The 41th ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC 2026)

Thessaloniki, Greece

CALL FOR PAPERS

Special Track on Databases and Big Data Management (DBDM)

The 41 ACM SYMPOSIUM ON APPLIED COMPUTING (SAC’26)

March 23 -27, 2026, Thessaloniki, Greece

https://www.sigapp.org/sac/sac2026/

1. SAC 2026

In the last forty years, ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC) has been a primary and international forum for applied computer scientists, computer engineering, and other computer related professionals to gather, interact, present, and disseminate their research and development work. ACM SAC has been sponsored by the Special Interest Group on Applied Computing (SIGAPP), and SIGAPP’s mission is to further the interests of the computing professionals engaged in the development of new computing techniques and applications areas and the transfer of computing technology to new problem domains.

SAC 2026 will be held on March 23-27, 2026 in Thessaloniki, Greece. The conference proceedings will be published by ACM and will be also available online through ACM’s Digital Library. For additional information, please visit the above official ACM SAC 2026 web site.

2. Special Track on Databases and Big Data Management (DBDM)

For many years, the Database Theory, Technology, and Applications track has been one of the important parts of the ACM SAC conference. To support ACM SAC, we have successfully organized the Database Theory, Technology, and Applications tracks (2005-2018) and Databases and Big Data Management Track (2019-2025) under the leadership and guidance of ACM SAC Organization Committees in the past. We strongly believe that this track will still be a very important, interesting, and beneficia forum for various database scientists, researchers, engineers, and practitioners from all over the world to exchange their great ideas, to share their research experiences, and to disseminate their research results. Taking into account the current trends in research and technology related to Big Data Management, we would like to propose a small change in the title as well as in the main topics of the track. Our proposal is the “Databases and Big Data Management” (DBDM) track, which aims to bring together researchers and practitioners with different backgrounds related to data management in general. The major topics of interest for the track include, but not necessarily limited to:

Database Management Systems

• Access Methods, Indexing Techniques, Physical Database Design
• Cache, Buffer, Memory, Storage, and File Systems Management
• Concurrency Control, Database Recovery, Transaction Processing, and Database Auditing
• Database Performance Tuning, Benchmarking, and Measurement
• Multi-Core Data Processing Models and Algorithms, Hardware Acceleration Strategies
• New Hardware Based Technical Trend for Fast Database Processing
• Query Processing and Optimization

Database Models and Languages

• Active, Deductive, Logic, Probabilistic and Fuzzy Database Models
• Data Models for Big Data and NO-SQL Database
• Data Integration, Metadata Management, Schema Evolution
• Semantic Models for Web-Based Databases
• Structured, Semi-Structured, Partially Structured, Unstructured Data Models

Database Security and Privacy

• Access Control, Authentication, Authorization, and Database Security
• Blockchain Management
• Database Encryption and Data Privacy

High Performance Database Systems

• Cloud Database System Management
• Disk Arrays and Tertiary Storage Systems for Extreme Large Databases
• Distributed and Parallel Database Systems
• Ex-scale Data Processing and Analytics
• High Performance Federated Database Systems and Interoperability
• Real-Time and High-Performance Database Systems

Database Applications

• Cooperative Database Systems and Workflow Management
• Database Management for Health Care Information Systems
• Distributed, Parallel and Heterogeneous Databases
• Histogram and Sampling Techniques for Database Query Processing
• Hypertext/Hypermedia/Multimedia Database and Information Systems
• IOT and Web-Based Database Systems
• Mobile Data Management and Mobile Database Systems
• Multi-Database Systems/Federated Database Systems/Trusted Database Systems
• Multi-Dimensional Data Models/Indices/Database Systems
• Multi-Media, Spatial and Temporal Databases
• Scientific, Biological, Bioinformatics, and Medical Database Management
• Semantic Web and Ontology
• Statistical and Historical Databases

Data Mining and Analytics

• Applied Data Mining and Artificial Intelligence for (Big) Data Management
• Database Management and Support for Data Mining and Artificial Intelligence
• Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery
• Data Visualization
• Data Warehousing, Data Cubes, Aggregate Processing, and OLAP
• Noval Algorithms and Statistical Techniques for Big Data Analytics
• Social Networks and Graph Data Analysis

3. Track Chairs and Contact Information:

4. Guidelines for Paper Submission

Original papers from the above-mentioned or other related areas will be considered. This includes three categories of submissions: 1) original and unpublished research; 2) reports of innovative computing applications in the arts, sciences, engineering, business, government, education and industry; and 3) reports of successful technology transfer to new problem domains.

