Relevant Events

CPDP is an annual three-day conference devoted to privacy and data protection. The 10th edition of CPDP will be held on 25-27 January 2017 in Brussels. Whilst a number of speakers are specifically invited by the conference, several slots remain open to application through an annual call for papers. The CPDP2017 Call for Papers is addressed to all researchers who wish to present their papers at the next Computers, Privacy and Data Protection conference.

The call is split into two different tracks. The first is dedicated to experienced researchers, while the second welcomes PhD students and junior researchers. Contributions are welcome from all disciplines with perspectives on the themes of the conference. The dual-track structure of the CPDP 2017 Call for Papers aims to meet the increasing interest of researchers – from all levels and from multiple disciplines – in CPDP and their expectations in terms of academic feedback and exchange.

http://www.cpdpconferences.org/callforpapers.html

Special Issue on Communications and Computing for Sustainable Development Goals

MDPI Future Internet (Scopus / DBLP Indexed)

CFP http://www.mdpi.com/journal/futureinternet/special_issues/Sustainable_Development_Goals

Submission Deadline 5 March 2017

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Scope

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The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector is currently focused on exploring different technological challenges, such us increasing the speed, maximizing the available capacity, and, in general, improving the performance of ICT systems. However, little attention has been paid so far to the role of ICT towards sustainable development. For example, the forthcoming 5G technology is mainly devoted to urban areas, while the development of such technology in rural zones is not yet considered. Additionally, more than two billions people still lack an Internet connection, and relatively low number of initiatives are being put into place to invert this trend.

This Special Issue dedicates itself to explore the role and impact of the transformational power of ICT for making our world more sustainable: saving energy and material resources by creating more value from less physical input, increasing quality of life for ever more people without compromising future generations ability to meet their needs. In this context, the United Nations General Assembly has proposed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a list of actions over the next fifteen years in areas of critical importance for the humanity and the planet. The goal of the special issue is to pursue these goals in all areas of networking and computing. Papers related to ICT for Sustainability in a broad sense such as Sustainability by ICT, Sustainability in ICT and their overarching aspects, and especially papers developing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), are welcome.

The list of topics includes, but is not limited to:

- 5G networks for rural zones

- Sustainable backbone networks/cellular network or data centers

- New paradigms to improve the network sustainability: softwarization and fog computing

- Networks elements and storage units powered by renewable sources

- Sustainable architectures for increasing the connectivity in rural zones

- Sustainable drone-services and network-services

- e-Health applications for rural zones

- Emergency services in rural zones

- Case-studies results from the application of networks and services for improving the sustainability

- Measurement of sustainability including metrics and benchmarks in networks and computing resources

CFP http://www.mdpi.com/journal/futureinternet/special_issues/Sustainable_Development_Goals

Submission

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Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Future Internet is an international peer-reviewed Open Access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Deadline

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5 March 2017

Guest Editors

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Dr. Luca Chiaraviglio

DIET Department, University of Rome Sapienza, Via Eudossiana 18, 00184 Rome, Italy https://sites.google.com/site/lucachiaraviglio/

email luca.chiaraviglio@uniroma1.it

Dr. William Liu

Department of Information Technology and Software Engineering, School of Engineering, Computer and Mathematical Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland 1142, New Zealand

Website: https://www.aut.ac.nz/profiles/william-liu

Prof. Dr. Jaap Van de Beek

Luleå University of Technology, Sweden

Website: http://www.ltu.se/staff/j/jaavan-1.105599?l=en

Dr. Filip Idzkikowski

Poznan University of Technology, Plac Marii Skłodowskiej-Curie 5, 60-965, Poznań, Poland

Website: http://nss.et.put.poznan.pl/kstik/en/subpage.php?id=idzikowski2

About MDPI Future Internet

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Future Internet (ISSN 1999-5903) is a scholarly open access journal which provides an advanced forum for scientific studies related to Internet technologies and the information society. It publishes regular research papers, reviews and short communications. The journal aim is to encourage scientists to publish their experimental and theoretical results in as much detail as possible. Therefore, there is no restriction on the length of the papers or the use of colour figures.

For Future Internet (ISSN 1999-5903), authors are asked to pay a fee of 500 CHF (Swiss Francs) per processed paper, but only if the article is accepted for publication in this journal after peer-review and possible revision of the manuscript. An additional fee of 250 CHF may apply for those articles that need major editing and formatting and/or English editing. Note that many national and private research funding organizations and universities explicitly cover such fees for articles originated in funded research projects. Discounts are available for authors from institutes that participate with MDPI's membership program.

Future Internet is covered by following databases:

- Scopus (Elsevier)

- DBLP Computer Science Bibliography (Universität Trier)

- AGORA (FAO)

- Compendex / Engineering Village (Elsevier)

- DOAJ - Directory of Open Access Journals

- INSPEC (IET)

Future Internet Website: http://www.mdpi.com/journal/futureinternet/

CfP: Sensor Publics: A Workshop on the Politics of Sensing and Data Infrastructures

Organizers: Laurie Waller and Nina Witjes, Munich Center for Technology in Society (MCTS), Technical University Munich.

