31 December 2007

Special issue: Impact of foresight studies on national innovation capability

International Journal of Foresight and Innovation Policy 3(4) 2007
  • Regional open innovation system as a platform for SMEs: a survey
  • A case of comparative analysis on methods and outcomes of national foresight processes
  • A Latvian experience addressing issues of the foresight innovation
  • Using scenarios in innovation processes
  • The demand for dialogue: studying the influence of organisers in public foresight
  • Integrated foresight for the healthcare sector in Turkey
  • Foresight and applied research for SMEs – the case of a German Foundation
  • Pitfalls in and success factors of corporate foresight projects

Special issue: Large-scale wireless sensor networks: challenges and applications

International Journal of Sensor Networks 3(1) 2008
  • Message-efficient in-network location management in a multisink wireless sensor network
  • Reliable data transport and congestion control in wireless sensor networks
  • Efficient available energy monitoring in wireless sensor networks
  • Performance implications of periodic key exchanges and packet integrity overhead in an 802.15.4 beacon enabled cluster
  • Minimising the effect of WiFi interference in 802.15.4 wireless sensor networks
  • MOCUS: moving object counting using ultrasonic sensor networks
  • A fault-tolerant routing protocol in wireless sensor networks

Special issue: The Seventh World Congress on the Management of Electronic Business

International Journal of Electronic Business 5(6) 2007
The 7th World Congress was held in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada from 13-15 July 2006.
  • Consumers' allocation of cognitive resources in web-based search: an exploratory study
  • Online shopping bots for electronic commerce: the comparison of functionality and performance
  • Online Dispute Resolution services for electronic markets: a user centric research agenda
  • Building government portals that work: guiding principles from Community Informatics
  • iPrice: a collaborative pricing system for e-service bundle delivery
  • Seller strategies on eBay: Does size matter?

30 December 2007

Special issue: Information technology and telecommunications services – knowledge, technology and organisational changes

International Journal of Knowledge Management Studies 2(1) 2008
  • Service productivity gains through information and communication technology applications: a service marketing approach
  • The digital divide in the internet usage within enlarged European Union: a multivariate comparative analysis
  • E-procurement of telecom services for the public sector
  • Identifying and measuring the success factors of mobile business services
  • Towards an optimised design of private complex services
  • How can an ICT tool strengthen network capabilities? Evidence from the role of knowledge codification in the KMP experience
  • Knowledge-based alliances as a driver of mobile telecommunications convergence: an historical and technical overview
  • Managing supplier relations with balanced scorecard
  • Users' perception of mobile payment
  • Determining website content for small businesses: assisting the planning of owner/managers

Special issue: Integrated vehicle control: sensing, estimation and driver modelling

International Journal of Vehicle Autonomous Systems 5(3/4) 2007
  • Lateral vehicle-dynamic observers: simulations and experiments
  • An analytical driver model for arbitrary path following at varying vehicle speed
  • Characterisation of driving skill level using driving simulator tests
  • Cascaded observers to improve lateral vehicle state and tyre parameter estimates
  • Parametric identification of vehicle handling using an extended Kalman filter
  • Design of a sliding mode fuzzy observer for uncertain Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy model: application to automatic steering of vehicles
  • The multi-agent driving assistance system
  • Moment robust fuzzy observer-based control for improving driving stability
  • Sliding mode observers to replace vehicles expensive sensors and to preview driving critical situations

Special issue: Achievements in materials and manufacturing engineering

International Journal of Computational Materials Science and Surface Engineering 1(3) 2007
  • Scanning errors identification using touch trigger probe head
  • New lance and method of powder injection into liquid alloys
  • Operational control in the steel wire production
  • Characteristics of anodic layer on Ti6Al4V ELI alloy after bending
  • A study on characteristics of alternate supply of shielding gas in GTA welding using finite element analysis
  • Physicochemical properties of fixation plates used in pectus excavatum treatment
  • Application of neural networks for selection of steel grade with required hardenability
  • Limiting upsetting conditions in a three-slide forging press

27 December 2007

Special issue: Assessment of information quality

International Journal of Information Quality 1(3) 2007
  • Managing data quality in inter-organisational data networks
  • A Bayesian network to represent a data quality model
  • Component comparison based information quality assurance
  • Perception of students on performance of dual-mode education: Information Quality perspective
  • RQAM: a recordkeeping quality assessment model proposal

24 December 2007

Special issue: Second International Workshop on Dependability Aspects on Data Warehousing and Mining Applications, DAWAM 2007

International Journal of Business Intelligence and Data Mining 2(4) 2007

The DAWAM 2007 workshop was organised at the Vienna University of Technology, Austria, in conjunction with the Second International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security (ARES 2007) from 10 to 13 April, 2007.
  • Extended RBAC-based design and implementation for a secure data warehouse
  • Distribution-based methods of preserving data privacy in Distributed Spatial Data Warehouse
  • Understanding the structure of terrorist networks
  • Application of association rules mining to Named Entity Recognition and co-reference resolution for the Indonesian language
  • Knowledge worker intranet behaviour and usability
  • A novel Supervised Instance Selection algorithm
  • Knowledge actionability: satisfying technical and business interestingness

Special issue: Empirical approaches in design information and knowledge

Journal of Design Research 6(3) 2007
  • Empirical research on information and knowledge management in designing: where are we and where do we go from here?
  • An observational study of multi-disciplinary co-design – application to an electromechanical device
  • An empirical study of engineering knowledge dynamics in a design situation
  • Empirical research in engineering practice
  • Competencies required to undertake empirical engineering design research

23 December 2007

Special issue: Building reliability into products during the product development process

International Journal of Product Development 5(1/2) 2008
  • Perspectives and challenges for product reliability assurance in the product development process
  • Reliability specification in new product development
  • Design-for-six-sigma for multiple response systems
  • Reliability-based design optimisation of vehicle drivetrain dynamic performance
  • A single-loop method for reliability-based design optimisation
  • Risk-averse reliability optimisation in electronic product design with component and non-component failures
  • Effecting product reliability and life cycle costs with early design phase product architecture decisions
  • Application of fuzzy methodology to build process reliability: a practical case
  • Functional guarantees: a new service paradigm
  • Development of a low-cost smart-card-based secure and reliable information exchange system with tamper-proofing features
  • Design development through an integrated approach: a case study of battery-operated passenger cart
  • Product quality pointers for small lots production: a new driver for Quality Management Systems

Special issue: Advanced evolutionary computational techniques for design, manufacturing, logistics and supply chain problems

International Journal of Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications 4(1/2) 2008
  • Simulating the generic job shop as a multi-agent system
  • Hybrid heuristic algorithms for single machine total weighted tardiness scheduling problems
  • Mining manufacturing data using genetic algorithm-based feature set decomposition
  • Minimum-zone form tolerance evaluation using particle swarm optimisation
  • A modified tabu search strategy for multiple-response grinding process optimisation
  • Allocation of work to the stations of an assembly line with buffers between stations and three general learning patterns
  • Hybrid Karhunen-Loeve/neural modelling for a class of distributed parameter systems
  • Techno-economic analysis of hybrid layered manufacturing
  • A new solution of solidification problems in continuous casting based on meshless method
  • Optimal layout and work allocation in batch assembly under learning effect

22 December 2007

Call for papers: Soil Remediation Processes and Management

Call for papers: Soil Remediation Processes and Management

A special issue of International Journal of Environment and Waste Management

Soil contamination is a common problem in the developed and developing countries alike. A great number of industrial activities produce waste that reaches soils through spills, leaks, tank and pipeline ruptures, and other disposal pathways. In addition, an increasing number of abandoned industrial sites have emerged as a result of weak environmental regulations throughout the decades. It is recognised that this trend can impose negative societal effects, and therefore redevelopment of these industrial and urban sites is essential. However, reuse of such sites requires remediation. Through remediation, prime land in established locations can be reused, thereby lowering the pressure on greenfields. Since remediation followed by redevelopment prevents degradation of the environment, human health, and natural resources, it is a topic of enormous public interest.

It has been widely recognised for some time that the established conventional remediation technologies like “containment,” “dig and dump,” or “pump and treat”, cannot in all cases be regarded as sustainable in the sense of cost-efficiency, contamination reduction, or environmental balance. For these reasons, comprehensive research efforts have been undertaken in the past decade to develop and refine innovative remediation technologies, which are sustainable, environmentally friendly, and cost-efficient. However, despite all these efforts, very few technologies have received recognition, while in practice, conventional technologies still prevail. One reason for this limited acceptance of innovative technologies seems to be the fact that the conventional technologies still prove to be relatively cheap, quick, and capable of removing residual liabilities. In addition, the innovative technologies have been slow to evolve as viable alternatives primarily due to scattered information regarding their application, implementation and performance.

