Multimedia Indexing
- Multimedia network transmission/streaming
- Multimedia Standards and Related Issues
- Multimedia Databases, Content Delivery and Transport
- Current Challenges in Multimedia



2. Multimedia and Digital Convergence
- Home Entertainment Devices
- 3D Video, Recording, Storage, Compression, Transcoding
- Cooperative Driving and Associated Automotive Technologies
- Advances and Challenges in HD Device Interconnects
- Green-Home Consumer Electronics Technologies
- Gesture and Expression Recognition
- Smart Grid
- Power Line Communication
- Robot control, Mobile robotics
- Consumer Electronics (CE) device platform
- CE operating system
- CE device driver/firmware


3. Ubiquitous and Pervasive Computing
- Ubiquitous Computing and Technology
- Context-Aware Ubiquitous Computing
- Physical model of UI & SW
- Ubiquitous database methodologies
- Embedded systems and softwares
- Human-Computer Interaction
- Human centric computing
- High-performance computing and simulation and modeling
- Wearable, Personal and Body Area Systems
- Context modeling and reasoning
- Adaptive and context-aware computing
- Smart object
- Multimodal sensing
- Intelligent platforms
- Internet of Things
- Parallel/Distributed system
- Grid and cloud computing
- Novel Machine Architectures


4. Ubiquitous Networks and Mobile Communications
- Tiny Operating systems and Middleware supports
- Peer to Peer Network
- Machine-to-Machine Communications
- Mobile system performance
- Wireless communications
- Wirless Sensor Network
- Wireless Body Area Network
- Internet access and mobility
- Trustworthy Internet and communications
- Mobile data management and processing
- Cross-Layer Design and Optimization
- Algorithms and protocols for cognitive wireless networks
- Ad hoc and sensor network
- Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks and Vehicular Technology
- WiMax / Wi-Fi, UWB, Bluetooth Technology
- Mobility Management
- Smartphone and mobile devices
- Social networks and computing


5. Intelligent Computing
- Artificial Intelligence
- Pattern and Speech Recognition
- Fuzzy logic and soft computing
- Neural networks and applications
- Expert systems
- Decision support systems
- Automated problem solving
- Semantic Web and Knowledge Grid
- Knowledge discovery and representation
- Knowledge acquisition
- Intelligent web-based business
- Intelligent agents and user interface
- Intelligent information fusion


6. Multimedia and Ubiquitous Computing Security
- Key Management and Authentication
- Authorization and Access Control
- Privacy and Trust Management
- Sensor Networks and RFID Security
- Security in Ubiquitous Databases
- Multimedia Information Security
- Intellectual Property & Licensing
- Digital Right Management
- CAS/STB Security
- Digital Forensics
- Watermarking
- Security in Commerce and Industry


7. Multimedia and Ubiquitous Services
- Multimedia RDBMS Platforms
- Multimedia in Telemedicine
- Multimedia Embedded Systems
- Multimedia standards
- Mobile Multimedia system and services
- Virtual Reality and Game Technology
- Mobile Gaming and entertainment
- Location Based Services
- Ambient Intelligence
- Smart Home/building/spaces
- Green IT services
- Semantic Web and Grid Services
- Smart-Camera and Multi-View Systems
- Surveillance System
- Entertainment Industry for MUE
- Ubiquitous Database Methodologies
- U/E Healthcare services
- U/E-Commerce and Education


8. Other IT and Multimedia Applications



============================================================================
====================
**Call for Workshop Proposals**

In conjunction with MUE-13, we will organize some workshops.
The workshop proposals should be submitted to the Leading Workshop Chair,
Dr. Young-Gab Kim (always@korea.ac.kr), by **Oct. 30, 2012**.

Several workshops will be held in conjunction with MUE-13 with the aim to
explore special topics and provide international forums for scientists,
engineers, and computer users to exchange and share their experiences, new
ideas, and research results on hot topics on Future Information Technology.
Workshops for presenting papers from industrial companies and papers on
implementations of systems and services are very welcome.
All accepted papers will be included in the conference proceedings published
by Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering (LNEE) - Springer (indexed by EI
and SCOPUS).
In general, a workshop takes one day, although multiple-days and half-day
workshops are welcome.

The workshop proposal should include following information:

1. Title of the workshop: International Workshop on ...
2. Workshop Organizers(s): name, affiliation, address, phone and fax
numbers, e-mail.
3. Brief description of the workshop (several hundred words)
4. Expected number of papers to be submitted
5. Call for paper of the workshop (draft version - 1 page CFP MS Word
version)
6. Tentative list of program committee members (Name, affiliation, country,
email address)
7. Your workshop web address (Tentative)

Financial Support for Workshop Organizer:
We will provide workshop organizers to some honorariums for their
contribution (at least 6 registed papers).


**Important Dates **
Workshop Proposal Submission Due Oct. 30, 2012
Workshop Acceptance Notification Dec. 15, 2012
Camera-ready paper Due Jan. 1, 2012
Registration Due Jan. 15, 2013
Conference/Workshop Dates May 9-11, 2013

------------------
Organization
------------------
== Organizing Committee ==

Honorary Chairs
---------------
Kim Bum-il, Mayor of Daegu Metropolitan City, Korea
Makoto Takizawa, Seikei University, Japan


Steering Chairs
-----------------
James J. Park, SeoulTech, Korea (Founder)
Martin Sang-Soo Yeo, Mokwon University, Korea


General Chairs
----------------
Young-Sik Jeong, Wonkwang University, Korea (Leading Chair)
Leonard Barolli, Fukuoka Institute of Technology, Japan
Joseph Kee-Yin Ng, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong
C.S. Raghavendra, University of Southern California, USA


Program Chairs
----------------
Sang Oh Park, Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information(KISTI),
Korea (Leading Chair)
Cho-Li Wang, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Borgy Waluyo, Monash University, Australia
Al-Sakib Khan Pathan, International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM),
MALAYSIA
SangHyun Seo, University of Lyon 1, CNRS-LIRIS, France


Workshop Chairs
----------------
Young-Gab Kim, Korea University, Korea (Leading Chair)
Lei Ye, University of Wollongong, Australia
Hiroaki Nishino, Oita University, Japan
Neil Y. Yen, The University of Aizu, Japan

Keynote Speakers
----------------------------------
Hui-Huang Hsu, Tamkang University, Taiwan


