28 April 2012

Newly announced journal : International Journal of Bonds and Currency Derivatives

Beginning publication in 2013, International Journal of Bonds and Currency Derivatives will bring together research on the independency and interdependency of bonds and currency derivatives. It will encourage innovation in using theory and research methodology in exploring each area independently and collectively.


Call for Papers: Machine Learning and Pattern Recognition in Bioinformatics

A special issue of International Journal of Nano and Biomaterials

Currently, a great amount of data are being generated which range from gene expression and micro RNA array data through to next generation sequence data. Data interpretation draws on mathematical and computational skills and thus the subject has engaged the interest of researchers in areas such mathematics, bioinformatics and computer science.

This cross-disciplinary special issue aims to bring together top researchers, practitioners and students from all over the world to explore and present innovative machine learning and pattern recognition approaches to solve realistic problems in bioinformatics and biomedicine.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:
  • Microarray gene expression data analysis
  • Protein structure and function prediction
  • Molecular interaction and regulation network inference
  • Immunoinformatics and cheminformatics
  • High throughput sequencing data analysis
  • Text mining in biomedical literatures
  • Algorithms in molecular modelling
  • Biological databases, integration and visualisation
  • New machine learning methods for bioinformatics
  • Genome-wide association studies
  • Biomarker discovery
  • Gene network analysis
  • Tools and algorithms in bioinformatics
  • Other related topics
Important Dates
Full paper deadline: 25 July, 2012
Acceptance notification: 15 September, 2012

Final revised submission: 10 October, 2012

Call for Papers: Using Technology to Facilitate Chronic Disease Management

A special issue of International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology

Chronic disease continues to be one of the leading causes of death and economic loss in most countries today. Hence, it has become a central problem for healthcare and many are looking for solutions.

Early detection and prevention of chronic disease is one of the preferred strategies for reducing the incidence of chronic disease and address escalating cost issues. It has been widely documented that assisting chronic disease management through information technology tends to facilitate better health outcomes. We are therefore seeing several health IT projects being initiated and successfully supporting chronic disease management.

This special issue aims to host a discussion and discourse on the possible applications of IS/IT (information systems/information technology) to facilitate better chronic disease management.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:
  • Facilitating standardisation via including care plans and guidelines for health information systems and developing decision support systems for assisting healthcare providers' decision making
  • Technology for delivery of care, e.g. artificial pancreases, implants, telemedicine, radiology, smart devices such as insulin pumps and implants
  • Electronic health records; health information systems; computerised guidelines; prevention; patient education; care and assistance for elderly people; lifestyle modifications such as physical activities, nutrition, weight management and mental health
  • Design and development of portals, communication platforms and/or the role of online social networks
  • Applications for mobile solutions to facilitate monitoring and/or management
  • Specific technology solutions to address better monitoring and management of asthma, diabetes, congenital heart disease, arthritis, chronic pain and obesity
Important Dates
Papers due: 20 October, 2012
Review results: 31 January, 2013
Final paper due: 20 April 2013

Call for Papers: Business Intelligence Applications to Decision-Making

A special issue of International Journal of Data Analysis Techniques and Strategies

Organisations use business intelligence (BI) techniques to enhance decision-making, improve or re-engineer business processes, cut costs and identify new business opportunities. Typically, BI mainly refers to computer-based techniques used to identify, extract and analyse business data to support superior business decision-making. Business intelligence includes set of applications to collect, store and analyse raw data to enable managers to make sound decisions in a business enterprise.

 BI is a growing discipline that includes several activities related to decision-making such as querying, data mining, online analytical processing, forecasting, benchmarking and predictive analytics, to name a few. Business intelligence is an umbrella term that refers to the technologies that support better management of an enterprise through informed decision-making. BI is not just reporting. It offers an analytical, predictive view of an organisation using its enterprise architecture platform to allow managers to compete and survive in the modern business environment.

 It’s only recently that organisations have started to include business intelligence as an integral part of their mission and to devise BI strategies at the enterprise-wide level. As a result, there is a great demand for research focused on the use and application of BI techniques that go beyond traditional reporting and modelling tools.

 This special issue addresses the latest research in the area of business intelligence to benefit researchers and managers alike by publishing any efforts to
  • illustrate new trends in BI applications that go far beyond traditional decision support applications
  • support better decision-making that involves more than reporting or sets of tools to glean data from corporate databases to incorporate business analytics.
The papers in this issue aim to represent the latest research ideas in the area of BI to provide performance metrics, tools and techniques for enterprise management.

 We welcome theoretical and empirical papers, and interesting case studies that are within the scope of the issue. The issue will contain invited papers and papers submitted directly as per the instructions below. If the number of accepted papers is more than that needed for the special issue, some papers will appear in a regular issue of IJDATS.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:
  • Artificial intelligence applications to business decision-making, such as neural networks, genetic algorithms, fuzzy systems and swarm intelligence
  • Benchmarking
  • Data mining
  • Enterprise performance management
  • Knowledge discovery and management systems
  • Online analytical processing
  • Predictive analysis
  • Text mining
Important Dates
Submission due date of full paper: 31 July, 2012
Feedback from referees: 5 September, 2012
Submission due date of revised paper: 30 September, 2012
Notification of acceptance: 1 November, 2012

Submission of final revised paper: 25 November, 2012

Special Issue on Fuels and Combustion in Engines


International Journal of Alternative Propulsion 2(2) 2012

Papers from the  Fuels and Combustion in Engines Conference held in Istanbul, Turkey, 31 March -1 April 2009.
  • Performance and emission characteristics of methyl ester from non-edible oils in a DI diesel engine with additive and advance injection
  • Comparison of blends of conventional diesel fuel and CRBO containing high levels of FFA in a DI diesel engine
  • Performance and emissions of a dual fuel operated diesel engine
  • Effect of injection timings on the performance, emission and combustion characteristics of DI diesel engine running on Calophyllum inophyllum linn oil (honne oil)
  • Plug-in hybrid conversion of three wheeler using a novel drive strategy
  • Performance of a direct diesel engine using aviation fuels blended with biodiesel
Additional Paper
  • Effect of hydrogen supplementation on the performance, combustion and emission characteristics of a natural gas fuelled S.I. engine



Special issue: Advances in robotics, automation and manufacturing systems

International Journal of Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications 11(1/2) 2012

Papers from the 26th International Conference on CAD/CAM, Robotics and Factories of the Future (CARs&FOF), held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 26-28 July 2011
  • Design factors determining the cooperative manipulators of heterogeneous form using walking wheelchair
  • The development of a hybrid knowledge-based system for the design of a Low Volume Automotive Manufacturing (LVAM) system
  • Improving classification accuracy using intra-session classifier training and implementation for a BCI based on automated parameter selection
  • Hybrid Genetic Algorithm (GA) for job shop scheduling problems and its sensitivity analysis
  • A new hybrid machine design for a 6 DOF industrial robot arm
  • Implementation of serpentine locomotion
  • Parameter analysis and design framework for magnetic adhesion wall climbing wheeled robot
  • Fuzzy rules-based approach to estimate the availability of transportation system
  • A biologically inspired intelligent environment architecture for mobile robot navigation

Special Issue: Community security and resiliency – planning, leadership and public involvement in building more resilient places

International Journal of Critical Infrastructures 8(1) 2012
  • The case for resilience: a comparative analysis
  • Linking infrastructure resilience to response requirements: the New Madrid Seismic Zone case
  • Dimensions of resiliency: essential resiliency, exceptional recovery and scale
Additional Papers
  • A simple metric for dependencies
    Regional industries as critical infrastructures: a tale of two modern cities


22 April 2012

Spring Highlights newsletter available

The Spring issue of the Highlights newsletter has been distributed and is available on the Inderscience website.

