********** ACM-SAC'04-COMPAHEC'04: CFPapers & Referees **********

(Apologies if you receive multiple copies)

CALL FOR PAPERS AND REFEREES
============================

Special Track on "Computer Applications in Health Care" (COMPAHEC 2004)

Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC 2004)

March 14 to 17, 2004, Nicosia, Cyprus

http://webepcc.unex.es/vmasero/compahec/compahec04

http://www.acm.org/conferences/sac/sac2004 (Technical Tracks)


SAC '04:
~~~~~~~

For the past eighteen years, the ACM Symposium on Applied Computing
(SAC) has been a primary gathering forum for applied computer scientists,
biological sciences, and application developers from around the world to
interact and present their work. SAC 2004 is sponsored by the ACM Special
Interest Group on Applied Computing (SIGAPP). Its proceedings are
published by ACM in both printed form and CD-ROM. They are also available
on the web through ACM Digital Library. More information about SIGAPP and
past SACs can be found at http://www.acm.org/sigapp. For additional
information about SAC 2004, please check the web page:
http://www.acm.org/conferences/sac/sac2004.

Authors are invited to contribute original papers in all areas of experimental
computing and application development for the technical sessions.

Special Track on "Computer Applications in Health Care" (COMPAHEC
2004):
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have
provided the tools and the environment to study, analyze, and better
understand complex medical problems. This technological development has
enabled researchers to provide increasingly advanced services, including
Computer Assisted Radiology, Telemedicine, Robotized Teleoperating
Systems, etc.

In recent years, research in Computer Applications applied to Health Care
has dramatically intensified. The Track "Computer Applications in Health
Care" in SAC 2004 aims to provide a platform for researchers to present and
discuss recent breakthroughs in this area.

Major topics of interest include the following in the context of Health Care.
This is not an exhaustive list:

· Programming methodologies in applications for health care including object
oriented, subject oriented, component oriented, aspect oriented, agent
oriented, genetic and evolutionary programming, fuzzy programming and hyb
rid paradigms.

· Theoretical aspects of computer programming with a clear practical potential
in applying the results to health care.

· Computer applications for medical imaging: Computer applications of medical
image segmentation, Computer applications for 3D reconstruction in medical
imaging, Computer Graphics, etc.

· Web programming and engineering involving health care applications.

· Knowledge recovery in databases, including data mining and methods such as
clustering, classification, Bayesian networks and association rules.

· Computer applications for telemedicine and telecare applications.
Methodologies for e-health, telehealth and knowledge management integration in
intranets and the Internet. Computer applications for teleteaching of heal
th care.

· Artificial Intelligence in health care.

· Decision support systems, including knowledge based systems, belief networks,
statistical models, fuzzy models, evolutionary programming, hybrid systems, and
intelligent agents.

· Evidence-based health care including computer assisted diagnosis and
prognosis, risk analysis, example-based learning, problem-based learning and
case-based reasoning.

· Human-computer interaction including human factors, cognitive modeling,
problem solving strategies, linguistic comprehension, user interface design,
direct manipulation techniques and virtual reality.

· Health care information systems and groupware, including computerized patient
records, survey applications in health care specialties, decision support
systems, clinical information system design architectures and elect
ronic document interchange and computer-supported collaborative work.

· Theoretical or practical ICT applications involving health care.

· Computer applications for medical informatics.

· Any other computer application in health care.


TRACK ORGANIZER AND CHAIR
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Valentin Masero
Computer Science Department
University of Extremadura
Escuela Politecnica
Campus Universitario. Avda. Universidad, s/n
10.071 Caceres (Spain)
e-mail: vmasero@unex.es


PAPERS
~~~~~~

Authors are invited to submit original papers in all areas of experimental
computing and application development relevant to the themes of the track.

Submissions fall into the following categories:

· Original and unpublished research work

· Reports of innovative computing applications in the sciences, and engineering
areas of Health Care

· Reports of successful technology transfer to new problem domains

· Reports of industrial experience and demos of new innovative systems

Peer groups with expertise in the track focus areas will blindly review
submissions to this track. Papers will be selected based on their originality,
timeliness, significance, relevance and clarity of presentation. The a
ccepted papers in all categories will be published in the ACM Press SAC 2004
proceedings. Expanded versions of selected papers from all categories will be
considered for publication in the ACM/SIGAPP Applied Computing Rev
iew (SIGAPP ACR). In addition, it is being examined the possibility of
organizing Special Issues in journals related to the themes of the track. These
Special Issues will include a collection of the best papers accepted i
n the track.

A set of selected papers, which did not get accepted as full papers, will be
accepted as poster papers and will be published as extended 2-page abstracts in
the symposium proceedings.

Please note that we are not soliciting for just poster papers. We will select
the poster papers from the submitted pool of reviewed, regular papers.

Paper submissions should be sent to the Track Chair. Papers spanning more than
one track should be mailed to the Program Chairs. For more information please
visit the SAC 2004 website.

PAPER SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The following paper submission guidelines must be strictly followed:

1) Submit the original paper to Track Chair (to vmasero@unex.es) .

2) The name(s) and address(es) of the author(s) must not appear in the body of
the paper, and self-reference should be in the third person. This is to
facilitate blind review.

3) The body of the paper should not exceed 4,000 words (approximately 15 pages,
double-spaced, 12-point font size).

4) A separate file containing a cover sheet should include the title of the
paper, a maximum of five keywords selected among the topics of interest of the
track, the name(s), affiliation(s), and address(es), email(s), pho
ne(s) and fax(es) of the AUTHOR(S).

5) In the submission e-mail, please include the title of the paper, a maximum
of five keywords selected among the topics of interest of the track, the name,
affiliation, address, email, phone, and fax of the author who se
rves as the CONTACT PERSON for the paper.

6) Abstract submission must be received by e-mail by Monday September 1, 2003.
Electronic submission is encouraged. Hardcopy and fax submissions will not be
accepted.

7) Paper submission must be received by e-mail by Saturday September 6, 2003.
Electronic submission is encouraged. Hardcopy and fax submissions will not be
accepted.

Referees
~~~~~~~~

The quality of papers in the COMPAHEC 2004 will depend on the willingness of
educators, researchers and others interested in this track to serve as
referees. Papers will be sent shortly after the September 6 submission de
adline. Referee reports must be RECEIVED no later than Thursday, October 9.
Please respond to this Call for Referees before August 20 to indicate your
interest in serving as a referee for the COMPAHEC Track at SAC'04. Ple
ase indicate your Name, Institutional Affiliation, Postal Address, Telephone,
Fax, Email, Webpage, Keywords describing your areas of expertise, List of
related publications in last 2 years and Short CV (up to two pages) w
ith related items. The Track Program Chair address is shown above.


IMPORTANT DUE DATES
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Aug.       20, 2003:    Referee application submission
Sept.       1, 2003:    Abstract submission
Sept.       6, 2003:    Paper submissions  (Firm)
Oct.       18, 2003:    Author notification
Nov.        8, 2003:    Camera-Ready Copy
Mar.    14-17, 2004:    SAC 2004 Conference at Nicosia, Cyprus