Call for Papers
===============

ICC 2014
Intelligent Cloud Computing:
Theoretical Foundations and Applications

February 24-26, 2014 -- Muscat, Oman
(http://staff.gutech.edu.om/Cloud2014/)

Recent advances in Information and Communication Technologies
(such as computing, storage, and networking) have led to the
development of a new generation of electronic services
and systems that are ubiquitous, at the touch of a button,
and affect all aspects of life and economy.
Cloud computing, one of ICT advances, provides
an important integration of many of these aspects -- combining both
the ability to offer services over distributed, remotely
accessed infrastructure, along with the ability to combine
both off-site, remote infrastructure with local
infrastructure available within an institution.
It is therefore expected that Cloud-based services
will revolutionize the way in which we do business,
maintain our health, conduct education,
and how we secure, protect, inform and entertain ourselves.

Increasing integration across multiple types of computing
infrastructure and deploying services across
such infrastructure leads to significant design,
development, and management challenges.
For instance, how should such remote resources be managed,
accessed, and paid for?
Or how can Cloud computing platforms be used
to host and manage large and complex data sets
(aka ``Big Data'') arising from social media data feeds
(e.g., Twitter), open government data to large scale
scientific simulations?
Due to the significant development effort invested
in these systems, there is a pressing need
to re-visit existing design, development,
and management strategies so that dynamic adaptability,
rapid delivery, and efficient access to
Cloud-based services could take place in a seamless manner.

A variety of intelligent mechanisms and techniques
may be used to develop advanced Cloud systems,
solutions and services that offer new functionalities
and more advanced user-centric services.
Implementing intelligence in Cloud computing systems
will make them more adaptive, flexible, and autonomic
in resource management, service provisioning
and in running large-scale applications.
In addition, it will help organizations build
an intelligent network capable of providing security,
visibility and optimization for a better user experience.

The objective of this event is to bring together researchers,
practitioners and developers working with Cloud systems
and intelligent systems, intending to address
some of the challenges identified above.


Areas
-----

1. Cloud Computing: Fundamentals and Theory
-- Modelling Cloud systems
-- Performance analysis & evaluation
-- Quality of Service support
-- Electronic markets for Cloud services
-- Resource management strategies
-- Programming models

2. Cloud Computing: Applications & Experience
-- e-Government
-- Scientific computing
-- Social media analysis and storage
-- Data analytics
-- Healthcare
-- Management of “Big” & “Broad” data

3. Cloud Computing: Platforms
-- Software infrastructure
-- Services
-- Plug-in development
-- Energy efficiency and modelling
-- Standards and interoperability

4. Cloud Computing: Deployment and Design
-- Service oriented approaches
-- Ubiquitous services & Cloud integration
-- Business process automation over Clouds

5. Trust, Security and Privacy for Cloud Computing
-- Trust in Cloud services
-- Secure workflows in Cloud computing
-- Cryptography and encryption techniques for Cloud computing
-- Account and domain management in Cloud computing
-- Malware detection in Cloud systems


Submission Information
----------------------
We invite submissions of an extended abstract
or full paper of at most 15 pages plus, optionally, an appendix.
The paper should be based on original research,
parallel submission to other conferences and journals is not allowed.

The conference proceedings will be published by Springer
in the LNCS series.
Submissions must be formatted in LaTeX using the LNCS style.
Submissions should not exceed 15 pages using the default
formatting settings of the LNCS style.
However, we recommend to add page numbers by adding
\pagestyle{plain} just before \begin{document}.
Proofs and evaluation data omitted due to space constraints
can be placed in an appendix which will be read
by the reviewers at their discretion.
Papers should be submitted in EasyChair:
https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=icc2014


Important Dates
---------------
Paper submissions: September 30, 2013 (anywhere on earth)
Notification: November 15, 2013
Camera ready submission: December 10, 2013
Tutorials: February 23, 2014
Conference: February 24-26, 2014


Contact
-------
Email: cloud.icc@gmail.com
URL: http://staff.gutech.edu.om/Cloud2014/


Keynote Speakers
----------------
Amer bin Awadh al-Rawas, CEO Omantel, Muscat, Oman
Mohamed M. Hefeeda, Qatar Computing Research Institute, Doha, Qatar


Conference Chairs
-----------------
Asma Al-Saidi, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman
Rudolf Fleischer, German University of Technology, Muscat, Oman