Location: TUM / Vorhoelzer Forum, Munich

Dates: 5-7 April, 2017

Deadline for abstracts (250 words): 15 January 2017 to sensorpublics@gmail.com  

Keynote speakers: Geoffrey Bowker (UC, Irvine) and Jennifer Gabrys (Goldsmiths)

What happens when sensing and data infrastructures, from satellites to self-tracking devices, become objects of public concern? This 2-day workshop seeks to bring together scholars from across science and technology studies (STS), sociology, international relations and critical security studies to investigate what we are calling "sensor publics". We invite contributions that attend to sensing and data infrastructures as they are publicly (con)tested and demonstrated, used and lived with, hidden, governed, maintained, repurposed and hacked.

Overview

From the geopolitics of remote sensing satellites, to the political-economy of urban sensor networks, the domestic economy of home sensing devices or the democratic promise of participatory citizen-sensing, we are interested in how sensing and data infrastructures become publicly controversial and invested with political and moral capacities. How do sensor publics unsettle relations between political actors and their environments? In what ways do they problematise the governance of big data or the regulation of real-time surveillance? And, can sensor publics provide occasions for democratizing relations between politicians, experts, activists and citizens?

We invite contributions of original research that address the following (non-exhaustive) topics:

Sensors and global politics:

How are sensors - such as those from satellites and drones - shaped by and shaping global politics whether conceived as geo-politics, international relations or political ecology? How can we understand the entanglement of technological innovation, processes of securitization, visions of transparency and privacy, global economic interests, trans-national activism and governmental and civilian surveillance?

Data practices and governance:

Sensors often produce lively data that unsettle formats and methods of governance. How do publics engage with the challenges of the regulation and administration of big data, also in terms of responsible research and innovation?

Infrastructures and activism:

Sensing infrastructures are the target of political activists concerned with issues as diverse as surveillance, ecology and social justice. How does infrastructure (h)activism unsettle relations between the methods and material settings of political action?

Visibility/invisibility of sensors:

The relations between sensors and publics has often been studied in terms of the making visible or invisible of devices. What roles do problems of (in)visibility play in ordering the political life of sensors?

Engagements with the politics of sensing:

Do we want to contribute as engaged scholars to the formation of sensor publics? In what ways do practical, theoretical, cross-disciplinary and experimental engagements with the politics of sensing amplify some issues while marginalising others?

Who should apply?

We invite contributions from a wide range of approaches to researching sensing and data infrastructures. The workshop particular encourages interdisciplinary research approaches and scholars pursuing engaged collaborations and experiments, and we invite creative demonstrations as well as paper presentations. In addition, we hope to stimulate the creation of new formal and informal networks and to explore coalitions for further collaboration, the writing of grant proposals and the search for funding. A possible outcome of the workshop is a proposal for a special issue or an edited volume.

Abstracts of 250 words and brief academic biography to sensorpublics@gmail.com 

The event is organised and funded by the post/doc lab “Engineering Responsibility” at the Munich Centre for Technology in Society. Catering will be provided throughout the duration of the workshop but travel and accomodation costs are expected to be borne by participants.

Inquiries about the workshop can be address to l.waller@tum.de or nina.witjes@tum.de 

Do you have a novel idea for improving yours and others life in a sustainable manner? Does your idea involve IoT technologies?

This call is for you! Participate in the Hackathon event during the IoT Week 2017 and win amazing prizes. Propose your idea and develop your applications and services. This year, selected projects will focus on IoT solutions for tackling one or several of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the UN.

REGISTRATION:

You must submit a “Project Proposal” not longer than 2 pages, that must indicate :

– Who you are: (teams up to 4 persons, study level, country, university, something else you want to tell us…)

– Problem description and SDG targeted
– Proposed IoT solution (service, clients, application, sensors, objects, data sources, etc)

– Expected impact (business, societal, environmental, etc)

– Required infrastructure (hardware, software, service access, etc.)

Proposals must be sent to hackathon-iotweek2017@hes-so.ch before April 30. Extended Deadline May 15

Proposals will be evaluated by the Hackathon organization committee, you will receive a notification of acceptance not latest than 2 weeks later.  We will select the most promising submitted ideas to be part of the Hackathon event. We guarantee confidentiality of your idea until the event.

DURING THE EVENT:

The IoT Hackathon event will take place during the IoT week from 6 to 9 June  in the CICG (Centre International de Conférences – Geneva), Switzerland. 

During these four days you will have access to Workshops given by ST microelectronics and Fiware and you will have also access to the required infrastructure (hardware and software) for implementing your project. 

AWARDS: 

You will present your realization at the end of the event in front of a jury that will select the best projects to be awarded. Confirmed awards:

– The €5’000 IoT-Week Hackathon Siemens Award

– The 2’000 CHF ( €1’900) IoT-Week Hackathon ABB Award

– The €1’000 IoT-Week Hackathon Hasler Foundation Award

All participants will receive for free an STM32 Nucleo development board from ST.

