Special Issue Guest Editors

Prof. Victor Chang (Managing Guest Editor)
Professor of Data Science and Information Systems,
Teesside University, Middlesbrough, UK.
ic.victor.chang@gmail.com

Dr. Mohamed Abdel-Basset
Associate Professor and Head of Department of Computer Science,
Faculty of Computers and Informatics, Zagazig University, Egypt.
analyst_mohamed@yahoo.com

Overview of Special Issue

Smart cities of the future must aim to accommodate increasing urban populations and their prospects of contemporary living, integrated societies, knowledge-based workforce, factory automation, gig economies, virtual-real social behaviors, etc. This complex concoction of challenges requires technological advancement and methods including Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data (BD), and Blockchain (BC) techniques for more efficiency and sustainability of smart cities. AI, BD, and BC are gaining significant attention in solving many real-life problems. They have been applied in clustering, control, design, image processing, information processing & retrieval, knowledge representation & reasoning, marketing, medical diagnosis, optimization, pattern classification, production planning & scheduling, quality control, etc.
This special issue focuses on the role of technological advancement in smart cities and provides a unique opportunity for disseminating to the research community recent relevant and impactful research on applications, practice, and methodologies of AI, BD, and BC techniques for smart sensing and data mining, big data analytics, cloud computing, and high-performance computing. We sincerely invite scholars worldwide to submit original and high-quality papers to this special issue.

This special issue provides an excellent opportunity for contributors to share research results and experiences with the aim of enhancing the understanding of effective AI, Big Data, Blockchain, and soft computing techniques to strengthen scientific cooperation in this important area. We are particularly interested in new methods for technological advancement and pioneering methods, as well as recommendations in the context of government, information organizations, educational institutes, and society. We welcome any unpublished and high-quality papers with real-world examples, solutions, recommendations, and case studies.

Topics of Interest

We welcome authors to present new techniques, methodologies, mixed-method approaches, and research directions to tackle unsolved industrial-based and society-based issues. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
• Intelligent context-aware applications, hybrid systems, including intelligent knowledge-based systems, and intelligent decision-support systems
• Knowledge representation and management
• Internet informatics and cloud-based Internet of Things (IoT) applications
• IoT-based AI techniques, deep learning, and machine learning for smart cities
• AI, Big Data, IoT, and Blockchain for social computing and networks
• AI, Big Data, IoT, and Blockchain for libraries and other information organizations
• Libraries, other information organizations, NGO, and governments in the context of smart cities
• Fault tolerance, reliability, sustainability, and survivability in intelligent systems for smart cities
• Safety, security, risk, and privacy management and measurement for smart cities
• Intelligent systems, services, and system modelling for smart cities
• Impacts, recommendations, best practice, government policies, ethics, and legal challenges for smart cities
• Cloud/Edge/Green Computing and its adoption for smart cities
• Design and development of smart city solutions
• Sustainable Information Systems for smart cities
• Applications, education, and implications of all the above topics in smart cities, infrastructure and construction, and case studies.


Submission and Review Process

Manuscripts should not have been previously published or be under review in other journals. We welcome outstanding papers presented in major conferences/workshops in related areas, such as IoTBDS http://iotbds.org/, COMPLEXIS http://www.complexis.org/, and IIOTBDSC http://iiotbdsc.com/), are welcomed for submission. The submitted version of the paper must have major value-added extensions to the earlier version. For conference papers, it should have at least 30% new material. The new material should be content materials, not just the addition of proofs or a few more performance figures. The guest editors also welcome submissions of high-quality papers from the research community. All authors are expected to explicitly state in their cover letter the contributions related to this special issue and Library Hi Tech. Submissions to Library Hi Tech must be made using ScholarOne Manuscripts, the online submission and peer review system.
Authors must use the official submission portal and select ‘Technological advancement and pioneering methods for smart cities’ special issue for their submission.

Key Dates

• Submission deadline: January 31, 2021
• Author notification: March 31, 2021
• Revised papers due: April 30, 2021
• Final notification: May 31, 2021
• Publication: Autumn or Winter 2021


All papers will need to pass pre-screening stages. For papers out of scope or caught with a high percentage of plagiarism or not matching to the expected quality, they will be returned to authors with reasons for a desk reject. The selected papers will be screened by at least two guest editors (and desk rejected if not deemed suitable) before being sent to two referees. Papers will undergo a maximum of two rounds of revision to meet the scope and high standards of Library Hi Tech without any guarantee of final publication. We anticipate that the special issue will be published by the second half of 2021. For any queries regarding submission, please email the special issue guest editors.