Pervasive computing, often synonymously called ubiquitous computing, is an emerging field of research that brings in revolutionary paradigms for computing models in the 21st century. Tremendous developments in such technologies as wireless communications and networking, mobile computing and handheld devices, embedded systems, wearable computers, sensors, RFID tags, smart spaces, middleware, software agents, and the like, have led to the evolution of pervasive computing platforms as natural successor of mobile computing systems. The goal of pervasive computing is to create ambient intelligence where network devices embedded in the environment provide unobtrusive connectivity and services all the time, thus improving human experience and quality of life without explicit awareness of the underlying communications and computing technologies. In this environment, the world around us (e.g., key chains, coffee mugs, computers, appliances, cars, homes, offices, cities, and the human body) is interconnected as pervasive network of intelligent devices that cooperatively and autonomously collect, process and transport information, in order to adapt to the associated context and activity.

The Pervasive and Mobile Computing Journal (PMC) is a professional, peer-reviewed journal that publishes high-quality scientific articles (both theory and practice) covering all aspects of pervasive computing and communications. Topics include, but not limited to:

• Pervasive/Ubiquitous computing and communications architectures and protocols
• Autonomic computing and communications
• Mobile computing systems and services
• Ambient, invisible, implicit, and adaptive computing
• Mobile grid and peer-to-peer computing
• Algorithmic paradigms, models and analysis of pervasive computing systems
• Smart spaces and intelligent environments
• Enabling technologies (e.g., Bluetooth, BANs, PANs, 802.11 wireless LANs)
• Embedded systems and wearable computers
• Wireless sensors networks and RFID technologies
• Virtual immersion communications
• Multiple inter-connected networking technologies (e.g., cellular, ad hoc, hybrid)
• Positioning and tracking technologies
• Auto-configuration and authentication
• Context-aware computing and location-based services and applications
• Service creation, discovery, management, and delivery mechanisms
• Middleware and agent technologies
• Application layer protocols and services
• Programming paradigms for pervasive and ubiquitous computing applications
• User interfaces and interaction models
• Runtime support for intelligent, adaptive agents
• (Innovative) applications requirements, performance, and benchmarking
• Security, privacy, fault-tolerance and resiliency issues.

Special Issue on Intelligent Cloud-to-Thing continuum in Industrial IoT Scenarios
Submission Date: 2022-12-11

The world is experiencing the latest industrial revolution. The development of pervasive systems and the ubiquitous connectivity has removed the boundaries between the physical and the virtual world allowing the implementation of the Industrial Internet of Things (Industrial IoT). Smart factories can effectively integrate autonomous machines with their business processes in order to exchange the sensed data, trigger actions and coordinate different machines towards a common goal. The new advances in the distribution of the computation (fog, edge and mist computing), the increase in the computing capacities of end devices (UAVs, robots, machines, etc.), the deployment of 5G / 6G networks, the artificial intelligence and the integration of humans-in-the-loop predict a bright future for Industrial IoT.

However, these techniques are still in their infancy. New approaches are needed to identify how to orchestrate and distribute the computing processes and services of each industry in a multilayer computing infrastructure (cloud, fog, edge, or mist), how to intelligently perform that distribution based on the characteristics of the system and state of the network, how this distribution can support the digital twins of an industrial scenario, how to also integrate intelligence at the edge of the network to improve the decision making process, and how to integrate humans and their context into the production processes to adapt them to their needs. The application of these techniques should be specially driven by the Quality of Service of the industry and by the final benefits obtained and perceived by humans.

This special issue is focused on the integration of the Cloud-to-Thing continuum, Artificial Intelligence techniques and the Human-In-The-Loop paradigm for building effective and efficient Industrial IoT systems. The topics relevant to this special issue include but are not limited to