This year APPT will be co-located with the 27th National Conference of Information Storage (NCIS’21). NCIS is the flagship conference organized by China Computer Federation (CCF) Technical Committee on Information Storage.

Specifically, APPT and NCIS are part of the newly created CCF System Conference (CCFSys). The technical program for each affiliated conference is independently administered, with each responsible for its own meeting's content and proceedings. This model facilitates communication among researchers in the related fields.

To build a richer conference program, we are exploring a new way of collaboration with the Journal of Computer Science and Technology (JCST). JCST is the first English Language Journal of computing technology published in China. Being a highly respected journal (SCIe, CCF Rank-B), it is distributed throughout the world through Springer and covered in many authoritative indexing/abstracting systems. The impact factor of JCST is 1.185 in 2018.

We setup a special issue on JCST (APPT track). Papers submitted to JCST's APPT Track are required to be presented on the conference upon acceptance. These papers will be published by JCST and included in the APPT 2021 conference program as a special session. However, they have nothing to do with the submission process, reviewing process, and publication process of APPT. Dual submission/publication is prohibited. APPT aims to provide a forum for JCST to advertise itself and to better disseminate its ideas.

The APPT 2021 Organizing Committee is aware of the current COVID-19 situation. At this time, the conference is planned to take place as scheduled (in Hangzhou). The committee will continue monitoring conditions and will provide updates if plans change.