Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Wireless and Mobile Computing

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Wireless and Mobile Computing are now available here for free:

• A new way of achieving multi-path routing in wireless networks
• Multi-agent list-based noising algorithm for protein structure prediction
• A novel pulmonary nodule classification framework based on mobile edge computing
• A novel IGBT open-circuit protection method for three-phase PWM rectifier
• Quality of experience prediction model for video streaming in SDN networks
• Sub-word attention mechanism and ensemble learning-based semantic annotation for heterogeneous networks
• Container keyhole positioning based on deep neural network
• Performance of UWB communication systems in presence of perfect/imperfect power control MAI and IEEE802.11a interference
• Particle swarm optimisation with multi-strategy learning
• Demand estimation of water resources via bat algorithm
• Performance analysis of the IEEE 802.15.4e TSCH-CA algorithm under a non-ideal channel

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Materials Engineering Innovation

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Materials Engineering Innovation are now available here for free:

• Statistical modelling and optimisation of the factors affecting the surface roughness of C45 steel treated by the centrifugal disk mass finishing process
• Effect of hot extrusion on the characteristics of an Mg-3.0Zn-0.7Zr-1.0Cu alloy produced by powder metallurgy
• Investigation on the effect of aluminium foam made of A413 aluminium alloy through stir casting and infiltration techniques
• Effect of parameters depth of cut and feed rate on the resistance to pitting corrosion of AISI 1018 steel
• Analysis of dry sliding wear behaviour of AA-7068/TiC MMCs

Research pick: Automated weed and feed - "Real-time segmentation of weeds in cornfields based on depthwise separable convolution residual network"

Conventional crop-spraying with herbicide to kill weeds among a crop wastes a lot of the herbicide and raises environmental concerns. A smart crop sprayer might identify weeds growing through the crop and spot spray only the unwanted plants. Work from a team in China published in the International Journal of Computational Science and Engineering, looks at the real-time segmentation of a cornfield to detect weeds that could be used to control such a smart crop-sprayer.

Uncontrolled weed growth in a crop leads to reduced yields of that crop. However, herbicides to selectively kill the weeds are expensive and also lead to pollution. It is in the best interests of farmers the world over and for the sake of the environment, that herbicides are used as efficiently and as effectively as possible.

Hao Guo, Shengsheng Wang, and Yinan Lu of Jilin University in Changchun have proposed a lightweight network based on the encoder-decoder architecture SResNet. They optimized the model so that it can quickly discern weed plant from crop plant in an image.

“In weed identification, the recognition effect is susceptible to factors like light, occlusion, and image quality, so improving the robustness of weed recognition is still a challenging subject in traditional machine vision,” the team explains. Their approach offers a lightweight semantic segmentation model based on the encoder-decoder architecture which takes into account accuracy and processing speed. To demonstrate the benefits of their system, they have compared results with classical semantic segmentation models (SegNet and U-Net) and showed it to have competitive performance. The test frame-rate is almost 70 frames per second and so capable of real-time weed identification in a cornfield. Their average score has almost 99 percent accuracy.

Guo, H., Wang, S. and Lu, Y. (2020) ‘Real-time segmentation of weeds in cornfields based on depthwise separable convolution residual network’, Int. J. Computational Science and Engineering, Vol. 23, No. 4, pp.307–318.

Special issue published: "Security and Dependability of Human-Centred Cyber Security"

International Journal of Information and Computer Security 14(2) 2021

• An improved cryptanalysis of large RSA decryption exponent with constrained secret key
• Accurate and reliable detection of DDoS attacks based on ARIMA-SWGARCH model
• Secure and unifold mining model for pattern discovery from streaming data
• Sustainable wireless clouds with security assurance
• A novel binary encryption algorithm for navigation control of robotic vehicles through visible light communication
• Analysing and comparing the digital seal according to eIDAS regulation with and without blockchain technology
• Mobile agent security using Amrani et al.'s protocol and binary serialisation

Special issue published: "New Advances in Topology Optimisation"

International Journal of Materials and Product Technology 61(2/3/4) 2020

• Multi-objective topology optimisation design of lattice structures with negative Poisson's ratio considering energy absorption and load-bearing characteristics
• Topology optimisation of periodic structures with multiple materials using BESO
• Topology optimisation of truss structures under non-stationary random seismic excitations with displacement and stress constraints
• Robust topological design of laminated composite plate under interval random hybrid uncertainties
• Optimisation design of graded lattice structures for natural frequency
• An efficient multiscale concurrent design method using fitting function
• Experimental validation of an automotive subframe stiffener plate design obtained from topology optimisation
• Experimental investigation and design optimisation for magnetic abrasive flow machining using response surface methodology
• Measurement of delamination and tool wear with sensors in end-milling using solid and carbide-tipped K10 end mills

Special issue published: "Halal Purchasing and Supply Chain Management: A Critical Halal Business Management Function"

International Journal of Islamic Marketing and Branding 5(3) 2020

• Halal procurement strategy in the food industry: a focus group discussion
• A sustainable model for halal pharmaceutical logistics
• An overlooked aspect of halal supply chains - Islamic finance
• Expectations of Muslim consumers from the halal sportswear industry

Additional paper

• 228-245 Advertising to Muslim consumers: a holistic view from the Islamic perspective

Research pick: Ageing, entropy, and waste - "Fraction of the metabolic ageing entropy damage to a host may be flushed out by gut microbiata"

One theory of ageing invokes the Second Law of Thermodynamics and suggests that in the long-term, the heat energy generated by metabolic changes causes damage to living systems that accumulates as repair mechanisms cannot keep pace with the damage, entropy accumulates, and this is manifest in the signs of ageing that are all too familiar – greying hair, wrinkled skin, immune compromise, organ failure, cognitive decline.

A team from Turkey, writing in the International Journal of Exergy, point out that as is ever the case with living systems, the picture is far more complicated. Indeed, an individual is not truly a single living thing given the presence of myriad microbes that live on the skin and within the alimentary canal, for instance. Indeed, the team from Yeditepe University in Istanbul explain that the human gut microbiota acts as an autonomous thermodynamic subsystem within what we ought to refer to as the human superorganism. These microbes generate and export their own entropy without causing age damage to their human host.

The team’s thermodynamic calculations show that between 12 and 59 percent of the metabolic entropy generated by each of us as a whole is produced by the microbial guests in our gut and exported in faeces. This entropy is not associated with ageing damage.

The researchers explain how entropy removal via the waste stream from a chemical plant is well known and discussed at length in the pertinent scientific literature. Given that we know from the work of Schrödinger and Prigogine that living systems must import energy and export entropy to maintain their living state this new research into the entropy export by the gut microbiota could open up new avenues for research into ageing that have not previously been considered in depth.

Yıldız, C., Yılmaz, B. and Özilgen, M. (2021) ‘Fraction of the metabolic ageing entropy damage to a host may be flushed out by gut microbiata’, Int. J. Exergy, Vol. 34, No. 2, pp.179–195.

Special issue published: "Latest Business Trends Through Sustainable and Digital Practices"

International Journal of Economics and Business Research 21(2) 2021

• Impact of economic conditions on business growth and development
• Economic impact of cycling across various nations
• Internationalisation of Indian SMEs: problems and prospects
• Impact of e-commerce on India's exports and investment
• Emergence of behavioural finance: a study on behavioural biases during investment decision-making
• Non-performing assets: drag for stability of Indian banking sector
• Exploring trust and responsiveness as antecedents for intention to use FinTech services
• An experimental investigation of trust and reciprocity in double-shot investment games
• Analysing the mediating effect of leader-member exchange on the relationship between servant leadership and organisational commitment

International Journal of Computational Vision and Robotics to invite expanded papers from International Workshop on New Approaches for Multidimensional Signal Processing (NAMSP 2021) for potential publication

Extended versions of papers presented at the 2nd International Workshop on New Approaches for Multidimensional Signal Processing (NAMSP 2021) (8-10 July 2021, Technical University of Sofia, Sofia, Bulgaria) will be invited for review and potential publication by the International Journal of Computational Vision and Robotics.

Special issue published: "Frontiers of Business Research Across Bangladesh"

Journal for Global Business Advancement 13(6) 2020

• HRM practices, employee engagement, organisational commitment and work-related social support
• The impact of the microcredit interest rate on capital creation in Bangladesh
• Determinants of intellectual capital disclosure of financial institutions in an emerging economy
• High performance work systems and employee performance: the moderating and mediating role of power distance
• An exploration of the Halal food export potential for Bangladesh
• Globalisation, foreign demand, real exchange rate and Bangladesh exports: some empirical tests

Research pick: Coping with eco-anxiety - "Enabling students to face the environmental crisis and climate change with resilience: inclusive environmental and sustainability education approaches and strategies for coping with eco-anxiety"

Climate change represents perhaps the biggest challenge facing humanity, therefore education has an important role to play in teaching students about how we might mitigate the problems but also how to cope with what might be termed eco-anxiety.

