As COVID-19 hounds the world, the common cause of finding a swift solution to manage the pandemic has brought together researchers, institutions, governments, and society at large. The Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI)-including machine learning (ML) and Big Data analytics-as well as Robotics and Blockchain, are the four decisive areas of technological innovation that have been ingenuity harnessed to fight this pandemic and future ones. While these highly interrelated smart and connected health technologies cannot resolve the pandemic overnight and may not be the only answer to the crisis, they can provide greater insight into the disease and support frontline efforts to prevent and control the pandemic. This article provides a blend of discussions on the contribution of these digital technologies, propose several complementary and multidisciplinary techniques to combat COVID-19, offer opportunities for more holistic studies, and accelerate knowledge acquisition and scientific discoveries in pandemic research. First, four areas, where IoT can contribute are discussed, namely: 1) tracking and tracing; 2) remote patient monitoring (RPM) by wearable IoT (WIoT); 3) personal digital twins (PDTs); and 4) real-life use case: ICT/IoT solution in South Korea. Second, the role and novel applications of AI are explained, namely: 1) diagnosis and prognosis; 2) risk prediction; 3) vaccine and drug development; 4) research data set; 5) early warnings and alerts; 6) social control and fake news detection; and 7) communication and chatbot. Third, the main uses of robotics and drone technology are analyzed, including: 1) crowd surveillance; 2) public announcements; 3) screening and diagnosis; and 4) essential supply delivery. Finally, we discuss how distributed ledger technologies (DLTs), of which blockchain is a common example, can be combined with other technologies for tackling COVID-19.

This JSAC special issue is covering four emerging areas in communications: Area 1 - e-Health; Area 2 - Peer-to-Peer Networking; Area 3 - Vehicular Networks and Telematics Applications; and Area 4 - Social Networks. This is the first issue of a brand new series in JSAC focusing on "Emerging Technologies in Communications." These emerging technical areas were selected from ComSoc's Technical Committees and Technical Sub-Committees. (The second issue will be published later in 2013 on the following areas: Area 5 - Applications of Nanotechnologies in Communications; Area 6 - Autonomic Communications; Area 7 - Fiber Wireless Integration; and Area 8 - Nanoscale and Molecular Networking.) The papers selected are briefly summarized. For this issue, 55 regular papers were selected for publication out of 197 open-call submissions. Also included are three overview (invited) papers. It is devoted to reporting on cutting-edge research achievements covering the following four emerging technical areas in communications.

This paper addresses the broad picture to stimulate thinking on the direction for the next steps, both in fixed and mobile telecommunication infrastructures as well as in the changing paradigm of service creation and provisioning.

The CCITT Specification and Description Language (SDL) became a CCITT recommendation in 1976, and a refined version was published by CCITT in 1980. This paper presents the background and history of SDL, and its relation to the other languages recommended by CCITT. SDL is mainly a language to specify and describe the logic of functional processes in a fashion independent of implementation techniques, and is based on a finite-state machine approach. The concepts and representation forms of SDL are briefly explained. A survey is given of today's applications and tools, and the expected future developments are discussed.