Contents include:
Short overview of... Social network mining
Highlighting... Risk, reliability and safety collection
Calls for papers in Inderscience journals
Events: calls for papers and details
Articles featured in the press

21 April 2012

Call for Papers: From Paradox to Practice – the Rise of Coopetition Strategies

A special issue of International Journal of Business Environment

Real life relationships between firms are becoming increasingly distant from simple competition and cooperation models, making existing theoretical frameworks less relevant both for managers and academics than they were two decades ago. Increasingly, firms cooperate and compete in the same time, within value creation networks and dyadic relationships. Coopetition strategies have been the focus of a growing researchers’ community for more than a decade now.

This special issue aims at exploring recent developments, ideas, approaches and findings within the coopetition strategy research field.

It is intended for academics, researchers and managers who are involved in the coopetition research stream or manage dynamic, complex and often paradoxical relationships between firms. Authors are invited to submit papers presenting studies related to the theory or practice of coopetition at different levels of investigations (e.g. networks, interfirm relations, intra-firm relations).

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the 5th Workshop on Coopetition Strategy (University of Economics in Katowice, Poland, 13-14 September, 2012), but we also strongly encourage researchers unable to participate in the conference to submit papers for this call.

This issue addresses a wide range of theoretical, empirical and methodological facets of coopetition strategy research. We particularly welcome papers focusing on, but not limited to:

 Theoretical framework development for coopetition studies across different levels of analysis:
  •  microfoundations
  •  interorganisational
  •  network
  •  industry
 Managerial tensions generated within and between organisations when implementing coopetition strategies:
  •  Ambidexterity of coopeting organisations
  •  The role of dynamic capabilities in developing coopetitive relations
  •  Governance structures fostering coopetition success
  •  Team composition and behaviours
  •  Coopetition cultural antecedents
 Coopetition phenomenon:
  •  Empirical results of coopetition process development scrutiny
  •  Coopetitive strategies for distributive relationships
  •  The role of power of actors in the emergence of coopetitive strategies
  •  Resource orchestration in a coopetitive network
Important Dates
Submission deadline: 15 November, 2012
Author notification: 31 March, 2013
Revised papers deadline: 30 May, 2013

Call for Papers: Multimedia Data Processing Technologies and their Applications in Ubiquitous Environments

A special issue of International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology

The availability of small, low-cost and low-power sensors, radios and microcontrollers has triggered a huge wave of research in networked embedded sensing systems. As a result, different research communities have emerged which work on related aspects, but which have slightly different foci.

 A focus of the sensor network community is on energy-efficient systems and networking solutions. While these aspects are also fundamental for ubiquitous computing, a focus of the latter community is on user interaction. The currently emerging cyber-physical systems community emphasises the integration of actuation and control. Despite these differences, the realisation of the above visions involves a common fundamental challenge: the need for trustworthy computing solutions to deliver secure, private and reliable computing and communication services.

 This special issue promotes the exchange of opinions between experts working in different areas of the growing field of multi-data processing technologies and their applications in ubiquitous environments. The main purpose of the issue is to bring together the above communities to exchange latest results, to join efforts in solving common challenges, and also to compare developments in the different communities.

 To support this goal, the issue will feature several tracks devoted to sensor networks, ubiquitous computing and cyber-physical systems, as well as tracks devoted to common themes such as pervasive services and data management, embedded networking and trustworthy computing. Research and development of these systems, which exploits knowledge in the target domain, is at the forefront of modern research.

This special issue welcomes both academic and practical contributions in all aspects of multi-data processing technologies. Relevant topics may include, but are not limited to, the following aspects of sensor networks, ubiquitous computing, cyber-physical systems and trustworthy computing:
  • Applications (novel use cases, deployment experience, etc.)
  • Algorithms and protocols (topology, coverage, routing, timesync, distributed coordination, etc.)
  • Data management and processing (gathering, storage, fusion, dissemination, etc.)
  • Authenticated route optimization scheme for network mobility
  • Clustering in ubiquitous environments
  • Privacy
  • Security (authentication, access control, intrusion detection and tolerance, etc.)
  • System and network architectures
  • Clustering technique estimation for mobile ad-hoc networks
  • Trust (establishment, negotiation, management, etc.)
  • Innovative architectures for ubiquitous learning systems
  • Enhancement of sleep environment using sensors
  • Authenticated route optimisation schemes for networks
  • Content management and delivery for learning on mobile devices
  • Design of a biomedical signal measure system based on sensor networks
  • Collaborative and social mobile learning
  • Edge detection using mean shift algorithms
  • Biomedical signal measure systems based on sensor network
  • Noun and keyword extraction for information processing
  • Blended learning with mobile and fixed technologies
  • Distributed sensing, actuation and control
  • Phased scene change detection in ubiquitous environments
  • Local detection tree and clustering in ubiquitous environment
  • Mobile multimedia networks
Important Dates
Submission of full paper:  before 30 July, 2012
Notification of acceptance: before 31 September, 2012
Submission of final and revised manuscripts: 30 December, 2012

Call for Papers: Modelling Supply Chain Planning Problems by Integrating Data Analysis and Optimisation Techniques

A special issue of International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management

Today’s corporations are struggling with their supply chains. Supply base globalisation on the one hand, and product/channel diversification on the other, mean that supply chains are now more complex than ever. Many companies report rising inventory levels and increased service pressure at the same time as they are impacted by rising fuel and commodity costs.

 A continuous quest for improved performance is the linchpin of success in many best-in class organisations. These organisations exhibit proven ability to strive and excel in all spheres of activities. These activities cut across all of the organisations’ functions and processes stretching from sourcing to customer service. Otherwise known as supply chain, “excellent design and efficient execution of these activities and processes” charts a company’s success. Excellent supply chain management helps leading companies around the world achieve better service, lower costs, lower inventory, and ultimately competitive advantage. We need breakthrough success enabled through efficient supply chain planning processes. There is a need for designing, modelling and executing the various supply chain planning issues and problems.

 Supply chain planning comprises five top elements such as demand planning and forecasting, sales and operations planning, inventory planning, production planning and logistics planning. Facilitating the planning functions based on the transformation process from data to information to knowledge is a supreme concern for every supply chain. Many organisations are being swamped with data and volumes of contradictory information, but with limited real usable knowledge.

 Statisticians focus on data accuracy, database administrators emphasise data completeness and operation researchers target optimisation. But the integration of the above is missing. So, current isolated islands of data analysis and optimisation techniques should be connected, and an integrated and systematic union of data analysis and optimisation techniques for modelling supply chain planning problems is a current need. The objective of this special issue is to address this need.

