ICIST 2021 - 11th International Conference on Information Society and Technology

About ICIST 2021

11th International Conference on Information Society and Technology will be held on Kopaonik, Serbia on Mar 7-10, 2021.

In these difficult times for science, we are all forced to think of the new ways and formats to facilitate collaboration and networking, both so important for reaching the excellence and making the break-throughs. ICIST conference series has been successfully connecting IT researchers and practitioners in the beautiful settings of wonderful Kopaonik resort, since 2014. Due to the pandemic situation, but still with the hope and optimism in our hearts, we decided to organize ICIST 2021 as a hybrid event. That means that..

All events will be streamed online, with access to be provided to the registered participants
Keynotes will be delivered remotely
All paper presentation sessions will be organized (and streamed) on site in the conference rooms (the number of participants will be defined according to the rules and recommendations of the national crisis management committee). Still, the authors will be allowed to present their papers from the remote location.

More information to follow soon.

ICIST Conference series is one of the top IT scientific events in the region, with 70-100 papers presented each year, average of 200 participants per edition, attended also by the number of IT industry representatives in the region. It hosts distinguished scientists keynotes (in past years, we were honored to share the stage with Richard Mark Soley, Orri Erling, Howard Moskowitz, Bran Selić and others), scientific sessions, panel discussions, industry presentations with exciting social programme for motivated and successfull networking. It is a perfect venue for networking, dissemination of recent research results, getting new project ideas, finding new scientific partners and bringing great vibes back home.

The conference is open for all scientific contributions to the different areas of ICT. It also welcomes technical papers with case studies and demonstrations of novel ICT technologies and approaches in industry and society. It hosts loyal research communities dealing with the areas of information systems, model-based software engineering, e-government, big data, biomedical engineering, semantic web research and since recently, Internet of Things.

All accepted papers will be published in ICIST digital repository. Past editions of the online proceedings can be viewed here: ICIST2014, ICIST2015, ICIST2016, ICIST2017, ICIST2018, ICIST2019, ICIST2020.

List of accepted special tracks:

Special Track: Blockchain Technologies and their applications, chaired by: Nemanja Zdravković

Special Track: ICT for health, well-being and sport, chaired by: Miroslav Trajanović, Anton Kos and Osiris Canciglieri Jr.

Special Track: AI techniques for the future cyber-physical enterprise, chaired by: Hervé Panetto, Georg Weichhart and Milan Zdravković

ICIST Keynotes

Petar Veličković, DeepMind, UK

Petar Veličković is a Senior Research Scientist at DeepMind. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge (Trinity College), obtained under the supervision of Pietro Liò. His research interests involve devising neural network architectures that operate on nontrivially structured data (such as graphs), and their applications in algorithmic reasoning and computational biology. He has published relevant research in these areas at both machine learning venues (NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML-W) and biomedical venues and journals (Bioinformatics, PLOS One, JCB, PervasiveHealth). In particular, he is the first author of Graph Attention Networks—a popular convolutional layer for graphs—and Deep Graph Infomax—a scalable local/global unsupervised learning pipeline for graphs (featured in ZDNet). Further, his research has been used in substantially improving the travel-time predictions in Google Maps (covered by outlets including the CNBC, Endgadget, VentureBeat, CNET, the Verge and ZDNet).

Ip-Shing Fan, Cranfield University, UK

Dr Ip-Shing Fan is a Senior Lecturer in Enterprise Systems at Cranfield University, leading Digital MRO in DARTeC, supporting aviation transformation in operations and maintenance. He is leading the Digital MRO and Hangar laboratories in the Cranfield DARTeC Initiative. The complex is a realistic representation of airport ramp and hangar environment to study the interactions between aircraft, engineers, airport and hangar facilities, ground vehicles and drones. The digital infrastructure support aircraft digital twins work to maintain the accurate configuration in the information world of airworthiness, as the engineering health status of the aircraft structure and systems to predict and prevent failures. Dr Ip-Shing Fan led many European and UK funded research programmes to create new tools and methods in knowledge-based engineering design, business performance, quality management, supply chain, and complexity science. LinkedIn

Danko Nikolić, Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Germany

Danko is an expert in both brain research and AI. For many years he has run an electrophysiology lab at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research. Also, he is an AI and machine learning professional heading a Data Science team and developing commercial solutions founded in AI technology. He has a degree in Psychology and Civil Engineering from the University of Zagreb, Croatia. He obtained his PhD at the University of Oklahoma, USA. Personal website. LinkedIn

