Position and Communication Papers of the 16th Conference on Computer Science and Intelligence Systems

Dear Reader, it is our pleasure to present to you Position and Communication Papers of the 16th Conference on Computer Science and Intelligence Systems (FedCSIS’2021), which took place, fully remotely, on September 2-4, 2021. Conference was originally planned to take place in Sofia, Bulgaria, but the global COVID-19 pandemics forced us to adapt and organize the conference online.

Before proceeding further, let us share a very important information. In June 2021 FedCSIS conference series has been ranked B in the CORE ranking system. This constitutes a major achievement for the series. This is particularly valuable achievement since the series was not ranked before. We would like to thank prof. Paweł Sitek for leading our efforts and preparing all necessary documentation.

Position papers comprise two categories of contributions: challenge papers and emerging research papers. Challenge papers propose and describe research challenges in theory or practice of computer science and information systems. Papers in this category are based on deep understanding of existing research, or industrial problems. Based on such understanding and experience, they define new exciting research directions and show why these directions are crucial to the society at large. Emerging research papers present preliminary research results from work-in-progress, based on sound scientific approach but presenting work not completely validated as yet. They precisely describe the research problem and its rationale. They also define the intended future work including the expected benefits from solution to the tackled problem. Subsequently, they may be more conceptual than experimental.

The communication papers were introduced in 2017 as a separate category of contributions. They report on research topics worthy of immediate communication. They may be used to mark a hot new research territory, or to describe work in progress in order to quickly present it to scientific community. They may also contain additional information omitted from the earlier papers or may present software tools and products in a research state.

FedCSIS’2021 was chaired by prof. Stefka Fidanova, while dr. Nina Dobrinkova acted as the Chair of the Organizing Committee. This year, the FedCSIS was organized by the Polish Information Processing Society (Mazovia Chapter), IEEE Poland Section Computer Society Chapter, Systems Research Institute Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw University of Technology, Wrocław University of Economics and Business, and Institute of Information and Communication Technologies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

FedCSIS’2021 was technically co-sponsored by: IEEE Bulgarian Section, IEEE Poland Section, IEEE Czechoslovakia Section Computer Society Chapter, IEEE Poland Section Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society Chapter, IEEE Poland Section Computational Intelligence Society Chapter, IEEE Poland Section Control System Society Chapter, Committee of Computer Science of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Mazovia Cluster ICT, Poland, Eastern Cluster ICT, Poland, and Bulgarian Section of SIAM.

We also glad to announce that this year (and we believe that in future also) the FedCSIS conference formed strategic alliance with QED Software, a Polish software company developing AI-based products.

During FedCSIS’2021, the keynote lectures were delivered by:

• David Bader, Distinguished Professor, New Jersey Institute of Technology: “Solving Global Grand Challenges with High Performance Data Analytics”,
• Rajkumar Buyya, Director, Cloud Computing and Distributed Systems (CLOUDS) Lab, The University of Melbourne, Australia and CEO, Manjrasoft Pvt Ltd, Melbourne, Australia: “Neoteric Frontiers in Cloud and Edge Computing”,
• Hristo Djidjev, Los Alamos National Laboratory: “Using quantum annealing for discrete optimization”,
• Moshe Y Vardi, Professor, Rice University: “Lessons from COVID-19: Efficiency vs Resilience”.

FedCSIS’2021 consisted of five Tracks and one special event for Young Researchers. Within each Track, topical Technical Sessions have been organized. Some of these Technical Sessions have been associated with the FedCSIS conference series for many years, while some of them are relatively new. Their role is to focus and enrich discussions on selected areas pertinent to the general scope of each Track. Here is the list of tracks and topical Technical Sessions organized within their scope.

• Track 1: Artificial Intelligence in Applications (16th Symposium AAIA’21)
  • Computational Optimization (14th International Workshop WCO'21)
• Track 2: Computer Science & Systems (CSS’21)
  • Computer Aspects of Numerical Algorithms (14th Workshop CANA'21)
  • Multimedia Applications and Processing (14th International Symposium MMAP'21)
• Track 3:  Network Systems and Applications (NSA’21)
  • Internet of Things – Enablers, Challenges and Applications (5th Workshop IoT-ECAW’21)
  • Cyber Security, Privacy, and Trust (2nd International Forum NEMESIS'21)
• Track 4: Advances in Information Systems and Technology (AIST’21)
  • Data Science in Health, Ecology and Commerce (3rd Special Session DSH'21)
  • Information Systems Management (16th Conference ISM'21)
  • Knowledge Acquisition and Management (27th Conference KAM’21)
•  Track 5: Software and System Engineering (S3E’21)
  • Cyber-Physical Systems (8th International Workshop IWCPS-8)
  • Software Engineering Workshop (41st IEEE Workshop SEW-41)
• Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity (1st  Young Researchers Workshop YRW'21)

Each paper, found in this volume, was refereed by at least two referees.

The program of FedCSIS required a dedicated effort of many people. We would like to express our warmest gratitude to all Committee members, of each Track and each Technical Session, for their hard work in attracting and later refereeing 129 submissions.

We thank the authors of papers for their great contribution into theory and practice of computing and software systems. We are grateful to the invited speakers for sharing their knowledge and wisdom with the participants.

We hope that you had an inspiring conference. We also hope to meet you again for the 17th Conference on Computer Science and Intelligence Systems (FedCSIS 2022). This time we are almost certain that we will be able to organize the conference on site and will finally reach Sofia, Bulgaria.