Special issue: Challenging interoperability for PLM

International Journal of Product Lifecycle Management 2(2) 2007 is a special issue: Challenging interoperability for PLM

Article titles:
* Improving brokering adaptation in dynamic heterogeneous environments
* Multi-agent based internet search
* OMG CAD Services V1.0 standard: an approach to CAD–CAx integration
* Application of Data Mining and Intelligent Agent Technologies to Concurrent Engineering
* Harmonising technologies in conceptual models representation

Special issue: Biotechnology in forestry

International Journal of Biotechnology 9(5) 2007 is a special issue: Biotechnology in forestry.

Article titles:
* The value of forest biotechnology: a cost modelling study with loblolly pine and kraft linerboard in the southeastern USA
* GM technology in forestry: lessons from the GM food 'debate'
* Forest biotechnology: an extension of tree improvement
* Forest biotechnology: trees of our future
* Public perceptions of hybrid poplar plantations: trees as an alternative crop
* Forest management and biotechnology: the case of a selective-logging regime

Special issue: Large-scale pattern recognition and distributed intelligent systems

International Journal of Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications 3(3/4) 2007 is a special issue: Large-scale pattern recognition and distributed intelligent systems.

Article titles:
* Decision trees for filtering large databases of graphs
* On graph modelling, node ranking and visualisation
* An integrated approach to the segmentation and recognition of objects using level set and thin plate spline method
* Face recognition based on ordinal correlation
* An improved Naive Bayesian classifier with advanced discretisation method
* Adaptive peer-to-peer streaming over hybrid wireless networks
* Optimal mobile sensor motion planning under non-holonomic constraints for parameter estimation of distributed systems
* Film audio pace
* Intelligent computing for real-time solution of time-varying linear equations
* Optimisation-on-a-manifold for global registration of multiple 3D point sets
* The structures of EI algebras generated by information attributes

Special issue: Vaccines: all things considered

International Journal of Biotechnology 9(3/4) 2007 is a special issue: Vaccines: all things considered.

Article titles:
* Preliminary evidence of efficacy from an open label trial of a therapeutic AIDS vaccine derived from the blood of HIV-positive donors
* Immunostimulants in the prevention of respiratory infections
* Safety and immunogenicity of bivalent inactivated vaccine against haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome in a phase II trial on healthy Chinese volunteers
* Comparative effect of an immunomodulator Immunoxel (DzhereloT™) when used alone or in combination with antiretroviral therapy in drug-naive HIV-infected individuals
* Envelope-based HIV vaccine peptides as antigens in HIV-1 immunodiagnostics
* Developing Plasmodium falciparum malaria vaccines for populations living in areas with stable parasite transmission
* Anti-HIV and anti-inflammatory action of iodine-lithium-α-dextrin is accompanied by the improved quality of life in AIDS patients
* Preclinical and safety studies of V-1 Immunitor
* Possible role of molecular mimicry in pathogenesis of Ebola virus: implications for a rational vaccine design
* Mechanism of action and therapeutic efficacy of the biotechnology-derived immunostimulating extract OM-85 in respiratory tract infections
* HIV-1 subtype C vaccine: waiting in wings for the human trials
* Immunity development following oral vaccination against Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae in a mouse model
* Regulation of cancer by therapeutic vaccination and dietary bio-modulation involving organ-specific mitochondria

Newly announced journal: International Journal of Intelligent Defence Support Systems

International Journal of Intelligent Defence Support Systems - to begin publication in 2008 - will deal with the development of novel computational intelligence techniques and their application to support systems used by defence personnel. The scope of application covers strategic, tactical and operational decision making across the entire defence sector, covering areas such as intelligence gathering and analysis, capability assessment, tactics modelling and evaluation and logistics management as well as military systems integration and both semi-autonomous and autonomous systems.

Special issue: Environmental remediation and development

International Journal of Environment and Pollution 29(4) 2007 is a special issue: Environmental remediation and development.

