ERCIM News No. 137 (April 2024)

DEADLINE FOR CONTRIBUTIONS: Tuesday 27 February 2024

Please read the guidelines below before submitting an article.

A Word template for ERCIM News articles is available for download.


The sections of ERCIM News 137 are :

  • Joint ERCIM Actions
  • Special Theme: Extended Reality
  • Research and Innovation
  • Events
  • In Brief

The Special Theme and the Research and Innovation sections contain articles presenting a panorama of European research activities. The Special Theme focuses on a sector that has been selected by the editors from a short list of currently "hot" topics whereas the Research and Innovation section contains articles describing scientific activities, research results, and technical transfer endeavours in any sector of Information and Communication Science and Technology (ICST), telecommunications or applied mathematics. Submissions to the Special Theme section are subjected to an external review process coordinated by invited guest editors whereas submissions to the Research and Innovation section are checked and approved by the ERCIM News editorial board.

Special Theme: Extended Reality

Guest editors: Ioannis Chatzigiannakis (Sapienza Unversità di Roma), Holger Graf (Fraunhofer IGD), Manos Kamarianakis (University of Crete) and Aris Lalos (Industrial Systems Institute)

Extended Reality (XR), which includes Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality (VR/AR/MR), is advancing rapidly due to breakthroughs in research and enhanced computing power, especially in mobile devices. This progress has broadened XR's applications beyond traditional domains like gaming and entertainment to include fields such as engineering, medicine, cultural heritage, tourism, and e-commerce. The development of XR technologies is now more accessible thanks to sophisticated software tools, enabling both individual developers and small teams to contribute to its growth. Recent sophisticated AI technologies leverage XR experiences to yet another level.

This special theme centers on XR technologies to improve human-machine interactions in dynamic environments. It emphasizes the importance of situational awareness in contexts such as manufacturing, transportation, and healthcare, where understanding the environment and team dynamics is crucial as well as on newest developments that uses AI to automatise tasks in modelling, scene understanding and environment perception for advanced XR experiences. The goal is to present innovation and implementation strategies that enhance the collaboration between humans and intelligent machines through innovative XR User Interfaces, thereby increasing safety, efficiency, and performance in various collaborative settings.

Relevant topics for submissions include:

  • Immersive Healthcare Experiences
  • AI-driven XR Environments
  • Collaborative Education in XR Environments
  • XR and 5G Synergy
  • Extended Reality for Remote Work & Collaboration
  • Serious Games Integration in XR (including Storytelling)
  • XR for Skill Development in Various Industries
  • Human-Computer Interaction in XR
  • XR for Cultural Heritage
  • XR for Industrial Domains (Aerospace, AEC, Automobile, etc.)
  • Digital Twins for/within XR Environments
  • XR Toolkits, APIs, and Frameworks for (Semi-)Immersive (including Web) Environments
  • Software Architectures for Scalable Industrial 3D Data Empowering XR Environments ("Any Data, Any Platform, Any Time")
    • Cloud-based Rendering, Virtual Worlds, and XR Multiverses
    • Streaming Technologies for Interactive 3D/XR Data
    • XR Multiverses for Shopfloor or Production Environments
  • Collaborative XR Environments
  • New Lightweight multisensory Head-Bound XR Devices
  • Interoperability of XR Content and Data
  • Standardisation of XR Content and Data
  • Scene Understanding and Automatic XR Content Generation
  • XR Empowered Visual Assembly, Integration, and Verification (AI&V) Systems
  • XR Based Visual Inspection Systems.

All articles have to be sent to the local editor for your country (see About ERCIM News) or to the central editor This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Reviewing:
Articles submitted to the special theme and the research and society sections are subject to a review process.


Guidelines for ERCIM News articles

Style: ERCIM News is read by a large variety of people. Keeping this in mind the article should be descriptive (emphasize more the 'what' than the 'how') without too much technical detail together with an illustration, if possible.

Contributions in ERCIM News are normally presented without formulas. One can get a long way with careful phrasing, although it is not always wise to avoid formulas altogether. In cases where authors feel that the use of formulas is necessary to clarify matters, this should be done in a separate box (to be treated as an illustration). However, formulas and symbols scattered through the text must be avoided as much as possible.

Length: Keep the article short, i.e. 800 +/- 100 words.

Format: Submissions preferably in ASCII text or MS Word. Pictures/Illustrations must be submitted as separate files (not embedded in a MS Word file) in a resolution/quality suitable for printing.

Structure of the article:
The emphasis in ERCIM News is on 'NEWS'. This should be reflected in both title and lead ('teaser').
Also: NO REVIEW ARTICLES!

  • Title
  • Author (full name, max. two or three authors)
  • Teaser:
    a few words about the project/topic. Printed in boldface, this part is intended to raise interest (keep it short).
  • Details describing:
    what the project/product is
    which institutions are involved
    where it takes place
    why the research is being done
    when it was started/completed the aim of the project
    the techniques employed
    the orientation of the project
    future activities
    other institutes involved in this project
    co-operation with other ERCIM members in this field
  • References:
    • 1 - max. 3 references are mandatory for special theme articles. For articles for the section "Research and Development", you can give up to three references (not mandatory)
    • Authors should preferably refer to important sources only (i.e. journal papers, books) and avoid meaningless references such as article in preparation, unpublished presentations, personal communications, research reports, patents, or local conference publications not listed in the major scientific digital libraries (such as IEEE, ACM, Springer).
    • The selected EN style is the shortened IEEE Citation Style.
    • The references should be as concise as possible and restricted to the minimal information needed. Avoid all unnecessary words (pages x pp., year, editors, location,...). Use acronyms instead of full conference names - OOPSLA x Object-Oriented Programming Systems, abbreviations (e.g. Conf. x Conference, IEEE TPAMI x IEEE Transaction on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, etc.).
    • Use et al. when three or more names are given.
  • Useful Link(s) (URLs separated from the references)
  • Contact address with:
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    - phone number
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    ERCIM News is a full-color print magazine. Each article should be accompanied by an illustration (photos, graphics), for example of the product, applications mentioned in the article, people working on the project, etc. (avoid as much as possible flow charts and screen dumps).
    Photos should be submitted in jpg or tiff format in a resolution suitable for printing (pictures taken from the web are usually in a quality suitable for printing), graphics in a vector format (svg, eps, pdf).

A Word template for ERCIM News articles is available for download.

Publishing in ERCIM News offers several advantages:

  • ERCIM News represents an excellent opportunity to present your research to a broad audience, also outside your own research community
  • ERCIM News is published in print and online and reaches about 10,000 readers
  • ERCIM News is widely distributed in the European Commission
  • ERCIM offers a free professional proof-reading service
  • Authors can reuse their articles; the copyright of the articles remains with the authors.
  • Articles of the sections "Special Theme" and "Research and Innovation" are referenced by DBLP and by Web of Science (from issue 104 onwards)