 The integration of data analysis and optimisation techniques can be used to assist decision-makers at all management levels with three levels of supply chain planning problems:
Strategic management level: supply chain network planning, design and optimisation
Tactical management level: collaborative demand planning and forecasting and replenishment planning and coordination planning
Operational management level: production planning, routing of products and vehicles by logistics planning and organisation of returns and services

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:
  • Modelling systems which employ integration of data analysis and optimszation techniques in order to provide decision support for
  • Strategic supply and distribution network planning
  • Demand planning and forecasting
  • Inventory planning and optimisation
  • Transportation and logistics planning and optimisation
  • Sales and operations planning
  • Purchasing and procurement
  • The data analysis techniques can include
  • Multi-variate analysis
  • Multi-criteria decision making analysis
  • The optimisation techniques can include
  • Mathematical modelling
  • Data mining in globalised supply chain
  • Heuristics
  • Meta-heuristics
Important Date
Submission deadline: 30 October, 2012

Call for Papers: Global Green Supply Chains and Logistical Issues

A special issue of International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management

This special issue is intended to provide an outlet for innovative and timely contributions pertaining to global green supply chains and their associated logistical concerns. The notion of corporations adopting corporate socially responsible (CSR) strategies and becoming more sensitive to the natural environment is experiencing a tremendous surge of popularity nationwide, even in the midst of a global recession. It is an attractive and enduring concept to explore.

 In recent years, implementing green strategies has become a major focus in nearly all industries. In order to achieve them, companies need to keep up to date on developments and green cleaning, educate themselves about changes in the legislative and regulatory environment, and train staff to implement green programmes in a variety of settings. Implementation of CSR involves a company’s effort to minimise its impact on the environment, to better engage employees, and to take care of them in ways beyond a simple analysis of their paychecks or giving back to the community.

 Some consider CSR to be a natural and necessary evolution in corporate responsibility for helping people and the planet (following the triple bottom line of financial responsibility, or 3BL – people, profits, and planet). The phrase “going green” can mean many things to different people as well as to different businesses. People's reasons for reducing energy use can range from supporting the use of alternative energy sources as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the fight against global warming or to do what they can to minimise their impact on their region's environment, to simply reducing their energy bills.

 The motivating factors for businesses can include cutting operating costs (by becoming operationally leaner, for example), enhancing employee health and productivity, enhancing business reputation, or reducing the risk of running afoul of environmental regulations. A company can receive significant environmental gains and cost savings in the buyers’ supply chain by focusing on a particular industry with a high level of environmental impact.

 Kent State University has successfully completed two International Symposiums on Sustainable Value Chains with green supply chains as their theme, and Robert Morris University has been hosting a sustainability conference with green issues as a major theme for years. This call for papers is a natural extension of those efforts. The goals of these two conferences included to communicate and learn sustainable value chain practices across research and practice; to enhance interactions between practitioners and researchers; and to create a platform for industry to lead by examples of best-practice associated with sustainability and its value chains.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:
  • Operational, sociological, behavioural, economic and practical aspects of sustainable value chain solutions, from human intervention to reusability to recovery, from life-cycle management to strategic initiatives via the corporate forum
  • CSR initiatives based on green logistics and SCM
  • Reliability and efficiency issues in IT and datacentre operations
  • Operational considerations of maximum energy efficiency and minimum negative environmental impact of SCM and logistical systems
  • The dynamics, spread and consequences of green marketing-relevant initiatives
  • Characteristics of green consumers, perceived operational and strategic benefits of focusing on industrial and commercial buyers that want to know how raw materials are produced and where they come from, how food is grown, and what the foods' potential impact is on the environment
  • Green-based SCM and logistical concerns and strategic, operational and financial perspectives
Important Date
Submission deadline: 1 May, 2013

14 April 2012

First issue: International Journal of Cognitive Biometrics

Dedicated to the publication of novel approaches to biometrics based on cognitive aspects of human behaviour, International Journal of Cognitive Biometrics will draw not just on the biometrics community, but also from wider communities such as psychophysiology and neuroscience, in order to meet the challenges of providing novel, effective, and efficient authentication schemes.

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

Call for Papers: Managing Social Networks: How Ubiquitous Technologies and Social Media Can Foster the Marriage Between Innovation and Youth Entrepreneurship

A special issue of International Journal of Technology Management

Technology and social network-based entrepreneurship form a critical link between development of knowledge and economic growth and thus are a prerequisite for implementing innovation inside fast-growing companies. Even large investments in knowledge and technology development will not ensure economic outcomes if not supported by the entrepreneurial opportunity seeking and commercialisation of ubiquitous technologies.

In this scenario, social networks (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) re-created the way by which individuals and businesses use technology and internet. New generations of internet applications and social media services will build on active social networks, feature personalised content and offer the ability to exchange data and media with other users. The emergence and popularity of online social networks in recent years has changed the Internet ecosystem, leading to a more collaborative environment. The importance of this phenomenon for research in social sciences and technology management is clearly evidenced by the increasingly associated emerging technologies and applications including online content sharing services and communities, multimedia communication over the Internet, social multimedia search, interactive services and entertainment, health care and security applications.

In particular, social networks provided great opportunities for the development and growth of (mainly but not only) technology-based companies run by young entrepreneurs (e.g. students, researchers). Social networks can play the role of core service and/or critical communication channels of these companies.

 Although the connection between social networking and young entrepreneurship is quite common and strong, literature about this phenomenon is still scarce. The aim of this special issue is to explore how ubiquitous technologies and social networks/media foster the emerging of youth entrepreneurship and the development of innovation processes inside them. This call for papers is devoted to examine social networks as a new multidisciplinary research field that bridges business studies and technology management.

 We wish to inspire scholars with an interest in topics such as innovation, techno-entrepreneurship, information systems, social networks, organisational design or knowledge management to consider submitting their work to this special issue. We welcome both theoretical work and empirical research using quantitative or qualitative methods. All articles should demonstrate relevance to the understanding of social software and its implications for business and innovation. Readers of this special issue are technically savvy, scientifically demanding and drawn to practically relevant phenomena.