A team from Canada writing in the International Journal of Higher Education and Sustainability, suggests that part of a well-rounded university education must provide students with the tools with which to address the challenges presented by the environmental crisis we all face. Part of this education should show them how to be responsible eco-citizens but also give them the skills to become creative, solution-oriented thinkers. With such people entering adulthood and becoming the innovators and leaders of the future humanity might be able to cope with the acute problems and address the chronic problems facing climate and the environment.

Laura Sims and Marie-Élaine Desmarais of the Université de St. Boniface and Rhéa Rocque of the University of Winnipeg, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, suggest that educators “have a responsibility to create inclusive environmental and sustainability educational approaches that are enabling, emotionally supportive, engaging, and praxis-oriented.” Their work focuses on the concept of eco-anxiety and how students might be taught to cope with such a problem in a positive and pragmatic way.

At the time of writing their paper, humanity was facing another major challenge – the Covid pandemic caused by a lethal coronavirus that emerged towards the end of 2019. The pandemic is still with us more than a year later. The team adds that the pandemic has taught us many lessons that can equally be applied to education for sustainability, inclusion, and eco-anxiety. “In living this experience, we have seen people come together, changing their lifestyles, and acting individually for collective benefit,” they write. They add that the pandemic has shown us that “we can stop our destructive, consumptive path, if need be, at very short notice, and re-imagine other possibilities…we are strong enough, together, to face existential challenges.”

Sims, L., Rocque, R. and Desmarais, M-É. (2020) ‘Enabling students to face the environmental crisis and climate change with resilience: inclusive environmental and sustainability education approaches and strategies for coping with eco-anxiety’, Int. J. Higher Education and Sustainability, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp.112–131.

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management are now available here for free:

• An examination of mergers and acquisitions model building: a grounded theory approach
• Leadership and organisational conflict management: a case study of the Greek public sector
• SPCC: a security policy compliance checker plug-in for YAWL
• Miscegenation of scalable and DEP3K performance evaluation of nosql-cassandra for bigdata applications deployed in cloud
• Deriving organisational business process change factors using the hierarchical elicitation workshop

Special issue published: "Emerging Trends in Entrepreneurship and Building Sustainable Workplaces"

International Journal of Environment, Workplace and Employment 6(1/2) 2020

• A conceptual study: organisation culture as an antecedent to employee engagement
• Banking business transformation by adoption of sustainability practices through knowledge management
• Conflict management - a challenge to resolve through various communication styles
• Prediction of employee attrition in organisations using Garrett ranking and logistic regression
• Effectiveness of corporate governance on market capitalisation of top Indian publically listed firms
• A study of leadership styles executed by school teachers: special reference to Gurugram
• Towards creativity in Indian software companies: development of an instrument to select and evaluate creative practices
• Impact of gender and marital status on managing job stress among employees of PSPCL
• Does extent of sustainability reporting influence financial performance? Evidence from five Asian economies
• Are hedonic or utilitarian values predicting continuance usage of SNS in online sharing environment with mediation role of e-satisfaction?
• Impact of perceived risks on consumers' purchase intention while buying luxury items online

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Reasoning-based Intelligent Systems

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Reasoning-based Intelligent Systems are now available here for free:

• Two-stage portfolio risk optimisation based on MVO model
• A new reasoning-based approach for measuring the magnetic field emitted by portable computers
• Machine learning methods against false data injection in smart grid
• SCOL: similarity and credibility-based approach for opinion leaders detection in collaborative filtering-based recommender systems
• Mobile agent and ontology approach for web service discovery using QoS
• Measurement-based methodology for modelling the energy consumption of mobile devices

Research pick: Local networks for local communities - "Supervised local community detection algorithm"

Despite the growing number of tools being used to anneal so-called big data, researchers are only now beginning to find ways to handle big networks. A new approach described in the International Journal of Data Science, takes a local community approach to studying networks that could have applications in understanding how disease outbreaks become pandemics, defeating terrorist networks, thwarting malware, and understanding the effect of influencers and viral advertising on marketing.

Ali Choumane and Abbass Al-Akhrass of the Faculty of Sciences in the LaRIFA Lab at the Lebanese University in Nabatieh, Lebanon, explain analyzing huge networks is computationally very expensive in terms of the time and resources needed to process all the nodes and connections between them in order to find hubs and other interesting features. This is especially the case where a network contains densely connected nodes.

