The goal of awareness computing (AC) is to build systems that are aware. Awareness is an ability to perceive, to feel, or to be conscious. It does not necessarily mean full comprehension yet implies vigilance in observing and alertness in drawing inferences from what one experiences. Compared with artificial intelligence (AI), the goal of AC is less ambitious. Nevertheless, AC could be more important for solving practical problems. Without being aware, a system may never become intelligent. Moreover, awareness could make computation towards the goal of AI more efficient by shedding of irrelevant possibilities. AC would also lead an efficient way for realizing granular computing.

In the last decade, AC has been studied extensively from an engineering perspective. To create real aware systems, however, studying different applications in an ad hoc manner is not enough. We need to study all kinds of AC-related problems in a unified framework and gain more insight about aware systems and the mechanism of awareness existing in different living beings. For this purpose, we are organizing the International Conference on Awareness Science and Technology (iCAST2011) under the cosponsorship of IEEE SMCS, IEEE CIS, and several other academic societies.

The goal of this special issue is to provide an opportunity for researchers, engineers, and scientists to publish their latest results related to AC. Papers well presented at iCAST2011 can be re-submitted to this special issue after substantial revisions. We also welcome submissions of excellent papers not presented at iCAST2011. The topics of interest include, but are not limited to the following:

• Awareness mechanism and modeling
• Awareness ontology and semantics
• Neurocomputing
• Fuzzy logic and rough set
• Granular computing
• Agent and swarm intelligence
• Context awareness
• Situation awareness
• Intention awareness
• Emotion awareness
• Preference awareness
• Location awareness
• Position awareness
• Goal awareness
• Energy awareness
• Capability awareness
• Recourse awareness
• Risk awareness
• Danger awareness
• Fault awareness
• Safety awareness
• Privacy awareness
• Trust awareness
• Chance awareness
• Heuristic awareness

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/acisc/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/ according to the following timetable: