Call for Papers: Water Wars in the 21st Century along International River Basins: Speculation or Reality?

A special issue of International Journal of Sustainable Society

This issue seeks to assess the current status of the water management in international river basins for a reality check of the potential of water wars and to encourage intellectual discussion, new methodologies and strategies to promote sustainable development and avert water related conflicts in the international river basins.

The subject coverage of this special issue includes, but is not limited to:

• Integrated water resources management in international river basins
• Averting conflicts and promoting peace through international river basin management
• Water diplomacy
• International river basins under risk of mismanagement and conflicts
• Benefits and costs asssociated with integrated river basins management
• How international water policies shape international river basins management
• New strategies for international river basins management
• Institutional and legal issues related to international river basins management
• International water treaties
• Mechanisms for data and information sharing between riparian countries
• UN watercourses convention (1997) and other international water related declarations
• Influence of regional politics and non-water sectors in managing international river basins
• Strategic research agendas to positively influence international river basins management
• Best practices and lessons learned from international river basins management
• International water resources managment principles and guidelines
• Shared water-shared opportunities

Important Dates
Deadline for submission of manuscripts: 10 May 2010
Communication of peer review to authors: 10 August 2010
Deadline for revised manuscripts: 15 October 2010

Call for papers: Advances in Wireless, Mobile and P2P based Internet Protocols, Applications and Architectures

A special issue of International Journal of Internet Protocol Technology

Interconnection networks have just not facilitated sharing of information; they have reorganised our social existence. Over the last two decades we have witnessed a tremendous influx of new technology to facilitate Internet accessibility. These technologies are in essence emerging because of the advancement in newer paradigms that encompass WiFi, ad hoc networks, and P2P technologies. Today, the Internet no longer is confined to wired technologies. Therefore, we must understand the latest advances in these technologies to pave the way for newer Internet protocols, applications, and architectures.

The special issue will primarily encompass theoretical and practical solutions that advance the research in Internet protocols, applications, and architectures based on WiFi, mobile Ad Hoc, and P2P technologies.

The topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• WiFi and mobile network protocols
• P2P protocol design
• Internet mobility and accessibility
• Mobility models
• Algorithms and theoretical advances in network protocol design
• Internet data management
• Internet data consistency and correctness
• Cross layer protocol design for efficient data accessibility and sharing
• Hybrid network design for reliable connectivity
• Mobile and P2P applications
• Emerging technologies
• Technology integration in cross platforms

Important Dates
Paper submission: 1 April, 2010
Initial notification: 15 May, 2010
Rebuttal submission: 1 July, 2010
Final notification: 1 August, 2010

Call for papers: Information Technology Risks: Benefits or Threats

A special issue of International Journal of Information Technology and Management

Modern business has undoubtedly benefited from the rapid development of Information Technology (IT) tools. On the other hand, IT risk has become one of the most significant threats posed to companies, with a common sense from senior risk managers that this represents a very high threat to business in today’s economy. Business exists to cope with risks, including IT risks. As time spans, management of existing IT systems that are being used by business requires constant and continuous check and review. Companies continuously seek methods and techniques to improve performance to achieve optimised efficiency and effectiveness of utilizing IT tools.

This special issue is intended to present the state-of-the-art work that demonstrates tools to manage IT risks and thus improve IT management in the e-society. Both theoretical and applied work is welcome.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following aspects:

• Enterprise risk management related to IT
• IT security
• Emerging advances in IT and its new applications
• Management of IT systems in financial risks
• IT and e-governance
• IT risk assessment
• Productivity uncertainty of adopting different IT tools
• IT and uncertainty and risks in the supply chain
• IT outsourcing assessment
• Other issues related to IT risks

Important Dates
Submission Deadline: June 10, 2010
First-Round Reviews: August 30, 2010
Camera-ready version: September 30, 2010

Special issue: Agent-based modelling and decision making

International Journal of Critical Infrastructures 5(4) 2009

• Editorial: The operation and evolution of infrastructures: the role of agent-based modelling and decision making
• Tackling challenges in infrastructure operation and control: cross-sectoral learning for process and infrastructure engineers
• Agent-based decision support for failure-prone networked infrastructures
• Reciprocally altruistic agents for the mitigation of cascading failures in power grids
• A real-life test bed for multi-agent monitoring of road network performance
• Transition of energy infrastructures: modelling the Brazilian case
• Resilience and vulnerability in critical infrastructure systems – a physical analogy

Special issue: Value creation

International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing 1(2) 2009

• Business ecosystem perspective on value co-creation in the Web 2.0 era: implications for entrepreneurial opportunities
• The building blocks of a relational capability – evidence from the banking industry
• Do direct or indirect relations between incumbent firms and corporate spin-offs affect the performance of spin-offs?
• Supporting value creation in SMEs through capacity building and innovation initiatives: the danger of provoking unsustainable rapid growth
• Firm-level entrepreneurship and performance for German Gazelles
• Supporting value creation by reducing cultural distance as a barrier to exporting

Special issue: Managing the quality of sport services and sport organisations

International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing 6(3) 2009

• Measuring customer service quality of English public sport facilities
• ADVENTUREQUAL: an extension of the SERVQUAL conceptual gap model in young people's outdoor adventure
• The mediating role of place attachment on the relationship between service quality and loyalty in the context of skiing
• Model of service quality in event sport tourism: development of a scale
• A decade of quality and performance management in Flemish organised sport

Special issue: OLAP intelligence: meaningfully coupling OLAP and data mining tools and algorithms

International Journal of Business Intelligence and Data Mining 4(3/4) 2009

• Mining significant change patterns in multidimensional spaces
• Mining convergent and divergent sequences in multidimensional data
• Reduced representations of Emerging Cubes for OLAP database mining
• Fragmenting very large XML data warehouses via K-means clustering algorithm
• Embedded indicators to facilitate the exploration of a data cube
• A novel visualisation and interaction technique for exploring multidimensional data

Additional papers

• ReliefMSS: a variation on a feature ranking ReliefF algorithm
• Exact and inexact methods for solving the problem of view selection for aggregate queries

Call for papers: Risk Management and Related Standards – the Role of Standards in the Management of Business and Related Risks

A special issue of International Journal of Business Continuity and Risk Management

The IJBCRM goal is to provide an academic and professional forum to develop and disseminate research, practical methods, theories, and experiences in the advancing area of business continuity and risk management. This growing body of knowledge provides a vital lead within organisations in the process of systematic decisions to protect people, assets and operations and ensures the continuation of an organisation following disaster.

Risk standards are one means used by organizations to assure systematic decisions when managing risk. Standards are accepted specifications which define terms, concepts, methods, processes and practices. There is no shortage of standards, codes and guidelines in the area of risk management and the international community has developed many. One of the difficulties, however, is that this large body of information has grown in an uncoordinated manner. Some have argued this divergent growth of standards and guidelines in risk management has resulted in there being no universal approach and terminology that is recognized as the industry standard.

Several of the well known risk management standards include: the risk standard of AIRMIC/ALARM/IRM 2002, the Australian/New Zealand Standard AS/NZS 4360:2004; the Enterprise Risk Management - Integrated Framework, COSO 2004 and the ISO/DIS 31000 International Standard or BSI British Standards - BS 31100:2008. Other standards exist such as the ISO/IEC Guide 73:2002 Risk Management — Vocabulary, the CSA Q 850:1997 Risk Management Guidelines for Decision Makers; the JIS Q 2001:2001 Guidelines for development and implementation of risk management system and the BS 25999-1:2006 Business continuity management Code of practice.

Such standards vary in scope, purpose, perceived benefits, guidelines, principles, frameworks, components, terminology, objective, implementation advice, risk processes, structural recommendations and in adoption, certification and compliance monitoring processes. Standards also vary regarding their primary reason for creation - the thinking behind them.

Adoption of and compliance with a standard requires the allocation of internal or external resources and represents an additional business cost. Standards too can be expensive to implement and to maintain. This may have an impact on the competitiveness of corporations. Companies seeking to implement risk standards must know whether benefits are really worth the costs involved. Whatever their nature, standards and technical regulations will have no effect unless they are properly implemented.

Aside from identifying and establishing the general worth of standards, we might question:
Whether risk specialists and practitioners think in ways that are consistent with the standards?
Are changes needed and if so, what changes are needed and why?
What are the objectives of a risk standard?
What have organizations learned whilst implementing these standards?

Therefore, the aim of this special issue is to clarify the role of risk management and related standards and to assess their impact. Bringing together such a body of knowledge through case studies, research and literature review on topics such as implementation and enterprise risk management, as well as a standards update, will enable practitioners to make immediate improvements to their risk management activities and to plan for the future. The special issue should enable a better understanding of the tools that are available to manage the risks, sharing best practice on how to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of standards. It will also help academics and researchers to ground future work.

