Blockchain has emerged as a disruptive, and transformational technology, with great potential, benefits, and impact. Blockchain is now foreseen as a panacea for many challenging problems across many businesses, industries, and domains. Many businesses and governments have been moving aggressively in adopting blockchain, with $2.1 billion spent globally on blockchain during 2018. According to Gartner, blockchain will require another 5 to 10 years to reach a state of maturity and become mainstream.
This special Issue focuses on recent advances in research and development of blockchain infrastructures and applications. Researchers are invited to contribute high quality articles on the latest advances related to improving and solving key challenges within blockchain underlying infrastructure, networks, architecture, platforms, and algorithms to improve the overall blockchain performance, scalability, governance, privacy, and security. We also encourage researchers to submit articles sharing experiences on the application and use of blockchain to solve problems seen in diverse domains, including finance, digital identity, supply chain, logistics, manufacturing, healthcare, real estate, food industry, education and certification, insurance, oil and gas, real estate, and voting. Researchers are also invited to share articles on the many other emerging innovative blockchain-based applications such as prediction markets, bidding for smart traffic control, shared compute power, and many others. Furthermore, we welcome papers on the integration of blockchain with other emerging technologies such as AI, IoT, 3D printing, big data, fog computing, robotics, and smart connected devices.
Topics:
Both original practical work and review articles are welcome. Topics of interest include:
Interoperability of blockchains
Cross-blockchain ecosystems
Decentralized applications
Consortium governance and ownership models
Privacy and security of ledgers
Secure smart contracts
Formal verification for smart contract code
Smart contract languages and oracles
Trusted Execution Environment for blockchain
Zero knowledge proof Consensus mechanisms
Scalability and performance Identity and reputation management
Blockchain-based IoT, fog, cloud, and mobile devices Supporting architecture for blockchain
Side chains and channels
Auditability and traceability
On-chain and off-chain applications
Blockchain in AI, ML, cyber security, IAM.
Distributed storage in blockchain
Building private blockchain systems
Blockchain tools, simulators, and test-nets
Blockchain PaaS GDPRP solutions for blockchain ledgers
Decentralized financing and payments
Applications for smart cities, governments, and manufacturing
Submission guidelines:
Research articles must not have been published or submitted for publication elsewhere. All articles will be peer-reviewed and accepted based on quality, originality, novelty, and relevance to the special issue theme. Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which is available at
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/367/authorinstructions
Manuscripts must be submitted online at https://www.evise.com/profile/#/COMPELECENG/loginby selecting “SI-bcia” from the Special Issues pull-down menu during the submission process.
Schedule:
Submission of manuscript: June 30, 2019
First notification: August 30, 2019
Submission of revised manuscript: October 30, 2019
Notification of the re-review: November 30, 2019
Final notification: December 30, 2019
Publication: Feb. 2020
Guest Editors:
Prof. Khaled Salah (Managing Guest Editor)
Khalifa University of Science and Technology, UAE
Email: ksalah@ieee.org
Prof. Ala Al-Fuqaha
Western Michigan University, USA
Email: ala.al-fuqaha@wmich.edu
Dr. Mamoun Alazab
Charles Darwin University, Australia
Email: alazab.m@ieee.org
Dr. Tariq Umer
COMSATS University, Pakistan
Email: t.umer@ciitwah.edu.pk