The purpose of this special issue is to make the practices, applications and management of the emerging technologies of soil decontamination from different geographical regions readily available to engineers, regulating agencies and contractors for implementation.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to:
  • In situ soil remediation
  • Biological remediation
  • Chemical soil remediation
  • Electrokinetic remediation
  • Electroacoustic remediation
  • Innovative soil remediation technologies
  • Sustainable soil remediation
  • Petroleum (PAH) contaminated soils
  • Volatile organic contamination
  • Heavy metal contamination
  • Bench scale evaluation
  • Pilot scale studies
  • Filed application
  • Waste disposal management
  • Contaminated site management
Important Dates
Deadline for paper submission: 30 June, 2008
First turn of papers review: 30 August, 2008
Second turn of papers review: 15 September, 2008
Final papers submission: 30 September, 2008

Call for papers: Risks in Environment

Call for papers: Risks in Environment

A special issue of International Journal of Environment and Pollution

The focus of this special issue is on bringing together researchers and practitioners from the areas of risk management and environment. The technical objective is to exchange ideas and techniques from the two areas as well as to establish a framework for the development of methodologies that integrate risk management tool into environment issues. Authors are encouraged to submit both theoretical and applied articles addressing the theme of the special issue.

A conference, the First International Conference on Risk Management and Engineering Management, is to be organized in April 2008 by the RiskChina Research Center at the University of Toronto. Submission to the Special Issue is, however, not restricted to conference participants.

Topics include, but are not limited to:
  • Environment risk management
  • Environment risk management and financial risk management
  • Solutions provided to technical or engineering problems
  • Risk decision making in environment and pollution
  • Risk assessment in environment problems
  • Ecological efficiency
  • Evaluation and management of environmental risk and safety
  • Environment and sustainable development
  • Environmental risk education and training
  • Review and assessment of risk policies in environment issues
Important Dates
Deadline for submission of manuscripts: 1 September 2008
Approximate date for final submission of accepted manuscripts: 1 December 2008

Call for papers: Social-Economic Engineering and Environment Issues

Call for papers: Social-Economic Engineering and Environment Issues

A special issue of International Journal of Global Environmental Issues

The focus of this special issue is on bringing together researchers and practitioners from the areas of social-economic engineering and environment. The technical objective is to exchange ideas and techniques from the two areas as well as to develop economic, social engineering and social science methodologies to resolving environment issues. Authors are encouraged to submit both theoretical and applied articles addressing the theme of the special issue.

A conference, the First International Conference on Risk Management and Engineering Management, is to be organized in April 2008 by the RiskChina Research Center at the University of Toronto. Submission to the Special Issue is, however, not restricted to conference participants.

Topics include, but are not limited to:
  • Complex Environmental, Energy and Economy (EEE) models for global policy
  • Environment risk management
  • Risk decision making in environment
  • Disaster management
  • Ecological and environmental efficiency
  • Emergency management
  • Uncertainty modeling and analysis in environment
  • Other issues related to using economic, social engineering and social science approaches to resolving global environment issues
Important Dates
Deadline for submission of manuscripts: 1 October 2008
Approximate date for final submission of accepted manuscripts: 30 December 2008

Special issue: The relevance of unbundling for competition in electricity markets: implementation, experience, and requirements for the future

International Journal of Global Energy Issues 29(1/2) 2008
  • Electricity market reform and 'reform of the reforms'
  • The relevance of cross-border transmission capacities for competition in the continental European electricity market
  • The old and the new reform of Chile's power industry
  • The second reform of the Brazilian electric sector
  • The emergence of Australia's electricity market
  • Electricity market deregulation and energy security: a study of the UK and Singapore electricity markets
  • Unbundling ownership and control: international experience of independent system operators
  • Investment and quality incentives under price cap regimes
  • Assessing the benefits of a provision of system services by distributed generation
  • On methodology for modelling wind power impact on power systems
  • An analysis of spatial pricing and renewable generation in the British electricity system
  • Renewable policy in a competitive environment: key issues

19 December 2007

Call for papers: Advanced Theory and Technologies for Design, Manufacturing and Materials

Call for papers: Advanced Theory and Technologies for Design, Manufacturing and Materials

A special issue of International Journal of Materials and Product Technology

The purpose of this special issue is to publish recent research outputs on product engineering employing advanced design theory, manufacturing technologies and materials technologies. By advanced concepts, we mean non-conventional techniques. In last few decades, both academic literature and practice have put growing emphasis on the importance of advanced design, manufacturing and materials as a key factor in establishing durable competitive advantages in product engineering. The objective of the special issue is to provide a means for the publication and interchange of information, on an international basis, on all aspects of advanced theory and technologies for design, manufacturing and materials.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • Design theory and method in product engineering
  • Manufacturing technologies in product engineering
  • Numerical methods, experiments and measurements in product engineering
  • MEMS, nanotechnology, micro-packaging technology and materials
  • Advanced design theory, manufacturing technologies and materials for structural integrity
  • Physical mechanisms, chemical mechanisms and materials in product engineering
  • Civil and construction engineering structural integrity and materials
  • Product development
Important Date
Deadline for submission: 30 May 2008

Special issue: Water research: an Australian perspective

International Journal of Water 3(4) 2007

Papers from Environment – Working Together, the 10th Environmental Research Event (ERE) held in Sydney, Australia, 10–13 December 2006.
  • An alternative approach to modelling stormwater runoff from small urban catchments
  • Optimisation of analytical method for estrogen in surface water and primary risk assessment in South Creek
  • Health effects of disinfection by-products in Australian drinking waters
  • Metal speciation in sediment in West Lake (Ho Tay), Hanoi, Vietnam
  • Membrane bioreactor technology for decentralised wastewater treatment and reuse
  • System dynamics and auto-calibration framework for NSM model: Murrumbidgee River
  • Sustaining public open spaces through water recycling for irrigation: developing decision support tools and framework
  • Selective recovery of heavy metals from hot-dip galvanising effluent streams by membrane-based solvent extraction
  • Precision application of water for peri-urban horticulture
Additional Paper
  • Inadequacy of positivistic research to explain complexity of water management

17 December 2007

Newly announced journal: International Journal of Sustainable Economy

A sustainable economy is one characterised by development decisions, policies and practices that accelerate the need to do more with less by making better use of resources, increase investment, promote stability and competition, develop skills and reward work and respect the cultural experiences of societies. Sustainable development requires us to take a long term view of the economy, rather than adopting short term fixes. A sustainable economy includes economic stability and competitiveness, employment and education, a healthy environment and sound environmental practices. Areas related to sustainable economy are, in particular, sustainable economic growth, an innovative and knowledge-based economy, income security and employment stability, as well as a clean and healthy economy. International Journal of Sustainable Economy - to begin publication in 2009 - aims to address the exposed sustainability issues in the field of economic theory and analysis.

Special issue: Contribution of management sciences to sustainable development

International Journal of Environmental Technology and Management 8(1) 2008
  • Developing a dynamic systems model for the sustainable development of the Canadian oil sands industry
  • TUPROD, an assistant Tool for the dUrable PROduct Design
  • Key aspects of product attraction: a focus on eco-friendliness
  • Steps towards sustainable urban development in the city of Narva, Estonia – supporting e-Governance processes through the e-Community tool – a web-based communication and management platform
  • Development and implementation of environmental strategies for steel industry
  • A complexity view of organisational reputation
  • An ultimate contribution of sustainable development to management sciences

Special issue: Process modelling and simulation for product design and realisation

International Journal of Simulation and Process Modelling 3(4) 2007
  • A DSM-based project-scheduling system for collaborative product development
  • Integrating pre-purchase affect in product concept development
  • Person-centred simulation of product development processes
  • The development of a fabric retrieval system: using a similarity modelling approach
  • A systematic method for mapping customer requirements to quality characteristics in product lifecycle
  • Simulation-based optimisation for material dispatching in Vendor-Managed Inventory systems
  • Computer-supported collaborative supply chain modelling and simulation: a knowledge-centric approach

16 December 2007

Tables of contents (ToCs) by RSS

Inderscience has introduced the facility to receive tables of contents of individual journals in a browser or a newsreader like Bloglines or Google Reader using RSS technology. Contents are available for the latest issue of all published titles - currently 189 journals, with many others in various stages of preparation. Previously a feed was available only for all new articles, but now users can choose just the journals of interest. This RSS delivery is an alternative to the tables of contents by email alerting service. Links are available to the full text of articles for subscribers - other users can pay for individual articles.

From a journal homepage users should click on the orange RSS icon or the Latest TOC link - or copy the underlying URL - and follow appropriate procedures to add to their list of RSS feeds.

Call for papers: Survivable Sensor Networks

Call for papers: Survivable Sensor Networks

A special issue of International Journal of Sensor Networks

Sensor networks are appealing to diverse services due to the distributed (redundant) nature of sensors. Redundancy has profound effects on the survivability of tasks at hand and is especially important to applications attempting to overcome the problem of single points of failure. Redundancy, however, increases the chance for component failure, increases the complexity of communication protocol, and renders system operation more complex in that the application program at hand must be perceived as it were running on a single system. With these in mind, the lack of embedded survivability requirements is a growing concern, as more critical services take advantage of advances in sensor technologies.