International Advisiory Committee
-----------------------------------
Borko Furht, Florida Atlantic University, USA
Thomas Plagemann, University of Oslo, Norway
Roger Zimmermann, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Han-Chieh Chao, National Ilan University, Taiwan
Hai Jin, HUST, China
Weijia Jia, City U. of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Jianhua Ma, Hosei University, Japan
Shu-Ching Chen, Florida International University, USA
Hamid R. Arabnia, The University of Georgia, USA
Stephan Olariu, Old Dominion University, USA
Albert Zomaya, University of Sydney, Australia
Bin Hu, Lanzhou University, China
Yi Pan, Georgia State University USA
Doo-soon Park, SoonChunHyang University, Korea
Richard P. Brent, Australian National University, Australia
Koji Nakano, University of Hiroshima, Japan
J. Daniel Garcia, University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain
Qun Jin, Waseda University, Japan
Kyung-Hyune Rhee, Pukyong National University, Korea


Publicity Chairs
----------------------
Won-Joo Hwang, Inje University, Korea
Chengcui Zhang, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA
Michele Ruta, Politecnico di Bari, Italy
Bessam Abdulrazak, Sherbrooke University, Canada
Junaid Chaudhry, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia


Local Arrangement Chairs
------------------------
Kim Hyunsung, Kyungil University, Korea
Eun-Jun Yoon, Kyungil University, Korea



== Program Committee ==
- See http://www.ftrai.org/mue2013/programcommittees.html



--------------------
Important Dates
--------------------
Workshop Proposal Due Oct. 30, 2012
Paper Submission Due Oct. 30, 2012
Accept Notification Dec. 15, 2012
Camera-ready paper Due Jan. 1, 2012
Registration Due Jan. 15, 2013
Conference/Workshop Dates May 9-11, 2013



---------------------------
Submission and Publication
----------------------------
==Submission Guidelines==
There will be a combination of presentations including scientific papers.
Prospective authors are invited, in the first instance, to submit papers for
oral presentations in any of the areas of interest for this conference.
Authors should submit a paper with 6-8 pages in length, including all
figures, tables, and references. If you want to submit more than page
limitation, you can add up to 2 extra pages with the appropriate fee
payment.
Papers must strictly adhere to page limits - a paper with 8 pages (Max 2
extra pages allowed at additional cost).
Papers exceeding the page limits will be rejected without review.



Please use the Springer Proceedings format for submission. Template is
available here:
http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0


All accepted papers will be included in the conference proceedings as one of
Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering (LNEE) series published by Springer
(indexed by EI & SCOPUS).
Submission system: EDAS (pending)



Distinguished selected papers accepted and presented in the MUE-13, after
further revisions, will be published in the special issues of the following
international journals (Pending):
- The Journal of Supercomputing (JoS) - Springer (SCI)
- Multimedia Tools and Applications (MTAP) - Springer (SCIE)
- Cluster Computing (CC) - Springer (SCI-E)
- Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience - John Wiley
(SCIE)
- Human-Centric and Information Sciences (HCIS) - Springer
- International Journal of Information Technology, Communications and
Convergence (IJITCC) - Inderscience
- Journal of Convergence (JoC) - FTRA Publishing


--------------------
Venue
--------------------
Daegu Metropolitan City
http://english.daegu.go.kr
http://www.lifeinkorea.com/travel2/Taegu


--------------------
Contact Information
--------------------
If you have any questions about the CFPs and papers submission, please email
to Dr. Sang Oh Park (pc.sopark@gmail.com).

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Deadline Extension: Learning Analytics & Knowledge 2013 (LAK 2013)

First call for contributions

LAK13: Third International Conference on Learning Analytics & Knowledge

8-12 April, Leuven, Belgium

http://lakconference.org

Papers and Workshop/Tutorial Proposals due November 8, 2012
Doctoral Consortium, Poster and Workshop Participation Submissions due January 31, 2013

The International Learning Analytics & Knowledge Conference, now in its
third year, is a venue for reporting and advancing research at the nexus of
two emerging societal phenomena. First we are witnessing the rapid expansion
of the use of technologies in supporting learning, not only in established
institutional contexts and platforms, but also in the emerging landscape of
free, open, social learning online. Second, the unprecedented availability
of data that learners generate in the process of accessing learning
materials, interacting with educators and peers, and creating new content in
these technological settings, coupled with advances in analytics and data
mining, knowledge modeling and representation and open data offer great
potential for research into how learning takes place in socio-technical
settings and the development of new forms of analytics that can inform
learners and educators. Learning Analytics research brings these technical,
pedagogical, and social doma!
ins into dialogue with each other to ensure that interventions and
organizational systems serve the needs of all stakeholders.

THEME: Dialectics in Learning Analytics The first two conferences have
established the range of issues and approaches of concern in leveraging the
availability of data about learning with powerful computational,
representational and visualization techniques. This third conference will be
designed to consolidate the field by bringing these many voices into
dialogue in a "middle space" under the overarching theme of "Dialectics in
Learning Analytics", which has these facets:

The Middle Space: The conference will explore the middle space within which
Learning and Analytics intersect, and seeks proposals for papers and events
that explicitly connect analytic tools to theoretical and practical aspects
of understanding and managing learning.

Productive Multivocality: Learning analytics is multidisciplinary, drawing
on theories and methods from diverse research traditions. Our community
includes educators, learning scientists, computer scientists,
administrators, and policy makers, among others. The middle space serves as
a topical "boundary object", enabling productive discourse between these
many voices.

The Old and the New: We are facing a centuries old problem: to improve
learning, but we are trying to solve it using a new set of tools, not
available before. We address these problems in the city of Leuven: centuries
old, lively new.

TOPICS
We invite submissions on topics including but not limited to the following:
* Conceptual
-- New models of learning enabled by analytics
-- Personalization and adaptation in the learning process through analytics
-- Learner modeling
-- The analysis of emotion, flow, and affective data in learning
environments
-- Ethical considerations (e.g., privacy and ownership)
-- Learning analytics for accreditation
-- The influence of analytics on designing for learning
-- Learning analytics patterns
-- Organizational dynamics and adoption strategies
-- Educational research methods and learning analytics
-- Learning analytics in relationship to other fields (e.g., educational
research, educational data mining, web science, etc.)

* Technical Innovations for Sensemaking
-- Network analysis methods for understanding learning
-- Visualization techniques
-- Attention metadata for learning
-- Data mining and machine learning techniques in learning analytics
-- Natural language processing and text mining in learning analytics
-- The role of knowledge representation and ontologies in learning analytics
-- The semantic web and linked data applied to learning analytics
-- Analytic tools that could be used for learning
-- "Big Data" applications and opportunities in learning and education
-- Learning environments enhanced with analytics
-- Architecture of learning environments and implications for learning
analytics
-- Recommendation Engines
-- Interfaces for learning analytics
-- Decision-support systems for learning

* Applications and Use Cases
-- Interventions based on analytics
-- Visualizations to support awareness and reflection
-- Social and technical systems to manage information abundance
-- Personalization and adaptation of the learning process
-- Corporate and higher education case studies of learning analytics
-- Learning analytics for intelligent tutoring systems
-- Open data and data access for learners
-- Harmonizing individual learning with organizational learning
-- Organizational learning and knowledge sharing models
-- Use of learning analytics in centralized (learning management systems)
and decentralized (personal learning environments) settings
-- Planning, deploying, and evaluating enterprise-wide learning analytics

SUBMISSION TYPES

Primary Participation

Full and Short Papers, Design Briefings, and the abstracts for Panels,
Workshops and Tutorials will be published in the main proceedings.
Submissions in these categories are due November 1, 2012.

