Call for papers

Sixteenth ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (PODC '97)

Santa Barbara CA, USA, Aug 21-24, 1997

Click here to get a postscript copy of the call for papers.
Click here to find out more about electronic submissions to PODC.

Scope and format

Research contributions to the theory, design, specification, implementation or application of distributed systems are solicited. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
Distributed algorithms and complexity
communication networks---protocols and architectures
cryptographic and security protocols
multiprocessor algorithms and architectures
specification, semantics and verification
fault tolerance
distributed applications and paradigms
distributed operating systems
concurrency control and synchronization
distributed systems management
environments for developing distributed applications
The conference will consist of two tracks of presentations. Regular presentations of approximately 25 minutes will be accompanied by papers of up to 10 pages in the proceedings. This track is intended for contributions reporting on original research, submitted exclusively to this conference. Brief Announcements will be given slots of less than 10 minutes and will be accompanied by 1-page abstracts in the proceedings. This track is a forum for brief communications, which may be published elsewhere (including in other conferences). Longer versions expanding the brief announcements will be collected at a public WWW site.

Submissions

A submission for the regular presentation track should be in the form of an extended abstract that provides sufficient detail to allow the program committee to assess the merits of the paper. It should include appropriate references and comparisons to related work. It is recommended that each submission begin with a succinct statement of the problem, a summary of the main results, and a brief explanation of their significance, all suitable for a non-specialist. Technical development of the work, directed to the specialist, should follow. Submitted abstracts should be no longer than 4,500 words (roughly 10 pages on letter-size paper using at least 11-point font and reasonable margins). If the authors believe that more details are essential to substantiate the main claims of the paper, they may include a clearly marked appendix that will be read at the discretion of the program committee. Extended abstracts deviating significantly from these guidelines risk rejection without consideration of their merits.

A submission for the brief announcement track should be in the form of a three page abstract, that includes a statement of the problem, the results, their implications and relation to other work. These submissions will be screened by the program committee based on their interest to the PODC community. Authors of accepted brief announcements will be asked to submit a full version of their work to be placed on a public WWW site.

If requested by the authors in the cover letter, an extended abstract that is not selected for a long presentation will also be considered for the brief announcement track. Such a request will not affect the chances of the paper being accepted in the long presentation track.

Authors are encouraged to submit their extended abstracts and brief announcements electronically (click here to find out more). Authors unable to submit electronically are invited to send 14 copies of an abstract and a cover letter to the program chair:

Individuals with no access to manuscript reproduction facilities may submit a single copy. Extended abstracts should be printed double-sided, if possible. The cover letter should identify the contact author, provide her or his postal and e-mail address, and indicate the track(s) to which the paper is submitted.

Important dates

To be considered by the committee, abstracts must be received by 23:59 EST January 24, 1997 or sent by airmail and postmarked before January 17, 1997. This is a firm deadline. Acceptance or rejection notifications will be sent by April 20, 1997. Camera-ready versions of accepted papers and short abstracts will be due May 23, 1997.

Best student paper award

A prize will be given to the best student paper. A paper is eligible if at least one of its authors is a full-time student at the time of submission. This must be indicated in the cover letter. The program committee may decline to make the award or split it among several papers.

Program committee

James Aspnes (Yale, electronic submissions)
Hagit Attiya (Technion, chair)
Tushar Deepak Chandra (IBM T. J. Watson research center, publicity)
Shlomi Dolev (Ben-Gurion University)
Oded Goldreich (Weizmann Institute)
Amir Herzberg (IBM Research, Tel-Aviv)
Bengt Jonsson (Uppsala University)
Michael Merritt (AT&T Labs -- Research)
Boaz Patt-Shamir (Northeastern)
Amir Pnueli (Weizmann Institute)
Robbert van Renesse (Cornell University)
Michael L. Scott (University of Rochester)
Jennifer Welch (Texas A&M University).

Conference chair: James E. Burns (Bellcore)
Treasurer: Brian Coan (Bellcore)
Steering committee: Vassos Hadzilacos (University of Toronto), Maurice Herlihy (Brown University, chair), and Yoram Moses (Weizmann Institute).
Local arrangements: Ambuj Singh and Jerry James (UC Santa Barbara)

Maintained by tushar@watson.ibm.com