On the other hand, research studies in various fields of survivability, such as reliability, security, and fault tolerance, often develop different sets of terminologies and approaches with limited cross fertilisation among those properties, although the core problems across the fields are often similar. For instance, with respect to distributed agreement and data aggregation, the list of research articles in fault tolerance or security field is numerous, but there is very limited research in applying the results and maturity of one field to another. Additionally, many research studies apply inappropriate and/or complex cryptographic approaches, impose unrealistic assumptions, and tend to employ single or simplistic failure modes, rather than exploiting the benefits of hybrid fault models.

Accordingly, the main theme of this special issue on sensor networks is on cross-fertilisation of different survivability areas and pragmatic solutions. Of special interests are contributions that address: recovery, masking of fault and intrusion impacts, and co-existence of faults (hybrid fault models) with various severities for higher performance and survivability.

In the context of this theme, original unpublished manuscripts are solicited. General topics of interest include but are not limited to:
  • Distributed algorithms for collaborative tasks
  • Coordination and synchronisation
  • Performance analysis of existing solutions
  • Task allocation and scheduling
  • Network intrusion tolerance
  • Detection and self-organisation
  • Routing algorithms
  • Case studies of real world applications
  • Hybrid fault modelling
  • Unification of fault modeling of survivability properties
  • Evaluation and validation of survivability
  • Realisation and deployment of robust large-scale sensor networks
  • Design for survivability
Important Dates
Manuscripts submission: 30 June, 2008
Notification of acceptance/rejection: 31 October, 2008
Submission of final manuscript: 31 December, 2008

Special issue: Mergers and acquisitions, financial systems restructuring and corporate ownership control issues. Part 1.

International Journal of Financial Services Management 2(4) 2007
  • Bank acquisitions and shareholder returns
  • Determinants of merger activity: evidence from India
  • Predicting Greek mergers and acquisitions: a new approach
  • Mergers and acquisitions in the Malaysian banking industry: technical and scale efficiency effects
  • Impact of mergers and acquisitions on stock returns of tramp shipping firms
  • Identifying synergies ahead of mergers and acquisitions

Special issue: Risk and accounting

International Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Performance Evaluation 4(3) 2007
  • Disclosure patterns in derivatives reporting by UK firms: implications for corporate governance
  • The usefulness of derivative-related disclosure: evidence from major Australian banks
  • Risk reporting of Japanese companies and its association with corporate characteristics
  • Accounting for risky liabilities: evidence from UK pension plans
  • Using option theory and fundamentals to assess the default risk of listed firms

14 December 2007

Special issue: Intermodal passenger air transportation

World Review of Intermodal Transportation Research 1(3) 2007
  • Air–rail intermodality from airlines' perspective
  • Inter-Island modal competition: the case of Gran Canaria-Tenerife
  • Air/rail passenger intermodality concepts in Germany
  • Characteristics and competitive implications of air–rail links in Germany
  • The intermodal networks: a survey on intermodalism
Additional Papers
  • Electric vehicle: a futuristic approach to reduce pollution (A case study of Delhi)
  • Measuring intermodalism at European port cities: an employment-based study

Special issue: Programming multiagent systems

International Journal of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering 1(3/4) 2007
  • IOM/T: interaction-oriented model by textual notation
  • An Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) view on AOSE
  • Agent-oriented software engineering: a model-driven approach
  • Developing organised multiagent systems using the MOISE+ model: programming issues at the system and agent levels
  • West2East: exploiting WEb Service Technologies to Engineer Agent-based SofTware
  • A formal semantics for Gaia liveness rules and expressions
  • Prioritisation mechanisms to support incremental development of agent systems
  • Report from the Eighth Agent-Oriented Software Engineering Workshop, AAMAS 2007

13 December 2007

Newly announced journal: International Journal of Cultural Management

International Journal of Cultural Management - to begin publication in 2008 - adopts a wide definition of culture and cultural management, to include the performing arts (music, theatre, dance), heritage (built and man made), media, and the cultural industries. It is concerned with the management, marketing, economic organisation of the cultural sector and with the behaviour of producers, consumers and governments in that sector. The journal will encourage cooperation and dissemination of information related to cultural management, culture and all its manifestations. It will serve one of the most rapidly expanding sectors in the economy and so will invite and attract original pieces of work from various disciplines to facilitate discussion regarding the contribution of culture in the society.

12 December 2007

Call for papers: Information Processing and Decision Making in Distributed Control Systems

Call for papers: Information Processing and Decision Making in Distributed Control Systems

A special issue of
International Journal of Systems, Control and Communications

This special issue focuses on the highly interdisciplinary research in the theory and application of distributed control and communication systems. The increasing use of heterogeneous channels such as the internet or dedicated bus lines, particularly in the context of distributed systems, challenges conventional assumptions of perfect communication and instantaneous observation, and calls for the development of systematic optimal control design tools for distributed control systems. This special issue aims at presenting research from various disciplines in a coherent context, which can serve as a guide for research in information processing and decision making over communication networks and uncertain information channels.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to:
  • Optimal and robust control under decentralised information structures
  • Design algorithms and principles for distributed control systems, including design with partial information
  • Distributed consensus, agreement, and optimisation
  • Stochastic dynamic games and teams
  • Distributed sensing over noisy channels
  • Distributed control under rate and distortion constraints
  • Multi-terminal information theory: source and channel coding
  • Graphical models in distributed control
  • Distributed estimation and diagnosis
Important Date
Submission Deadline: 30 April 2008

Call for papers: Software Agents in e-Business: Concepts, Development and Applications

Call for papers: Software Agents in e-Business: Concepts, Development and Applications

A special issue of International Journal of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering

The main achievements of software agent technology include frameworks and platforms based on standardised languages and architectures for agent systems development. Implemented software agents are claimed to have attractive features such as adaptivity, intelligence, autonomy and mobility.

Modern e-business systems pose difficult problems concerning cost reduction, profitability and efficiency improvement, interoperability and decision-making, thus making them a fertile and rich real-world environment for the application and experimentation of software agents. Difficult research challenges involve the adaptation of relevant software agent technologies, development methodologies and tools to meet the tight requirements of modern e-business.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to:
**Software agent engineering, including
  • models
  • methodologies
  • architectures
  • frameworks
  • application protocols
**Software agent evaluation and testing, benchmarking and performances
**Software agent applications in relevant areas of modern e-business, including but not limited to
  • trading
  • e-commerce
  • negotiation and contracting
  • business process management
  • marketing management
  • resource management
Important Dates
Manuscript due: 31 March, 2008
First Notification: 1 June, 2008
Second Notification: 1 September, 2008
Final manuscript due: 30 October, 2008

Newly announced journal: International Journal of Engineering Management and Economics

Engineers perform many management activities in modern companies. However in bridging the gap between engineering and management engineering management differs from ordinary management as the engineering managers differ since they possess both the ability to apply engineering principles and the skills for organising and directing people and projects. International Journal of Engineering Management and Economics - to begin publication in 2008 - is a refereed and authoritative journal aimed at bridging the latest advances in the engineering management and engineering economics areas with a multidisciplinary perspective.

9 December 2007

Special issue: RFID - technologies, applications and trends

International Journal of Internet Protocol Technology 2(3/4) 2007
  • RFID and smart spaces
  • RFID-based user profiling of fashion preferences: blueprint for a smart wardrobe
  • Supporting document management by using RFID technology
  • Managing RFID data in supply chains
  • RFID and supply chain performance: adoption issues in the retail supply chain
  • If objects could talk: a novel resource discovery approach for pervasive environments
  • Multi-tag RFID systems
  • The Design and Development of an RFID-enabled asset tracking system for challenging environments
  • Performance testing: evaluating an RFID library inventory reader
  • Fault-tolerant routing through the 'Umbrella' protocol
  • Optimal routing for SIP-based session set up over IMS in mobile environment

Special issue: Outward investment from the BRICS-countries

International Journal of Technology and Globalisation 4(1) 2008
  • Emerging multinationals: outward FDI from the BRICS countries
  • Explaining the competitiveness of Multinational Companies from developing economies: a critical review of the academic literature
  • Capability development and the geographic destination of outbound FDI by developing country firms
  • A Latin American global player goes to Asia: Embraer in China
  • The evolution of Indian Outward Foreign Direct Investment: changing trends and patterns
  • The internationalisation of Chinese enterprises: the analysis of the UK case

Special issue: Human aspects of information technology development

International Journal of Technology, Policy and Management 8(1) 2008
  • Mentality patterns: recurring turns of mind as first-class concerns in software projects
  • Managing radical software engineering: leverage order and chaos
  • Expanding the knowing capability of software developers through knowledge collaboration
  • The need for trust relationships to enable successful virtual team collaboration in software outsourcing
  • The impact of national culture on software engineering practices
  • The influence of managerial experience and style on software development process