ACM LIMITS 2017

Third Workshop on Computing within LIMITS

June 22-24, 2017

Santa Barbara, CA, USA

http://acmlimits.org/2017/

The ACM LIMITS workshop aims to foster discussion on the impact of present and future ecological, material, energetic, and societal limits on computing. These topics are seldom discussed in contemporary computing research. A key aim of the workshop is to promote innovative, concrete research, potentially of an interdisciplinary nature, that focuses on technologies, critiques, techniques, and contexts for computing within fundamental economic and ecological limits. A longer-term goal is to build a community around relevant topics and research. We hope to impact society through the design and development of computing systems in the abundant present for use in a future of limits.

Paper submission deadline: March 1, 2017

Paper reviews available: March 19, 2017

Camera-ready paper deadline: April 10, 2017

Bonnie Nardi, UC Irvine, nardi@uci.edu, Workshop Co-Chair

Bill Tomlinson, UC Irvine, wmt@ics.uci.edu, Workshop Co-Chair

For more information, please visit: http://acmlimits.org/2017/

Call for papers:
Focus session on ICT and the UN Sustainable Development Goals
in Interaction Design & Architecture(s)

Overview
Sustainability is the most important global challenge for the 21st century. While interest in sustainability is increasing within computing, it is not particularly difficult to claim that we currently do too little, and perhaps at times also the wrong things. Developing a sustainable society should include also Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) since ICT has become an integral part of all areas in society. But how does ICT contribute to a sustainable society, and, what are we aiming for?

In September 2015, the UN formally adopted a set of global goals, the Sustainable Development Goals (or SDGs, see further https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs) consisting of 17 overarching goals, aiming at accomplishing sustainable development for people and the planet by 2030. The SDGs address ecological as well as social and economic sustainability.

In this IxD&A focus session, we want to engage everyone who is interested in working towards a sustainable future in terms and using the UN SDGs as a starting point. How can ICT be inspired by, and contribute to these goals? What should we do more of, and, are we doing the right things? In what areas should we form partnerships in order to reach the Sustainable Development Goals and with whom should we form these partnerships?
Topics may include but are not limited to:
ICT solutions that engages one or more SDGs
Work that critically discusses important topics not covered by the SDGs
The Interconnectedness of the SDGs in relation to ICT
Bridging global goals (SDGs) in terms of scaling and operationalizing them to make them possible/easier to address
The challenge of working with long-term goal in the context of ICT which emphasizes speed and results
Possible tensions and contradictions between different SDGs
The connection between socio-technical systems and the SDGs
Methods for monitoring progress in reaching the SDGs (for example using Big Data)
Submission procedure
All submissions (abstracts and later final manuscripts) must be original and may not be under review by another publication. All papers will be blindly peer-reviewed by at least two reviewers. Prospective authors are invited to submit a full paper (8-20 pages) including authors' information, abstract, tables, figures, references, etc.). The paper should be written according to the IxD&A authors' guidelines. For more information see the full call at: http://ixdea.uniroma2.it/inevent/events/idea2010/index.php?s=102&link=call34fs
Important dates
• Deadline: June 30, 2017
• Notification to the authors: September 30, 2017
• Camera ready paper: October 31, 2017
• Publication of the special issue: end of November, 2017
Guest editors
For advice or queries, please contact the guest editors and use the subject line “IxD&A focus session: ICT and the SDGs”.

• Daniel Pargman (School of Computer Science and Communication, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden), pargman@kth.se
• Neha Kumar (Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and the School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA), neha.kumar@cc.gatech.edu
• Mikael Anneroth (Ericsson Research, Sweden), mikael.anneroth@ericsson.com
• Elina Eriksson (School of Computer Science and Communication, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden), elina@kth.se

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has a central role to play in the transition to a sustainable society. ICT offers us a rich set of tools to collect and analyze diverse sources of data to help us develop and share new solutions, and increasingly, ICT provides new low-energy alternatives to physically moving people and goods around the planet. But at the same time, ICT can seduce us into patterns of over-consumption and waste, as we buy and discard an ever-growing set of gadgets. The ICT4S Summer School will explore the research challenges that address this dilemma, focusing both on how to make ICT greener, and how to leverage the power of ICT to develop sustainable solutions in diverse areas such as urban planning, transport, buildings, food, clean water, and sustainable development.

The summer school is open to all postgraduate students across the world, and we especially seek a broad and diverse set of students from a variety of different disciplinary backgrounds and regions. We expect to be able to provide a travel grant to cover some of the costs for each successful applicant.

The summer school will run for five days. Each morning and afternoon will begin with a short seminar or invited talk on a new topic, followed by a set of practical exercises and case studies related to that topic. At the end of each day, the schedule will include a 90-minute session for participants to work together in small teams, to work on research papers based on ideas covered in the summer school. Over the course of the week, each group will develop a research idea to end up with a complete paper draft, to be presented in the final afternoon.

