Smart Contracts, Blockchain and Rules

Smart Contracts have emerged as means to digitalize and (semi-)automatically enforce (legal) contracts, backed by blockchain technologies --- a set of recent technologies that appeared the first time in the context of the cryptocurrencies bitcoin, but are now being transitioned to different domains. Smart contracts are envisioned to essentially be user-defined programs that specify rules governing transactions, and that are enforced by a distributed network of peers. Traditional rule technologies have a high relevance in the context of Smart Contracts - they can be used for specification, reasoning, and enforcement of smart contracts, among others. At the same time, Smart Contracts represent a potential new application area of traditional rule technologies. The goal of this track is to identify opportunities and challenges for use of rule technologies in Smart Contracts, eventually shaping a better understanding of what Smart Contracts actually are and what they could be used for. During the last years the International Web Rule Symposium (RuleML) has been a leading international conference on research, applications, languages and standards for rule technologies. Due to the relevance of rules in Smart Contracts, it is natural that the emerging area of Smart Contracts finds RuleML a relevant venue for dissemination and that RuleML uses this opportunity to expand the applicability of rule technologies.

Topics (not limited to):

Design of Smart Contracts

Rule-based specification of Smart Contracts

Declarative process specification in Smart Contracts

Formalization of Smart Contracts

Protocols for Smart Contracts

Reasoning about Smart Contracts

Distribution, sharing and publication of Smart Contracts

Deployment and enforcement of Smart Contracts

Programming models for Smart Contracts

Smart Contracts and Blockchains

Smart Contracts and legal rules and regulations

Legal systems, Blockchains, and Smart Contracts

Identity and reputation management in Smart Contracts

Rules and blockchains

Smart Contracts Applications and Use Cases

Smart Contracts technologies (e.g. Ethereum, Eris, Codius, etc.)

RuleML and Smart Contracts

Submission

Papers must be original contributions written in English and must be submitted at http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ruleml2016 (please enter the track name as the first line in the keywords section) as:

• • Full Papers (15 pages in the proceedings)

  • Short Papers (8 pages in the proceedings)

Please upload all submissions in LNCS format. To ensure high quality, submitted papers will be carefully peer-reviewed by 3 PC members based on originality, significance, technical soundness, and clarity of exposition. Selected papers will be published in book form in the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series. The RuleML2016 special tracks will be published in the same book. Short papers may contain 1 extra page maximum for which there is a charge of US$200, while for long papers you are allowed 2 extra pages maximum for EACH of which there is a charge of US$200. A selection of the best papers from all tracks will be invited to be revised and extended for the post-conference publication in a Special Issue of TPLP (Theory and Practice of Logic Programming).

RuleML main track and special tracks dates:

Organizers

• • Sudhir Agarwal, Stanford University, USA

  • Alex Oberhauser, Sigimera, USA

  • Dumitru Roman, SINTEF / University of Oslo, Norway

Program Committee (confirmed):

• • Sudhir Agarwal, Stanford University, USA

  • Andrea Bracciali, University of Stirling, UK

  • Primavera De'Filippi, Harvard Berkman Center & COALA, USA

  • Margaret Hagan, Stanford University, USA

  • Steffen Lamparter, Siemens, Germany

  • Andrew Miller, University of Maryland, USA

  • Sergey Nazarov, SmartContract, USA

  • Alex Norta, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia

  • Alex Oberhauser, Sigimera, USA

  • Monica Palmirani, University of Bologna, Italy

  • Gareth W. Peters, University College London, UK

  • Dumitru Roman, SINTEF / University of Oslo, Norway

• Giovanni Sarto, European University Institute of Florence, CIRSFID - University of Bologna, Italy

  • Melanie Swan, Singularity University, USA

  • Emilio Tuosto, University of Leicester, UK