Potential authors are invited to submit contributions which evaluate existing risk management standards, critically analyzing their role and contributing to our knowledge of why standards should or should not be adopted. Contributions will also further knowledge concerning the implementation issues of how, where and when such risk management standards might be applied. The goal is to prepare a reference issue that could be of immediate use to those interested in the management of risk and business continuity assurance and the implications of risk standards for business, whether they are academics, practitioners or researchers.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to:

• Comparison of standards worldwide
• Critical evaluation of standards
• Role of standards in specific branches/industries, e.g. banking, telecomms, healthcare etc.
• Role of standards in specific functions, e.g. IT/IS risk, operations, project management etc.
• Frameworks for the management of risk
• Influence of laws and policy makers
• Economic performance and business benefits of organizations adopting risk standards
• Regulation and other drivers for adoption
• Standards and the regulatory environment
• Communicating risk standards
• Case studies on implementation and adoption of risk standards

Important Dates
1-2 page abstract due: 1 February 2010
Notification to authors: 1 March 2010
Submission of manuscripts due: 30 August 2010
Notification to authors: 15 October 2010
Final drafts of papers: 31 December 2010

Special issue: FACTS technology in power system studies

International Journal of Power and Energy Conversion 1(4) 2009

• A new method for locating TCSC for congestion management in deregulated electricity markets
• Comparative performance of BESS and SMES in distribution network to improve power quality
• PSO embedded online adaptive self-tuning UPFC shunt converter control
• Transmission line overload alleviation due to contingency based on DAG assisted PSO method
• Reactive and real power compensation with DSTATCOM and BESS for mitigation of flicker
• STATCOM based voltage-frequency regulation for SEIG driven by an uncontrolled speed turbine

Call for papers: Complex Adaptive Systems in Business

A special issue of International Journal of Business and Systems Research

Complex adaptive systems (CAS) have been defined as systems that involve the interactions of numerous individual agents or elements that change and learn from experience and can show emergent and adaptive properties not exhibited by the individual agents. CAS has been used to identify the evolutionary processes of anthills, bird flocking, and the economy, along with numerous other types of dynamic systems. Organizational management studies have embraced the study of CAS as a means of explaining how firms adapt, learn, and evolve (Organization Science May/June 1999; Management Science, July 2007). Although organization scientists have studied complex organizations for many years, a developing set of conceptual and computational tools makes possible new approaches to modelling nonlinear interactions within and between organizations. Network dynamics, socio-economics, agent-based computational economics, and other multi-agent modelling approaches have allowed management researchers to expand into unexplored areas in business applications.

We welcome interdisciplinary discourses that serve to enhance our understanding of the business environments, recognizing that the marketplace which organizations operate are living dynamic systems that is not always predictable. Studies using system dynamics modelling, agent-based modelling or other dynamic methodologies are encouraged. Preference will be given to high quality papers that have a firm grounding in scientific and mathematical methods, instead of primarily application-based papers. Because a substantial gap continues to exist between theory and practice, theoretical papers that also include a real-world application are very useful. Of additional interest are papers developing benchmarks and metrics that will provide guidance for future research.

We encourage submission of high-quality papers that take a systems approach to perplexing business issues. Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Knowledge transfer and learning in the organization
• Network studies from an organizational perspective, i.e. use in technology transfer, diffusion of innovations, wom impact, etc.
• Co-opetition and other cooperation strategies
• Innovation in the dynamic organization
• Global evolution of consumer markets
• Artificial economic societies
• Supply chain dynamics
• Manufacturing for green consumerism
• Role of social networks in the organization
• Networks in the organization (e.g., board of directors, cross-functional teams, etc.)
• Co-evolution of organization systems (e.g., product, manufacturing, supply chain)
• Adoption/diffusion of innovations, particularly across organizational boundaries
• Artificial markets
• Team effectiveness
• Information management
• Interactive strategy formation
• Decision making in the organization
• System efficieincies
• Cooperation within the organization and across boundaries
• Any multi-agent business issue will be considered

Important Dates
Full paper deadline: 1 May, 2010
Notification of acceptance and review results : 1 September, 2010
Revised submission deadline: 1 November, 2010
Notification of acceptance: 1 December, 2010
Camera-ready version deadline: 1 January, 2011

Call for papers: Planning, Scheduling and Optimisation in Manufacturing and Services Enterprise

A special issue of International Journal of Enterprise Network Management

Companies must constantly contend with rapidly changing business conditions. Mergers and acquisitions, accelerated new product introductions, changing customer bases, offshore manufacturing and fluctuating fuel costs are among the many challenges they face.

