Science of Computer Programming
	Special Issue on Memory Management Guest Editor: Richard Jones

Call for contributions

Dynamic memory management accounts for a significant fraction of program execution time, whether explicit memory management or automatic garbage collection is used. Efficient, and correct, implementation is therefore vital. The range of application environments, ranging from heavily multi-threaded servers with multi-gigabyte heaps to small personal devices, combined with the disparity between improvements in processor and memory speeds, continues to throw up new research challenges.

The widespread use of languages such as Java, C#, Perl and Python in substantial applications of commercial import has brought garbage collection into the mainstream: it is more important than ever before. Although the deployment of many of these applications has until recently been largely restricted to servers or web browsers, the advent of managed code in Microsoft's Common Language Infrastructure on the one hand, and the prevalence of Java applications in small devices such as phones on the other, means that garbage-collected applications will become prevalent on the desktop and in the pocket. Nevertheless, garbage collection does not come without cost: explicit memory management continues to be the technique of choice for some environments and applications.

This special issue is dedicated to dynamic memory management including both garbage collection and explicit memory management. It will be published in the journal Science of Computer Programming, which has excellent visibility and high quality standards. We solicit contributions on all areas of memory management, including but not limited to:

• Garbage collection algorithms and implementations.
• Region-based memory management.
• Explicit storage allocation and deallocation.
• Techniques for characterising the dynamic memory behaviour of programs.
• Empirical studies of program's allocation and referencing behaviour.
• Performance evaluation of memory managers.
• Compiler support for dynamic memory management (whether to improve correctness or performance).
• Interactions with languages, operating systems and hardware, especially the memory system.

Deadlines

Deadline for submissions:	[closed]
Author's notification:	Changed September 2005
Special issue's publication:	Spring 2006
Special issue's web site:	http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/~rej/scp/

Submissions

The submissions should be sent in PDF or Postscript to the guest editor via email: R.E.Jones@kent.ac.uk. Extended versions of work previously published in conference proceedings are eligible for submission but authors should make it clear how their submission improves upon the conference publication; in those cases where Elsevier is not the publisher of the original conference proceedings, authors should take care to avoid infringing that publisher's copyright. Authors who wish to discuss potential submissions are encouraged to contact the guest editor.

The Science of Computer Programming journal's policy is neither to impose restrictions in advance on the number of papers nor on their length. However, as the special issue will contain between 90 and 125 pages, it is anticipated that it will contain a mixture of papers of between 15 and 30 pages. The Elsevier-LaTex package, together with instructions on how to prepare a file, is available from the journal's website. Further details of the journal's policies, and its requirements for prospective authors, can be found in the author GATEWAY at the journal's web site http://www.elsevier.com/locate/scico/, or in a recent issue of the journal.