International Journal of Performability Engineering likes to keep its readers well-informed about the latest developments and trends taking place around the world in the area of performability engineering by inviting experts, specialists, and leading researchers to contribute to Special Issues of IJPE on topical concern related to performability engineering. In this section, we present the information about the special issues that have been already brought out as well the special issues that are due to appear in future. Further suggestions are welcome from the scientific community.

Summary of Special Issues Published

Summary of Special Issues Planned for Future

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Special Issue on

Performance and Dependability Modeling of Dynamic Systems

System modeling is a crucial and essential part when designing modern systems, which aims to predict systems' behavior before their implementation. Performance and dependability are typical measures of interest and their evaluation is considered as an art usually supported by powerful modeling tools and sophisticated methodologies. Service based architectures, Cloud computing, wireless and networked systems are only some of the fields of interest, that very often need to be evaluated all together looking for performance and dependability indexes and their correlation to SLA and QoS parameters.

The aim of this special issue is to discuss novel ideas, methods, algorithms, and software tools for in-depth studies of dynamic aspects of dependable fault-tolerant systems. Any contribution related to qualitative and quantitative evaluation is welcome. The main topics include, but are not limited to:

• Dependability assessment of fault-tolerant systems including dynamic aspects and behaviors
• Non-Boolean components and basic events, including components with different failure modes (transient, permanent, ...)
• Non-Boolean system structures including dynamic, reconfigurable systems and gracefully degradable systems
• Interrelation between faults and failures including dependent, on-demand, cascading and common cause failures and events
• Dynamic redundancy schemes including load sharing, cold and warm standby, imperfect fault detection and localization, as well as the impact of non-zero reconfiguration times
• Corrective and preventive maintenance policies, including minimal repair, finite/limited repair facilities and corresponding strategies
• Varying failure rates, including ageing effects and reliability growth models
• Human factor and human reliability
• Non-coherent structures and systems, multi-valued systems and phased mission systems
• Extensions to classic modeling approaches (combinational, state-based, and simulation) including Markovian and non-Markovian techniques, Petri nets, process algebras, and simulation
• High-level and application-oriented modeling techniques and tools
• On-line evaluation techniques and tools for adaptive systems
• Collection and analysis of statistical data, computer tools for statistical analysis of data on reliability, heuristics
• Approximation techniques and tools
• Meta-heuristic approaches (genetic algorithms, fuzzy logic, neural networks, simulated annealing, Bayesian networks, ...)
• Importance and sensitivity analysis
• Application of performance and dependability analysis to real case studies
• Modeling tools for performance and dependability modeling
   

Important Dates:

All manuscript should be submitted electronically to the Special Issue Editors using email address, viz., sdistefano@unime.it  with a cc to apuliafito@unime.it and kst@ee.duke.edu. All submissions will be refereed through an IJPE standard peer review process. Authors should follow the general submission guidelines for preparing the manuscript found at publisher's web site http://ijpe-online.com. Papers submitted conforming to the IJPE format will save time in processing. Papers published in IJPE are covered by several databases including SCOPUS (Elsevier). All authors of accepted papers shall be provided with a complimentary copy of journal when published.

Guest Editors:

Salvatore Distefano¹, Antonio Puliafito¹, Kishor S. Trivedi²

Special Issue on

e-Maintenance

An effective and efficient maintenance process is highly dependent on availability of accurate and just-in-time information. When dealing with information accuracy aspects of data quality, ontology, safety, security, risk management and data validity are important. Simultaneously, in provision of just-in-time information the aspects related to information logistics are essential, e.g., architecture, infrastructure and content structure. In the context of maintenance, eMaintenance refers to solutions aimed for management and performing maintenance through enhanced utilization of information and real data regarding condition and physical state of the systems and component for decision making.  The benefits of eMaintenance are, obviously, reflected in an organization's overall performance and effectiveness. Today, establishment of eMaintenance solutions can be considered as a fusion of various technologies and methodologies. Hence, it faces a number of challenges and issues related to wide domain of disciplines.

The purpose of this special issue is to provide an impetus to research efforts on the topic covering both theoretical and applied research that will contribute towards understanding the strategic role of eMaintenance in management and performance of operation and maintenance of complex systems. The following topics are of special interest, but not limited to:

• eMaintenance concepts and frameworks
• eMaintenance for diagnosis and prognosis
• eMaintenance and information logistics
• eMaintenance solutions for Logistic Based Performance (LBP)
• eMaintenance solutions for Integrated Logistics Support (ILS)
• eMaintenance data warehousing and data mining
• eMaintenance architecture
• eMaintenance solutions No Fault Found (NFF)
• eMaintenance and embedded technologies
• eMaintenance solutions for estimation of Remaining Useful Life (RUL)
• eMaintenance and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

Important Dates:

Deadline for submission of full paper:  October 15, 2010.
Notification of acceptance:  January 15, 2011.
Final Submission:  February 15, 2011.
Expected date of publication of special issue:  March, 2011.

All manuscript should be submitted electronically to the Special Issue Editor using email address, viz., uday.kumar@ltu.se with a cc to kbmisra@IJPE-Online.com. All submissions will be refereed through a IJPE standard peer review process.

Authors should follow the general submission guidelines for preparing the manuscript found at publisher's web site http://ijpe-online.com/ . Papers submitted in the IJPE format will save time in processing. Papers published in IJPE are covered by several databases including SCOPUS.

Uday Kumar, Ramin Karim, Aditya Parida

Guest Editors,
Division of Operation and Maintenance Engineering
Luleå University of Technology,
SE-971 87 Luleå,
SWEDEN

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Special Issue on

Dependability of Wireless Systems and Networks

Wireless communication technologies are dramatically changing the way in which the world conducts its day to day business. People's daily life is also becoming more and more dependent on wireless and mobile services. At the same time, critical dependability risks and challenges arise for wireless systems and networks because data that is sent over wireless environments could more easily get corrupted and/or compromised due to factors such as channel and user interferences, noises, or malicious attacks, etc. This special issue on Dependability of Wireless Systems and Networks will present current research and application focusing on reliability, safety, and security aspects of wireless communication systems. Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit complete original papers dealing with the following topics (but not limited to):

• Dependability measures of wireless systems
• Reliability modeling, analysis, optimization
• Safety modeling, analysis, optimization
• Fault tolerance, error control codes
• Intrusion detection and tolerance, encryption algorithms
• Wireless device security and threat countermeasure
• Application: case studies and prototypes relevant to reliability, safety, or security.

Paper Submission Guidelines

The intending authors can send their papers to Liudong Xing (lxing@umassd.edu) electronically in MS Word format preferably with maximum length of the paper not more than 10 printed pages. To conform to this guideline, please use the following page setup: Paper size A4 (8.27" x 11.69") with margins set as: Top- 2.8", Bottom-1.2", Left- 1.63", Right-1.6" as the journal size is (7"x 9.5").

Important Dates:

• Paper abstract deadline: October 1, 2010
• Paper submission deadline: November 1, 2010  
• Paper reviews returned to the authors: January 15, 2011
• Final version of the papers from authors: February 15, 2011
• Planned issue of publication: May/July 2011

Please contact the Guest Editors of the Special Issue:

Prof. Liudong Xing, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, MA 02747, USA
Email: lxing@umassd.edu

Prof. Suresh Rai, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA
Email: srai@lsu.edu

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Past Special Issues of 2009

Past Special Issues of 2008

Past Special Issues of 2007

Past Special Issues of 2006