[Apologies if you receive multiple copies of this announcement]

Journal of Software: Evolution and Process
CALL for PAPERS
Special Issue on Distributed Complex Systems: Governance, Engineering, and Maintenance

*Deadline extended to 14th of March*

Distributed Complex Systems (e.g., Systems of Systems - SoSs) are gaining
momentum due to the widespread adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) tech-
nologies and the increasing interest for smart cities, digital twins, and industrial
cyber physical systems. The heterogeneity and large scale of these systems re-
quire novel design techniques, architectures and software infrastructures able
to integrate independent (sub)systems to support their seamless cooperation
and to address their emergent behaviors. In addition, the continuous servicing
process enabled by the recent microservices paradigm leads to rely on evolving
approaches able to anticipate, mitigate, or react to unplanned scenarios.
Each part of a Distributed Complex System can both exist as an indepen-
dent entity and become part of wider systems when needed. This vision radically
changes the notion of “integrated” system: (a) (sub)systems offer limited inter-
action capabilities and little possibility to be governed by other entities; (b)
cooperation can be ad-hoc and only needed in specific cases or conditions; (c)
in many cases there is no prior, complete, knowledge of the (sub)systems; (d)
the behavior can be partially unplanned to follow environment or requirement
changes.
The goal of this Special Issue is to bring together researchers and practition-
ers working on the design, the development, the validation, and the continuous
maintenance of Distributed Complex Systems (e.g., SoSs, MultiAgent Systems,
Adaptive Systems, Ambient Intelligent Systems). Indeed, topics on dynamic
modules integration, autonomous reaction to unplanned or dynamic scenarios,
or dynamic evolution of operational and managerial assets are in the scope of
this special issue.

TOPICS:

The list of relevant topics include but is not limited to:
- Modeling, design, and engineering of Distributed Complex Systems
- Architectures, architectural styles, architecture synthesis and middlewares
for Distributed Complex Systems
- Foundations and formal methods for distributed complex systems
- Coordination and adaptation patterns
- Online V&V techniques for functional and non-functional assessment and
dependability
- Online and offline testing techniques
- Context-awareness and context-aware adaptation techniques
- Reconfiguration and optimization techniques
- Self-* mechanisms
- Techniques for extracting behavior models from streams of continuous
observations
- Applications, experiences, case studies, benchmarking, industrial perspec-
tives of Distributed Complex Systems
- Distributed software engineering: strategies, processes, evaluation and
methods
- Models of functional and non functional requirements, context and gover-
nance policies to support integration of Distributed Complex Systems
- Knowledge management and decision-making process in Distributed Com-
plex Systems
- Ambient intelligent and multi-agent systems
- Interaction platforms enabling heterogeneous entities participation
- Knowledge bases integration support and exploitation for semantic inter-
operability
- Autonomic coordination, negotiation and interactions for multi-agent and
complex systems
- Blockchain technology for distributed and heterogeneous systems
- Internet of Things-based Distributed Complex Systems
- Adaptive and reactive Distributed Complex Systems

IMPORTANT DATES (UPDATED!)

- Papers Submissions: 14 March 2021
- First Notification: 30 May 2021
- Revised papers Submission: 15 July 2021
- Final Notification: 30 August 2021

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

Authors should prepare their manuscript according to the Author Guidelines
for the journal "Software: Evolution and Process", and that are available at:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal/20477481/homepage/forauthors.html .
The manuscripts and any supplementary material should be submitted through
the editorial system at: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jsme. By following the
submission instructions, please select “Distributed Complex Systems: Gover-
nance, Engineering, and Maintenance” when required by the system.
All the papers will be peer-reviewed following the reviewing procedures in
place for the journal “Software: Evolution and Process”.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously nor be
under consideration for publication elsewhere. If the submission is an extended
work of a previously published conference or workshop paper, you must sub-
mit a cover letter detailing (1) the “Summary of Differences” between the
Conference/workshop paper and extended version paper, (2) a clear list of
“new and original” contributions in the extended version paper (identifying
sections where they are proposed/presented), (3) confirmation of the percent-
age of new material (at least 30%), and (4) the related previously published
conference/workshop papers.

SPECIAL ISSUE EDITORS:

- Pietro Braione, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy.
- Daniela Briola, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy.
- Guglielmo De Angelis, CNR-IASI, Italy.
- Francesco Gallo, University of L’Aquila, Italy.
- Francesco Poggi, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy.
- Giovanni Quattrocchi, Politecnico di Milano, Italy.

For questions, please email at jsep-si-dcs-2021@iasi.cnr.it.