Topics planned for the summer school include:

• The Role of ICT in the transition to a post-carbon society
• Requirements for Sustainability
• Methods for Data Analytics and Computational Modelling
• Methods for Lifecycle Assessment
• Assessing the Lifecycle Footprint of ICT
• Green Software Engineering
• Smart Cities and Sustainable Communities
• Sustainable Buildings, Food and Transport
• The role of ICT in Behavioural Change
• ICT for Social Sustainability

Tutors at the summer school are expected to include:

• Sjaak Brinkkemper, Utrecht University, NL
• Steve Easterbrook, University of Toronto, Canada
• Maria-Angela Ferrario, Lancaster University, UK
• Lorenz Hilty, University of Zurich, Switzerland
• Mattias Höjer, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
• Patricia Lago, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Sam Mann, Otego Polytechnic, New Zealand
• Birgit Penzenstadler, California State University Long Beach, USA
• Chris Preist, University of Bristol, UK
• Daniel Schien, University of Bristol, UK

Details for how to apply will be announced soon. In the meantime, you can register your interest by sending an email to Steve Easterbrook (sme@cs.toronto.edu)

SIGGreen Pre-AMCIS 2017 Workshop

Sustainability and Innovation: Building a Tradition of Research and Practice

SIGGreen is the AIS Special Interest Group on Green Information Systems. SIGGreen provides a platform for those in our discipline who are concerned with how information systems can help reduce human impact on the natural environment – one of the greatest challenge of your time. SIGGreen recognizes that the Information Systems (IS) discipline can have a central role in creating an ecologically sustainable society  because of the field’s five decades of experience in designing, building, deploying, evaluating, managing, and studying information systems to resolve complex problems, SIGGreen’s positions are presented in its Statement on Environmental Change (https://siggreen.wikispaces.com/The+Statement-Manifesto).

The SIGGreen annual meeting and workshop will be held at AMCIS 2017 instead of ICIS because of travel logistics. The Pre-AMCIS 2017 workshop provides a forum for the breadth of sustainability research in IS and thus contributes to further developing this important IS research domain.

We invite papers employing a wide variety of methods. We welcome empirical (qualitative and quantitative), design-oriented and theory development research papers.

Interested authors submit extended abstracts (1-2 pages – see paper template for details) which will be peer-reviewed by at least two expert reviewers. Successful abstracts will be shared with other workshop participants. After the pre-AMCIS workshop, authors are invited to submit a final paper incorporating feedback. Workshop papers will be published as workshop proceedings on AIS Electronic Library (AISeL).

Information about the workshop will be updated at https://siggreen.wikispaces.com/Events

Workshop Location
Boston, USA

Important Dates
- 19 June 2017:                 Submission of extended abstracts to: SIGGreen.Submission@gmail.com<mailto:SIGGreen.Submission@gmail.com>
- 26 June 2017:                 Notification of acceptance
- 10 August 2017:              Workshop
- 16 September 2017:     Submission of full workshop papers for publication on AISeL (optional)

Formatting Requirements for Extended Abstracts
- Expected length: 1-2 pages
- Use Workshop Template available at https://siggreen.wikispaces.com/Events

Preliminary Schedule
09:00 – 09:30 Morning Coffee
09:30 – 09:45 Welcome
09:45 – 10:30 Panel/Paper Session
10:30 – 10:45 Coffee Break
10:45 – 12:15 Paper Session
12:15 – 13:00 Boxed Lunch
13:00 – 14:00 SIGGreen Meeting

Workshop Co-Chairs (SIGGreen Executive Board)
Chadi Aoun (SIGGreen Past President)
Carnegie Mellon University
chadi@cmu.edu<mailto:chadi@cmu.edu>

Pratyush Bharati (SIGGreen President Elect)
University of Massachusetts, Boston
Pratyush.Bharati@umb.edu<mailto:Pratyush.Bharati@umb.edu>

Stefan Seidel (SIGGreen President)
University of Liechtenstein
stefan.seidel@uni.li<mailto:stefan.seidel@uni.li>

Head of Arrangements Committee
Leona Chandra Kruse (SIGGreen Secretary)
University of Liechtenstein
leona.chandra@uni.li<mailto:leona.chandra@uni.li>

The conference EnviroInfo2017 will be held in Luxembourg in September 2017 (13th -15th) .

The main theme of the conference will be:

“Environmental Informatics – From Science to Society: The Bridge provided by Environmental Informatics"

We are calling for submissions now.

For more detailed information, refer directly to our website http://www.enviroinfo2017.org

In case of any question, you can also contact the organisers by emailing to enviroinfo2017@list.lu

The 5th workshop "Environmental Informatics between Sustainability and Change" will take place during INFORMATIK 2017 in Chemnitz (25. to 29.09.).

