Social media are computer-mediated tools that allow people to create，share or exchange information，ideas，pictures，audios or videos in virtual communities by using open Internet. Over the past five years，online social network (OSN)websites or services have been widely developed and deployed，including general-purpose OSNs like Twitter，F(xiàn)acebook and Wechat，or special-purpose ones for multimedia sharing YouTube，professional communication LinkedIn，and so on. Whatever the type of an OSN is，there exist very interesting and challengeable research works on how to improve an efficient social media computing and how to make an effective social network analysis and mining from the perspectives of both academia and industry. To better cope with the burning issues，advances on soft computing technologies，such as neural network and system，evolutionary computing and genetic algorithms，fuzzy set and rough set theories，are paving a road to more valuable and feasible solutions to the emerging social media and big data，finally bringing a brilliant future of wisdom and intelligent social media network.

This special issue aims to solicit the cutting edge research contributions of applied soft computing on social media and online networks. We specially invite authors to submit high quality，original papers that must not be under consideration for publication in any other journal or conference，and meanwhile some all-around and readable survey papers about the state-of-the art of soft computing in social network applications are also welcomed. Research the possible main topics are listed as follows，but not limited to:Artificial/natural neural network and neural system applied to social media and online social network establishment;Fuzzy set and rough set theories in social media propagation and redistribution;Chaos theory and chaotic systems for social media content security;Deep learning and machine learning for multimedia recommendation systems and algorithms;Soft computing technologies for both quantitative and qualitative trust assessment and risk management in online social networks.

Submissions Guideline:All potential authors would send their papers both Word and PDF files to the leading and corresponding guest editor Prof. Zhiyong Zhang by xidianzzy@126.com. And，please make sure you clearly write the thematic issue title "Special Issue on Applied Soft Computing for Online Social Networks" in the cover letter for our conveniences on checking submitted manuscripts.If you still have any question，please do not hesitate to contact:Prof. Zhiyong Zhang by xidianzzy@126.com;Prof. Arun Kumar Sangaiah by arunkumarsangaiah@gmail.com.

Important Dates:Paper submission:April 15，2016;1st round of review notification:July 15，2016;Revision submission due:September 15，2016;Final acceptance:November 15，2016;Publication (Tentative):The first issue of 2017.