[agents] Call for Book Contributions

[René Schumann]

*** Apologies for cross-posting ***

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Call for Book Contributions

Autonomic Road Transport Support Systems
Publisher: Birkhäuser/Springer, Switzerland, under the “Autonomic Systems” book series

Autonomic computing allows for a more efficient management of heterogeneous distributed computing systems. It is inspired from the biological example of the body’s autonomic nervous system, which handles mostly the unconscious body functions, such as hormone secretion and respiration rate. In the area of computing, autonomic systems are endowed with a number of properties that are generally referred to as self-X properties, including self-configuration, self-healing, self-optimization, self-protection and more generally self-management. Autonomic computing brings together a number of different areas in computing science and engineering, such as control theory, evolutionary computing, emergent behaviour, automated planning and scheduling, machine learning, computer vision, distributed artificial and computational intelligence. 

Over the last 30 years, ideas and techniques from leading edge artificial intelligence research have been adapted for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). Examples include adaptive control embedded in real time traffic control systems, heuristic algorithms (e.g. in SAT-NAV systems), image processing and computer vision (e.g. in automated surveillance interpretation). Some isolated examples of autonomic properties such as self-adaptation have found their way into ITS technology and have already proved beneficial. Meeting the challenge of engineering autonomic behaviour in ITS by fusing research from the disciplines of traffic engineering and autonomic computing is the subject of this volume. A number of selected contributions provide a comprehensive introduction to the subject and describe the development of Autonomic Road Transport Support (ARTS) systems.


The book is divided into the following parts:	
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Part 1: Challenges (scenarios, requirements, etc)
       Editor(s): Apostolos Kotsialos 
Outlines a vision, opportunities, and challenges for Autonomic ITS. It includes:
• Vision and scope of autonomics for ITS.
• User and stakeholder requirements.
• Technological opportunities and challenges (enabling technologies).
• Traffic engineering future challenges.

Part 2: Foundations of ARTS - Theories, concepts, architectures, and algorithms
Editor(s): René Schumann
This part will contain contributions dealing with research on building blocks of future autonomic ITS. Topics include unifying theories of autonomicity, intelligent features and functions of autonomic systems, algorithms for autonomic control, and architectures of autonomic systems and components (e.g. agents).


Part 3: Platforms, engineering methods and methodologies 
Editor(s): Omer Rana, Franziska Klügl
In contrast to Part 2, the focus of which has been on the building blocks of ARTS, the work to be contained in this Part deals with approaches to engineering autonomic ITS. This will include work on runtime frameworks (including, but not restricted to simulation), engineering methodologies including methods for analysis, design, synthesis/implementation, integration and testing, as far as validation and evaluation (testbeds, benchmarks, and metrics).


Part 4: Applications 	
Editor(s): Jörg P. Müller
We foresee two types of application-oriented papers in this part: 
a. Contributions that report experiences, best practices, and lessons of field-deployed real-world applications of autonomic ITS, including systems in operational use.
b. Contributions that describe and evaluate innovative demonstrators and prototypes of emerging applications, which are not yet mature enough for field deployment, but showcase interesting future ITS use cases. 


Submission Information
Authors are encouraged to contribute an article to one of the four parts outlined above. 

• Please contact the relevant editor(s) for the particular part which most closely aligns with the focus of your article
• Upload your chapter abstract via EasyChair:   http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=arts1
• An abstract should describe on 1-2 pages what is the intended content of the chapter.
• Authors are encouraged to format their article using the Springer template available at:  http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0
• Please use the Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) format.
• Your article should be no more than 15 pages using this template.
• Depending on the contributions received, the editors may suggest updating the chapters to make them more coherent (or distinctive from each other). 


Dates:
March 15, 2014		Chapter abstract submission (2 pages) required
April 1, 2014 		1. Review
May 30, 2014 		Full chapter submissions by authors 				
July 1, 2014 			Second review
September 15, 2014	Camera ready version 


Editor contact information:
Apostolos Kotsialos
apostolos.kotsialos at durham.ac.uk
School of Engineering and Computing Sciences	
Durham University,	
Durham, South Road, DH1 3LE	
Co Durham, UNITED KINGDOM

Jörg P. Müller	
joerg.mueller at tu-clausthal.de 	
Department of Informatics,	
Technische Universität Clausthal	
D-38678 Clausthal-Zellerfeld, GERMANY

René Schumann	
rene.schumann at hevs.ch 	
Institute of Information Systems,	
HES-SO Valais-Wallis, 	
Techno-pôle 3, 3960 Sierre, SWITZERLAND

Lee McCluskey	
t.l.mccluskey at hud.ac.uk 	
University of Huddersfield, 	
Huddersfield, HD1 3DH 	
West Yorkshire, UNITED KINGDOM

Omer Rana	
o.f.rana at cs.cardiff.ac.uk	
School of Computer Science and Informatics, 	
Cardiff University, 	
Queen's Buildings, Newport Road,	
Cardiff CF24 3AA, UNITED KINGDOM 

Franziska Klügl	
franziska.klugl at oru.se	
School of Science and Technology, 	
Örebro University, 	
70182 Örebro, Sweden