We are calling for contributions:

• Submission deadline: 30th April 2017 
• Short paper: max. 6 pages, long paper: max. 12 pages – in German or English
• Workshop website: https://informatik2017.de/ws30-uinw-2017/
• Submit your paper here: https://www.conftool.pro/informatik2017/

If there are any questions, please do not hesitate to contact anyone of the organising committee .

We are looking forward to seeing you in Chemnitz!

Stefan Naumann, Kristina Voigt, Eva Kern

Call for Papers
Dear Colleagues,
The journal Future Internet (ISSN 1999-5903) is currently running a Special Issue entitled “Communications and Computing for Sustainable Development Goals”.
Special Issue: Communications and Computing for Sustainable Development Goals
Website: http://www.mdpi.com/journal/futureinternet/special_issues/Sustainable_Development_Goals
Guest Editors: Prof. Dr. Luca Chiaraviglio, Dr. William Liu, Prof. Dr. Jaap Van de Beek and Dr. Filip Idzkikowski
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2017

Scope
The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector is currently focused on exploring different technological challenges, such us increasing the speed, maximizing the available capacity, and, in general, improving the performance of ICT systems. However, little attention has been paid so far to the role of ICT towards sustainable development. For example, the forthcoming 5G technology is mainly devoted to urban areas, while the development of such technology in rural zones is not yet considered. Additionally, more than two billions people still lack an Internet connection, and relatively low number of initiatives are being put into place to invert this trend.

This Special Issue dedicates itself to explore the role and impact of the transformational power of ICT for making our world more sustainable: saving energy and material resources by creating more value from less physical input, increasing quality of life for ever more people without compromising future generations ability to meet their needs. In this context, the United Nations General Assembly has proposed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a list of actions over the next fifteen years in areas of critical importance for the humanity and the planet. The goal of the special issue is to pursue these goals in all areas of networking and computing. Papers related to ICT for Sustainability in a broad sense such as Sustainability by ICT, Sustainability in ICT and their overarching aspects, and especially papers developing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), are welcome.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):
· 5G networks for rural zones
· Sustainable backbone networks/cellular network or data centers
· New paradigms to improve the network sustainability: softwarization and fog computing
· Networks elements and storage units powered by renewable sources
· Sustainable architectures for increasing the connectivity in rural zones
· Sustainable drone-services and network-services
· e-Health applications for rural zones
· Emergency services in rural zones
· Case-studies results from the application of networks and services for improving the sustainability
· Measurement of sustainability including metrics and benchmarks in networks and computing resources
You may send your manuscript now or up until the deadline. Submitted papers should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere. We also encourage authors to send us their tentative title and short abstract to the Editorial Office (futureinternet@mdpi.com) for approval.

If you are currently preparing your manuscript or would like to contribute a paper for this interesting issue, please feel free to contact us. For further details on the submission process, please see the instructions for authors at the journal website. Each new submission will be processed as quickly as possible and published on acceptance.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,
Guest Editor
Dr. Luca Chiaraviglio
Department of Electronic Engineering, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Via del Politecnico 1, 00133, Rome, Italy
Website: https://sites.google.com/site/lucachiaraviglio/
E-Mail: luca.chiaraviglio@diet.uniroma1.it

Guest Editor
Dr. William Liu
Department of Information Technology and Software Engineering,
School of Engineering, Computer and Mathematical Sciences,
Auckland University of Technology, Auckland 1142, New Zealand
Website: https://www.aut.ac.nz/profiles/william-liu
E-Mail: william.liu@aut.ac.nz

Guest Editor
Prof. Dr. Jaap Van de Beek
Luleå University of Technology, Sweden
Website: http://www.ltu.se/staff/j/jaavan-1.105599?l=en
E-Mail: jaap.vandebeek@ltu.se

Guest Editor
Dr. Filip Idzkikowski
Poznan University of Technology, Poznan, Poland
Website: http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=irR9-IAAAAAJ&hl=it
E-Mail: filip.idzikowski@put.poznan.pl

Adela Liao
MDPI Branch Office, Beijing
Tel.: +86 010 6280 0830
E-Mail: adela.liao@mdpi.com
---
Future Internet Editorial Office
MDPI AG
Klybeckstrasse 64, 4057 Basel, Switzerland
Tel. +41 61 683 77 34 (office)
Fax: +41 61 302 89 18
E-mail: futureinternet@mdpi.com
http://www.mdpi.com/journal/futureinternet

You are invited to submit contributions to a Special issue on ICT for sustainability in the well-ranked journal Sustainability. We invite papers from a broad range of topics connected to Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) for Sustainability. More information can be found here http://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/special_issues/ICT.

The Special issue is coordinated but not formally connected with the fifth ICT4S-conference to be held in Toronto in May 2018, 2018.ict4s.org. Thus - papers accepted for publication in the journal by November 15, 2017 can be submitted for presentation at the "Journal first-track" of the Toronto-conference. Sustainability has a good track record on quick reviews, so there is good chance of getting a good paper accepted in time, if you hurry up in finalising the paper.

