We invite submissions of original research papers to the volume 6 of Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment (PVLDB). Accepted papers will form the Research Track for the 2013 VLDB conference. Please read carefully, as the submission procedure for VLDB 2013 has changed from previous years.

The annual VLDB conference is a premier annual international forum for database researchers, vendors, practitioners, application developers, and users. PVLDB, established in 2008, is a scholarly journal for short and timely research papers, with a journal-style review and quality-assurance process. PVLDB is distinguished by a monthly submission process with rapid reviews. PVLDB issues are published regularly throughout the year. Your paper will appear in PVLDB soon after acceptance, and possibly in advance of the VLDB conference. All papers accepted in time (see details on this below) will both be published in PVLDB Vol. 6 and presented at the VLDB 2013 conference. At least one author of every submitted paper has to attend the VLDB conference if the paper is accepted.

PVLDB is the only submission channel for research papers to appear in the VLDB 2013 conference. More information on the submission guidelines and processes for this track may be found below. The submission process of other VLDB 2013 tracks in general differs and is described in the respective calls for papers.

PVLDB welcomes original research papers on a broad range of topics related to data-centric computation, especially at scale. The themes and topics listed below are intended as a sample of familiar themes and topics; we encourage and expect papers on all data-centric topics.

• Systems for Data Management: data system architecture; storage, replication and consistency; physical representations; query and dataflow processing
• Scalable Data Analysis: complex queries and search; approximate querying; scalable statistical methods; management of uncertainty and reasoning at scale; data privacy and security
• Management of Very Large Data Systems: availability; adaptivity and self-tuning; power management; virtualization
• Data Models and Languages: XML and semi-structured data; multi-media, temporal and spatial data; declarative languages; language interfaces for databases;
• Performance and Evaluation: benchmarking; experimental methodology at scale; scientific evaluation of complex data systems
• Domain-Specific Data Management: methods and systems for science; developing regions; networks and mobility; ubiquitous computing; sensors databases
• Management of Web and Heterogeneous Data: information extraction; information integration; meta-data management; data cleaning; service oriented architectures
• User Interfaces and Social Data: data visualization; collaborative data analysis and curation; social networks; email and messaging analytics

Papers are to be formatted according to the conference’s camera-ready format, as embodied in the document templates. The maximum paper length is 12 pages. The conference management tool for the submission of abstracts and papers is accessible at:
https://cmt.research.microsoft.com/VLDB2013/

PVLDB uses a novel review process designed to promote timely submission, review, and revision of scholarly results. The process will be carried out over 12 submission deadlines during the year preceding the conference. The basic cycle will operate as follows:

• A Rolling Deadline occurs on the 1st of each month, 5:00 AM Pacific Time (Daylight Savings observed according to US calendar).
• Initial Reviews are intended to be done within two months, and they will include notice of acceptance, rejection, or revision requests. Differently from previous years, we have extended the time given to reviewers to prepare their reviews, with the goal of improving review quality. Thus we expect authors to be notified of decisions quite exactly 2 months after submission, but not much earlier.
• Revision Requests are to be specific, and moderate in scope. Authors will be given two months to produce a revised submission.
• Second Reviews of revised papers are intended to be returned within two months, after which a final decision will be made. Second reviews are to directly address the authors’ handling of the requested revisions.

Authors are advised that reviewing turnaround time is subject to fluctuations in submission rates, which are expected to be higher toward the end of the annual cycle.

The revision process is intended to be a constructive partnership between reviewers and authors. To this end, reviewers bear a responsibility to request revisions only in constructive scenarios: when requests can be addressed by specific and modest efforts that can lead to acceptance within the revision timeframe. In turn, authors bear the responsibility of attempting to meet those requests within the stated timeframe, or of withdrawing the paper from submission. At the discretion of the Program Committee, mechanisms may be employed for reviewers and authors to engage in further dialog during the revision period.

Note: the following represents new rules active as of December 2012:

For a paper to be presented at the VLDB 2013 conference, it must be accepted by June 1, 2013. Authors may choose to have the reviewing of their revised papers start already after one rather than two months of time given to them for revising their papers. In addition, the reviewing time for revised papers will be one month. Thus, papers initially submitted to the February 1, 2013 deadline can still go through the full revision process and be accepted for presentation at VLDB 2013. The goal of this change is to maximize the opportunities for authors to get their submissions accepted for VLDB 2013 and to give sufficient time to reviewers and authors to complete their work. In order for the PC to start reviewing a revised paper after one month of revision time, you must send an email to boehlen@ifi.uzh.ch and christoph.koch@epfl.ch before the first of the month in which you would like the reviewing to start. When we receive such an email, we will move your paper to the revision track of the previous month so that reviewing starts one month earlier. Please note that without such an email, reviewing will not start after one month. Please also note that February 1, 2013 at 5am PST is the last deadline for papers to go through a full cycle with revision and be presented at VLDB 2013. Papers submitted for the March 1 deadline that are selected for revision and later accepted are only presented at VLDB 2014. Each first-of-the-month at 5am PST deadline is strict and no extensions will be granted. Papers submitted by the March 1 deadline which receive a straight accept will be presented at the VLDB 2013 conference.

Example: Suppose you submit on February 1 and the paper is selected for revision. You will receive your notification by April 1. Then you have two months to produce your revised paper. If, and only if, you upload your paper AND email the PC chairs that you would like the reviewing of your paper to start BY May 1 will we be able to include your paper into the VLDB 2013 conference program if the revised paper is accepted.

Papers that are under revision as of June 1 do not receive binary accept/reject decisions as in previous years. Instead, they go through the full revision process and, if accepted, will appear in PVLDB 7/VLDB 2014.

Authors are not allowed to resubmit work that was previously rejected from PVLDB, within one year of the original submission date. A paper withdrawn by the authors after a revision decision will be considered as rejected and the 12-month resubmission ban applies to such papers.

A research paper submitted to VLDB 2013 must present original research work not described in any prior publication. A prior publication is a paper that has been accepted for presentation at a refereed conference or workshop with proceedings; or an article that has been accepted for publication in a refereed journal. If a VLDB 2013 submission has overlap with a prior publication, the submission must cite the prior publication, along with all other relevant published work.

A research paper submitted to VLDB 2013 cannot be under review for any other publishing forum or presentation venue, including conferences, workshops, and journals, during the time it is being considered for VLDB 2013. After you submit a research paper to VLDB 2013, you must await the response from VLDB and only resubmit elsewhere if your paper is rejected, or withdrawn at your request, from VLDB.

Authors of papers accepted for publication will have, on a voluntary basis, the chance to take part in a repeatability evaluation exercise: given the code/binaries of the algorithms discussed in an accepted paper, the repeatability committee reproduces the experimental results described in the paper.

Details on this are available here. It will be completely optional and up to the authors to decide whether to take part.

Because PVLDB accepts conference-length papers, authors are encouraged to develop longer versions of PVLDB papers and submit them to traditional journal venues. The Editors-in-Chief of the VLDB Journal (VLDBJ) have formally agreed that extended versions of papers published in PVLDB may be considered for publication in VLDBJ. Other journals have informally encouraged this as well. More information on this topic is available in the PVLDB FAQ at: http://www.eecs.umich.edu/db/pvldb/pvldb-faq.html.