-- Full Papers
Use a full paper to share substantial conceptual, technical and empirical
contributions, following the advice to authors given above. Submit up to 10
pages in the conference paper format.

-- Short Papers, Design Briefings, and Formal Demonstrations Use a short
paper to share preliminary conceptual, technical and empirical
contributions, or substantial contributions that can be reported briefly.
Short papers can also share a design concept or tool that addresses a
challenge of interest to interface designers, system architects and
programmers. A formal demonstration of interactive software or tools may
also be proposed: such submissions should include at least one link to a
current demo movie. Submit up to 5 pages in the conference paper format.

-- Panels
Panels provide the chance for delegates to hear a range of speakers address
a topical issue, e.g. diverse approaches to a problem, or a debate a hot
topic. Submit up to 4 pages in the conference paper format suitable for
publication in the proceedings, including an introduction to the nature and
importance of the issue to be addressed and panelists' position statements.
Submit 2 additional pages (not to be published in the proceedings) with the
names and qualifications of confirmed panelists and discussants and a
summary of how your panel format will ensure that there is interaction
between panelists rather than consisting of a collection of disconnected
talks.

-- Workshops
Workshops (8-9 April, 2013) provide the opportunity to explore learning
theory, analytics, methods and tools in depth. Workshops should be designed
to take advantage of the interactivity afforded by this format, and should
not consist merely of a day of talks. They may include for example,
experience sharing and brainstorming, interactive demonstrations, data
analysis by multiple analysts, problem solving sessions, and a few short
and/or enlightening presentations. The length of the workshop sessions can
range from a half to a full day (consisting of two to four 1.5 hour blocks
between breaks). See web site for submission format.

-- Tutorials
Tutorials (also 8-9 April, 2013) provide the chance to take participants
deep into a specific tool or technique in which you are experienced, or an
introduction to a topic/class of tools. The time could range from a 1.5 hour
session to a full day (consisting of two to four 1.5 hour blocks between
breaks). Please use the workshop/tutorial template for submissions.

Secondary Participation

Submissions for the following forms of participation are due January 31,
2013.

-- Doctoral Consortium
A one-day consortium will be organized for doctoral students who are about
to defend or have recently defended their proposals. Participating students
will have the opportunity to present their proposed research to reputable
faculty in learning analytics and obtain valuable advice. Other professional
development and social networking activities will be included. Details for
submission requirements will be forthcoming in a future call.

-- Informal Demonstrations
A space (table top surface) and designated times for informal demonstrations
of relevant software will be provided at the conference. Submit one page
that includes a 1-line title, name of presenter, and an abstract limited to
100 words suitable for printing in the conference guide. Demonstrators
should be prepared to interact with several conference participants at a
time in an interactive and not excessively scripted manner.

-- Posters
Posters are suitable for describing late-breaking results or for engaging
conference participants in discussion of preliminary ideas or findings.
Submit a 1-line title, the name(s) of the presenter(s), and an abstract
limited to 100 words suitable for printing in the conference guide. This
should be followed with up to two pages describing the concept or results to
be presented, the expected interactions with conference participants, and
the poster format that will support these interactions. (If available, a
high-resolution image of the poster provided as the second page can fulfill
this requirement, and is preferred. Easily visible graphics and large brief
texts are encouraged rather than small text.)

-- Workshop Participation
LAK workshops will provide conference participants with opportunities to
interact intensively on a topic of shared interest. Workshop calls for
participation will be distributed shortly after the December 14th workshop
acceptance notification date. January 31st will be the uniform date for
priority submissions for participation in workshops, although we encourage
workshops to accept later submissions on a space-available basis. Workshop
organizers will specify submission requirements.

SUBMISSION FORMAT AND PUBLICATION
LAK 2011 and LAK2012 were published in the ACM Digital Library International
Conference Proceedings Series. We plan to do the same following the granting
of ACM In-Cooperation status to the conference. Author guidelines are
available at http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates
(option 1).

RELEVANT DATES
November 8: Paper, Workshop, and Tutorial Proposals Due
December 14: Notification for Papers, Workshops, and Tutorials
January 31: Workshop Participation, Poster, and Informal Demonstration Submissions Due
February 15: Workshop, Poster, and Demonstration Notification
February 15: Final Papers Due
March 1: Early Registration Deadline
April 8-12: Conference

CONFERENCE ORGANIZERS

General Chairs
-- Erik Duval, Belgium
-- Xavier Ochoa, Ecuador

Program Chairs
-- Dan Suthers, USA
-- Katrien Verbert, Belgium

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Joint Call For Papers - Conferences / Journal Special Issues Cloud Computing (October 2012)

Conference Call For Papers, Demo and Participation

1. IEEE CloudCom 2012 (December 3-6, 2012, Taipei, Taiwan)
4th IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing Technology and Science
http://grid.chu.edu.tw/cloudcom2012/
*Call for Participation

2. ACM/IEEE ICCVE 2012 (December 12-16, 2012, Beijing, China)
First ACM/IEEE International Conference on Connected Vehicles & Expo
http://www.iccve.org
*Proposal Submission Deadline: Nov 16, 2012

3. IEEE MobileCloud 2013 (March 25-28, 2013, San Francisco Bay, USA)
The IEEE International Symposium on Mobile Cloud, Computing, and Service Engineering
http://www.engr.sjsu.edu/gaojerry/IEEEMobileCloud2013/index.htm
*Submission deadline: October 31, 2012

4. IEEE SOSE 2013 (March 25-28, 2013, San Francisco Bay, USA)
The 7th IEEE International Symposium on Service-Oriented System Engineering
http://sei.pku.edu.cn/conference/sose2013/
*Submission deadline: October 31, 2012

5. ICCS 2013 (June 5-7, 2013, Barcelona, Spain)
International Conference on Computational Science
http://www.iccs-meeting.org/iccs2013/
*Submission deadline: Dec 15, 2012

6. INTERNET 2013 (July 21-26, 2013 - Nice, France)
The Fifth International Conference on Evolving Internet
http://www.iaria.org/conferences2013/INTERNET13.html
*Submission deadline: Feb 27, 2013