 The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the Sixth Edition of the International Conference Health, Research and Entrepreneurship expected to be held on 26th October 2012, but we also strongly encourage researchers unable to participate to the conference to submit papers for this call.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:
  •  Young entrepreneurs and technological innovation for the exploitation of social networks
  •  Large established companies and social network-based companies promoted by young entrepreneurs
  •  Financing social network-based companies promoted by young entrepreneurs
  •  Cross-cultural and/or cross-industry comparisons between young entrepreneurs in the social network age
  •  Strategy and business models of social network-based companies promoted by young entrepreneurs
  •  Organisational innovation carried out from social networks in youth enterprises
  •  Tools, frameworks and techniques for integrating social networks and ubiquitous interactions in youth enterprises
  •  Adapted interaction in social networks, contextual friend grouping and labelling mechanisms in youth enterprises
  •  Online social networks as virtual context sensors for youth entrepreneurship
  •  Mobile sensing, social networks integration, geo-social mobile systems and ubiquitous interactions for fast growing firms
  •  Creation of technology-based ventures (sources of financing, resource and opportunity seeking, success factors and barriers, entrepreneurs’ profiles, motives and attitudes, case studies of technology-based ventures)
  •  Growth of technology-based ventures promoted by young people through social networks (business models and strategies of achieving growth, financing the growth).
  •  Public policy for technology entrepreneurship promoted by young people through social networks (technology parks, financing instruments, legal and tax arrangements promoting investments in technology).
Furthermore this special issue aims at answering research questions which include:
  •  Do innovation processesthat emerge from social networks of actors or communities differ from the processes inside traditional organisational boundaries? What are the consequences of networks of innovation for enterprise evolution?
  •  Industry incumbents protect their markets by erecting entry barriers. Networks building on social software infrastructure may undercut entry barriers by utilising the Internet for one or more activities in the value chain. What are the successful new strategies that enable firms to enter industries?
  •  Revealing information, knowledge, and technology to peers and competitors can be a promising strategy in order to sustain knowledge exchangeand motivate external experts to contribute their know-how and time. However, the presence of for-profit firms can crowd-out volunteer participation. How can collaboration and the social interaction of communities of volunteers and firms be initiated and sustained?
  •  Entrepreneurs embrace new technologies in search of opportunities in existing and new markets. Which social media applications best enable new innovation practices? What are the technologies that allow entrepreneurs to successfully experiment with social media/networks?
Important Dates
Submission Deadline (Extended Abstracts [max 500 words plus references]): 30 June 2012
Notification of Acceptance (Extended Abstracts): 15 July 2012
Submission Deadline (Full Paper): 30 November 2012
Notification of Acceptance/Revisions (Full Paper): 28 February 2013
Final paper production deadline: 30 April 2013

Call for Papers: Human Factors and Ergonomics in Emergency Management

A special issue of International Journal of Human Factors and Ergonomics

There has been a global trend over the last decade for increase in the frequency and impact of natural and man-made disasters (Guha-Sapir et al. 2011). Statistical data indicates that in 2010 there were 385 natural disasters worldwide, killing more than 297,000 people, affecting over 217 million people and causing about 124 billion US dollars in economic losses. Countries, states, international organisations and civil society are often called upon to intervene collectively in the resolution of civil crises using a process usually referred to as emergency management.

Emergency management is a complex decision-making process with the objective of creating a framework within which communities reduce vulnerability to hazards, and organise themselves to respond to disasters and recover from them. It is a relatively new discipline which has a high degree of uncertainty. The timeliness of response in times of crisis impacts collaboration options, highlighting the importance of a systems approach.

The interdisciplinary science of human factors and ergonomics, being concerned with people and their successful interaction with all forms of technology, must be applied in every phase and action of the emergency management cycle.

Emergency management would profit from the benefits of the application of a human-centred philosophy to the design and operation of its vast activities and technical systems. Human factors and ergonomics should be used in order to ameliorate and prevent death and injury from similar events in the future.

This special issue is intended to publish and disseminate the newest state-of-the-art in the area of human factors and ergonomics in emergency management. Authors are encouraged to submit technical papers that employ both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies, case studies, and papers presenting new methodologies and procedures.

Reference
 Guha-Sapir, D., Vos, F., Below, R., Ponserre, S. (2011) Annual Disaster Statistical Review 2010: The numbers and trends. Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. Université Catholique de Louvain.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:
  •  HFE issues of collaboration and information sharing in emergency management
  •  Biomechanics issues in emergency response activities
  •  Design and development of products for emergency response and management
  •  Macro-ergonomic aspects of emergency management
  •  Risk and rewards related to HFE in emergency management systems
  •  HFE in the development of emergency management systems
  •  Ergonomic intervention in emergency management
  •  Ergonomic intelligent training systems in emergency management
  •  Participatory ergonomics in emergency management
  •  Stress in emergency management
  •  Cost justification of ergonomic improvements in emergency management systems
  •  Usability and human-centred design in emergency management systems
  •  Improving interaction maturity in distributed emergency management
  •  HFE aspects of agile organisations for emergency management
  •  Cognitive issues in emergency management tasks
  •  Other topics related with the theme of the special issue
Important Dates
Submission deadline: 1 March, 2013 (extended)
Acceptance notification: 15 April, 2013

Final paper due: 15 July, 2013

Media partnership COM 2012

Inderscience is a media partner for the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum's COM 2012 conference to be held in Niagara Falls, 30 Sept-3 Oct 2012.

11 April 2012

Special issue: Progress in information, communication and energy systems

International Journal of Reasoning-based Intelligent Systems 4(1/2) 2012

Papers from the  XLVI International Scientific Conferenceon Information, Communication and Energy Systems andTechnologies ( ICEST 2011) held in Nis, Serbia,  29 June - 1 July 2011.
  • Complex Hadamard transform of digital signals: properties and applications
  • Automated knowledge-based filter synthesis using modified Legendre approximation and optimisation of summed sensitivity
  • Synthesis of scattering parameter polynomials for digital models of microstrip structures utilising opened and short-circuited stubs
  • Programmable jitter generator
  • Methods for power minimisation in modern VLSI circuits
  • Computer modelling and simulation of the PV-boost converter system working at MPPT mode of operation
  • Properties of model with changed serving intensities in secondary group channels
  • Software module 'pentagonal dipole' based on artificial neural networks
  • Implementation of dyadic correlation and autocorrelation on graphics processors
  • The analysis of typical seasonal load duration curves of low-voltage consumers
  • Methodology for tuning PSS2A system stabilisers
  • An intelligent vehicle routing system for family farming collective organisations

Special issue: European marine affairs after the world economic crisis

International Journal of Ocean Systems Management 1(3/4) 2012
  • Editorial
  • An analytical exposition of the European policies on maritime economy from their inception to present day
  • A critical evaluation of EU maritime policy (1957, 1986-2010)
  • The Common Marine Policy of the European Union since 2005
  • Linking theory with practice in port performance and benchmarking
  • The maritime shipment of LNG to Europe: dynamics in markets, ships and terminal projects
  • European policies on short sea shipping and their impact on 'private operators'
  • The competitiveness of short sea shipping taking into account environmental, infrastructure and oil costs. A case study of the Tallinn-Warsaw Route
  • European motorways of the sea: lessons from the Spanish experience
  • A new strategy for yacht ports in Greece under present austerity programmes

Special issue: Gender issues in entrepreneurship

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business 15(4) 2012
  • Female self-employment among the Kleine Gemeinde in the Mennonite settlement of Blue Creek, Northern Belize
  • Female entrepreneurship in China: opportunity- or necessity-based?
  • Acquisition of external capital at start-up stage: differences between Swedish female- and male-owned firms
  • Entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions: assessing gender specific differences
  • Analysis of the barriers and limitations for the development of rural women's entrepreneurship
  • The jamu system: linking small-scale enterprises, traditional knowledge and social empowerment?
  • Experiences of ethnic minority immigrant women entrepreneurs in contrast to male counterparts

Special issue: Critical e-business issues in SE Asia

International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations 10(3/4) 2012