Special issue: Emergency and risk zoning around nuclear power plants

International Journal of Risk Assessment and Management 8(1/2) 2008

Papers from the EC/JRC-OECD Seminar on Emergency and Risk Zoning around Nuclear Power Plants, held in Petten, The Netherlands, 26-27 April 2005.
  • Risk zoning and risk decision making
  • International requirements for the establishment of emergency zones
  • IAEA activities related to on-site management and off-site emergency preparedness involving external events including those of malevolent origin
  • Technical basis for off-site emergency planning in France
  • Emergency zoning and PSA applications in Finland
  • Emergency zoning around nuclear power plants in Slovakia
  • Reference scenarios and emergency zoning for nuclear facilities in The Netherlands
  • Risk-informed emergency planning requirements for Koeberg Nuclear Power Station
  • Determination and justification of the reference scenarios and associated source terms for emergency planning in Switzerland
  • Risk zoning in relation to risk of external events (application to IRIS design)
  • IRIS safety-by-design™ and its implication to lessen emergency planning requirements
  • Accident consequence assessment and its implications for emergency planning of the pilot commercial HTR plant in China
  • mplementation of the results of the uncertainty analysis of the COSYMA package for zoning purposes
  • Urbanisation control around industrial Seveso sites: the French context
  • Summary: Main conclusions and recommendations from the JRC/OECD seminar on emergency and risk zoning around nuclear power plants (26–27 April 2005, Petten, The Netherlands)
  • Campylobacter source attribution by exposure assessment

First issue: International Journal of Chinese Culture and Management

The first issue of International Journal of Chinese Culture and Management has just been published.

With a clear international and interdisciplinary approach, the journal covers Chinese culture, business, management and related topics. It presents timely and in-depth analyses on these topics, offering the reader a wealth of valuable material on theories and practices which underpin successful business in China.

A free download of the papers from this first issue is available.

7 December 2007

Call for papers: Renewable Energy Systems and Management

Call for papers: Renewable Energy Systems and Management

A special issue of International Journal of Agile Systems and Management

Over the past decade, the climate change and problems of global warming have increasingly attracted public concerns. In order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, studies on how to make good use of renewable energy have been actively carried out at both the national and international levels. In Europe, the Renewable Energy industry has been developing rapidly. Since 1997, the EU has been working towards a renewable energy supply equivalent to 12% of the total EU's energy consumption by 2010. The UK’s Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation (RTFO) will require 5% of all UK retail fuel to come from a renewable source by 2010. The benefits would be a reduction of around 1,000,000 MT of carbon per year. The rapid increase in the requirements of renewable energy opens the way to engineers and researchers to explore and exploit flexible and advanced renewable energy technologies and decision-making approaches in the planning, design and operation stages.

This Special Issue will focus on a broad spectrum of all relevant issues and provide a holistic examination of the current status and future trends in Renewable Energy Systems and Management. It aims to bring together the work of leading researchers, engineers and scientists from around the world.

Topics of interest for submission include, but are not limited to:
  • Current issues in the renewable energy industry
  • Renewable energy demand response and management
  • Renewable energy economics
  • Renewable energy regulations
  • Role of governmental regulation
  • Renewable energy policies
  • Renewable energy market deregulation
  • Renewable energy pricing
  • Renewable energy retail markets
  • Renewable energy investment coordination
  • Renewable generation
  • Renewable energy risk analysis
  • Renewable energy policy act
  • Renewable energy security assessment
  • Distribution and agile power systems
  • Fault diagnosis
Important Dates
Paper due: 30 June, 2008
Acceptance notification: 31 July, 2008
Final paper version due: 29 August, 2008

Call for papers: Dynamic Virtual Communities in the Information Society: Technologies, Methodologies, and Tools

Call for papers: Dynamic Virtual Communities in the Information Society: Technologies, Methodologies, and Tools

A special issue of International Journal of Web Based Communities

With the current proliferation of communication media, the presence of global and virtual organisations, teleworking and dynamic teams trends, the progress in pervasive/ubiquitous computing as well as in wearable computing, virtual communities (VCs) are supposed to play an increased role in social organisations and will probably change profoundly the way people cooperate. Moreover, the emergence of the information society depends on the way in which information is exchanged between collaborating groups.

This special issue intends to focus on the technologies, methodologies, and tools that are used or needed in VCs as driving components in the information society.

The special issue includes - but is not limited to - the following topics:
  • Social context and impact on society
  • Technologies for VCs
  • Methodologies and modeling for VCs
  • Tools for VCs
  • VCs and mobility
  • VCs' business models
  • Usability and user interfaces
  • Trust, security and legal aspects of VCs
  • Awareness and context
  • Knowledge and information management within VCs
  • VC management
Important Dates
Deadline for Summary Submission: 15 January, 2008
Deadline for paper submission: 29 February, 2008
Notification to authors: 15 April, 2008
Deadline for camera ready papers: 15 May, 2008

Call for papers: Advances in Computer Aided Design and Digital Entertainment

Call for papers: Advances in Computer Aided Design and Digital Entertainment

A special issue of International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology

With the rapid development of computer and network technologies in recent years, research and applications in computer-aided design (CAD), computer animation, digital entertainment and digital art has been receiving increasing attention from researchers across the world. Continual, pioneered research is essential to further promote the development of those areas to benefit their applications in various fields.

The aim of this special issue of the IJCAT is to provide the state-of-the-art in CAD, digital entertainment and other related fields to present the latest research and applications including advanced development tools.

The subject coverage of this special issue includes, but is not limited to, topics that address:
  • Intelligent CAD
  • Human-computer interaction
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Digital art
  • Computer graphics
  • Computer animation
  • Motion capture animation
  • Digital content management
  • Online games
  • Multimedia technology
  • E-home
  • Visualisation technology
  • Computer vision
  • Facial expression tracking and recognition
  • Pattern recognition
Important Dates
Deadline for submission of manuscripts: 1 August 2008
Notification of peer review to authors: 1 October 2008
Deadline for submitting revised manuscripts: 1 November 2008

Call for papers: Barriers to Innovation in Home Country: Can Internationalisation of R&D Mitigate their Effects

Call for papers: Barriers to Innovation in Home Country: Can Internationalisation of R&D Mitigate their Effects

A special issue of International Journal of Technology, Policy and Management

Technological advancements, especially in information and communication technologies (ICT) have enhanced greatly the competition already spurred by the globalisation of world economies. Even small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are no more immune to the challenges that the globalisation brings about. Innovative ideas and products are becoming increasingly important to counter the price-oriented competition on home turf and abroad from low-cost producers acting globally and leveraging production facilities in emerging economies. The innovation capacity of many firms is however hampered by a number of barriers to innovation, e.g. resource constraints. They hinder the firm’s capacity to invent and successfully commercialise new products, services or processes.

Global innovation activities are therefore thought to be necessary to gain, retain, and further strengthen the competitive position in that they may provide access to cost-effective, highly qualified resources or help tap an attractive market. The incentive to go for global innovation is also enhanced by given socio-demographic factors in the industrialised economies, e.g. shortage of skilled labor due to aging population and lack of student interest in natural sciences.

It may partially explain the increasing share of R&D funds spent and patents generated abroad by globally operating firms. For instance, in 2002, subsidiaries of US firms spent over 21 billion USD for R&D efforts abroad, mainly in the European Union (EU) countries and Japan, but also increasingly in India and China. On the same lines German firms spent nearly 11 billion euros for R&D efforts abroad in 2003. In turn, subsidiaries of foreign-owned firms spent 12.4 billion euros the same year in Germany. This trend is however not limited to industrialised economies. An increasing number of firms from India and China are reported to be setting up R&D centers abroad in industrialised countries such as USA and Germany (primarily knowledge- and infrastructure seeking) or to other emerging economies like India, China or in Eastern Europe (cost drivers, access to market).

This special issue intends to bring together academicians, practitioners, and policy makers to investigate and exchange novel ideas and circulate knowledge covering the broad area of “global innovation”, its connection to barriers to innovation in the home environment and the related policy implications. Experts and professionals from academia, industry, government and the public sector are invited to submit papers on their recent research and professional experience on the subject. Interdisciplinary research is specifically encouraged.

