SCOPE
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The 4th International Congress on Blockchain and Applications 2022 will be held in L'Aquila from 13th to 15th of July, 2022. This annual congress will reunite blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) researchers, who will share ideas, projects, lectures, and advances associated with those technologies and their application domains. This meeting will be co-located with that of PAAMS’22.

Among the scientific community, blockchain and AI are seen as a promising combination that will transform the production and manufacturing industry, media, finance, insurance, e-government, etc. Nevertheless, there is no consensus with schemes or best practices that would specify how blockchain and AI should be used together. Combining blockchain mechanisms and artificial intelligence is still a particularly challenging task.

The BLOCKCHAIN’22 congress is devoted to promoting the investigation of cutting-edge blockchain technology, to exploring the latest ideas, innovations, guidelines, theories, models, technologies, applications and tools of blockchain and AI for the industry, and to identifying critical issues and challenges that researchers and practitioners must deal with in future research. We want to offer researchers and practitioners the opportunity to work on promising lines of research and to publish their developments in this area.

info@blockchain-congress.net



TOPICS
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Technologies and techniques

- Key and innovative theories, methodologies, schemes and technologies of blockchain and AI
- Architectures and platforms for blockchain and AI
- Blockchain and AI for Big Data
- Blockchain and AI for Multi-Agent systems
- Blockchain and AI for the Internet of Things
- Blockchain and AI in 5G
- Sensors and devices for blockchain
- Distributed consensus mechanisms (PoW, PoS, PoE…)
- Encryption algorithms
- Fault tolerance mechanisms
- Other distributed ledger technologies
- Cloud, fog, and edge computing approaches for blockchain
- Blockchain standardization issues
- Platforms for smart contracts
- Side-chain and cross-chain systems
- Anonymity and privacy in blockchain
- Malicious transactions detection
- 4th and 5th generation blockchain


Applications

- Blockchain and AI enabled new business models and applications
- Blockchain and AI for e-commerce
- Blockchain and AI for logistics and transportation
- Blockchain and AI for supply chain management
- Blockchain and AI for product life cycle
- Blockchain and AI for knowledge and innovation management
- Blockchain and AI for agriculture
- Blockchain and AI in eHealth
- Applications of cryptocurrencies
- Blockchain as a Tamper-Proof Technology
- Application of smart contracts
- Blockchain Governance and Human Rights
- Applications of blockchain and AI in other domains.
- Use-cases of blockchain and AI in Industry 4.0, banking, etc.
- Blockchain and AI for fintech
- Blockchain and AI for insurtech




INVITED SPEAKERS
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Hugues Bersini, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Co-Director of the IRIDIA laboratory (Belgium)

Tiziana Catarci, Computer Science and Engineering at Sapienza University of Roma (Italy)

Danny Weyns, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium) / Linnaeus University (Sweden)





SPECIAL ISSUES
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The Scientific Committee of the co-located conferences in collaboration with the guest editors will select the best papers from those presented in the conferences to be considered for publication in the following Special Issues:


∎ Special Issue published in the International Journal of Interactive Multimedia and Artificial Intelligence (ISSN: 1989 - 1660, JCR (2020): 3.137 (Q2))

∎ Special Issue published in the MDPI Electronics Journal (ISSN: 2079-9292, JCR (2020): 2.397 (Q3))

∎ Special Issue published in the MDPI Systems Journal (ISSN: 2079-8954, JCI (2020): 1.27 (Q1))

∎ Special Issue published in ADCAIJ (ISSN: 2255-2863, JCI (2020): 0.06 (Q4))




To be updated





LIST OF WORKSHOPS IN BLOCKCHAIN 2022
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BL-NT-IoT
Blockchain for next-generation Internet of Things Applications


WEB3-TRUST
Beyond the promises of web3.0: foundations and challenges of trust decentralization





AWARDS
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MDPI Smart Cities Best Speaker Award with 500 CHF
MDPI Smart Cities Best Student Speaker Award with 300 CHF
MDPI Systems Best Paper Awards
MDPI Electronics Best Paper Awards





COMMITTEE
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General Chair

Javier Prieto - Chair of the IEEE Blockchain Spain Initiative -University of Salamanca (Spain)


Advisory Board

Abdelhakim Hafid - Université de Montréal (Canada)
Ashok Kumar Das - IIIT Hyderabad (India)
António Pinto - Instituto Politécnico do Porto (Portugal)
Paulo Leitao - Technical Institute of Bragança (Portugal)


TPC Chairs
Francisco Luis Benitez Martínez - Fidesol (Spain)


Organizing Committee
Pedro Nevado - University of Salamanca (Spain)




DOCTORAL CONSORTIUM
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The aim of the Doctoral Consortium is to provide a frame where students can present their on going research work and meet other students and researchers, and obtain feedback on future research directions.


The Doctoral Consortium is intended for students who have a specific research proposal and some preliminary results, but who are still far from completing their dissertation.


All proposals submitted to the Doctoral Consortium will undergo a thorough reviewing process with the aim to provide detailed and constructive feedback. The accepted submissions will be presented at the Doctoral Consortium and published in the conference proceedings.




FORMAT
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All papers must be formatted according to the LNNS template, with a maximum length of 10 pages (6 pages in Doctoral Consortium), including figures and references:


Microsoft Word Format
Microsoft Word 2003 Format
LaTeX Format
Overleaf template




SUBMISSION
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All proposed papers must be submitted in electronic form (PDF format) using the BLOCKCHAIN 2022 conference management system.




PUBLICATION
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Accepted papers will be included in Blockchain Congress Proceedings, published by Springer.
At least one of the authors will be required to register and attend the symposium to present the paper in order to include the paper in the conference proceedings. All accepted papers will be published by Springer Verlag.


** Indexing: The books of this series are submitted to SCOPUS, INSPEC, WTI Frankfurt eG, zbMATH, SCImago.**




IMPORTANT DATES
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Submission date: --22nd April, 2022-- --29th April, 2022-- 10th May, 2022
Doctoral Consortium deadline: --13th May, 2022-- 20th May, 2022
Notification of acceptance: 30th May, 2022
Camera-Ready papers due: 17th June, 2022
Conference Celebration: 13th-15th July, 2022




ORGANIZERS
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Instituto Politécnico do Porto (Portugal)

IIIT Hyderabad (India)

Université de Montréal (Canada)

Fidesol (Spain)

Technical Institute of Bragança (Portugal)

University of Salamanca (Spain)





SPONSORS
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IBM
INDRA




SUPPORT FROM NATIONAL ASSOCIATIONS
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AEPIA
APPIA