Globalisation trends have significantly increased the scale and complexity of the modern enterprise. The enterprise has been transformed into a global network consisting of multiple business units and functions. The enterprise is exposed to internal and external uncertainties. Examples of internal uncertainties include success prospects of research and development projects due to technological risks; production upsets such as batch failures and plant shutdowns. External uncertainties include pricing related uncertainties for raw materials and products, exchange rate fluctuations, market size and demand uncertainties due to competition and macro-economic factors.

Planning, scheduling and optimisation are forms of decision-making that play an important role in most manufacturing and services industries to resolve the business uncertainty. The planning, scheduling and optimisation functions in a company typically use analytical techniques and heuristic methods to allocate its limited resources to the activities that have to be done in order to manage the uncertainty.

Optimisation challenges in the enterprise begin to answer the question of how to bridge the gap from mathematical modelling and optimisation techniques to practical solutions of enterprise operations. Mathematically distinct from classical supply chain management, this burgeoning research area has proven to be useful and applicable to a wide variety of industries; for example, pharmaceutical, chemical, transportation, and shipping, to name but a few. There is a need for high quality research which may serve as a "one-stop shop" to learn about various industrial problems and logistics challenges, and solution techniques using recent advances in computational optimisation.

This special issue plans to cover areas in planning, scheduling and optimisation in manufacturing and services and systems development and implementation. It is intended for practitioners from industry who use techniques from a wide range of fields: mathematical programming, supply chain and logistics management, and process systems and operations engineering.

Other streams of interest will be practical applications in the form of quantitative and qualitative case studies based on planning, scheduling and optimisation. Finally, papers must also have real value relevance, be primarily focused on real time implementation and the target audience who are researchers, managers, practitioners and consultants.

Contributors are encouraged to submit original manuscripts that have practical relevance, case studies, and focus on, but are not limited to, the following areas related to planning, scheduling and optimisation in manufacturing and service industries:

• Manufacturing models for planning and scheduling
• Service models for planning and scheduling
• Project planning and scheduling
• Machine scheduling and job shop scheduling
• Scheduling of flexible assembly systems
• Economic lot scheduling
• Planning, scheduling and optimisation in supply chains
• Interval scheduling, reservations, and timetabling
• Planning, scheduling and optimisation in sports and entertainment
• Planning, scheduling, optimisation, and timetabling in transportation
• Planning, scheduling and optimisation in healthcare
• workforce scheduling
• Systems design and implementation for planning and scheduling
• Advanced concepts in systems design for planning and scheduling
• Mathematical programming formulations for planning and scheduling
• Exact optimisation methods for planning and scheduling
• Heuristic methods for planning and scheduling
• Constraint programming methods for planning and scheduling
• Selected scheduling systems
• Modelling and managing uncertainty in process planning and scheduling

Important Dates
Manuscript submission: 15 November 2009
Notification of initial decision: 30 December 2010
Submission of revised manuscript: 1 February 2010
Notification of final acceptance: 15 March 2010
Submission of final manuscript: 15 April 2010

Call for papers: Cyber Harassment Impacts on Corporations and Corporate Valuation

A special issue of International Journal of Management and Decision Making

The ability to spread information (and misinformation) over the Internet in blogs and social media websites and has become accompanied by the growing pattern of cyber harassment against corporations. In many cases, harassment may arise from the process of critical discourse or difference of opinion, but increasingly such harassment has a more malevolent motive. In this case that attack is deliberately contrived to harm or extort from the legitimate financial interests of companies, and may include as its weapons defamation, tort interference, or other illegality that can damage corporate valuation. Because these attacks take place over the Internet, recourse through civil litigation may be complicated and expensive, or made difficult in pursuing attackers from abroad or circuitous routes. This leaves the victim in a vulnerable position. As with other types of Internet attacks, the attacker relies on this vulnerability to exploit for personal gain.

