Managing ubiquitous communications and services 2014

Ubiquitous Communications and Services, being part of pervasive computing and smart space applications, present a set of important management challenges for the successful delivery of highly adaptive services across heterogeneous (mobile, ad hoc, opportunistic, sensor) networks, middleware, applications, and devices. Such challenges include: managing user-centric services and context services, extreme distribution and scalability, extensive system and network and semantic heterogeneity, ad-hoc formation and disassociation of systems and services, and intelligent support for user centric applications. Today’s management systems need to keep pace with the complexity, heterogeneity, and automation required by the pervasive computing vision. The MUCS workshop series builds up synergies between the domains of Ubiquitous Computing and Communications Management, providing a forum for researchers and practitioners to explore the theoretical, technological, and organisational challenges, and to present advances in management techniques and technologies, for pervasive computing and smart space applications. MUCS 2014 provided a single-track scientific program comprising a keynote presentation, peer-reviewed papers, and a panel discussion addressing ubiquitous communications and services for smart cities. The key topics in the workshop covered the areas of context management and inference, context-aware service and performance, personalization and privacy in social networks, semantics of applications in home management, sensor systems, and the power grid. These topics provide both a unique insight into the current state of the art in management of ubiquitous communications and services and suggest avenues for future research in this area. The keynote for MUCS 2014 was given by Prof. Alex Galis, University College London, on a perfectly well fitting topic termed “Software Defined Systems for Management of Ubiquitous Communications and Services – How and What to Virtualize and Programme”, which discussed the challenges inherent in the ossification of Telecom Networks and Computing Clouds to develop and deploy, flexibly, any innovative network, services and management functionalities, being essential for benefits from the increasing dynamicity of the ubiquitous ICT markets. The 11th International Workshop on Managing Ubiquitous Communications and Services (MUCS 2014) was held in Budapest, Hungary, March 28, 2014, in conjunction with the 12th Annual IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications (PerCom 2014).