If you need more time, the Special issue is open for submission until March 15, 2018. Thus it is possible to submit a conference paper to the ICT4S-conference (deadline Nov 15, 2017) and then develop that paper with 30-50% new content and submit your full journal paper to the Special issue. There are no restrictions on the length of manuscripts in the Special issue, provided that the text is concise and comprehensive.

Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted).

Sustainability is an Open access journal, with an Article Processing Charge of CHF1400, payable if the article is accepted.

With best regards,
Guest editors
Mattias Höjer
Elina Eriksson
Chris Preist

CALL FOR PAPERS

The 5th Conference on Sustainable Internet and ICT for Sustainability (SustainIT 2017) will be held December 6-7, 2017 in Funchal, Portugal. Papers are invited in all aspects of Sustainable Internet and ICT, Sustainability through the application of ICT, and Human-Centered technology for sustainability, including works that report on prototype test best and real-world deployments.

Ultimately, the goal of this conference is to bring together people from different research areas, and provide a forum to exchange ideas, discuss solutions, and share experiences among researchers, professionals, and application developers from both industry and academia. The topics of interest include but are not limited to the following:

*Sustainable Internet and ICT

1.Green Internet (e.g., novel standards and metrics for green communications, measurement and evaluation of the Internet's sustainability)

2.Energy-efficient data centers (e.g., algorithms for reduced power, energy and heat, trade-offs between energy efficiency, Quality of Service, and reliability)

3.Adaptation of computing and communications infrastructure to variable renewable energy supply

4.Emerging computing / storage technologies for energy efficient operation

5.E-waste (e.g. obsolescence of electronic equipment and its disposal issues)

*Sustainability through the application of ICT

1.ICT for energy efficiency in smart homes and buildings

2.ICT for energy efficiency in industrial environments

3.ICT for smart grids and water distribution systems

4.ICT for sustainable transport and logistics

5.ICT for monitoring and conservation of biodiversity (e.g., underwater and fauna monitoring)

*Human-Centered Technology for Sustainability

1.User evaluation of test-bed and prototype implementations

2.Metrics for sustainability and their evaluation

3.Behavior change regarding sustainability choices

4.Human-factors in sustainable ICT systems

5.Novel user interfaces and interaction techniques

------------------------------------------------------

PROGRAM CHAIRS

Chair: Mario Bergés, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Vice-chair: Lucas Pereira, Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute, Funchal, PT

------------------------------------------------------

IMPORTANT DATES (TIME IS 23:59 AOE)

* June 23 - title and abstract registration

* July 7 - paper submission

* September 21 - WIP / Demo / PhD Forum submission

* October 8 - notification of acceptance

* October 21 - WIP / Demo / PhD Forum acceptance notification

* November 10 - camera ready version

* December 6 and 7 - conference

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TYPES OF SUBMISSIONS (IEEE COMPUTER SOCIETY TEMPLATE)

* Papers - up to 10 pages (8 + 2 additional)

* WIP - up to 4 pages (3 + 1 additional)

* Demo - up to 2 pages

* PhD Forum - up to 3 pages

(additional pages are subject to an extra charge)

World Congress on Sustainable Technologies (WCST-2017)
Technically Co-Sponsored by IEEE UK/RI Computer Chapter
11-14 December, 2017
University of Cambridge, UK
www.wcst.org
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The World Congress on Sustainable Technologies (WCST-2017) is Technically Co-Sponsored by IEEE UK/RI Computer Chapter. It is a multidisciplinary congress, bridging efforts across the natural, social and engineering sciences, the environment and development of communities. The congress covers a wide spectrum of topics that relate to sustainability, which includes technical and non-technical research areas. It also encourages sharing new knowledge in the field of sustainable technologies and the environmental impacts.

The mission of WCST-2017 is to provide the opportunities for collaboration and reflection that have the potential to greatly enhance the infrastructure and capacity for conducting and applying art, science and technology for sustainability. The WCST bridges the gap between academia and industry by creating awareness of current development in sustainable technologies.

The topics in WCST-2017 include but are not confined to the following areas:

Sustainable Energy Technologies:
* Bio-energy and Geo-energy
* Energy
* Energy in Transportation Systems
* Energy Efficiency in Utilization
* Environmental Issues
* Energy Harvesting
* Energy Storage Systems
* Energy Storage Systems
* Energy Market, Management and Economics
* Energy Resources for Portable Electronics
* Energy Efficiency in Utilization
* Geothermal energy
* Intelligent Energy, Power Transmission Distribution, Interconnects and Protection
* Materials for Energy Resources
* Nanotechnology in Energy
* New Enabling Technologies
* New Materials for Energy Resources and RF and Magnetic Field Energy Devices
* Off-grid Isolated Energy Systems
* Policy Issues on Renewable Energy
* Power Electronics and Energy Conversion
* Renewable Energy and Biofuels