Papers from the 9th Wuhan International E-Business conference (WHICEB 2010) held in Wutan, China, 29-30 May 2010.
  • Empirical research on information technology value
  • The impacts of customer participation and company reputation on customer-company identification
  • A method of detecting online public opinions based on the query log of search engine
  • A web-based Hong Kong tourism demand forecasting system
  • Path analysis of IT application maturity
  • Analysis and thinking of failed Japanese ITO cases in China
  • Environmental impact assessment of life-cycle building products using the evidence reasoning approach
  • The research on the process of new service development in logistics enterprises
  • Internationalisation, vertical integration and performance: a case study of BOE
  • Antecedents and consequences of e-supply chain coordination capability for enterprises: an empirical study in China
  • Application of BP neural network in evaluating e-business performance for service industry
  • Empirical analysis of the trade between Liaoning and Japan as well as effects of absorbing Japan's direct investment
  • Hybrid artificial neural network and statistical model for forecasting project total duration in earned value management
  • Referral service of infomediary in B2C supply chain

8 April 2012

Special issue: Advances in computer vision technology and applications

International Journal of Computational Vision and Robotics 3(1/2) 2012
  • Computer vision for fruit harvesting robots – state of the art and challenges ahead
  • Classification of vehicle type and make by combined features and random subspace ensemble
  • A multi-resolution framework for multi-object tracking in Daubechies complex wavelet domain
  • A novel approach for gesture control video games based on perceptual features: modelling, tracking and recognition
  • A method for identification and classification of medicinal plant images based on level set segmentation and SVM classification
  • Multi-functional intelligent access control system based on hand vein recognition
Additional Paper
  • An enhanced classifier fusion model for classifying biomedical data


Special issue: Metal ions removal from liquid effluents: Part Two

International Journal of Environment and Waste Management 9(3/4) 2012

Part One was in International Journal of Environment and Waste Management 8(3/4) 2011
  • Membrane contactors (NDSX and EPT): an innovative alternative for the treatment of effluents containing metallic pollutants
  • A comparative study of biosorption of Cu using Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus flavus
  • Modified crab shell particles for the removal of lead[II] ions from aqueous solutions
  • Cadmium ion removal by electroflotation onto sewage sludge biomass
  • Occurrence of rate limited sorption in stormwater biofiltration systems
  • Accumulation and release of Pb(II) in aqueous solution by aquatic mosses (Fontinalis antipyretica)
  • Cadmium removal from industrial effluents by cementation with zinc powder
  • Cu(II) separation from diluted aqueous solutions by flotation with atypical collectors anti and syn 2-hydroxy-3,5-di-tert-butyl-benzaldoxime
  • Lab-scale production of biogenic sulphide for metal precipitation in remote areas
  • Treatment of metal ions and metalchelate complexes in water with biologically produced H2S
Additional Papers
  •  Contamination by mercury of groundwater of the North Numidian zone of Azzaba, North East Algeria. Effect of inorganic mercury contamination of population
  • Utilisation of drinking water from rainwater-harvesting cisterns in the Palestinian territories: assessment of contamination risk
  • An analysis of groundwater irrigation expansion in India
  • Construction of a low-cost laser-based multiplexed spectrometer: a potential probe for environmental pollution monitoring

6 April 2012

Newly announced title: International Journal of Human Rights and Constitutional Studies

Beginning publication in 2013, International Journal of Human Rights and Constitutional Studies will consider constitutional law and human rights protection from a global perspective. It will provide novel and original material in the fields of current economic and political crises, globalised democratic governance, human rights public policies, the theory and philosophy of rights, comparative constitutional law and the methodology of law.

Newly announced title: International Journal of Sustainable Aviation

Beginning publication in 2013, International Journal of Sustainable Aviation will cover  a broad range of aviation-related issues, with particular emphasis on environmental problems associated with sustainability. It will address current issues, such as improving aircraft fuel efficiency, fostering use of biofuels, minimising environmental impact, mitigating GHG emissions and reducing of engine and airframe noise.

Special issue: Parallel and distributed processing with applications

International Journal of High Performance Computing and Networking 7(2) 2012

Papers from the 2008 IEEE International Symposium on Paralleland Distributed Processing with Applications (ISPA 2008) held in Sydney, Australia, 10–12 December 2008.
  • Orchestrating computational algebra components into a high-performance parallel system
  • A task parallel algorithm for finding all-pairs shortest paths using the GPU
  • Simulation-based evaluation of the Imagine stream processor with scientific programs
  • Long-term microclimate monitoring in wildland cultural heritage sites with wireless sensor networks
Submitted Papers
  • An optimal candidate selection model for self-acting load balancing of parallel file system
  • Algorithmic skeletons for multi-core, multi-GPU systems and clusters
  • SGL: towards a bridging model for heterogeneous hierarchical platforms


Special issue: Cognitive radio networks

International Journal of Communication Networks and Distributed Systems 8(3/4) 2012
  • A continuous-time Markov chain model and analysis for cognitive radio networks
  • Differentiated service provisioning in the MAC layer of cognitive radio mesh networks
  • Cross-layer design in opportunistic spectrum access-based cognitive radio networks
  • OFDM/OQAM modulation for efficient dynamic spectrum access
  • Efficient detection of primary users in cognitive radio networks
  • Neuro-fuzzy-based hand-off and opportunistic spectrum access for cognitive cooperative network
  • On the throughput performance of cluster-based cognitive radio networks
Additional Paper
  • Outage analysis in presence of correlated interferers in a cognitive radio – CDMA network

Special issue: Paradigms of a national accounting system: overview of the Romanian accounting environment

International Journal of Critical Accounting 4(2) 2012
  • Romanian accounting profession: erudition and perspectives
  • How to perform in the field of accounting research? The case of Romania
  • Critical analysis of developments in Romanian accounting during the 20th century: a neo-institutional approach
  • Accounting models and influential factors in post-communist Romania
  • An analysis of thanatogenesis in Romanian accounting

Call for Papers: Community Structure in Complex Networks

A special issue of International Journal of Web Based Communities

Network science is a powerful paradigm to better understand the complex systems encountered in many different disciplines such as physics, sociology, biology and computer science. One of the most relevant features of networked systems is community structure. Despite the tremendous efforts of a large interdisciplinary community of scientists working on this subject over the past few years to characterise, model and analyse communities in complex network, it is still a very hard problem that needs further investigation.

Therefore, the primary goal of this special issue is to showcase the cutting edge research advances in community structures in complex networks, in order to provide a landscape of research progress and application potential in related areas. Papers, of a broad nature, on various aspects of community structure with strong algorithmic innovations, and also application-oriented works, are solicited.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:
  • Community models in networks
  • Community structure evolution
  • Community structure properties
  • Community structure discovery
  • Community and epidemics
  • Community in economic networks
  • Community and rumour spreading
  • Community and visual representation
  • Community in financial networks
  • Community in technology networks
  • Community in biological systems
  • Community in social networks
Important Dates
Submission deadline: 18 April, 2012
Acceptance notification: 30 May, 2012
Final manuscript due: 30 June, 2012

Call for Papers: The Emergence of Student Entrepreneurial Activity. Connecting Scientific Knowledge with Creativity

A special issue of International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management

Research on student entrepreneurship is clearly burgeoning, yet it remains a fragmented field. Currently, no literature review exists that specifically focuses on university students’ entrepreneurship and provides an overarching framework to encompass the different pieces making up student entrepreneurship.