Community detection is one approach to circumventing this mammoth task allowing researchers to find the local connections from the busiest of individual nodes. The team is developing an algorithm to find such local communities in a huge network quickly and at a lower computational cost than earlier approaches. The team explains how they start with a seed node and allow the algorithm to iteratively expand on this to identify a community around that node that most resembles known community structures previously seen in real life. Such communities are likely to be the most realistic, after all.

The expansion process builds using a neural network classifier that can discern which nodes ought to be added to the local community and which ought to be discarded. The classifier can be fine-tuned to adjust resolution so that smaller or larger communities can be found within a huge network without the need to retrain the algorithm each time.

“We trained this classifier using three measures that allowed us to mutually quantify the strength of the relation between nodes and communities,” the team explains.”These measures depend on the proportion of edges that the node has with its community, how much the neighbours of the node are involved in its community and finally the membership degree of the node in the community.”

The researchers add that they used the well-known Lancichinetti–Fortunato–Radicchi (LFR) synthetic networks as a benchmark as well as real-world networks from different application domains to demonstrate experimentally the high performance of their approach.

Choumane, A. and Al-Akhrass, A. (2020) ‘Supervised local community detection algorithm’, Int. J. Data Science, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp.247–261.

Special issue published: "Emerging Technologies for the Internet of Things"

International Journal of Reasoning-based Intelligent Systems 13(1) 2021

• Estimating equations under IPW imputation of missing data
• Design and realisation of vehicle security and protection system based on multi-task polling processing
• Research on key indicators and regional comparison of green data centre
• New type NP-CSMA of adaptive multi-priority control WSN protocol analysis

Additional paper

• Cryptographic algorithm for protection of communication in drones control

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Power and Energy Conversion

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Power and Energy Conversion are now available here for free:

• Reliability analysis of the PMU microwave communication networks using generalised stochastic Petri nets Bhargav Appasani; Dusmanta Kumar Mohanta
• Design strategies for speed control of an inverter fed permanent magnet synchronous motor drive
• A hybrid Hilbert Huang transform and improved fuzzy decision tree classifier for assessment of power quality disturbances in a grid connected distributed generation system
• Variable structure power control under different operating conditions of PM synchronous generator wind farm connected to electrical network
• Empirical wavelet transform and dual feed-forward neural network for classification of power quality disturbances

First issue: International Journal of Cybernetics and Cyber-Physical Systems (free sample issue available)

Cybernetics is a transdisciplinary approach to studying how humans, animals and machines control and communicate with each other. A cyber-physical system is a mechanism operated by computer-based algorithms, tightly integrated with the Internet and its users. To reflect new developments, particularly in intelligent systems, the International Journal of Cybernetics and Cyber-Physical Systems pays close attention to emerging methodologies, techniques/algorithms and applications in cybernetics and cyber-physical systems. IJCCPS is unique in its focus on system integration.

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

Research pick: Securing the clouds - "An efficient and optimised approach for secured file sharing in cloud computing"

Cloud computing has revolutionised the way files are stored and shared and processing carried out from the corporate down to the individual private user level. Security remains a contentious issue. As such, there is an ongoing need to ensure data is protected optimally. Research published in the International Journal of Advanced Intelligence Paradigms, discusses an efficient and optimised approach for the secure sharing of files in the cloud.

Cloud computing has been with us for many years now, although still sometimes considered a “new” paradigm. It represents delocalised, distributed, and shared services and allows all kinds of organisations and individuals to offload their storage and computer processing needs on to third-party servers and services, commonly for a fee, in a freemium, model, and occasionally at zero cost to the user.

There are many benefits to cloud computing. Obviously, distributed servers can offer greater processing and storage capacity than local computers. The downside to cloud computing can be the very nature of it in that it is ultimately dependent on a third party for the service and also for privacy and protection of one’s data.

Neha Agarwal and Ajay Rana of Amity University in Noida UP and Jai Prakash Pandey of KNIT in Sultanpur UP, India, have proposed an encryption method that offers a hybrid approach comprising a symmetric and asymmetric algorithm. The approach they demonstrate is more secure and more efficient than other current approaches used to protect files for cloud sharing.

Agarwal, N., Rana, A. and Pandey, J.P. (2021) ‘An efficient and optimised approach for secured file sharing in cloud computing’, Int. J. Advanced Intelligence Paradigms, Vol. 18, No. 2, pp.232–246.