The aims of this special issue are to examine the motives of those who harass corporations, to identify the means used by cyber harassment attackers, and peer into the decision making processes within corporations on how to address the attacks, such as whether to ignore (extinguish) them, make attempts to defend against them (punish), or try to placate the attacker (reward) to curry favour. The objectives of the special issue are to:

• identify the range of motives for cyber harassment attacks,
• provide insights into how corporations perceive cyber harassment attacks,
• assess the financial impacts to corporations from these attacks, and
• determine the decision making processes used to combat them

The scope of this special issue examination includes studies on business economic impacts from cyber harassments, decision strategies, and comparative analyses with other forms of cyber attacks, such as cyber bullying and attacks against computer and information systems. The special issue will provide a global perspective from theoretical and applied research and case studies that are academically rigorous.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• Development and validation of theory and models of cyber harassment, motives, factors and outcomes.
• Economic impacts on business from cyber harassment.
• Decision strategies and processes to respond to cyber harassment.
• Legal and legislative aspects related to cyber harassment.
• Effects of social media and other new technology on social or behavioural evolution in cyber harassment.
• Cyber harassment and implications for management and managerial decision processes.

Important Dates
Full paper deadline: 15 July, 2010
Notification of status & acceptance of paper: 15 November, 2010
Final version of paper: 15 January, 2011

Special issue: Computational Intelligence Part 1

International Journal of Modelling, Identification and Control 8(2) 2009

Papers from the International Conference on Modelling, Identification and Control (ICMIC 2008) held in Shanghai, China, 28 June - 2 July 2008

• A modified neural network based predictive control for non-linear systems
• Robust non-linear feedback control for BTT missile with NN-based uncertainty estimation
• RBF neural network-based sliding mode control for a ballistic missile
• Decoupling control of bearingless permanent magnet-type synchronous motor using artificial neural networks-based inverse system method
• Control of fuzzy discrete event systems and its application to air conditioning system
• Exponential stability of cellular neural networks with time-varying delay
• Optimal linear combination of neural networks to model thermally induced error of machine tools
• Application of neural networks in modelling of the transmission hydraulic actuator
• Fuzzy SVM-based chronic fatigue syndrome evaluation embedded in intelligent garment
• Two-stage gene selection for support vector machine classification of microarray data

See also International Journal of Modelling, Identification and Control 7(1) 2009 for other papers from the conference.

Special issue: Advances in market entry mode theory development

International Journal of Trade and Global Markets 2(3/4) 2009

• 'Scatter-gun' or 'Follow-the-leader' behaviour: international strategies of the high-tech SMEs
• The empirical link between entry mode selection and barriers to internationalisation
• Foreign market entry mode choice of Australian firms
• Discretion and internationalisation: impact of environmental determinants of managerial discretion and host country experience on entry mode choice
• Internationalising into an unfriendly environment: designing a new framework for Western Small and Medium Sized Enterprises
• A comparison of market entry strategies adopted by Information and Communication Technology (ICT) firms from major and emerging software exporting nations
• Balancing intermediated relationships in emerging country markets
• Determinants of foreign market entry mode decision: an exploratory study of business organisations in Australia

Special issue: IFIP International Conference on Wireless and Optical Communications Networks 2009

International Journal of Ultra Wideband Communications and Systems 1(2) 2009

• Performance analysis of an optimal resource allocation method for the water-filled channel of the OFDMA cellular network to support multimedia traffic
• Differential decorrelator: a new approach for designing CDMA linear detector
• ADIP: an improved authenticated dynamic IP configuration scheme for mobile ad hoc networks
• On the applications of the space time premise when exploiting location diversity of multiple antenna sites
• A real-time and energy-efficient MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks
• Non-linearity effects and predistortion in optical OFDM wireless transmission using LEDs
• Multiuser channel estimation for closely spaced multipath CDMA signals using the unscented Kalman filter

Newly announced journal: International Journal of Modelling in Operations Management

To begin publication in 2010, International Journal of Modelling in Operations Management will cover operations management knowledge in areas including computer science, management, engineering, information technology, economics, marketing and operations research. In services, the journal will focus on supply chain management, human resource management, information technologies, finance and TQM, and how TQM is applied to the management of technologies and innovations in businesses.

Special issue: The issues and challenges of e-banking application and development in developing and under-developed nations

International Journal of Electronic Finance 3(4) 2009

• Evaluating electronic banking systems in developing nations through Analytic Hierarchy Process model: a case study
• Exploring the security of e-banking systems: questions of theft, fraud, jurisdiction and the shifting sands of time
• A survey of e-banking performance in Thailand
• Data classification process for security and privacy based on a fuzzy logic classifier
• A data model for processing financial market and news data

First issue: International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education

Pluralism is rapidly gaining currency among economists, with its key elements including respect for diversity and alternative views, toleration, willingness to learn, curiosity and friendliness – all necessary to enable students to forge solutions to today’s complex problems. International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education will facilitate communication in the development of pluralism and its implementation into the classroom.

There is a free download of the papers from this first issue.