Call for Papers

                     Journal of Computer Communications

                  (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/comcom)

                                      
           Special Issue on "Dependable Wireless Sensor Networks"


     The  recent  few  years have witnessed an increasing interest in the
   potential use of wireless sensor networks in many applications such as
   smart  environments,  disaster  management, habitat monitoring, combat
   field  reconnaissance,  and  security  surveillance.  Sensors in these
   applications  are  expected  to  be  remotely  deployed and to operate
   autonomously in unattended environments. While the initial view of the
   community was that sensor networks will play a complementary role that
   enhances  the  quality  of these applications, recent research results
   have  encouraged  practitioners  to  envision an increased reliance on
   sensor  networks.  To  realize  their potential, dependable design and
   operation  of  sensor networks have to be ensured.  Dependability is a
   property  that  indicates the ability of a system to deliver specified
   services  to  the  user.  Dependability  can  be specified in terms of
   attributes,   which   include   reliability,   availability,   safety,
   maintainability, and security.


   Dependability  in  wireless  sensor  networks  is  complicated by many
   factors  including:  (1)  sensors are significantly constrained in the
   amount of available resources such as energy, storage and computation;
   (2)  sensors  are  expected  to  be  deployed in very large numbers in
   normal  as  well  as  forbidding environments; and (3) wireless sensor
   networks   suffer   from  structural  weakness  and  limited  physical
   protection.  Also,  dependability requirements may vary according to a
   network's  mission  defined  over a multi-dimensional context, such as
   field   of   deployment  (e.g.,  hostile  versus  friendly),  type  of
   application  (e.g.,  monitoring,  tracking,  data collection), mode of
   operation (e.g., normal, exception, post-event recovery), and time.


   This  special  issue of the Journal of Computer Communications will be
   designated  for  reporting  on  recent  research results on supporting
   dependability  in  wireless  sensor  networks.  It  is  expected  that
   non-conventional  techniques  more  suited to wireless sensor networks
   may  need  to  be  employed.  Also,  in  many cases trade-off would be
   necessary  in  order  to  ensure  practicality  by dynamically setting
   bounds  on  dependability.  We  solicit papers presenting original and
   unpublished work. Topics of interest include, although not limited to,
   the following:
     * Fault-tolerant architectural and operation models
     * Robust routing of sensed data
     * Predictable MAC medium access arbitration
     * Security architecture and protocols
     * Specialized   monitoring,   evaluation,  and  testing  setups  and
       techniques
     * Formal representation and verification of dependability properties
     * Quality of service provisioning
     * Metrics for measuring dependability
     * Privacy-aware dependable operation
     * Novel applications of dependable sensor networks

   Important dates:

          Submission deadline:		September 30, 2004
          Decision notification:	January 2, 2005
          Final manuscript due:		February 2, 2005
          Publishing date:		Spring 2005


   Submission instructions:

   Prospective  authors  should  submit  their  paper  electronically  to
   toweissy@vt.edu  or  younis@csee.umbc.edu.  The  manuscript should not
   exceed  30  double-space  pages  in MS-Word, PS or PDF. The manuscript
   should  be in a single column font size 11 or larger format. The first
   page  should  include title, authors' contact information, an abstract
   and  five  keywords. Authors should attach the paper abstract to their
   message.


   Guest Editors:

   Mohamed Eltoweissy
   Department of Computer Science
   Virginia Tech
   7054 Haycock Rd, Falls Church, VA 22043
   Voice: (703) 538-3751,    FAX: (703) 538-8320
   E-mail: toweissy@vt.edu

   Mohamed Younis
   Department of Computer Science and Elect. Eng.
   University of Maryland Baltimore County,
   1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250
   Voice: (410) 455-3968,    FAX: (410) 455-3968
   E-mail: younis@csee.umbc.edu