Papers dealing with (but not limited to) any of the following themes are appropriate for consideration:
  • Barriers to innovation, e.g. country-, sector- or size specific barriers
  • Globalisation of innovation (the complete innovation value chain)
  • Trends in internationalisation of R&D
  • Between industrialised countries
  • From industrialised to emerging countries
  • From emerging countries to industrialised countries
  • Between emerging countries
  • Forms of international (offshore) R&D
  • Joint ventures and cooperation
  • Captive centers
  • Contract R&D by specialised third-party outsourcers
  • Advantages and challenges of international R&D operations
  • Market, knowledge and cost factors
  • Organisational and other managerial challenges
  • Ground realities in international R&D operations
  • Firm Behavior in meeting dual challenges of innovation barriers and globalisation
  • Structure and strategy for R&D in global corporations
  • International R&D and the dynamics of firms and sectors
  • Drivers of international corporate R&D investments
  • New and emerging issues in (international) corporate R&D
  • Policy implications for dealing with barriers to innovation
  • Strengthening of sectoral, regional and national innovation systems
  • Implications for FDI policies in industrialised and emerging countries
  • Implications for institutional infrastructure especially in emerging countries
  • Policy measures for SMEs support programmes etc.
Important Dates
Submission of papers: 1 March, 2008
Feedback to authors: 1 June, 2008
Final paper due: 1 July, 2008

Call for papers: Advances in Medical Micro and Nanomanufacturing and its Applications

Call for papers: Advances in Medical Micro and Nanomanufacturing and its Applications

A special issue of International Journal of Nano and Biomaterials

The advent of manufacturing techniques that enable fabrication at the micrometer-scale and below provides unique opportunity for medical device applications. Miniaturisation enables enhanced sensitivity, accuracy, and reduced analysis time in diagnostic applications, higher precision, efficacy, and minimised invasiveness in therapeutic applications, and provides the potential for lower costs and broader access to healthcare. However, before this promise can be fully realised numerous issues must be addressed, one of which is the further improvement of medical device micro/nano manufacturing with regard to robustness, versatility, reliability, reproducibility, and scalability.

The aim of this special issue is to provide a forum for discussion of state-of-the-art research on the fundamental and practical aspects of developments in micro/nano manufacturing of medical devices with dimensions (or critical feature sizes) ranging from tens of nanometers to hundreds of micrometers. Papers are sought to address theoretical and applied research issues related to the development and application of advanced micro/nano manufacturing techniques for use in medical devices.

The subject coverage of this special issue includes, but is not limited to, topics that address:
  • Advances in micro/nano manufacturing for medical applications
  • Unique challenges associated with manufacturing, handling, and deployment of micro/nanoscale medical devices
  • Integration of micro/nano manufacturing techniques with traditional manufacturing for realisation of multi-scale manufacturing
  • Characterisation of micro/nano manufacturing and its effect on biocompatibility/ biofunctionality
  • Demonstration of novel biomedical device concepts enabled by micro/nano manufacturing
  • Modelling and simulation of micro/nano manufacturing techniques
Interdisciplinary research that spans several fields is particularly welcome.

Important Dates
Deadline for submission of manuscripts: 30 November 2008
Communication of peer reviews to authors: 31 March 2009
Deadline for revised manuscripts: 31 May 2009

Call for papers: Artificial Societies for Ambient Intelligence

Call for papers: Artificial Societies for Ambient Intelligence

A special issue of International Journal of Autonomous and Adaptive Communications Systems

Ambient Intelligence (AmI) seeks to create a society based on unobtrusive, often invisible interactions amongst people and computer-based services in a global computing environment. Services in AmI will be ubiquitous in that there will be no specific bearer or provider but, instead, they will be associated with a variety of objects and devices in the environment, which will not bear any resemblance to computers. People will interact with these services through intelligent and intuitive interfaces embedded in these objects and devices, which in turn will be sensitive to what people need.

In this special issue, we aim to present the application and development of artificial societies for AmI, establish a body of knowledge and a theoretical umbrella for this, and use the resulting research to relate to existing work on areas such as the semantic web, cognitive and social agents, and ambient and ubiquitous technologies. We also hope to present current research in the area of agent societies for AmI, where human activities are supported by social organisations of agents, computing devices, or both, and assess the outcomes of such research. Our intention is to complement existing ubiquitous computing efforts that focus more on distributed systems and less on complex systems construed as artificial agent societies. This special issue therefore aspires to amalgamate ongoing research in distributed systems and complex multi-agent systems with the aim of strengthening the synergy between the two fields.

We encourage the submission of innovative and mature results in specifying, developing and deploying artificial societies for ambient intelligence. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to, the following topics:
  • Social architectures
  • Agent interaction
  • Reasoning and knowledge representation
  • Reactivity and proactivity
  • Learning and adaptivity
  • Decision making
  • Social emergence
  • Normative reasoning and regulations
  • Security, trust and privacy
  • Interaction design and interfaces
  • Mobility
  • Applications
Important Dates
Paper submission: 30 September, 2008
Acceptance notification: 1 December, 2008
Camera ready papers due: 30 January, 2009

Call for papers: Service Oriented Grid and Pervasive Technologies

Call for papers: Service Oriented Grid and Pervasive Technologies

A special issue of International Journal of Autonomous and Adaptive Communications Systems

Grid and pervasive computing (GPC) has emerged rapidly as an exciting new paradigm that includes ubiquitous, grid, and pervasive computing to provide intelligence, insight, and vision for emerging world of intelligent environment, products, services and human interaction.

This special issue is intended to foster state-of-the-art research in the area of GPC, including the topics of service computing, grid and pervasive computing, business models, and novel applications associated with this new paradigm. The published papers are expected to focus on application services and present high quality results to solve various problems in smart space.

Areas of interest for this special issue include the following topics:
  • Service-oriented computing
  • Peer-to-peer computing
  • Mobile/wireless computing, communications, systems and services
  • Embedded computing with applications
  • Low power, energy-aware computing
  • Smart devices, spaces and objects
  • Location-dependent/personalized applications
  • Service discovery mechanisms and protocols
  • Middleware services and agent technologies
  • Intelligent devices and environments
  • Context and location awareness, context based and implicit computing
  • User interfaces and interaction models
  • Wireless/mobile service management and delivery
  • Resource management in pervasive platforms
  • Security and privacy issues
  • Education and training
Important Dates
Submission due date: 1 March, 2008
Notification of acceptance: 30 May, 2008
Submission of final revised paper: 30 June 2008

Call for papers: Algorithmic Game Theory

Call for papers: Algorithmic Game Theory

A special issue of International Journal of Autonomous and Adaptive Communications Systems

Game-theory offers a formal mechanism for studying complex interactions between multiple rational participants. The emergence of the internet as a dominant communication platform has brought to the surface many interesting game theoretic problems that arise from the interplay of the entities that manage and use the internet. Algorithm and network designers, in general, are interested in analysing outcomes of these interactions. This has resulted in the formation of the new research area of algorithmic game theory which brings together two important scientific fields: economics and computer science.

Algorithmic game theory also covers problems that arise outside the internet. In this new research area, games are studied from the perspective of algorithmic issues which, for example, include the design of algorithms that compute equilibria, measurement of equilibria quality, and generally the design of new games that can be analysed with algorithmic techniques.

In this special issue, we invite the submission of papers in the broad area of algorithmic game theory. The objective is to publish a selection of high quality papers which span different areas in this research field.

Topics of interest include (but not limited to):
  • Games in communication networks
  • Routing games
  • Power games
  • Potential games
  • Network pricing
  • Mechanism design
  • Network formation
  • Pricing and auctions
  • Coalition games
  • Different equilibria concepts: Nash, Cooperative, Stackelberg, Wardrop equilibria
  • Multi-stage and repeated games
  • Zero-sum games
  • Games of imperfect or asymmetric information
  • Learning games
Important Dates
Paper submission: 1 March, 2008
Acceptance notification: 15 May, 2008
Camera ready papers due: 22 May, 2008

Call for papers: Environmental and Industrial Waste Management Using Membrane Separation and Bioremediation

Call for papers: Environmental and Industrial Waste Management Using Membrane Separation and Bioremediation

A special issue of International Journal of Environment and Waste Management

Compared to equilibrium governed separation processes, i.e., adsorption, absorption, etc., rate governed membrane based separation processes are gaining importance for treatment of various industrial effluent/process streams. It has been estimated that the current worldwide membrane/equipment market is 1.6 billion dollars annually. New applications in wastewater treatment from various industrial sources as well as treatment of drinking water using membrane based separation processes have to be developed and commercialised to achieve a cleaner technology. Bioremediation has come to play an increasingly important role in waste management.

Bioremediation can take care of both organic and inorganic pollutants. Although the application of bioremedial measures to environmental problems has become readily acceptable, there remains uncertainty among practitioners regarding how the microscopic system fits into practical applications. The stochastic nature of the living systems further enhances the uncertainty level. The exchange of challenging technical experiences of researchers in this field can only fill this gap.

