The International Symposium on Networks-on-Chip (NOCS) is the premier event dedicated to interdisciplinary research on on-chip, package-scale, and rack-scale communication technology, architecture, design methods, applications and systems. NOCS brings together scientists and engineers working on NoC innovations and applications from inter-related research communities, including discrete optimization and algorithms, computer architecture, networking, circuits and systems, packaging, embedded systems, and design automation

Researchers are invited to submit proposals for Special Sessions and Tutorials for NOCS 2018, to be held October 4-5 in Torino, Italy.

Proposals must be sent via e-mail (either pdf or ascii text) to Prof. Maurizio Palesi (maurizio.palesi@dieei.unict.it) and Prof. Amlan Ganguly (axgeec@rit.edu). All proposals will be evaluated in terms of their novelty, quality and technical/scientific contribution. Sessions strengthening and/or extending the conference program in new directions will be prioritized. The organizing committee reserves the right to refuse proposals in the event of logistic constraints.

## Important Dates
* Special Session proposals due : May 1, 2018
* Acceptance notification : May 15, 2018
* Camera-Ready Paper deadline : June 15, 2018

## Aim and Guidelines
The aim of the special sessions is to provide a complementary flavor and novel perspectives to the regular sessions and can take the form of (1) Panels discussing visionary and/or controversial issues, (2) Hot-Topic Sessions, dealing with the introduction and discussion of new R&D problems, and (3) Tutorial Sessions, addressing trends in the technical domains that are of interest to the conference participants. Topics that introduce new directions and paradigms relevant to the NOCS community are highly encouraged. Special Session proposals should consist of an extended summary of up to 1500 words as a PDF file, describing the session content and format.

Proposals should include:
* Title of the special session
* Rationale of the need for the special session at NOCS. The rationale should stress the novelty of the topic and/or its multidisciplinary flavor, and must explain how it is different from the subjects covered by the regular sessions
* Short biography of the organizers
* List of three (3) contributed presentations (including titles, presenters, contact information of the corresponding presenter, and an abstract of each contribution).
* For panel or tutorial session proposals, list three to five panelists/speakers and their area of expertise. Note that the organizer/submitter of the special session may also be a speaker for the session. In case of acceptance, contributors of accepted Special Sessions will be asked to submit final texts or statements of panelists, as appropriate, for publication in the Proceedings as final, camera-ready manuscripts by August 1, 2018. Panel sessions are entitled to one page per panelist in the Proceedings; Hot-Topic Sessions are allocated a maximum of eight (8) pages per speaker.

For these final, camera-ready manuscripts, the only accepted file format is PDF. All papers should be formatted according the format guidelines described in section Format of Regular Submissions page in NOCS web site.

For the accepted special sessions, it is the responsibility of the Special Session organizer(s) to ensure that the final manuscript submission deadline is met and all the camera-ready manuscripts from their respective Special Sessions are technically sound and meet the editorial standards of the NOCS Proceedings. The Special Session Chair may decline the publication of the final manuscripts in the NOCS Proceedings if the above responsibility is not fulfilled.