Special issue published: "Energy and Sustainable Futures"

International Journal of Design Engineering 9(2) 2020

• Computational fluid dynamics modelling to design and optimise power kites for renewable power generation
• An overview of applications of renewable energy methods in the development of structural health monitoring systems
• Using ratio-weighted sums to project data into future scenarios: the case study of heating systems
• Assessment of an innovative floating hydro generator prototype through experiments and modelling

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing are now available here for free:

• Random forest, gradient boosted machines and deep neural network for stock price forecasting: a comparative analysis on South Korean companies
• Task allocation for crowdsensing based on submodular optimisation
• Sensor-based detection of abnormal events for elderly people using deep belief networks
• Base station assisted relay selection in device-to-device communications
• Incentive mechanism-based influential maximisation scheme for social cloud service networks
• Using ubiquitous data to improve smartwatches' context awareness: a case study applied to develop wearable products

Special issue published: "Emerging Trends in Business and Management"

World Review of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development 16(3) 2020

• Electric vehicles business models: an integrative framework for adoption of electric mobility
• Challenges faced by micro, small and medium enterprises: a systematic review
• A stakeholder perception of TQM in engineering education
• The conceptual framework of sustainable Islamic finance with special reference to Shariah index in India
• Emerging trends and growth of banking frauds in India: a substantial obstacle in the pathway of sustainable development

Research pick: Apocalypse when? - "Apocalypse now? Communicating extreme forecasts"

We seem to face apocalyptic forecasts on a more and more frequent basis and yet often the predictions do not manifest themselves in the anticipated doom and gloom. Of course, some predictions have long-term consequences such as those surrounding climate change. However, as with all areas of science, the error bars that scientists know only too well can simply look like uncertainty and dithering to some non-scientists.

Research published in the International Journal of Global Warming suggests that the framing of uncertainty that is an essential part of the scientific endeavour leads to confusion among some non-scientists. The railing against this uncertainty is often perceived as “anti-science” but for the lay public it may be more a matter of being anti-uncertainty. People prefer to know for sure what they might expect to happen in their future, especially when it comes to apocalyptic forecasts, rather than to be faced with doubt.

David Rode and Paul Fischbeck of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, have found that the mere mention in an apocalyptic climate forecast reduces the amount of media attention a given forecast receives. Given that there will be uncertainty, error bars, confidence intervals, and other such matters mentioned in every scientific source, this can lead to a credibility gap. When a report fails to mention the uncertainty, it gains more media traction than a report that does not.

The team has suggested various strategies that might allow the scientific message complete with its uncertainties to reach an appropriate audience without instilling over confidence nor without looking like it is hesitant about the data it presents. The team concludes by alluding to Carl Sagan who warned us that extraordinary predictions require extraordinary caution in communication.

Rode, D.C. and Fischbeck, P.S. (2021) ‘Apocalypse now? Communicating extreme forecasts’, Int. J. Global Warming, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp.191–211.

Best Reviewer Award announced by International Journal of Environment and Pollution

We are pleased to announce that the International Journal of Environment and Pollution has launched a new Best Reviewer Award. The 2020 Award goes to Prof. Steven Hanna of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in the USA. The senior editorial team thanks Prof. Hanna sincerely for his exemplary efforts.

Research pick: Social media burnout - "Does the benevolence value matter when social media burnout strikes?"

The number of people actively using social media is around the three billion mark. In the current Covid pandemic, such tools are increasingly useful for keeping in touch with friends and relatives when social distancing and lockdown are in place. Conversely, the additional activity and updates means that many users are becoming weary of the information overload and report feelings of “burnout” in using the likes of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other applications and websites.

Research in the International Journal of Business Information Systems, looks at this phenomenon of social media burnout in terms of ambivalence and emotional exhaustion. These two responses to the often overwhelming nature of constant online updates and the deluge of new information, whether worthy or trivial, have been present throughout the short history of online social media but are now being discussed more commonly.

Users talk of “taking a vacation” from their social media apps, having a “digital detox”, or giving up during a culture-associated “fasting” period, for instance.

Bo Han of the College of Business at the Texas A&M University-Commerce, Shih Yung Chou of Dillard College of Business Administration at Midwestern State University, USA, and Tree Chang of the Department of Social Work and Service Management at Tatung Institute of Technology, Taiwan, have integrated the concept of benevolence value in the user experience of online social media for the first time.

A new model of the user response emerges from their work that will help guide the social media research community in understanding user behaviour as these services mature and evolve. It should also provide clues for managers of the various services hoping to learn how to preclude burnout in their users and so encourage their continued use of the services without compromising their mental health.

Han, B., Chou, S.Y. and Chang, T. (2021) ‘Does the benevolence value matter when social media burnout strikes?’, Int. J. Business Information Systems, Vol. 36, No. 2, pp.288–302.