7. FutureTech 2013 (September 4-6, 2013, Gwangju, Korea)
The 8th FTRA International Conference on Future Information Technology (FutureTech 2013)
http://www.ftrai.org/futuretech2013
*Submission deadline: March 1, 2013

Journal Special Issues CFP

1. Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology (Hindawi) (ISI Impact Factor = 2.436)
Special Issue on"Bio-Cloud: Cloud Computing for Biological, Genomics and Drug Design"
http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jbb/si/382034/cfp/
*Manuscript Due: December 7, 2012

2. Automated Software Engineering (Springer) (ISI Impact Factor = 0.857)
Special Issue on"Automated Techniques for Migration to the Cloud"
http://grid.chu.edu.tw/SI/ASE/
*Manuscript Due: December 15, 2012

3. Future Generation Computer Systsems (Elsevier) (ISI Impact Factor = 1.978)
Special Issue on"Intelligent Big Data Processing"
http://grid.chu.edu.tw/SI/FGCS/
*Manuscript Due: December 20, 2012

4. International Journal of Communication Systems (Wiley) (ISI Impact Factor = 0.406)
Special Issue on"Dynamic Intelligence Towards Smart and Green World"
http://grid.chu.edu.tw/SI/IJCS/
*Manuscript Due: December 31, 2012

5. Information System Frontier (Springer) (ISI Impact Factor = 0.912)
Special Issue on "Merging Cloud and Communication Services"
http://grid.chu.edu.tw/SI/ISF/
*Manuscript Due: December 31, 2012

6. Journal of Systems Architecture (Elsevier) (ISI Impact Factor = 0.444)
Special Issue on"Real-Time Embedded Software for Multi-core Platforms"
http://grid.chu.edu.tw/SI/JSA/
*Manuscript Due: December 31, 2012

7. Future Generation Computer Systsems (Elsevier) (ISI Impact Factor = 2.365)
Special Issue on"Hybrid Intelligence for Growing Internet and its Applications"
http://www.journals.elsevier.com/future-generation-computer-systems/calls-for-papers/hybrid-intelligence/
*Manuscript Due: January 1, 2013

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Special Issue on Multimedia Data Management in Mobile Computing - IEEE Multimedia

CALL FOR PAPERS

IEEE Multimedia

Special Issue on Multimedia Data Management in Mobile Computing

Submission Deadline: 20 Dec 2012

Publication: Jan-Mar 2014

Thanks to the widespread availability of network-enabled portable multimedia devices, able to capture, share, and access vast amounts of multimedia contents, there is an ever-increasing interest in new technologies providing improved multimedia data management in mobile environments. Some of the open challenges in this field include dealing with computational and storage limitations of mobile terminals, overcoming the strong limitation of batteries, achieving better bandwidth/latency in network access, enabling mobile access to large multimedia repositories, and providing more effective user interaction. Most of these problems can be attacked from different viewpoints, for instance, increasing the capacity of devices versus reducing the consumption of resources, increasing the efficiency of software tools versus strengthening hardware architectures, and maximizing the network throughput versus representing more efficiently the information. Technological breakthroughs are fostered in all such fields, in a research context that is largely cross-disciplinary.

Although most of the aforementioned technologies have been studied for years within the broader multimedia community, mobility introduces some peculiar features that make the problem particularly challenging and, at the same time, attractive for research. Fitting a rich multimedia application into a small-screen device with limited interactivity, dealing with users with partial attention/interaction (who might be walking or driving a car, for example), adapting the huge amount of data available on the Internet to the severely limited capabilities of a mobile device, managing the variability in location or proximity to places or other users, or seamlessly handling the unpredictable variation of network coverage, are just some examples of the problems to be solved to achieve effective mobile multimedia solutions.

This special issue focuses on the management and exploitation of multimedia data in mobile computing environments. Progress in this area would be valuable in a number of different scenarios. A noncomprehensive list might include event capturing and sharing, where users can exploit handhelds to spot any interesting situation and distribute it in real time; vehicular networks, where a car equipped with cameras might transmit multimedia data to other drivers or to a remote center, sharing traffic information or advertisements; TV broadcasting/multicasting, where mobile cameras could be managed and any mobile user with a smartphone could potentially become a source of multimedia data for a newspaper or news agency if they are located in an area where something interesting is happening; emergency management, where multimedia data can be captured and transmitted by different types of devices to help the emergency services to get ready to assist people in the best possible way; and mobile social networks, where users can exchange multimedia information among friends or people located in a certain area, possibly georeferenced or enriched with geospatial data related to maps and/or points of interest (POI).

The main goal of the special issue is to collect papers reporting the latest advances in the technologies, algorithms, models, standards, and applications for managing and exploiting multimedia data in mobile computing environments. Although all relevant technologies are potentially of interest, special attention will be given to papers providing specific insight on the joint mobile-multimedia research. The following list of topics further stresses this by highlighting some of the expected fields of contribution â€" specifically, technologies for multimedia management in mobile environments, use of semantic technologies in mobile multimedia, profiling and personalization of mobile users, mobile multimedia and multimodal interfaces, and applications and scenarios for mobile multimedia technologies.

Topic

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

- Beyond current limitations of multimedia in mobile computing
- Semantic and context-aware management of multimedia in mobile environments
- Sharing multimedia contents in mobile environments
- Mobile multimedia search and retrieval
- Management of mobile generated multimedia contents
- Multimedia in vehicular networks
- Multimedia multimodal interaction for mobile users
- Multimedia in mobile social networks
- Multimedia and geo-location services
- Mobile user profiling and personalization
- Standards for multimedia data in mobile computing
- Innovative architectures, applications and services for mobile multimedia

All the papers submitted should be clearly related to multimedia mobile computing and deal with issues considered from the perspective of data management, rather than from a networking point of view.

Questions?

For more information, please contact the guest editors:

- Sergio Ilarri, University of Zaragoza, Spain
- Florence Sèdes, University of Paul Sabatier (Toulouse), France
- Francesco De Natale, University of Trento, Italy
- Alan Hanjalic, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

Submission Procedures

Submit your paper at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cs-ieee. When uploading your paper, please select the appropriate special issue title under the category "Manuscript Type." If you have any questions regarding the submission system, please contact Andy Morton at mm-ma@computer.org. All submissions will undergo a blind peer review by at least two expert reviewers to ensure a high standard of quality. Referees will consider originality, significance, technical soundness, clarity of exposition, and relevance to the special issue topics. All submissions must contain original, previously unpublished research or engineering work. Papers must stay within the following limits: 6,500 words maximum, 12 total combined figures and tables with each figure counting as 200 words toward the total word count, and 18 references.