Original research paper or reviews are invited in the following and related areas on waste management as applied to:
  • Textile industry
  • Pulp and paper industry
  • Sugar processing industry
  • Tanneries
  • Pharmaceutical industry
  • Other industries
  • Environmental sources, such as arsenic and other harmful organic and inorganic sources from drinking and surface water
Important Dates
Deadline for paper submission: 31 March 2008
First turn of papers review: 31 May 2008
Second turn of papers review: 31 July 2008
Final papers submission: 31 August 2008

Special issue: Complex network and infrastructure protection

International Journal of Critical Infrastructures 4(1/2) 2008

Papers from the International Workshop on Complex Network and Infrastructure Protection (CNIP06) held in Rome, Italy on 28–29 March 2006.
  • Security, trust, and QoS in next-generation control and communication for large power systems
  • Dynamic recovery of critical infrastructures: real-time temporal coordination
  • The security of power systems and the role of information and communication technologies: lessons from the recent blackouts
  • Modelling of cascading effects and efficient response to disaster spreading in complex networks
  • Modelling interdependent infrastructures using interacting dynamical models
  • Security assessment in complex networks exposed to terrorist hazard: a simulation approach
  • Agents controlling the electric power infrastructure
  • Simulation of heterogeneous and interdependent critical infrastructures
  • Effects of intentional threats to power substation control systems
Additional Papers
  • Quantitative Vulnerability Assessment of Critical Infrastructures: watching for hidden faults
  • Understanding threats: a prerequisite to enhance survivability of computing systems
  • A systematic procedure for analysing network systems
  • The HoneyTank: a scalable approach to collect malicious internet traffic
Technical Note
  • Predicting target selection by terrorists: a network analysis of the 2005 London underground attacks

Special issue: Trends in architectures, models and infrastructures to generate and handle semantics in peer-to-peer and hypermedia systems

International Journal of Web Engineering and Technology 4(1) 2008

Papers from the workshop: ‘International Workshop on Architectures, Models and Infrastructures to Generate Semantics in Peer-to-Peer and Hypermedia Systems’ organised in conjunction with the 17th ACM Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia in Odense, Denmark, 22-25 August 2006 .
  • Incorporating computational semantics into emergent hypermedia structures
  • A schema-based P2P network to enable publish-subscribe for multimedia content in open hypermedia systems
  • Ontology-supported indexing in P2P networks of digital libraries
  • XFIS: an XML filtering system based on string representation and matching
  • NBDT: an efficient P2P indexing scheme for web service discovery
  • Web service workflow selection using system and network QoS constraints

Special issue: Logistics in the Asia Region

International Journal of Integrated Supply Management 4(1) 2008

Papers from the International Congress on Logistics and SCM Systems (ICLS) held in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, 1–3 May 2006.
  • Logistics outlook: an Asian perspective
  • Best practices in distribution and retail networks: the case of Indonesia and France
  • A feasibility study on establishing distribution centres for One Tambon One Product (OTOP) project in Songkhla Province
  • Quality management practices in logistics services in Thailand
  • The business performance of convenience stores installing POS systems: an empirical study of 7-Eleven
  • A basic research on rationalisation strategy in Japan
  • Distribution of small packages in metropolitan area by motorcycle courier services
  • Assessment of global logistics strategies for Third Party Logistics
  • The IBM advanced planning system for managing next generation demand-supply networks

Special issue: Reference models for forming organisational or collaborative pedagogical best practices

International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning 18(1) 2008
  • Problem-Based Learning in web environments: how do students learn? Evidences from the 'Virtual eBMS' system
  • The Project Method e-course: the use of tools towards the evolution of the Greek teachers' online community
  • Concept mapping instrumental support for problem solving
  • LOCO-Analyst: semantic web technologies in learning content usage analysis
  • Towards a learning path specification
  • Smart indicators to support the learning interaction cycle
  • A reference model for mobile social software for learning
  • Improving learning design practices through strategic integrated evaluation

Special issue: Researching the environment: papers from the 10th Environmental Research Event

International Journal of Global Environmental Issues 7(4) 2007

The 10th Environmental Research Event (ERE) - the largest conference of Australia’s post-graduate environmental students - was held in Sydney, Australia, 10 - 13 December 2006.
  • Ability of global climate models at a regional scale over Australia
  • Recreational impacts on the environment as an impetus to updating recreational regulations in the Washington State
  • Major paradigm shifts in NRM in Australia
  • Application of a three-dimensional hyperbolic location system to the false killer whale (Pseudorca crassidens) depredation issue
  • From wisdom to information: 350 years of ecosystem management
  • Too dry and too cold for mould germination in New Zealand dwellings?
Additional Paper
  • Power from closing the Red Sea: economic and ecological costs and benefits following the isolation of the Red Sea

Special issue: Emerging management and technology approaches

International Journal of Value Chain Management 2(1) 2008
  • E-government maturity at Spanish local levels
  • The impacts of non-functional requirements in web system projects
  • Assessing strategic, tactical and operational alignment factors for SMEs: alignment across the organisation's value chain
  • A structurational analysis of CRM systems' cultural aspects: a comparative case study
  • An investigation into the effects of computer-integrated manufacturing systems on the productivity of SMEs in Pakistan
  • Empirical evaluation of public e-procurement platforms in France
  • Performance evaluation study of an indoor IEEE 802.11g
  • Key success factors of mobile technology implementation within firms
  • Towards a successful implementation of network QoS strategy in IT business infrastructure

5 December 2007

Special issue: Leveraging management and decision making by information technology

International Journal of Management and Decision Making 9(1) 2008
  • Discovering decision heuristics in collaborative planning
  • Strategic management of new products development at technological conglomerate network using expert support systems
  • Profiling EC internet presence: implications for e-commerce practice and research
  • Deploying and evaluating multiattribute product recommendation in e-markets
  • Assessing extracted knowledge from classifier neural networks: an exploratory empirical study
  • Application of multicriteria decision making for selection of robotic system using fuzzy analytic hierarchy process

Special issue: Moral responsibility and sustainable development

International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development 2(1) 2007
  • Impeding ecological sustainability through selective moral disengagement
  • Micro-foundations of the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis: an empirical analysis
  • Averting catastrophic climate change: confronting wealth
  • The moral responsibility of consumers as citizens
  • Ulf Schrader
  • Sustainable economic organisation: simply a matter of reconceptualisation or a need for a new ethics?
  • Moral responsibility and the business and sustainable development assemblage: a Jonasian ethics for the technological age

3 December 2007

First issue: International Journal of Monetary Economics and Finance

The first issue of International Journal of Monetary Economics and Finance has just been published.

The journal addresses the advancement of contemporary research in the field of international monetary economics and finance. It is an internationally competitive, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to serve as the primary outlet for theoretical and empirical research in all areas of international monetary economics and finance. It seeks to publish thought-provoking, policy relevant analysis.

A free download of the papers from this first issue is available.

Special issue: Power-aware computing systems

International Journal of Embedded Systems 3(1/2) 2007

Papers from a seminar at the International Conference and Research Centre for Computer Science, Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany, April 2005.
  • Power-aware computing systems
  • Inter-program optimisations for disk energy reduction
  • A new way of estimating compute-boundedness and its application to dynamic voltage scaling
  • An evaluation infrastructure for power and energy optimisations
  • Exploring temperature-aware design in low-power MPSoCs
  • Design of power-aware FPGA fabrics
  • Power management in external memory using PA-CDRAM
  • Energy-aware compilation and hardware design for VLIW embedded systems
  • Algorithms for low power hardware synthesis from Concurrent Action Oriented Specifications (CAOS)
  • Horizontal and vertical HW/SW co-design flows for power aware smart card designs

Special issue: Trust in virtual teams

International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations 5(1) 2008
  • A dynamic perspective of trust in virtual teams: the role of task, technology and time
  • Combining bases of trust development in virtual teams
  • Development of trust in electronic mentoring relationships
  • Sociological factors affecting trust development in virtual communities
  • An investigation of the role of trust in virtual project management success
  • Flows, bridges and brokers: exploring the development of trust relations in a distributed work group
  • The role of social capital in virtual teams and organisations: corporate value creation

Special issue: Responsiveness in design and manufacturing

International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering 3(1) 2008

Papers from the 3rd International Conference on Responsive Manufacturing (ICRM2005) held in Guangzhou, China, 12–14 September 2005.
  • R&D task programming of electromechanical product in networked manufacturing environment
  • A study on a general rapid prototyping software based on distributed technology
  • An affordable Reverse Engineering framework for innovative rapid product development
  • An intelligent technology watch function for the high technology enterprise
  • Managing the effects of variability in drum-buffer-rope systems
  • Study on modelling obstacles-avoidance behaviour of virtual driver based on multilayer fuzzy neural network
  • Developing strategies fostering product development using multicriteria analysis

Special issue: Advanced enterprise and information systems for enabling supply chain operations in the innovative age. Part II

International Journal of Enterprise Network Management 2(1) 2008

(Part I was published in International Journal of Enterprise Network Management 1(4) 2007)
  • A strategic reference model for new product development
  • Development of a national electronic product code network for the tracking of fast moving consumer goods
  • Impacts of sharing information of demand patterns on supply chain performance
  • Is the RFID technology ready to integrate supply chain activities?
  • Real-time process mining system for supply chain network: OLAP-based fuzzy approach