 It is noteworthy that the research stream on student entrepreneurship views entrepreneurial activity as a step in the natural evolution of a university system that emphasises economic development in addition to the more traditional mandates of education and research.

 The main element in entrepreneurship education is the cultivation of teaching styles (Miclea, 2004). In this point, Sexton, et al., 1997 mentioned the necessity to consider the motivations and necessities of potential entrepreneurs. For this reason, Jack and Anderson, 1999; Fiet, 2000, 2001; and Nijhuis and Collis, 2005 reveal that universities following the patterns of entrepreneurial education (theory about small and medium size enterprises management) compensate with external experience sources (practices with business community).

 This issue reveals the importance of factors that affect significant societal influences from academia to society and vice versa, such as the high interdependence with the government and industry firms, the different sources of income, the entrepreneurial activities of all community members (students, academic and faculty) and the implementation of different strategies, to improving the creation of new venture and the adjustments in organisational structure.

 Consequently, most of the articles in this research stream attempt to reveal organisational designs of universities that inhibit or enhance the commercialisation of university inventions. Studies have revolved around incentive systems, university status, location, culture, intermediary agents, focus, experience, and defined role and identity. In addition to organisational design, other studies focus on the characteristics and roles of faculty and the nature of the technology to be commercialised.

 Thus, some studies express, implicitly or explicitly, the phenomena of intrapreneurship, or the process that goes on inside an existing firm (in this case, institution), and leads not only to new business ventures, but also to other innovative activities and orientations such as development of new products, services, technologies, administrative techniques, strategies and competitive postures.

 The structural shifts in the entrepreneurial orientation of universities pave the way for the ability to innovate, recognise and create opportunities, work in teams, take risks and respond to challenges. On its own, it seeks to work out substantial guidance in organisational character so as to arrive at a more promising posture for the future. In other words, it is a natural incubator that provides support structures for students to initiate new ventures: intellectual, commercial and conjoint.

 We wish to explore the dimensions of the creative process in contrast to problem solving or mere intelligence. Universities that want to encourage creative thought might need to embrace the visions of students and the diversity in personalities, styles and ideas. Focus occurs on a university infrastructure that evolves in stressing the particular ability to add value by organising creative knowledge: only in understanding who tends to be creative and what types of influences stimulate or inhibit the creative process can students hope to find ways to “manage” it. In fact, “management” assumes that one has the knowledge and the power to effect thought processes that lead to creative solutions. These insights include recognising the value of judgement – that is, knowing good ideas from bad ones – and being able to act on the good ones – that is to conducts the experiments. Entrepreneurs recognise the importance of knowing a good idea from a bad one and, perhaps even more so, the importance of taking the risk – of acting on the good ideas.

 Studies dealing with research-based and student entrepreneurship, thus considering the market power of innovative firms created by very young entrepreneurs, would be greatly appreciated.

 The study of new firm creation based on university inventions can be leveraged to address one of the most important and vexing questions in knowledge management today: by addressing key disciplinary questions in the context of student entrepreneurial activity, we wish to work on a variety of ways to suggest implications for the study of knowledge creation and transfer. Empirical research using qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods is encouraged. Case studies (single in-depth cases or comparative cases) that are theoretically and empirically grounded are welcome. We will also consider conceptual papers that draw on the existing literature and develop innovative contributions that improve our understanding of the topic. Thus, we are looking for a wide variety of papers that contribute to the creation of a solid evidence base concerning innovation management inside family enterprises.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:
  • Students' entrepreneurial minds: where do entrepreneurial mentalities come from? How do we know whether or not people have entrepreneurial mentalities and how do we know how mentality affects peoples' response to new knowledge and new ideas? Why do students resist new ideas even when they are good ones?
  • Student entrepreneurship and global markets: how can young people (such as students) break the rules of the market by defeating more traditional competitors with innovative ideas and new IT-based marketing tools? What is the real market power of student entrepreneurship?
  • Social networks and student entrepreneurship: how can higher education best stimulate the creation of firms emanating from young and smart minds in colleges and universities? How are brain circulation and social networking helping young people to disseminate their ideas worldwide?
  • Strategies and knowledge assets: firm structure, industrial contexts and performance of student entrepreneurship. How can young people conceive, develop and exchange entrepreneurial ideas at the maximum speed and with the highest financial return? Why are more and more young people deciding to become entrepreneurs? Can the student corporation (that is, a firm entirely composed of young students) always be regarded as a kind of 'knowledge-intensive factory'?
  • Cultural differences inside student entrepreneurship: are there any individual and cultural differences in dealing with entrepreneurial ideas? Are there culturally construed ideologies underlying student entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviour? Is there substantial individual variance within a culture? If so, what can be done about it? It calls for a hybrid knowledge-driven economy that offers everyone the chance to compete via a world-class basic education system but also encourages radical innovation by means of an open, liberal and entrepreneurial culture.
  • Conceptualisation of a firm-level model of knowledge management: understanding the emergence of virtual corporation among students.
  • Cognitive processes and social contexts: creativity vs problem solving approach.
  • Organising around the other side of tacit knowing: knowledge types, epistemology, infrastructures.
  • The institutions of economic organisation and the knowledge-based view implications on student entrepreneurship.
  • Technological change and property rights: core assumptions and paradigm dynamics for student entrepreneurs.
  • Science, higher education and mechanism design of research/students' organisations.
Important Dates
Submission deadline (extended abstracts): 31 May, 2012 (by email)
Notification of acceptance (extended abstracts): 15 June 2012
Submission deadline (full paper): 31 August 2012 (online submission)
Notification of acceptance/revisions (full paper): 15 November 2012
Final paper production deadline: 31 December 2012

Special issue: Pore-scale flow and transport processes in petroleum reservoirs

International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology 5(2/3) 2012
  • Prediction of three-phase saturation profiles from two-phase capillar pressure curves as a function of wettability
  • Direct numerical simulation of pore-scale reactive transport: applications to wettability alteration during two-phase flow
  • Pore scale coupling of fluid displacement and unconsolidated sediment mechanics
  • Single-phase lattice Boltzmann simulations of pore-scale flow in fractured permeable media
  • Pore-scale analysis of the effects of contact angle hysteresis on blob mobilisation in a pore doublet
  • Three-dimensional pore networks and transport properties of a shale gas formation determined from focused ion beam serial imaging
  • Pore to continuum upscaling of permeability in heterogeneous porous media using mortars
Additional Paper
  • Streamline based black-oil simulation and its application to waterflooding


Special issue: Offshore systems

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology 43(3) 2012
  • On the structural integrity of damaged columns of semi-submersible platforms
  • Floating protection system for FPSO
  • On the safety of offloading operation in the oil industry
  • Offshore oil production units: a new concept of oil production floating hull
  • Development of a concept of mono-column platform: MONOBR
  • A new concept of station-keeping system for deep water production units – type FPSO
  • Thermal design of multi-layered composite pipelines for deep water oil and gas production
  • Experiments on transverse waves

Fuel Efficient Engine Summit media partnership

Inderscience is a media partner for the Fuel Efficient Engine Summit to be held in Dearborn, Michigan, USA, 30-31 July 2012.

