CFP: JWS Special Issue on Web semantics for the Internet/Web of Things

The Journal of Web Semantics invites submissions to a special issue on 
Semantic Web research and technologies specifically for the Internet of 
Things / Web of Things. The goal is to demonstrate how this area can 
benefit from specific research contributions and advances of the 
Semantic Web.

https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-web-semantics/call-for-papers/special-issue-web-semantics-internet-web-of-things 


The existing global networking infrastructure has facilitated the 
widespread development of cyber-physical systems, through networks of 
smart objects, pervasively using the internet for connectivity and 
communication. These “things” that communicate using Internet protocols 
and make the results of their computation available in real-time have 
given rise to rapidly evolving, new paradigms of computing that 
contribute towards realizing a global, distributed infrastructure with a 
lot of similarities to the Web. Many areas such as smart cities, smart 
buildings, social networks, wearables, and large-scale sensor 
deployments, along with applications in diverse domains such as 
e-health, agriculture, environmental monitoring and e-commerce already 
demonstrate significant uptake and impact.

However, the exciting and enhanced capabilities of these networks 
present several unprecedented and complex challenges that need to be 
overcome before data, device and service interoperability on IoT/WoT 
networks can deliver all of their predicted potential. Despite being 
connected, there are a plethora of isolated islands of heterogeneous 
networks that require heavy lifting of protocols and data, and 
reconciliation of semantics before they can truly communicate using 
Internet standards. Additionally, interconnected networks produce a data 
deluge to the order and scale of big data which will present scalability 
problems to the network and data analysis and knowledge extraction and 
management. Besides the well-known paradigm of the Cloud, new approaches 
such as (mobile) edge computing and fog computing have been proposed to 
address these problems. The goal is to not transport all data but the 
relevant data across the Internet. This requires a fundamental 
rethinking of current architectural paradigms and a decentralization of 
analysis and knowledge technologies towards the edge and inside the 
whole Internet. The end of this process may be the convergence of the so 
far traditionally separated research areas of information processing and 
communication into a single architectural paradigm. It is clear that 
semantic technologies will play a vital and central role in achieving 
this vision.

The focus of this special issue is to showcase novel and disrupting 
approaches for the semantic Web to aid in this mission. The ability to 
analyse, represent and integrate data into higher level artefacts from 
very large distributed information sources, the description and 
management of the data and technical infrastructure and the mutual 
influences and interactions among technical infrastructures, knowledge 
creation and use and social aspects are central research questions for 
researchers, organizations, and governments.

This special issue wants to bring together cutting-edge research with 
particular emphasis on novel and innovative techniques applied to 
real-world scenarios that showcase the distinguishing benefits through 
the application of Semantic Web approaches, ontologies, and Linked data 
principles to the important questions and new challenges raised by IoT/WoT.

Topics of interest with a clear focus on applying or developing novel 
approaches in these areas include but are not limited to:

Big data and real-time data processing for IoT/WoT
Communication protocols for IoT/WoT and their implementation
Modeling and analysis of physical components and environment
Distributed knowledge management (creation and integration of 
higher-level artefacts in edge / fog computing)
Industrial applications and use cases: lessons learned and success stories
Frameworks, models, methods, techniques and toolkits for building the 
IoT/WoT
Smart Infrastructure:
     Fault tolerance in critical buildings and infrastructures
     Energy efficiency in homes, buildings and infrastructures
     Traffic and mobility
     Intelligent sensors and actuators for homes, buildings and 
infrastructures
Smart solutions for health and medicine
Security and privacy issues for IoT/WoT
Data Analytics for IoT/WoT
Data and service governance for IoT/WoT
Data quality and quality of service for IoT/WoT platforms
IoT/WoT service architectures and platforms

Guest Editors

Monika Solanki, Oxford University, monika.solanki@cs.ox.ac.uk
Manfred Hauswirth, Technische Universität Berlin, 
manfred.hauswirth@tu-berlin.de

Important Dates

Submission deadline: 30th September 2017
Author notification: 15th January 2018
Final version: 15th March 2018
Final notification: 15th April 2018
Publication: 1st May 2018

Submission guidelines

We will aim at an efficient publication cycle in order to guarantee 
prompt availability of the published results. We will review papers on a 
rolling basis as they are submitted and explicitly encourage submissions 
well before the submission deadline. Submission of papers will be online 
at the journal's Elsevier Web site.