Deadlines

To submit a paper to the special issue, please observe the following deadlines:

- 20 December 2012: Full paper must be submitted using our online manuscript submission service and prepared according to the instructions for authors (please see the Author Resources page at http://www.computer.org/multimedia/author.htm).
- 15 April 2013: Authors notified of acceptance, rejection, or needed revisions.
- 1 September 2013: Final versions due.

Schedule

- Manuscript submission: 20 Dec. 2012
- Acceptance/Revision notification: 15 April 2013
- Revised manuscript due: 14 June 2013
- Final acceptance notification: 16 Aug. 2013
- Final manuscript due: 10 Sept. 2013
- Tentative publication: Jan. 2014

URL with the CFP: http://www.computer.org/portal/web/computingnow/mmcfp0114

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ACM Web Science Conference (WebSci 2013)

Call for Papers

5th ACM Web Science Conference (WebSci ’13)

May 2-4, 2014. Paris, France

http://www.websci13.org

Deadline for papers:     1st Feb. 2013

Web Science is the emergent science of the people, organizations, applications, and policies that shape and are shaped by the Web, the largest informational artifact constructed by humans in history.  Web Science embraces the study of the Web as a vast universal information network of people and communities. As such, Web Science includes the study of social networks whose work, expression, and play take place on the Web. The social sciences and computational sciences meet in Web Science and complement one another: Studying human behavior and social interaction contributes to our understanding of the Web, while Web data is transforming how social science is conducted. The Web presents us with a great opportunity as well as an obligation: If we are to ensure the Web benefits humanity we must do our best to understand it.

Call for Papers

The Web Science conference is inherently interdisciplinary, as it attempts to integrate computer and information sciences, communication, linguistics, sociology, psychology, economics, law, political science, philosophy, digital humanities, and other disciplines in pursuit of an understanding of the Web. This conference is unique in the manner in which it brings these disciplines together in creative and critical dialogue, and we invite papers from all the above disciplines, and in particular those that cross traditional disciplinary boundaries.

Web Science also offers a wide range of presentation modes in keeping with its diversity. The conference separates mode of presentation from mode of publication; for example, a striking new result might be presented as a poster or in a pecha kucha  session for short, impactful results, and yet would still  merit a full ten-page paper in the conference proceedings.  The Web Science poster session, in particular, has been always been exceptionally strong.

Following the success of WebSci'09 in Athens, WebSci'10 in Raleigh, WebSci'11 in Koblenz, and WebSci ’12 in Evanston, we are seeking papers and research notes that describe original research, analysis, and practice in the field of Web Science, as well as extended abstracts that discuss novel and thought-provoking ideas and works-in-progress.

Topics of Interest

Possible topics for submissions include, but are not limited to, the following:

* Analysis of human behavior using social media, mobile devices, and online communities.
* Methodological challenges of analyzing Web-based large-scale social interaction
* Data-mining and network analysis of the Web and human communities on the Web
* Detailed studies of micro-level processes and interactions on the Web
* Collective intelligence, collaborative production, and social computing
* The architecture and philosophy of the Web
* The intersection of design and human interaction on the Web
* Economics and social innovation on the Web
* Governance, democracy, intellectual property, and the commons
* Personal data, trust, and privacy
* Web and social media research ethics
* Studies of Linked Data, the Cloud, and digital eco-systems.
* Web access, literacy, and development
* Knowledge, education, and scholarship on and through the Web
* People-driven Web technologies, including crowd-sourcing, open data, and new interfaces
* Digital humanities, webarchiving techniques and scholarly uses of Web archives
* New research questions and thought-provoking ideas

Submission

Web Science is necessarily a very selective conference with a rigorous review process. To accommodate the distinct traditions of its many disciplines,  we provide three different submission formats: papers, notes, and abstracts.

Research Papers & Research Notes

Research papers and research notes should present new results and original work that has not been previously published. Research papers should present significant theoretical, empirical, methodological, or policy-oriented contributions to research and/or practice. Research notes should describe brief and focused research contributions that are noteworthy. Archival is optional.

Papers can be up to 10 pages; notes up to 4 pages. All submissions should be formatted according to the official ACM SIG proceedings template (WebSci archive format athttp://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates and submitted via EasyChair (https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=websci2013).

Extended Abstracts

Extended abstracts should describe either (1) thought-provoking ideas with the potential for interesting discussions at the conference, or (2) works-in-progress for sharing valuable ideas, eliciting feedback on early-stage work, or fostering discussions and collaborations among colleagues. Archival is optional.


Extended abstracts can be up to 6 pages, and should be formatted according to the official ACM SIG abstract template (extended abstract format athttp://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates) and submitted via EasyChair (https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=websci2013).

Web Science Fringe Festival

The Web Science Fringe Festival presents work from the arts and sciences that pertains to Web Science but falls outside the conventional range of academic publication in the natural and social sciences.  This might include, for example:

* performance art on, in, or about the Web
* painting, sculpture, or other media that comments on Web phenomena
* interactive drama and hyperdrama, either within or outside the Web
* electronic literature and virtual art
* pioneering web design
* location-aware and location-specific narrative
* augmented reality
* netart
* artistic data visualizations

This catalog is intended to be suggestive but not exhaustive.  Limited assistance may be available to creators.  Archival is optional.

Applications to participate in the fringe festival  should not exceed 6 pages, and should be formatted according to the official ACM SIG abstract template (extended abstract format athttp://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates and submitted via EasyChair (https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=websci2013).

Review, Publication, and Presentation

The Web Science program committee consists of a senior program committee that covers all relevant areas of Web Science as well as regular program committee members from these areas. Each submission will be refereed by at least 3 PC members and one senior PC member, to cover both the research background of each submission as well as the necessary interdisciplinary aspects.

Review criteria for all types of submissions include significance, originality, presentation, validity, and the ability to stimulate discussion, with different emphases depending on the submission category to allow for consideration of all relevant works contributing to the advancement of Web Science.

All accepted papers, notes, and extended abstracts will appear in the Web Science 2013 Conference Proceedings and can also be made available through the ACM Digital Library, in the same length and format of the submission (although those wishing not be indexed can “opt out” of the proceedings). Regardless of the submission format, accepted submissions will be presented in one of three formats: 1) as a 20-minute presentation followed by discussion, 2) during one of the poster presentations and discussion sessions, 3) or as part of a panel discussion. Research papers, research notes, and extended abstracts are eligible for presentation in any of the three formats, depending on reviewer recommendations. Submissions that are thought-provoking and novel will be more appropriate for longer presentation, while those that are expected to stimulate discussion will be ideal for presentation in smaller groups or as posters.