Media partnership with the European Supply Chain and Logistics Summit

Inderscience is a media partner for the European Supply Chain and Logistics Summit to be held in Berlin, Germany, 19-21 June 2012.

Special issue: Potential contributions of nanomaterials for advanced applications

International Journal of Nanoparticles 5(2) 2012

Papers from the International Conference on Materials Imperatives in the NewMillennium (MINM 2010) held in Cairo, Egypt, 29 Nov-2 Dec 2010.
  • Composition and sintering temperature effect on some structural and magnetic properties of Ni Mg nano-particle ferrites
  • Gas sensing performance of nanostructured ZnO thick film resistors
  • Nanocrystalline zinc oxide thin films prepared by electrochemical technique for advanced applications
  • Structural, thermal and dielectric properties of ferroelectric Pb1-xCaxTiO3 ceramics
  • Synthesis and optical properties of titania-PVA nanocomposites
  • The role of new core pigment in enhancing the properties of glass-ceramics based on raw materials

Special issue: Web based communities and social media: new directions in marketing

International Journal of Web Based Communities 8(2) 2012
  • Identification of influential social networkers
  • Virtual communities and social activities: reframing the online experience
  • Relationships between brand awareness and online word-of-mouth: an example of online gaming community
  • Exploring the factors associated with weblog usage acceptance: evidence from Cyprus
  • An intelligent information retrieval: a social network analysis
  • Communication and online business opportunities in virtual environment: Second Life
  • Friend Lens: novel web content sharing through strategic manipulation of cached html
  • Motives and relevance of online friendships

4 April 2012

Special issue: Social media for marketing and advertising

International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising 7(2) 2012
  • Different strokes for different folks: why different user groups participate in online social media
  • Changing user motivations for social networking site usage: implications for internet advertisers
  • Segmenting the social networking sites users: an empirical study
  • Status and influence in virtual communities: an examination of interactions between followers of a video blog
  • The role of social CRM and its potential impact on lead generation in business-to-business marketing

Special issue: Web services and e-commerce and healthcare management

International Journal of Business Information Systems 9(4) 2012

Papers from the 6th European and Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems (EMCIS2009) held in Izmir, Turkey, 13-14 July 2009. 

Other papers from the conference  are in International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management 11(2) 2012
  • The driving factors of continuance online shopping: gender differences in behaviour among students – the case of Saudi Arabia
  • A holistic framework for the implementation of a next generation network
  • Decentralised privacy preservation in social networks
  • Web map services in tourism: a framework exploring the organisational transformations and implications on business operations and models
  • Multi-agent simulation of business processes: a theoretical model to manage and report carbon footprint in an emergent organisation
  • Vendor managed inventory via SOA in healthcare supply chain management
  • A concept for a long-term scalable bioengineering model of primary care
  • The rationale of e-health evaluation: the case of NHS Direct


Special issue: Interaction Design and Children, IDC 2010

International Journal of Arts and Technology 5(2-4) 2012

The 9th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children was held in Barcelona, Spain, 9-12 June 2010.
  • An augmented toy and social interaction in children with autism
  • Paper-based multimedia interaction and disabled children: from experience to learning-for-all
  • Tangible interaction and tabletops: new horizons for children's games
  • Noise detectives: design implications for mobile learning
  • We hunters: interactive communication for young cavemen
  • Detecting and modelling child's play behaviour using sensor-embedded climbing playground equipment
  • Mobile stories: the evolution of a mobile, collaborative story reading and creation tool for children
  • Collective digital storytelling at school: a whole-class interaction
  • Let robots do the talking
  • Integrating children's contributions in the interaction design process

Special issue: Cognitive radio systems

International Journal of Autonomous and Adaptive Communications Systems 5(2) 2012
  • Energy control game model for dynamic spectrum scanning
  • A novel common control channel security framework for cognitive radio networks
  • Optimal set of LFSR common operators for multi-standards cognitive radio terminals
Additional Papers
  • Optimal quality-level adaptation and performance evaluation for SLA-based VoIP services over DiffServ/MPLS networks
  • Self-stabilising protocols on oriented chains with joins and leaves

Special issue: Success and failure of e-government in developing and developed countries

Electronic Government, an International Journal 9(2) 2012
  • Towards a generalised approach for e-petitioning: a state-of-the-art review of best practices
  • Evaluating e-government initiatives: the role of formative assessment during implementation
  • Innovation: a factor explaining e-government success in Estonia
  • Framework for e-government assessment in developing countries: case study from Sudan
  • Planning and implementation of e-governance projects: a SAP-LAP based gap analysis
  • M-government – a framework to investigate killer applications for developing countries: An Indian case study

Special issue: Computational intelligence in biometrics: theory, methods and applications

International Journal of Biometrics 4(2) 2012
  • Multispectral palmprint recognition using Image-Based Linear Discriminant Analysis
  • Learning Vector Quantisation based recognition of offline handwritten signatures
  • Block-based Deep Belief Networks for face recognition
  • An improved hybrid approach to face recognition by fusing local and global discriminant features
  • A comprehensive approach for skin recognition
Lecture note
  • A note on computational intelligence methods in biometrics
Regular paper
  • Dual-mode decision fusion for fingerprint and finger vein recognition based on image quality evaluation

1 April 2012

Call for Papers: Regional Resilience and Competitiveness: New Routes to Economic Success

A special issue of International Journal of Innovation and Regional Development

Regional success has become increasingly defined by the notion of competitiveness, which generally refers to the presence of conditions that enable firms in a region to compete in their chosen markets, and for the value these firms generate to be captured within a region. In particular, regional policymakers have become more and more focused on seeking to improve the competitiveness of the places for which they have responsibility. However, it is not always evident that policymaking related to achieving competitiveness improvements fully considers the extent of the outcomes related to such policies, especially with regard to issues of the long-term resilience of regions.

Resilience refers to the capability of a region to experience positive economic success that is socially inclusive, works within environmental limits and which can ride global economic punches. The notion of resilience seeks to add to the regional economic development and competitiveness agenda issues relating to sustainability, localisation and diversification, and the developing understanding of regions as intrinsically diverse entities with evolutionary and context-specific development trajectories. Resilience is attracting increasing interest in the thinking and policy discourse around regional development, not least because it appears timely in the context of the triple crunch of economic austerity, climate change and the onset of peak oil.

Resilience is rapidly emerging as a concept due to the peculiarly powerful combination of transformative pressures from below and various catalytic, crisis-induced imperatives for change from above that are impacting on regions across the globe. In this respect, the future of economic success of regions is likely to rely on flexible well-suited institutions facilitating the ability to adapt and create resilience to external shocks. A lack of resilience is particularly manifest in regions in advanced national economies with a heritage of heavy industry, which have struggled to adapt to external shocks. The evolutionary school of economic geography, in particular, suggests that regional development is likely to be determined, at least to some extent, by past histories.

Regions that are tightly bound in their structures and networks may not be able to move to alternative development paths, so when hit by exogenous shocks they will be unable to escape from a declining competitiveness spiral. This highlights the important effects of economic specialisation, and the potential downsides of ‘over-specialisation’.