Renewable Energy Management, Economics and Environmental Impact:
* Climate Change
* Energy from waste
* Environmental assessments
* Environmental issues
* Environmental policies and planning
* Hazardous Chemical
* Innovative use of Renewable Raw Materials
* Offshore pollution and oil spills
* Pollution prevention
* Sustainable waste management technologies
* Sustainability impact assessments and tools

Education:
* Environmental Education
* Education and Training
* E-Society (e-Learning, e-Health, e-Medicine, e-Governance, e-Business, e-Art, e-Science)

Green Computing:
* Advanced IT energy-aware technologies
* Green Computing Geo-energy
* E-Cycling
* E-Inclusion
* Electronic waste
* Energy Efficient Ethernet
* IT energy management
* Power-aware software
* Power-efficient architectures and chip designs
* Component level power management, e.g., memory, disk.
* Power aware networking
* Smart Grids applications
* Technology as Green Enablers (Grid, Cloud, Data Centers, Virtualization)

Sustainable Building Design:
* Building Design and System
* Creative Industries
* Industrial Developments
* Low and zero energy houses and buildings
* New Insulation materials and techniques
* New building materials and recycling
* Photovoltaics and Solar Thermal

Sustainability and Policy:
* Sustainable Applications
* Sustainable Development Policy
* Sustainable Innovations
* Sustainable Technology Programme

Waste Management:
* Agricultural wastes
* Industrial waste management
* Medical wastes
* Mining and mineral wastes
* Nuclear and hazardous waste
* Waste from electronic and electrical equipment (WEEE)
* Waste water treatment

All the accepted papers will appear in the proceedings and modified version of selected papers will be published in special issues peer reviewed journals.

**Paper/Extended Abstract Submission:
- To submit a paper/extended abstract, please email your paper/extended paper to papers@wcst.org or submit it online at http://www.wcst.org/paper-submission/

**Workshop/Special Track Submission:
- Please email your Workshop/Special Track proposal to workshop@wcst.org or specialtrack@wcst.org

**Poster/Demo Submission:
- Please email your poster to poster@wcst.org and demo@wcst.org

Submission Dates:

*Extended Abstract (Work in Progress) Submission Date: September 15, 2017
*Notification of Extended Abstract Acceptance/Rejection: September 25, 2017
*Full Paper Submission Date: September 30, 2017
*Notification of Paper Acceptance/Rejection: October 15, 2017
*Camera Ready Paper Due: November 15, 2017
*Workshops and Tutorials Submission Date: September 01, 2017
*Notification of Workshop and Tutorial Acceptance: September 05, 2017
*Special Track Submission Date: September 01, 2017
*Notification of Special Track Acceptance: September 05, 2017
*Poster/Demo Submission Date: September 30, 2017
*Notification of Poster/Demo Acceptance: October 15, 2017
*Proposal for Industrial Presentation: September 01, 2017
*Notification of Industrial Presentation Acceptance: September 05, 2017
*Early Registration Deadline: October 30, 2017
*Late Registration Deadline (Authors only): November 15, 2017
*Late Registration (Participants only): November 25, 2017
*Conference Dates: December 11-14, 2017

For further details, please visit www.wcst.org

YouTube https://youtu.be/2yqNTOrt-xI

3rd International Workshop on Big data for sustainable development will take place in Boston on 11-14 December 2017. Deadline for submission is 10th October 2017

For more information visit: http://ssuopt.amp.i.kyoto-u.ac.jp/wordpress/ieeebigdata2017

CALL FOR PAPERS

Socio-technical Transitions and Practices: Insights into Environmental Sustainability

The multi-level analytical framework of socio-technical transitions promoted since the beginning of the 2000s (Grin, Rotmans and Schot 2011; Smith, Voß and Grin 2010; Geels 2002; 2011) has been recently brought into question by taking into consideration materiality, the dispersed and uneven distribution of agency and power, and the importance of (historical, spatial and political) context (Avelino et al. 2016). As pointed out by various criticisms, the multi-level perspective on socio-technical transitions often assumes a vertical trajectory, is too focused on institutions, and – methodologically – is based on secondary analyses of official data. By linking these criticisms with sustainability issues, moreover, inconsistencies and ambivalences emerge, as several contributions have shown especially in the renewable energy sector (e.g. Schreuer 2016; Scotti and Minervini 2016). This reminds us of the ambiguous meaning of the notion of ‘sustainability’ (Redclift 2005; Moneva, Archel and Correa 2006; Hornborg 2015; Rice 2007; Gottschlich and Bellina 2016). Furthermore, from a Science and Technology Studies (STS) perspective, Shove and Walker (2007; 2010) have suggested the need to reconsider the multi-level approach to socio-technical transitions by taking into account the practice level. This means to analyse, on the one hand, the mutual relationship between technologies and innovation paths; on the other, how these relate with practitioners.

In recent years, transition studies have actually turned to the practice theory approach, especially drawing on STS theoretical perspectives (Chilvers and Longhurst 2016), as well as on a renewed interest for the material components of innovation processes (Hoffman and Loeber 2015). In this framework, socio-technical transitions are regarded as the outcome of co-production processes simultaneously involving human and non-human actors.