Miloš Manić, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA

Dr. Manic is a Professor with the Computer Science Department and Director of VCU Cybersecurity Center at Virginia Commonwealth University. He completed over 40 research grants in data mining and machine learning applied to cyber security, critical infrastructure protection, energy security, and resilient intelligent control. Dr. Manic has given over 40 invited talks around the world, authored over 200 refereed articles in international journals, books, and conferences, holds several U.S. patents and has won 2018 R&D 100 Award for Autonomic Intelligent Cyber Sensor (AICS), one of top 100 science and technology worldwide innovations in 2018. He is an inductee of US National Academy of Inventors (class of 2019) and a Fellow of Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (specialty in AI & Cybersecurity). He is an IEEE Fellow, recipient of IEEE IES 2019 Anthony J.Hornfeck Service Award, 2012 J. David Irwin Early Career Award, 2017 IEM Best Paper Award and serves as an associate editor of Transactions on Industrial Informatics, Open Journal of Industrial Electronics Society, and is IES Officer and Senior AdCom member. He served as associate editor of Trans. on Industrial Electronics, was a founding chair of IEEE IES Technical Committee on Resilience and Security in Industry, and general chair of IEEE IECON 2018, IEEE HSI 2019.

David Romero, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico

Prof. Dr. David Romero is a research-professor of advanced, smart manufacturing. His research interests include: circular manufacturing, service and product-service systems engineering, cyber-physical systems and human systems, advanced production management systems, green virtual enterprises, and technology and engineering management in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. He is a member of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) Technical Committee 5.3 on Enterprise Integration and Networking, the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) Working Group 5.7 on Advances in Production Management Systems and Working Group 5.12 on Architectures for Enterprise Integration, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Technology and Engineering Management Society and Internet of Things Community. Furthermore, he is an Agenda Contributor at the World Economic Forum (WEF) Council on “Shaping the Future of Advanced Manufacturing and Production”, and a World Manufacturing Forum (WMF) Ambassador. He has published more than 100 journal and international conference articles. Lastly, he serves at different technical and scientific committees of peer-reviewed international conferences and advisory boards in industry and state and federal governments at the national and international level with a focus on business and industrial engineering. Nowadays is focus on promoting the concepts of the "Operator 4.0" and "Digital Lean Manufacturing".

ICIST Special Tracks

Blockchain Technologies and their applications

Blockchain Technology (BCT) has surpassed its initial application in cryptocurrencies, and now is being used in a wide array of areas. As blockchain creates resilient and tamper-proof distributed records, it has generated much interest in industry and academia alike. The innate properties of immutability and transparency are making BCT a disruptive technology, especially when it comes to applications in healthcare, supply chain management, financial and public sectors, and many others. In addition, BCT has an important role in decentralization in the fields of the Internet of Things, Cyber-Physical Systems, Fog/Edge Computing, next-gen wireless communications, as well as many more fields.

The goal of this special track is to promote community-wide discussion identifying the applications, technologies, as well as theories for BCT. Authors are encouraged to submit papers on topic relevant to this session that include, but are not limited to the following:

Theories of blockchain and distributed ledger technology
Protocols and algorithms based on BCT
BCT in the Internet of Things (IoT)
BCT in Healthcare
BCT in Financial Tech
BCT in Supply Chain Management
BCT in agriculture
BCT in cloud/fog/edge computing
BCT in next-gen communications and networks
BCT in the Public Sector

Co-chairs:

Zdravković, Nemanja (nemanja.zdravkovic@metropolitan.ac.rs). Faculty of Information Technology, Metropolitan University, Belgrade, Serbia

ICIST Special Tracks

ICT for health, well-being and sport

One of the greatest social challenges today is addressing many different concerns and issues related to healthcare and well-being. These challenges include, but are not restricted to, improving the understanding of the causes and mechanisms connected to health; ability to monitor, prevent, detect, and treat disease; personalize health and care delivery. For addressing such challenges, a new approach is needed, which will transform the health and care delivery. This approach is proactive rather than reactive. Healthcare should evolve mechanisms for early risk detection, shifting from the acute treatment to long-term health monitoring. Instead of focusing on single disease treatment, healthcare systems should become capable of handling multiple chronic conditions and comorbidities at the same time. Care delivery should become pervasive, not exclusively institutional. Finally, the generic treatment approach should be abandoned, and care should become more personalized.

Although health is an important, if not necessary, component of well-being, physical activities such as recreation and sports are a good way to maintain and improve it. With the rapid advancement and affordability of miniature, wearable sensor devices, new approaches to quantifying and qualifying our physical activities are possible. For example, innovative applications based on sensor data will contribute to faster, cheaper and safer physical rehabilitation programs, personalized recreational plans, and in-depth analysis of athletes' performance in different sports.