These factors have ramifications for regions, especially in the long term, as activities taken to increase competitiveness may have hidden costs in terms of the welfare of the population, which may compromise future competitiveness. This means that pursuing competitiveness gains may be no guarantee of resilience and may even have harmful long-term effects if relevant resources cannot be sustained.

This suggests the requirement for a more nuanced conception of competitiveness which incorporates the features of a resilient region alongside the conditions and factors underpinning the competitive success of firms within a region. The aim of this special issue is to provide a forum that extends current thinking on how regions foster long-term economic success through routes that engender social inclusion and environmental sustainability, and more generally generate the positive externalities associated with resilience.

Submissions of a theoretical, empirical or policy-oriented nature are welcome, addressing key themes related - but not necessarily limited – to the following:
  • Competitiveness and resilient regional economic systems
  • The role of institutions in building regional resilience
  • Evolutionary economic geography, resilience, and competitiveness
  • Path dependency, hysteresis and regional resilience
  • Economic diversity, variety, and smart specialisation across regions
  • Regional governance and resilience
  • Regional competitiveness and the environment
  • Regional social economies, resilience and competitiveness
  • Welfare, well-being, and regional resilience
  • Innovation and regional resilience
Important Dates
Deadline for submission of manuscripts: 14 September, 2012
Notification of acceptance/rejection to authors: 30 November, 2012
Submission of final manuscript: 31 January, 2012


Call for Papers: Global Public Affairs Research

A special issue of International Journal of Public Policy

The objective of this special issue is to assemble research and scholarly works that contribute to the theoretical and empirical knowledge base for identifying policy and informatics programmes that will improve the performance of service organisations and enhance the well-being of communities. The specific aims of this issue are to:
  • explicate an interdisciplinary focus in public affairs informatics and performance improvement research;
  • establish a close collaboration and partnership with the public service sector that will enhance the development of innovative research;
  • transfer knowledge developed from interdisciplinary research, pertaining to public affairs informatics and performance improvement, to evidence-based public service management and practice.
 Since the turn of the 21st century, the global political arena has faced various challenges from terrorist insurgents that prevent activities ranging from nation-building to the debate on global warming. Social science theorises that these events depress economic growth and global development. As world events become ever more unpredictable and harmful to world peace, the need for strong leadership continues to take high importance.

 World leadership faces unparalleled challenges in the fight for effective global development. Public health issues such as HIV/AIDS and Asian Bird Flu continue to occupy concerns of medical and government professionals worldwide. As strategies are developed to prevent the spread of life-threatening diseases and viruses, leaders must understand how to adapt, communicate and protect their respective populaces.

 Not only do publicly elected officials and academicians need to understand challenges that impact global development, but businesses need to understand how public health challenges impact local economics. Furthermore, it is imperative to identify mechanisms to foster the development of social capital and transformation in a turbulent world.

 The integration of the principles and methodological approaches of diverse disciplines in conducting scientific studies may lead to the creation of evidence-based knowledge for improving public services and enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of service organisations. This issue will bring together leading practitioners and scholars in global development to share their scholarship and strategic agenda for resolving the most urgent public policy issues of our time.

 This call for papers invites scholars and researchers to address best-practice solutions for perfecting global development and cultural change, with an emphasis on the use of information technology.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:
  • The development of theoretically informed and empirically validated models to improve performance of public service problems
  • Informatics research and its application to the investigation of determinants and consequences of public services
  • Interdisciplinary collaboration contributing to the theoretical and knowledge base for improving the performance of service organisations
  • Implications of aging population and service transformation
  • Evidence-based management and practice in public affairs
  • Scientific knowledge on how to enhance equity, efficiency, quality and effectiveness of public service organisations, using evidence-based approaches and information technology applications
  • The development and use of decision support systems in public affairs
Important Dates
Submission deadline: 31 August, 2012
Notification of acceptance: 30 November, 2012

Special issue: Container security and supply chain visibility

International Journal of Shipping and Transport Logistics 4(2) 2012
  • Origin and impact of supply chain risks affecting supply security
  • Smart containers and the public goods approach to supply chain security
  • Data mining for the development of a global port-to-port freight movement database
  • The cost-benefit model for secure container network
  • A simple RFID cost model for the container shipping industry
  • Practical approaches towards enhanced security and visibility in international intermodal container supply chains


Special issue: Business intelligence and information infrastructure

International Journal of Computational Science and Engineering 7(1) 2012

Papers from Sixth International Workshopon Databases in Networked Information Systems (DNIS 2010) held in Aizu, Japan, 29–31 March 2010.
  • The evolving landscape of data management in the cloud
  • Inference-usability confinement by maintaining inference-proof views of an information system
  • Information interchange services for electronic health record databases
  • Temporality-based user interface design approaches for desktop and small screen environment
  • Social media analysis – determining the number of topic clusters from buzz marketing site
  • Agent-based anonymous skyline set computation in cloud databases
  • Mining special features to improve the performance of e-commerce product selection and resume processing

Special issue: Dynamics and vibration of mechanical systems

International Journal of Vehicle Noise and Vibration 8(1) 2012
  • Non-linear vibration response of laminated fibre-reinforced rectangular plates
  • Blind separation of vibration components in machine monitoring
  • A study of the influence of brake pad topography on the generation of brake noise and vibration
  • Active force cancellation of a near resonance vibrating system using robust H∞ control
  • Applying artificial neural network and wavelet analysis for multiple cracks identification in beams
  • Modal parameters of a flexible disk-flexible shaft system from simulated data
  • Legged vehicle control and vibration reduction
  • Torso swaying and walking of a biped robot

Special issue: Design and precision manufacturing of medical devices

International Journal of Mechatronics and Manufacturing Systems  5(1) 2012
  • 3D measurement of human plantar foot by projection moiré technique
  • Function-oriented design and testing methods for newly developed ceramic ophthalmic scalpels
  • Preliminary results on Ti incremental sheet forming (ISF) of biomedical devices: biocompatibility, surface finishing and treatment
  • An experimental analysis of process parameters for the milling of micro-channels in biomaterials
  • An investigation into the effect of nickel micro powder suspended dielectric and varying triangular shape electrodes on EDM performance measures of EN-19 steel

Special issue: Decision-making in the maritime sector

International Journal of Decision Sciences, Risk and Management 3(3/4) 2011

Papers from the European Conference on Shipping and Ports (ECONSHIP 2011) held in Chios, Greece, 22-24 June 2011.
  • Land productivity of seaport terminals: the role of exogenous factors
  • An empirical investigation of spot prices in tanker market using dynamic multiple regression models
  • Some results of queuing approaches at container yard
  • New curriculum for the seafarers of the new era: building the intercultural dimension in the CAPTAINS platform for maritime English
  • Pricing in sustainable global container transport
  • The link between economy and environment in the post-crisis era: lessons learned from slow steaming
  • Logistics systems and optimisation strategies under uncertain operational environment
  • Evaluating electronic port services for container terminals: the PPA case
  • Cruise ship supply chain: a field study on outsourcing decisions
  • Economies of size of large containerships based on internal and external costs