Special Issue on RFID Technology, Systems, and Applications Journal of Network and Computer Applications http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jnca Guest Editors Michael Sheng, Sherali Zeadally, Katerina Mitrokotsa, Zakaria Maamar 1. Scope Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has been around for more than half a century. It is only in recent years that this technology has begun to attract a lot of attention, due to the convergence of lower cost and increased capabilities of RFID tags. Currently, RFID is emerging as an important technology for revolutionizing a wide range of applications including supply chain management, retail, anti-counterfeiting, baggage handling, and healthcare. Many organizations are planning or have already exploited RFID in their main operations to take advantage of the potential of more automation, efficient business processes, and inventory visibility. While RFID provides promising benefits such as inventory visibility and business process automation, significant challenges on information systems and technologies need to be overcome before these benefits can be realized. This special issue will present the latest developments, trends, industrial applications, and research challenges for RFID technology. This issue will explore how organizations can gain competitive advantages by applying RFID technology in real-world settings. Submissions on studies which demonstrate RFID techniques for specific application problems are encouraged. Survey articles that emphasize research and application in a particular RFID domain are welcomed. Research areas of relevance would therefore include, but not only limited to, the following topics: • Data management issues in RFID applications • RFID and physical user interfaces • Security/privacy and RFID • RFID and sensor networks • Web services and RFID • RFID case studies, field trials, industrial applications • RFID middleware and Integration of RFID with other applications • Next generation RFID technologies and RFID standards • Commercial experience with RFID • RFID network management • COTS and Open Source RFID infrastructure • Performance evaluation of RFID systems and applications 2. Important Dates Paper submission due: 31 Oct 2009 1st round review due: 30 Dec 2009 Revision due: 28 Feb 2010 Final decision: 15 Mar 2010 Paper publication: Third Quarter 2010 3. Submission The submitted papers must be written in English and describe original research which is not published nor currently under review by other journals or conferences. Author guidelines for preparation of manuscript can be found at www.elsevier.com/locate/jnca. All manuscripts and any supplementary material should be submitted through Elsevier Editorial System (EES). The authors must select “SI: RFID – Zeadally” when they reach the “Article Type” step in the submission process. The EES website is located at http://ees.elsevier.com/jnca/. For more information, please contact the Editorin-Chief, Mohammed Atiquzzaman (atiq@ou.edu). 4. Guest Editors Dr. Michael Sheng School of Computer Science The University of Adelaide Adelaide, SA 5005 Australia Email: qsheng@cs.adelaide.edu.au Dr. Sherali Zeadally Department of Computer Science and Information Technology University of the District of Columbia Washington, DC 20008 USA E-mail: szeadally@udc.edu Dr Katerina Mitrokotsa Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science Delft University of Technology The Netherlands Email: A.Mitrokotsa@TUDeldt.nl Dr. Zakaria Maamar College of Information Technology Zayed University P.O. Box 19282, Dubai U.A.E Email: zakaria.maamar@zu.ac.ae