Advanced ICT technologies will play a crucial role in this transformation. Health-related data will grow and will have accurate and useful digital representations. Predictive computing, used by the care providers and customers, will use health-related data to facilitate early risk detection and self-management of health and disease. Health systems will become interoperable. Robotic systems, driven by artificial intelligence will enable assisted living, in smart, age-friendly homes. Biofeedback applications in healthcare, sport, recreation, and rehabilitation will enable an easier and faster way to achieving the desired results. They will assist individuals, healthcare personnel, and trainers in many ways; from influencing the physiological processes in the human body, to motor learning in sports and rehabilitation.

With this session, we aim to uncover the current research in the above mentioned topics and topics closely related to them. All relevant contributions are strongly welcomed.

Co-chairs:

Trajanović, Miroslav (traja@masfak.ni.ac.rs). Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Niš, Niš, Serbia
Kos, Anton (anton.kos@fe.uni-lj.si). Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Canciglieri Jr., Osiris (osiris.canciglieri@pucpr.br). Pontifical Catholic University of Parana – PUCPR / PPGEPS, Curitiba, Brasil

ICIST Special Tracks

AI techniques for the future cyber-physical enterprise

The cyber-physical enterprise is a digital business innovation concept making Internet of Things, Service Oriented Architectures and Advanced Human Computer Interactions converge for increased awareness of one enterprise business ecosystem and more agile, flexible, and proactive management of unexpected events in the global value networks of today. In essence, it concerns the adoption of Future Internet technologies in the frame of the Factory of the Future paradigm, for the virtual enterprise and its value network. Translating the same concept to production systems in manufacturing enterprises, and moreover to smart systems in general (smart manufacturing, smart cities, smart logistics …), the capability of the next generation systems to sense, model and interpret the signals from the real world is a pre-requisite for a more flexible and agile reconfiguration of those smart systems. Intuitively, a sensing system requires resources and machineries to be constantly monitored, configured, and easily interacted by blue collar workers. All these functions, and much more, are now facilitated by so-called Cyber Physical Systems (CPS). Cyber-physical systems (CPS) enable the physical world to merge with the virtual one, leading to the Internet of things, data and services. One example of CPS is an intelligent manufacturing line, where the machine can perform many work processes by communicating with the components. Using sensors, the embedded systems monitor and collect data from physical processes, like steering of a vehicle, energy consumption or human health functions. The systems are networked making the data globally available. Cyber-physical systems make it possible for software applications to directly interact with events in the physical world, for example to measure peaks in energy consumption.
Artificial Intelligence techniques are now well-known; their application in the enterprises, and more particularly in the future architecture design of cyber-physical systems and cloud-based systems, will increase globally and will then enable a new generation of industrial organizations to function in an information centric manner. The potential of such technologies in fostering a leaner and more agile approach towards engineering is also very high. Engineers and engineering organizations no longer have to be restricted to the availability of advanced processing capabilities but can adopt a ‘pay as you go’ approach which will enable them to access and use software resources for engineering activities from any remote location in the world.

The topics of interest of this track include, but are not limited to:

AI-enabled Cyber-Physical Systems
AI techniques applicable to the whole enterprises
Machine Leaning vs. ontology-based knowledge analysis
Industrial Internet-of-Thing (IIOT)
Industrial information in Cyber-Physical Systems
AI-based CPS for Control in Smart Cities Systems/Transportation/Energy/Water
AI in the Industry 4.0
AI-enhanced sensing and Smart Enterprises/Manufacturing Systems
Ontology-based models for CPS/IIOT
CPS for Future Internet Enterprise Systems
Cloud-based CPS

The track chairs invite scientists, engineers and decision makers from government, industry, and academia to contribute with theoretical and applied research papers. We welcome submission of extended abstracts presenting original unpublished work, which is not been submitted for publication elsewhere. Initial submissions must comply to the specific requirements that you can find on the conference web site.

Best papers from this track presented at the conference will be invited to be extended and submitted to a special issue of the Journal of Industrial Information Integration (JIII), Elsevier (I.F.10.615).

The track is supported by the IFAC TC 5.3 Integration and Interoperability of Enterprise Systems (I2ES).

Co-chairs:

Panetto, Hervé (herve.panetto@univ-lorraine.fr). Research Center for Automatic Control of Nancy (CRAN), Université de Lorraine, Nancy, France
Weichhart, Georg (georg.weichhart@primetals.com). Primetals, , Austria
Zdravković, Milan (milan.zdravkovic@gmail.com). Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Niš, Niš, Serbia

ICIST 2021 Committees

Organizing Committee (OC) is in charge for the organization of the conference. All decisions related to the scientific programme are made by the International Programme Committee (IPC), based on the peer review process, coordinated by the IPC co-chairs. Track chairs are in charge of setting up a scientific programme in the specific topics, which are decided upon based on the submitted track proposals.