Special issue: Interface between manufacturing and other fields

International Journal of Manufacturing Technology and Management 13(1) 2008
  • Manufacturing planning and control technology versus operational performance: an empirical study of MRP and JIT in China
  • Modelling information sharing to improve just-in-time purchasing vendor evaluation
  • The cross-functional coordination between operations, marketing, purchasing and engineering and the impact on performance
  • Coordinating pricing and inventory decisions under reference price effects
  • AI-based project risk management process for a kind of manufacturing alliance

Special issue: Branding and reputation in sports marketing

International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing 3(1/2) 2008
  • Leveraging the Olympic brand through the reconciliation of corporate and consumers' brand perceptions
  • Assessing the use of the brand personality scale in team sport
  • Exploring the role of brand trust in the relationship between brand associations and brand loyalty in sport and fitness
  • Extending the understanding of professional team brand equity to the global marketplace
  • Assessing the impact of NCAA scandals: an exploratory analysis
  • A collegiate athletic brand transformation: rebranding a Native American brand identity
  • Celebrity athletes and athletic clothing design: branding female tennis players
  • Dangerous liaisons: how can sports brands capitalise on the Hip Hop movement

Special issue: Use of information technology in supply chain management

International Journal of Information Technology and Management 7(1) 2008
  • Collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment: demand planning in supply chain management
  • Life after a dot-com bubble
  • Assessing post-adoption utilisation of an information technology within a supply chain management context
  • Empirical testing of forecast update procedure for seasonal products
  • Consumer reactions to potential intrusiveness and benefits of RFID
  • E-fulfilling the e-supply chain of digital print

Special issue: Flexibility, learning and innovation

International Journal of Technology Management 41(1/2) 2008
  • Synthesising the paradox of organisational routine flexibility and stability: a processual view
  • Technology management routines that matter to technology managers
  • Transaction costs and organisational learning in strategic outsourcing relationships
  • Relationship learning and dyadic knowledge creation in international subcontracting relationships: the supplier's perspective
  • Learning mechanisms in a technology based organisational change programme: an exploratory study between Chinese and Norwegian corporations
  • Managing knowledge for new product performance in the high technology industry
  • Flexibility in innovation through external learning: exploring two models for enhanced industry–university collaboration
  • Organisational learning dynamics in the software publishing industry
  • Knowledge creation as a dynamic capability: implications for innovation management and organisational design
  • Impact of manager's social power on R&D employees' knowledge-sharing behaviour
  • Resources, absorptive capacity, and technology sourcing
  • Balancing flexibility and control: international technology and market development in Australian biotechnology firms
  • Entrepreneurial orientation, strategic flexibilities and indigenous firm innovation in transitional China

Special issue: Current development in surface engineering and technologies

International Journal of Materials and Product Technology 31(1) 2008

Selected papers from the International Conference on Surface Finishing Technology and Surface Engineering (ICSFT 2006) held in Dalian, China, 24 to 27 September 2006.
  • Abrasive liquid jet as a flexible polishing tool
  • Use of actively cooled and activated coolant for surface quality improvement in ductile material grinding
  • Magnetorheological fluids modelling: without the no-slip boundary condition
  • Precision wafer thinning and its surface conditioning technique
  • Disfigurement formation and control in drilling carbon fibre reinforced composites
  • Effects of kinematic forms on material removal rate and non-uniformity in chemical mechanical planarisation
  • Mechanism of burr formation in slot milling Al-alloy
  • On the control and optimisation of abrasive distribution pattern on grinding tool surfaces
  • Particle strengthening of the surface of copper electrode for electrical discharge machining
  • A study of laser surface modification for GCr15 steel
  • In-suit integrated measurement of profile precision of large gears based on rack-shaped-edge probe
  • Machinability of glass by abrasive waterjet
  • Parametric study of micro machining with instantaneous tiny-grinding wheel based on the magnetorheological effect of abrasive slurry

Call for papers: Application of Metaheuristics in the Optimisation and Performance Measurement of Operations, Logistics and Supply Chains

Call for papers: Application of Metaheuristics in the Optimisation and Performance Measurement of Operations, Logistics and Supply Chains

A special issue of International Journal of Business Performance Management

Over the last few years, real-world optimisation problems have become increasingly complex, forcing the development of solution procedures whose efficiency is measured by their ability to find acceptable solutions within a reasonable amount of computer time. Metaheuristic optimisation stands out as a promising approach to deal with this difficult class of problems. Evolutionary algorithms have become one of the most prominent class of metaheuristics for tackling optimisation problems. However, other methodologies, such as scatter search, tabu search, ant colonies, simulated annealing and GRASP are gaining momentum. Application of metaheuristics in optimisation and performance measurement of operations, logistics and supply chain management leads to the competitive advantage and cost savings to industry and society.

Various firms have recently realised the potential of SCM in day-to-day operations management. However, they often lack the insight for the development of effective optimised performance measures which are needed to achieve a fully integrated SCM, due to lack of a balanced approach and lack of clear distinction between metrics at strategic, tactical, and operational levels. Therefore, this Special Issue aims to provide academic and practitioners with a collection of innovative research and development in optimisation and performance measurement models of operations, logistics and supply chain management.

Contributors are encouraged to submit original manuscripts that are conceptual, case studies, or empirically-based; and focus on the following or other areas related to Operations, Logistics and Supply chain, but are not limited to:
  • Performance measurement using BSC and DEA
  • Productivity, efficiency and performance benchmarking using nonparmetric OR approaches (e.g. data envelopement analysis)
  • Productivity, efficiency and performance benchmarking using statistical approaches (e.g. stochastic frontier analysis)
  • Supply chain network modelling
  • Performance measurement using metaheuristics
  • Inventory control in supply chain management
  • Reverse supply chain
  • Artificial intelligence techniques in logistics and supply chain management
  • Risk evaluation in supply chains
  • General optimisation models and methodologies for operations, logistics and supply chain management
  • Risk mitigation strategies in supply chains
  • Operations planning, scheduling and control
  • Performance measurement and productivity
  • Environmental issues in operations
  • Performance benchmarking
  • Multiobjective optimisation in logistics and supply chains
  • Operations and business process management
  • Closed-loop supply chains
  • Global operations management
  • Inventory management and coordination
  • Logistics service performance
  • Fuzzy logic and neural networks in supply chain
  • Game theory and goal programming in supply chain
Important Dates
Manuscript submission: 30 April 2008
Notification of initial decision: 30 June 2008
Notification of final acceptance: 15 August 2008

28 November 2007

Special issue: Innovation in energy systems

International Journal of Global Energy Issues 28(2/3) 2007
  • Sustainable nuclear energy: some reasons for optimism
  • CO2 emissions mitigation policies and their effects on the Thailand energy system
  • Potential of crop residue in India as a source of energy
  • Recovering energy from biogas emission: the case of Mariana Mantovana landfill (Italy)
  • Hydrogen production technology for powering civil and industrial systems: a review
  • Physical properties of wood pellets from a novel pelletising process
  • Advanced processes for low rank coal drying and dewatering in high efficient power plants
  • Separation of CO2 during combustion of coal in a pressurised fluidised bed
  • Comparative study of steam injection effects on operation of gas turbine cycles
  • Visible light-operated glucose-O2 biofuel cell
  • Catalysis of atomic hydrogen to new hydrides as a new power source
  • Modelling oil degradation in electric transformer oil under typical loads

27 November 2007

Call for papers: Regional Economic Development Dynamics: Focus on Regional/Sectoral Innovation Systems

Call for papers: Regional Economic Development Dynamics: Focus on Regional/Sectoral Innovation Systems

A special issue of International Journal of Innovation and Regional Development

Deep and broad economic integration in Europe and especially within the European Union has been taking place mostly on an intra- and cross-regional basis transcending national frontiers and identities and being driven by affinities, complementarities and synergies at the regional level.

The presence, role and impact of this phenomenon as a driver of regional economic development and especially in the form of small and medium enterprise formation and growth is the motivation for this Special Issue. In particular, the focus is on profiling, analysing, benchmarking, and modelling in socio-technical terms, ways and means that creativity, invention and innovation are manifested and drive economic development in regions such as the Balkan and Baltic regions within the EU, as well as other parts of the world. Our focus is on deriving insights from comparing and contrasting similarities and differences and critical success and failure factors within and across the regions under study.

The targeted audience for this Special Issue includes policy makers as well as academic researchers and practitioners of technology innovation and entrepreneurship in the regions of focus as well as the EU and the world as a whole as the inter-regional and cross-regional integration, development and convergence phenomenon is replicated around the earth.

In this context, this issue will promote the identification and articulation of insights that could inform both public sector policies and private sector practices to render them more effective and efficient. A series of recommendations for policy makers and practitioners would ideally emerge from this comparative, conceptual and empirical research contributing to the growing literature on the role of knowledge on technology, innovation and entrepreneurship and in particular with regards to the role of knowledge creation, diffusion and use in local, national, regional, and global innovation networks and knowledge clusters that form the underpinnings of the knowledge economy and society.