Each submitted paper will be fully refereed and undergo a double-blind review process by at least three referees for quality, correctness, originality, and relevance. Notification and reviews will be communicated via email. All papers must be submitted electronically in the format of Adobe PDF and Postscript (preferably) or MS Word. Please, upload your papers electronically to the website:

https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=sac2026

Author(s) name(s) and address(es) must NOT appear in the paper body. Any self-reference should be in the third person. The paper length is 8 pages + 2 pages at extra charge (max of 10 pages). The program committee may reject papers that exceed this length on the grounds of length alone. In addition, for each submitted paper, a separated cover page (preferably in MS Word or plain ASCII) should be sent to the email address:

sac2026@delab.csd.auth.gr

including the paper title, abstract, list of key words, and list of authors with full names and postal addresses, telephone numbers, fax numbers, and email addresses. One of the authors must be designated as the primary contact point to receive the notification at the time of the paper submission.

If your submitted manuscript gets accepted by ACM SAC 2026, the final camera-ready copy must follow the template provided ACM SAC 2026. The template can be downloaded from the URL:

https://www.sigapp.org/sac/sac2026/

At least one of the authors of the accepted paper must register for the conference and present the paper, and the final camera-ready copies of accepted papers must fit within eight (8) two-column pages, with the option to add two pages at an additional charge. Accepted papers will be published in the ACM SAC 2026 proceedings.

Paper registration is required, allowing the inclusion of the paper/poster in the conference proceedings. An author or a proxy attending SAC MUST present the paper. This is a requirement for the paper/poster to be included in the ACM digital library. No-show of scheduled papers and posters will result in excluding them from the ACM digital library.

A set of selected papers, which did not get accepted as full papers, will be accepted as poster papers and will also be published as extended three (3) two-column pages’ abstracts in the ACM SAC 2026 proceedings (with the option to add an additional page at an additional charge). Please note that a paper cannot be submitted to more than one track.

5. Program Committee

• Bechara Al Bouna, Antonine University, Lebanon
• Brajdenra Panda, University of Arkansas, USA
• Andreas Behrend, University of Bonn, Germany
• Radim Belohlavek, Palacky University, Czech Republic
• Panayiotis Bozanis, University of Thessaly, Greece
• Richard Chbeir, IUT de Bayonne, France
• Dunren Che, Southern Illinois University, USA
• Shyh-Kwei Chen, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, USA
• Thomas Connolly, University of Paisley, UK
• Agostino Cortesi, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italy
• Alfredo Cuzzocrea, University of Calabria, Italy
• Johann Eder, University of Klagenfurt, Austria
• Hisham El-Mubaid, The University of Houston – Clear Lake, USA
• Anastasios Gounaris, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
• Mirian Halfeld Ferrari, Université d’Orléans, France
• Theo Härder, University of Kaiserslautern, Germany
• Kittisak Kerdprasop, Suranaree University of Technology, Thailand
• Nittaya Kerdprasop, Suranaree University of Technology, Thailand
• Hiroyuki Kitagawa, University of Tsukuba, Japan
• Ramon Lawrence, University of British Columbia Okanagan, Canada
• Mehedi Masud, Taif University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
• Charles B. Owen, Michigan State University, USA
• Jaroslav Pokorný, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic
• Jaime Raigoza, California State University, Chico, USA
• Spyros Sioutas, Ionian University, Greece
• Rajshekhar Sunderraman, Georgia State University, USA
• Nobutaka Suzuki, University of Tsukuba, Japan
• Kostas Tsichlas, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
• Theodoros Tzouramanis, University of the Aegean, Greece
• Michael Vassilakopoulos, University of Central Greece, Greece
• Philippe Rigaux, Internet Memory Research, Greece
• Weihai Yu, University of Tromsø, Norway
• Sanaa Kaddoura, Zayed University, UAE
• Hatem Halaoui, Lebanese American University, Lebanon
• Zahi Ramadan, Lebanese American University, Lebanon
• Senthil Athithan, KL University, India