Deadlines

* February 1st 2013: Submissions of papers, notes, and fringe festival proposals due
* March 1st 2013: Notification of acceptance  for papers, notes, and fringe festival proposals due
* March 15th 2013: Camera-ready version of papers and notes due.
* March 16th 2013: Submissions of late-breaking extended abstracts due
* April 9th 2013: Notification of acceptance of late-breaking extended abstracts
* May 2-4, 2013: Web Science 2013, Paris, France

General Chairs

Hugh Davis, University of Southampton, UK
Harry Halpin, W3C/IRI, France
Alex “Sandy” Pentland, MIT, USA

Program Chairs

Mark Bernstein, Eastgate Systems, Inc. USA
Lada A. Adamic, University of Michigan, USA
Harith Alani, Knowledge Media Institute, Open University, UK
Alexandre Monnin, Université Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne/IRI/INRIA, France
Richard Rogers, Universiteit van Amsterdam, The Netherlands

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Workshop Data Management in the Cloud (DMC 2013)

Call for Papers

Data Management in the Cloud (DMC)

Workshop in conjunction with the 

15th BTW Conference on "Database Systems for Business, Technology, and Web" (BTW 2013)

March 12, 2013

Magdeburg, Germany

http://dmc.fim.uni-passau.de/btw-dmc-2013/

Cloud computing is emerging as a cost-effective paradigm for massively scalable, fault-tolerant, and adaptive computation. Cloud computing architectures scale to massive numbers of commodity computers and adapt to changing hardware availability and requirements by dynamically allocating virtualized computing nodes. By providing on-demand scaling capabilities it is not only an attractive paradigm for data management problems but raises several research challenges for storing, querying, and analyzing large amounts of data.

On the other hand, we are witnessing a data revolution in many aspects of human activity, from physics and astronomy research, to online behavior, social network, and governmental data. For example, the Linked Open Data movement has produced a tremendous amount of data stored in distributed and interlinked endpoints forming the Linked Data cloud. The need to efficiently process and analyze these heterogeneous and massive data sets is not adequately met by current commercial and open-source offerings. The database community can therefore play a central role in addressing these challenges.

The DMC workshop will provide a forum to bring together researchers and practitioners interested in data management, cloud computing, and their intersection. It will be the founding workshop for the newly established GI working group "Data Management in the Cloud". The DMC workshop calls for contributions that address research or system issues in cloud data management, including, but not limited to:

- Data analytics and knowledge discovery (in the Linked Open Data cloud)
- Data models and query languages
- Parallel query processing and optimization
- Theoretical models for parallel data processing
- Scalable storage and indexing
- Linked Open Data management: distributed querying, data views, indexing services
- Transaction models
- Resource and workload management
- Benchmarking, tuning, and testing
- Scientific data management
- Scalable machine learning
- Data privacy and security
- System infrastructures

The DMC workshop welcomes descriptions of work-in-progress and preliminary results as well as experience reports, case studies, and demo descriptions. Papers can be written English or German and should not exceed 10 pages in length (LNI style). For further information see http://dmc.fim.uni-passau.de/btw-dmc-2013/

Important dates
----------
- Submissions due to: January 11, 2013
- Notification of acceptance: February 12, 2013
- Camera ready version due to: March 1, 2013
- Workshop: March 12, 2013


Workshop co-chairs
----------
- Andreas Thor, University of Passau
- Kostas Tzoumas, TU Berlin
- Florian Stegmaier, University of Passau


Program committee
----------
- Werner Bailer, JOANNEUM RESEARCH
- Joos-Hendrik Boese, SAP
- Rainer Gemulla, Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik
- Michael Granitzer, University of Passau
- Lars Kolb, University of Leipzig
- Ralf Klamma, RWTH Aachen
- Harald Kosch, University of Passau
- Sebastian Maneth, NICTA/University of New South Wales
- Jorge Quiane, Saarland University
- Tilmann Rabl, University of Toronto
- Kai-Uwe Sattler, TU Ilmenau
- Sebastian Schaffert, Salzburg Research
- Stefanie Scherzinger, Regensburg University of Applied Sciences
- Holger Schwarz, University of Stuttgart

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IEEE CollaborateCom 2012 Contributions from the ACIS Group at RWTH Aachen University

This is our first presentation for the the IEEE CollaborateCom 2012 in Pittsburgh, USA. Dejan Kovachev gave the presentation on Wednesday, October 17, 2012 in the Collaboration in Mobile Environments
session.

A Real-time Collaboration-enabled Mobile Augmented Reality System with Semantic Multimedia from Dejan Kovachev

Abstract—Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) enables overlays of semantically-enriched multimedia on video streams of smart phone cameras. These new ways to interact with digital objects via position and 3D movement can be helpful for on-site professional communities. However, current MAR applications lack real-time collaborative features. Moreover, blending multimedia semantics in collaborative MAR is still challenging. In this paper, we present a mobile real-time semantic multimedia-based collaborative system with augmented reality features based on open standards like XMPP and MPEG-7. The prototype system is evaluated in the digital documentation of historical sites for cultural heritage management. The evaluation results indicate increased productivity and awareness within on-site professional communities. 


Our second presentation will come in a later post.

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The 4th International Workshop on Graph Data Management: Techniques and Applications (GDM 2013)

Call for Papers

The 4th International Workshop on Graph Data Management: Techniques and Applications (GDM 2013)

http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~iwgdm/2013/

In Conjunction with the IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE 2013)

Brisbane, Australia

Recently, there has been a lot of interest in the application of graphs in
different domains. They have been widely used for data modeling of different
application domains such as chemical compounds, multimedia databases,
protein networks, social networks and semantic web. With the continued
emergence and increase of massive and complex structural graph data, a graph
database that efficiently supports elementary data management mechanisms is
crucially required to effectively understand and utilize any collection of
graphs. The overall goal of the workshop is to bring people from different
fields together, exchange research ideas and results, and encourage
discussion about how to provide efficient graph data management techniques
in different application domains and to understand the research challenges
of such area.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:


* Methods/Techniques for storing, indexing and querying graph data.
* Methods/Techniques for estimating the selectivity of graph queries.
* Methods/Techniques for graph mining.
* Methods/Techniques for compact (compressed) representation of graph data.
* Methods/Techniques for measuring graph similarity.
* Methods/Techniques for large scale and distributed graph processing.
* Tools/Techniques for graph data management for social network applications.
* Tools/Techniques for graph data management of chemical compounds.
* Tools/Techniques for graph data management of protein networks.
* Tools/Techniques for graph data management of multimedia databases.
* Tools/Techniques for graph data management of semantic web data (RDF).
* Tools/Techniques for graph data management for spatio-temporal applications.
* Tools/Techniques for graph data management for Business Process Management applications.
* Tools/Techniques for visualizing, browsing, or navigating graph data
* Analysis/Proposals for graph query languages.
* Advanced applications and tools for managing graph databases in different domains.
* Benchmarking and testing of graph data management techniques.