The intent is to encompass and integrate diverse theoretical perspectives, including, regional development economics and sociology of innovation, as well as regional science, and, technology, innovation and knowledge management research as follows:
  • Select industries of focus would be biotechnology, advanced materials and ICT (as well as cross-disciplinary, emerging threads such as nano/bio-technology, MEMS, bio-informatics, etc) and in each region and/or country therein, innovation networks and knowledge clusters based on such industries would be identified and studied.
  • This is not to exclude low and medium technology sectors and regional innovation networks. For instance, innovation practices, clusters and networks in areas and sectors such as construction, services, maritime and marine technologies, cleaner forms of energy production, eco-innovation, etc.
  • Public-private partnerships for research and technology development, transfer, deployment and commercialisation would also be studied in this context, and, in particular, their relationships and roles in catalysing and accelerating the formation and growth of networks, clusters and individual new ventures.
  • Top-down policies and bottom-up initiatives would be documented and reviewed to identify what works and what does not, how and why in each region, country and industry.
Important Date
Deadline for Submissions: 31 May, 2008

Call for papers: Financial Services Industry: Emerging Challenges and Prospects

Call for papers: Financial Services Industry: Emerging Challenges and Prospects

A special issue of International Journal of Financial Services Management

Over the last few decades there has been a series of substantial changes in the Financial Services industry. Recent advances in policy-making, regulatory framework, information and communication technology and risk management practices, all combined with the explosive growth in the volume of cross border capital flows, have led to an increasing demand for effective, efficient and prudent deployment of economic capital. The objective of this special issue is to bring together current theoretical and empirical research on the issues highlighted above and investigate their implications with regards to the Financial Services industry.

Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • Risk management and incentives
  • Efficiency
  • Bank safety and banking supervision
  • Regulatory framework
  • Corporate ownership
  • Control and corporate governance
  • Mergers and acquisitions activities
  • The availability of credit
  • Risk management and insurance
  • Macroeconomic fluctuations
  • Systemic risk
  • Competitive effects across banks and countries
  • Market discipline
  • Liquidity management
  • Developed and/or/vs. developing areas
Important Dates
1-2 Page Abstract: 31 May 2008
Submission of Manuscripts: 31 August 2008
Notification to Authors: 30 October 2008
Final Versions Due: 15 January 2009

Special issue: Mobile virtual communities

International Journal of Web Based Communities 3(4) 2007
  • The portable community: envisioning and examining mobile social connectedness
  • Mobile virtual communities research: a synthesis of current trends and a look at future perspectives
  • Exploring mobile information systems for chronically ill adolescent patients
  • DIY i-TV producers: emerging nomadic communities
  • A novel collaboration model for mobile virtual communities
  • WebRogue: rendezvous in a web place
  • Tech ties: making online connections in social networks

26 November 2007

Call for papers: Transforming Basic Research in Biomedical Sciences into Commercial Applications: The Role of Universities in Industrialised Countries

Call for papers: Transforming Basic Research in Biomedical Sciences into Commercial Applications: The Role of Universities in Industrialised Countries

A special issue of International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management

Industrialised countries are trying to counter the threat from low-cost manufacturing countries by building on their comparative advantage in high-technology sectors. Industrial policy initiatives in Europe, Japan, and North America attempt to stimulate innovation and productivity, and the health sector is especially prominent in this process in areas including biotech, genetics, microelectronics, and biophysics (see Di Tommaso and Schweitzer, 2005)*.

Among other policies, governments have encouraged universities to participate in the process of commercialisation of basic research, either through patenting inventions (e.g. the Bayh-Dole Act of the United States) or participating directly in spin-off ventures. These spin-offs combine university-based researchers with entrepreneurs and sources of capital. Some of these high-tech industrial clusters have become household words, such as America’s Silicon Valley and Route 128, but the movement is far more diffused than that. Different countries have approached the issue of encouraging commercialisation of biomedical science differently, no doubt in response to different institutions and entrepreneurial climate. Currently there is no unified description of what policies work in particular settings, and which do not. This leaves both government and academic leaders in a quandary as they attempt to construct the best policies for their institutions.

The objective of this Special Issue is to promote a better understanding of the process by which basic research in the health sciences is translated into commercial ventures involving universities. We will illustrate the many factors that must be present in a successful program to encourage commercial development of basic research. These factors include incentives for university researchers, sources of capital, linkages between people with skills in basic research and those with skills in entrepreneurship. To do this, we envision creating a multinational network of scholars working in areas of industrial policy, health sciences research, and university development. We hope to bring together information from Europe, North America (especially the US and Canada), and Asia (especially China and Japan).

* Di Tommaso MR and Schweitzer SO (eds), Health Policy and High-Tech Industrial Development: Learning from Innovation in the Health Industry, Cheltenham England: Edward Elgar Publishers, 2005

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to:
  • Incentives and climate toward commercialisation in universities
  • Types of industry/university collaboration
  • Government and university policies toward spin-off ventures
  • Capital formation
  • Direct foreign investment
  • Venture capital
  • Government support
  • Private capital
  • Government policies toward high-tech clusters - the role of industrial policy
  • Important success stories - and lessons to be learned
  • Useful stories of failures - and lessons to be learned
  • Choosing the right industrial policy for the scientific and political setting
Important Date
Submission deadline: 1 October, 2008

25 November 2007

Special issue: Agile organisations and supply chains: performance and strategy

International Journal of Agile Systems and Management 2(4) 2007
  • A new analytical framework of agile supply chain strategies
  • Industry patterns of agility: a study of the role of Information Systems and Information Technology as an antecedent of strategic agility within European organisations
  • Supply chain knowledge work: should we restructure the workforce for improved agility?
  • mpact of innovative procurement on agility within the construction industry
  • Do not lean too far – evidence from the first decade
  • Need for real time Business Intelligence

Call for papers: Knowledge Management in the Project Work Context

Call for papers: Knowledge Management in the Project Work Context

A special issue of International Journal of Knowledge Management Studies

In many companies, knowledge management within and between projects is becoming a prerequisite to sustain a competitive advantage. This is especially the case in project-based firms. Many authors argue that without managing knowledge in projects, knowledge assets can be lost when the projects are completed. However, in many companies - and projects in general - activities such as knowledge acquisition and sharing are often very complex tasks. Therefore, this special issue is dedicated to deal with knowledge management in the project work context.

There is a growing need in companies and in the projects within them to move beyond solving problems at hand towards continuously improving knowledge and skills in the face of changing conditions and situations. However, while in functionally-based companies, departments act as knowledge silos, the pure project-based firms lack the organisational mechanisms for the knowledge acquired in one project to be transferred and used by other projects. Project-based firms, faced with the need to engage in sustained knowledge sharing practices, find themselves without the means to collaborate in the most efficient way.

Therefore reinforcing knowledge sharing is a vital part of the success of these companies. However, achieving this is often difficult, as many projects are interdisciplinary and face the problem of integrating cross-functional contributions and perspectives. Consequently, sharing knowledge across professional and organisational boundaries is vital for creating a situation and a circumstance in which effective project implementation can proceed. The basis of knowledge sharing lies in the promise to increase provision of better knowledge for project management.

Published research on knowledge management often focuses on large corporations, and it is by no means clear that what works for them is a good approach in a project work context. Therefore, this special issue calls for papers dealing with all aspects of knowledge management that are the most relevant in project practices. The suggestions to be dealt with in this issue are not intended to be prescriptive. They are simply intended to help people involved in project work understand how the theoretical principles translate into practicalities, to stimulate thought, and to provide a starting point for experiment and for developing systems which suit individual needs. All in all, this special issue welcomes both conceptual and empirical papers addressing knowledge management in varied project management environments.

We are interested in papers covering, but not limited to, the following areas:
  • Knowledge management as a part of project management
  • Different knowledge related project work environments
  • How individual team members' learning translates into project teams' and companies' learning
  • Knowledge sharing within and between projects
  • Facilitating organisational learning within a project-based company
  • Organisational memory in a project work context
  • Community of practice perspective in a project work context
  • HRM strategies for promoting knowledge sharing within project-based companies
  • Proximity as a factor affecting knowledge sharing in a project work context
  • Boundary brokering between professional domains
  • Management of trusting relationships in a project work context
  • Project culture as a factor affecting knowledge management in a project work context
  • Epistemological considerations in a project work context
Important Dates
150 word abstract by : 1 June, 2008
[Please indicate subject: 'Call for papers – Abstract'. All abstracts must be submitted as Microsoft documents, Times New Roman 12, single space. They must contain on the first page a title, authors’ names, postal addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, and keywords.]
Notification of acceptance: 1 September, 2008
Full paper due : 1 December, 2008
Notification of acceptance: 1 March, 2009
Final version of the paper: 1 April, 2009
Due Date : 15 July 2007