6. Important Dates:

• Electronic submission of full papers due:          September 26, 2025
• Author Notification:                                                 October 31, 2025
• Camera-ready copy of accepted paper due:       December 5, 2025 (Firm)
• Author Registration:                                                December 12, 2025

The due dates for the submissions of manuscripts and final camera-ready copies are strict; no exceptions will be given according to ACM SAC 2026 Organizing Committee.

7. ACM SAC 2026 DBDM Track Web Link:

http://www.lau.edu.lb/news-events/conferences/sac2026/

8. Call for Student Research Abstracts

Research Abstracts:

Graduate students seeking feedback from the scientific community on their research ideas are invited to submit abstracts of their original un-published and in-progress research work in areas of experimental computing and application development related to SAC 2026 Tracks. The Student Research Competition (SRC) program is designed to provide graduate students the opportunity to meet and exchange ideas with researcher and practitioners in their areas of interest.

All research abstract submissions will be reviewed by researchers and practitioners with expertise in the track focus area to which they are submitted. Authors of selected abstracts will have the opportunity to give poster presentations of their work and compete for three top wining places. The SRC committee will evaluate and select First, Second, and Third place winners. The winners will receive cash awards and SIGAPP recognition certificates during the conference banquet dinner. Authors of selected abstracts are eligible to apply to the SIGAPP Student Travel Award program for support.

Submission:

Graduate students are invited to submit abstracts (length is 3 pages + 1 page at extra charge (max of 4 pages)) of their original un-published and in-progress research work following the instructions published at SAC 2026 website. The submissions must address research work related to a SAC track, with emphasis on the innovation behind the research idea, including the problem being investigated, the proposed approach and research methodology, and sample preliminary results of the work. In addition, the abstract should reflect on the originality of the work, innovation of the approach, and applicability of anticipated results to real-world problems. All abstracts must be submitted thought the START Submission system. Submitting the same abstract to multiple tracks is not allowed. Please upload your paper electronically to:

https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=sacsrc2026

For further information regarding the SRC program, please contact the SRC Program Chair: Valentina Casola at casolav@unina.it.

Important Dates:

• Research Abstracts: September 26, 2025
• Author Notification: October 31, 2025

Important Notice:

Important update on ACMs new open access publishing model for 2026 ACM Conferences!

Starting January 1, 2026, ACM will fully transition to Open Access. All ACM publications, including those from ACM-sponsored conferences, will be 100% Open Access. Authors will have two primary options for publishing Open Access articles with ACM: the ACM Open institutional model or by paying Article Processing Charges (APCs). With over 1,800 institutions already part of ACM Open, the majority of ACM-sponsored conference papers will not require APCs from authors or conferences (currently, around 70-75%).

Authors from institutions not participating in ACM Open will need to pay an APC to publish their papers, unless they qualify for a financial or discretionary waiver. To find out whether an APC applies to your article, please consult the list of participating institutions in ACM Open and review the APC Waivers and Discounts Policy. Keep in mind that waivers are rare and are granted based on specific criteria set by ACM.

 Understanding that this change could present financial challenges, ACM has approved a temporary subsidy for 2026 to ease the transition and allow more time for institutions to join ACM Open. The subsidy will offer:

• $250 APC for ACM/SIG members
• $350 for non-members

This represents a 65% discount, funded directly by ACM. Authors are encouraged to help advocate for their institutions to join ACM Open during this transition period.

This temporary subsidized pricing will apply to all conferences scheduled for 2026.