PAPER SUBMISSION
-----------------

Authors should submit papers reporting original works that are currently not
under review or published elsewhere.
All submissions must be prepared in the IEEE camera-ready format. The
workshop solicits both full papers and short papers (e.g. experience
reports, preliminary reports of work in progress, etc).
Full papers should not exceed 8 pages in length. Short papers should not
exceed 4 pages.

All papers should be submitted in PDF format using the Workshop online
submission system at: https://cmt.research.microsoft.com/GDM2013/

All accepted papers will be published in the ICDE proceedings and will also
become publicly available through the IEEE Xplore.


IMPORTANT DATES
---------------
* Paper submission deadline: November 3, 2012 (Extended)
* Author Notification: November 30, 2012
* Final Camera-ready Copy Deadline: December 7, 2012


WORKSHOP CO-CHAIRS
------------------
* Sourav Bhowmick, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
* Sherif Sakr, NICTA and University of New South Wales, Australia
* Yuanyan Tian, IBM Almaden Research Center, USA


PROGRAM COMMITTEE
-----------------
* Leman Akoglu, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
* Renzo Angles, Universidad de Talca, Chile
* Danny Bickson, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
* Stephane Bressan, National University of Singapore, Singapore
* Muhammad Aamir Cheema, University of New South Wales, Australia
* Philippe Cudre-Mauroux, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
* Khuzaima Daudjee, University of Waterloo, Canada
* Marlon Dumas, University of Tartu, Estonia
* Sameh Elnikety, Microsoft Research, USA
* Rosalba Giugno, University of Catania, Italy
* Yuxiong He, Microsoft Research, USA
* Seung-won Hwang, POSTECH, Korea
* Hasan Jamil, University of Idaho, USA
* Chengfei Liu, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia
* Mohamed F. Mokbel, University of Minnesota, USA
* Senjuti Basu Roy, Rutgers University, USA
* Maria Esther Vidal, University of Simon Bolivar, Venezuela
* Peter Wood, University of London, UK
* Jianliang Xu, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong
* Shijie Zhang, Google Inc, USA
* Peixiang Zhao, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
* Shenghuo Zhu, NEC Laboratories America, USA

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VS-Games 2012 – GaLA Conference

VS-Games 2012 – GaLA Conference

The ELIOS Lab of the University of Genoa hosts the 4^thInternational Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications, VS-Games 2012 (www.vs-games2012.org). The conference will be chaired by Alessandro De Gloria, full professor of Electronic Engineering, president of the MSc course in Electronic Engineering at the University of Genoa. He is also coordinator of the Game and Learning Alliance  (GaLA) (www.galanoe.eu), European Union 7^th Framework Programme Network of Excellence (NoE) dedicated to Serious Games, computer games ad-hoc designed for education and training.

The conference will take place in Villa Cambiaso, the seat of the Dean of the Polytechnic School of Genoa, Italy, from Monday October 29^th to Wednesday October 31^st.

The conference has been organized by the GaLA NoE and by the Serious Games Society (SGS) (www.seriousgamessociety.org), an international association that has been recently founded and that will be officially presented during the conference, on Tuesday October 30^th at 3.45 pm.

Organization of a conference specifically devoted to Serious Games (SGs) is a significant part of the GaLA vision, given the need of building and nurturing a developer (academic and industrial) community on SGs.

The conference was thought with a specific focus on SGs, given the lack, especially at European level, of an ad-hoc dedicated conference. The aim is to guarantee visibility to the field of SGs and favor community building, also involving industrial interests.

The conference received a huge amount of scientific submissions. This allowed the organizers to prepare seven high quality sessions covering all major aspects of SGs, from theoretical foundations to real-world use cases, as it is shown by the session titles: SGs’ Theoretical Foundations, SG Design Principles, SG Design, SG Engineering, SG Assessment, SGs in Formal Education, SG Application Fields. A parallel poster session will be held as well.

The conference will host three keynote speeches from the top levels of industry and EU. Marco Marsella, Deputy Head of the Unit eContent and Safer Internet of the European Commission Directorate-General for Information Society and Media, will open the conference addressing emerging trends in the EU, in a speech entitled: “Serious Games and gamification of learning: taking stock of latest EU research on Technology-Enhanced Learning”. Pascale Xélot, who is the leader for the European IBM Innovation Centers run by ISV & Developer Relations (IDR), will talk on: “How to use serious games to teach business process management in an Industry context”. Finally, Donald Brinkman, who manages external programs in digital humanities, digital heritage and games for learning at Microsoft Research in the US, will deliver a speech on “Structured Signs and Infinite Games: Serious Play for Lifelong Learning”.

The first day of the conference will be devoted to workshops and tutorials, with academic and industrial coverage. Two workshops will give attendees the possibility of making more in-depth and hands-on activities on the conference topics. The tutorial provides a multi-perspective view on entrepreneurship education through SGs, allowing participants to learn and practice about the whole SG development and deployment cycle.

In parallel to the conference, a SG exhibition will take place, with field cutting-the-edge European and American companies showing their products and doing networking. Business-to-business speed-dating and conference crawling sessions will be held as well.

During the gala dinner, on Tuesday night at the Genoa Diocesan Museum, the GaLA awards ceremony will award the best SG, best scientific SG evaluation and best SG academic paper.

VS-Games 2013 will take place in Bournemouth, in September 2013. GaLA will spawn a new, SG-specific conference, that will be held in Paris in October 2013.

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Special Issue on Software Tools and Technologies for Monitoring and Prediction of Cloud Services - Software Practice and Experience

Special Issue on Software Tools and Technologies for Monitoring and Prediction of Cloud Services

Software: Practice and Experience
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Guest Editors: Rajiv Ranjan, Rajkumar Buyya, Philipp Leitner, Armin Haller, Stefan Tai

*** Call for Papers ***

Cloud services are perpetually becoming more important to current IT operations. For instance, according to IDC, the 'revenue from public IT cloud services exceeded $21.5 billion in 2010 and will reach $72.9 billion in 2015, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27.6%. Along with the cloud's increasingly central role to the services industry, monitoring cloud services as well as the applications deployed on them is becoming a priority - if mission-critical business applications are deployed to a cloud, real-time monitoring of service quality becomes as integral to the cloud as business activity monitoring is to current (in house) process management solutions. However, currently deployed solutions are minimal at best. Techniques for dynamically monitoring, predicting and capturing the relationship between service quality, current cloud service allocation and changes in workload patterns remain both, an open research problem and a practical need. Overall, the integration of cloud monitoring, workload prediction, service performance models and optimization techniques to effect an end-to-end automated monitoring and provisioning process over cloud environments is a hitherto neglected research area.