Intensifying contaminations between the field of socio-technical transitions and the field of practices ask for a systematic reflection. This special issue of Tecnoscienza. The Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies aims therefore to offer a venue for contributions addressing environmental sustainability by linking socio-technical transitions and practices. An STS perspective may in particular shed light on the role of non-human agency in co-shaping the everyday practices involved in the transition towards sustainability. Innovation experiences, for instance, may be both fostered and hindered by material elements or broad infrastructures in which local practices are embedded, and we need a better understanding of the factors leading to the one or the other outcome.

This special issue invites paper submissions including, but not limited to, the following themes: mobility; waste management; food production, consumption and supply; energy consumption and production.

Key research questions to be addressed include the following:

• Are there competing (human/non-human) networks around a same sustainable transition goal? What shape do they take? Do they interact in some way?

• What are the actants that play a role in a local network?

• How can the issue of “path dependency” be explored through the lens of practices?

• What are the practices that characterize a socio-technical transition process in a specific context (e.g. everyday mobility strategies; personal care; dietary choice and food consumption; heating)?

A further aim of the special issue is to include a variety of geographical and societal contexts. The link between growth and sustainability in socio-technical transitions implies several political consequences, in terms of Global North-South divide as well as at local level. For instance, governments – especially in the European Union – are engaged in promoting investments in the energy sector to pursue climate emissions reduction, yet the actual implementation of these efforts does not distribute benefits equitably among the territories involved in the process. Similarly, the dominant account of sustainability has a specific cultural connotation, since it originates in the Global North (Gottschlich and Bellina 2016). Therefore, cases from the Global South may enrich the reflection we wish to develop.

Deadline for abstract submissions: December 15th, 2017

Abstracts (in English) with a maximum length of 500 words should be sent as email attachments to redazione@tecnoscienza.net and carbon copied to the guest editors. Notifications of acceptance will be communicated by January 2017. Full papers (in English with a maximum length of 8,000 words including notes and references) will be due by April 30th, 2018 and will be subject to a double-blind peer review process. The special issue is expected to be published in 2019.

For information and questions, please do not hesitate to contact the guest editors:

Paolo Giardullo, paolo.giardullo@unipd.it

Sonia Brondi, sonia.brondi@unibo.it

Luigi Pellizzoni, luigi.pellizzoni@unipi.it

References

Avelino, F., Grin, J., Pel, B., and Jhagroe, S. (2016) The politics of sustainability transitions,Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 18(5), 557-567.

Chilvers, J. and Longhurst, N. (2016) Participation in transition(s): Reconceiving public engagements in energy transitions as co-produced, emergent and diverse, Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 18(5), 585-507.

Geels, F. W. (2002) Technological transitions as evolutionary reconfiguration processes: A multi-level perspective and a case-study, Research Policy, 31(8), 1257-1274.

Geels, F. W. (2011) The multi-level perspective on sustainability transitions: Responses to seven criticisms, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 1(1), 24-40.

Gottschlich, D. and Bellina, L. (2016) Environmental justice and care: critical emancipatory contributions to sustainability discourse, Agriculture and Human Values. doi:10.1007/s10460-016-9761-9

Grin, J., Rotmans, J., and Schot, J. (2011) On patterns and agency in transition dynamics: Some key insights from the KSI programme, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 1(1), 76- 81.

Hoffman, J. and Loeber, A. (2015) Exploring the micro-politics in transitions from a practice perspective: The case of greenhouse innovation in the Netherlands, Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 18(5), 692-711

Hornborg, A. (2015) Cornucopia or zero-sum game? The epistemology of sustainability. Journal of world-systems research, 9(2), 205-216.

Moneva, J. M., Archel, P., and Correa, C. (2006) GRI and the camouflaging of corporate unsustainability, Accounting forum, 30(2), 121-137.

Redclift, M. (2005) Sustainable development (1987-2005): An oxymoron comes of age, Sustainable Development, 13(4), 212-227.

Rice, J. (2007) Ecological unequal exchange: Consumption, equity, and unsustainable structural relationships within the global economy, International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 48(1), 43-72.

Schreuer, A. (2016) The establishment of citizen power plants in Austria: A process of empowerment?, Energy Research & Social Science, 13, 126-135.

Scotti, I. and Minervini, D. (2017) Performative connections: translating sustainable energy transition by local communities, Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, 30(3), 350-364.

Shove, E. and Walker, G. (2007) CAUTION! Transitions ahead: Politics, practice, and sustainable transition management, Environment & Planning A, 39(4), 763-770.

Shove, E. and Walker, G. (2010) Governing transitions in the sustainability of everyday life. Research policy, 39(4), 471-476.

Smith, A., Voß, J. P. and Grin, J. (2010) Innovation studies and sustainability transitions: The allure of the multi-level perspective and its challenges, Research Policy, 39(4), 435-448.