The goal of the special issue is to strengthen scholarly and industrial research in algorithms, methods and tools for monitoring the current state of cloud services and/or applications deployed to the cloud (with regards to, for instance, performance, availability, compliance with governmental regulations, or security), as well as for predicting these parameters for future services or applications. The workshop fosters the exchange of ideas between practitioners building state-of-the-art solutions, and researchers interested in the conceptual foundation of future monitoring and prediction solutions for cloud services. The event accepts paper submissions regarding novel ideas for cloud monitoring and prediction, as well as experience reports on quality monitoring and prediction of cloud services in industrial settings.


Topics
Novel solutions for cloud monitoring and prediction with regards, but not limited to:

- Performance
- Cloud resource utilization / energy efficiency
- Availability
- Costs / Profitability
- Cloud Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
- Compliance with governmental regulations
- Security
- Application- and domain-specific monitoring of cloud services
- Experience reports on quality monitoring and prediction of cloud services

Instructions for Special Issue
* The editors of the special issue are Rajiv Ranjan, Rajkumar Buyya, Philipp
Leitner, Armin Haller, Stefan Tai
* Please submit a paper to Manuscript Central for special issue by January 1, 2013 o
* Please select Special Issue Paper as your manuscript type, and enter "Cloud Monitoring" as both the Special Issue title and as your Preferred Editor*
* Notification of Acceptance and Reviewer comments will be given by May 1, 2013.
* Final Papers are due July 10, 2013.
* Accepted papers are expected to appear in mid-late 2013 (Tentative).
* The submitted papers must have at least 30% difference from the conference original papers.
* There is a 20 page length limit (12 point single space inclusive of figures and tables).
* Wiley has Latex templates but no special templates for Word; most papers are submitted in Word. Either Latex OR Word accepted.
Selection and Evaluation Criteria
- Significance to the readership of the journal
- Relevance to the special issue
- Originality of idea, technical contribution, and significance of the presented results
- Quality, clarity, and readability of the written text
- Quality of references and related work
- Quality of research hypothesis, assertions, and conclusion

Guest Editors

Dr. Rajiv Ranjan – Corresponding Guest Editor Research Scientist and Project
Leader ICT Centre, GPO Bov 664, Canberra, ACT 2601
Email: rajiv.ranjan@csiro.au

Prof. Rajkumar Buyya
CEO, Manjrasoft Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia Director, Grid Computing and
Distributed Systems Laboratory Department of computer science and software
engineering The University of Melbourne, Australia
Email: raj@csse.unimelb.edu.au

Dr. Philipp Leitner
Information Systems Institute
Distributed Systems Group
Vienna University of Technology
Argentinierstrasse 8/184-1
1040 Vienna, Austria
Email: leitner@infosys.tuwien.ac.at

Dr. Armin Haller
Postdoctoral Research Scientist
ICT Centre, GPO Box 664, Canberra, ACT 2601
Email: Armin.Haller@csiro.au

Prof. Stefan Tai
Institute AIFB - Building 11.40
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
D-76128 Karlsruhe
Email: stefan.tai@kit.edu

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Joint Call For Papers - Conferences / Journal Special Issues Cloud Computing (September 2012)

Conferences

1. IEEE uScience-2012 Congress and APEC 2012 Smart City Forum (December 17-19, 2012, Changzhou, China)
The 10th IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Intelligence and Computing (PiCom-2012)
The 10th IEEE International Conference on Embedded Computing (EmbeddedCom-2012)
The 10th IEEE International Conference on Dependable, Autonomic and Secure Computing (DASC-2012)
The 12th IEEE International Conference on Scalable Computing and Communications (ScalCom-2012)
http://www.czubitech.com/apec2012/
*Submission deadline: October 19, 2012

2. IEEE MobileCloud 2013 (March 25-28, 2013, San Francisco Bay, USA)
The IEEE International Symposium on Mobile Cloud, Computing, and Service Engineering
http://www.engr.sjsu.edu/gaojerry/IEEEMobileCloud2013/index.htm
*Submission deadline: October 31, 2012

3. IEEE SOSE 2013 (March 25-28, 2013, San Francisco Bay, USA)
The 7th IEEE International Symposium on Service-Oriented System Engineering
http://sei.pku.edu.cn/conference/sose2013/
*Submission deadline: October 31, 2012

4. FutureTech 2013 (September 4-6, 2013, Gwangju, Korea)
The 8th FTRA International Conference on Future Information Technology (FutureTech 2013)
http://www.ftrai.org/futuretech2013
*Submission deadline: March 1, 2013

Journal Special Issues

1. Automated Software Engineering (Springer) (ISI Impact Factor = 0.857)
Special Issue on¨Automated Techniques for Migration to the Cloud〃
http://grid.chu.edu.tw/SI/ASE/
*Manuscript Due: October 31, 2012

2. Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology (Hindawi) (ISI Impact Factor = 2.436)
Special Issue on¨Bio-Cloud: Cloud Computing for Biological, Genomics and Drug Design〃
http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jbb/si/382034/cfp/
*Manuscript Due: December 7, 2012

3. Future Generation Computer Systems (Elsevier) (ISI Impact Factor = 1.978)
Special Issue on¨Intelligent Big Data Processing〃
http://grid.chu.edu.tw/SI/FGCS/
*Manuscript Due: December 20, 2012

4. International Journal of Communication Systems (Wiley) (ISI Impact Factor = 0.406)
Special Issue on¨Dynamic Intelligence Towards Smart and Green World〃
http://grid.chu.edu.tw/SI/IJCS/
*Manuscript Due: December 31, 2012

5. Information System Frontier (Springer) (ISI Impact Factor = 0.912)
Special Issue on "Merging Cloud and Communication Services"
http://grid.chu.edu.tw/SI/ISF/
*Manuscript Due: December 31, 2012

6. Journal of Systems Architecture (Elsevier) (ISI Impact Factor = 0.444)
Special Issue on¨Real-Time Embedded Software for Multi-core Platforms〃
http://grid.chu.edu.tw/SI/JSA/
*Manuscript Due: December 31, 2012

7. Future Generation Computer Systsems (Elsevier) (ISI Impact Factor = 2.365)
Special Issue on¨Hybrid Intelligence for Growing Internet and its Applications〃
http://www.journals.elsevier.com/future-generation-computer-systems/calls-for-papers/hybrid-intelligence/
*Manuscript Due: January 1, 2013

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