Article titles:
* Estimating contaminant-flushing rates for heterogeneous aquifers
* Use of geostatistics to evaluate the monitoring well network of a TCE plume
* Water cleaning and wetland construction
* Measurement of atmospheric fluxes of radionuclides at a UK site using both direct (rain) and indirect (soils) methods
* Fabricated soils for landscape restoration: an example for scientific contribution by a public-private partnership effort
* Study of bacterial activity in fabricated soils
* Fungi in fabricated soils
* Distribution of peroxidase activity and polyamine pattern of Heliotropium europeum in potassium deficiency conditions
* Advantages of auxin analogues as plant growth and productivity regulators
* Exploratory study of some potential environmental impacts of CO2 sequestration in unmineable coal seams
* Recovering coal bed methane from deep unmineable coal seams and carbon sequestration
* The study of the recovery of highly purified terephthalic acid from alkali weight-reduction wastewater
* Computational modelling of NOx removal by selective non-catalytic reduction
* Monitoring of phytoplankton biomass and nutrients in a polluted stream

Call for papers: Advanced Techniques Applied to Power System Protection

Call for papers: Advanced Techniques Applied to Power System Protection

A special issue of International Journal of Energy Technology and Policy

Protection systems play a fundamental role in guaranteeing the integrity and safe operation of any electrical energy system. The first protection systems were developed based on electromechanical devices employing movable parts. In a later period of development, solid-state based devices with discrete electronic components were also introduced. Although both types of devices are still widely utilised in on-operation protection systems, they are currently being replaced by microprocessor-based relays, known generically as digital or numerical relays.

The usage of digital relays has permitted that many new techniques be developed and implemented. As a consequence, protection systems are facing a very dynamic period. Modern protection systems, indeed, are truely integrated systems, consisting of communication, numerical processing, measurement and logical systems. Moreover, intelligent techniques such as evolutionary algorithms, fuzzy systems and neural networks have been widely employed for protection schemes in single equipment and power system areas. Such a scenario, which joins digital hardware with communication technologies and intelligent techniques, creates a challenging environment where protection specialists can use these elements to develop novel protection philosophies and techniques, aiming at a fast, reliable and economic protection system.

The objective of this special issue is to provide a means for the publication and interchange of information, on an international basis, on advanced techniques applied to electric power protection system.

Topics to be covered include, but are not limited to:

• Intelligent techniques (e.g. neural networks, genetic algorithms, etc) applied to protection systems
• Adaptive relaying
• Communication systems dedicated to protection systems
• Advanced signal processing techniques applied to protection systems
• Multi-agent based protection systems
• Wide-area protection systems based on broadband communications and time synchronous systems
• Application of phasor measurement units (PMU) to protection systems
• Development of unified protocols dedicated to protection systems
• Fault location techniques

Important Dates
Full paper and proposal submission: 30 October 2007
Notification of acceptance: 30 December 2007
Revised manuscript submission: 15 February 2008
Notification of acceptance: 15 March 2008
Final paper: 15 April 2008

First issue: International Journal of Teaching and Case Studies - a special issue on information systems

The first issue of International Journal of Teaching and Case Studies has just been published.

The journal aims at becoming an authoritative source in teaching and learning within management, computing and information technology in a broad sense, which is of interest to educators, researchers, policy-makers and practitioners alike. The unique view is the linkage of computing and information technology to management and business and the journal will deliver excellent articles on new methods, models and practices of teaching in the era of knowledge society, as well as (teaching) cases aimed at supporting learning in academia and business settings.

This first double issue - with a free download of the papers - is a special issue: Information systems: the new research agenda, the emerging curriculum and the new teaching paradigm.

Article titles:
* Teaching in the knowledge society: an art of passion
* An interview with Michael D. Myers, President, Association for Information Systems: ''the field of IS has always been about RELATIONSHIPS, not things in themselves''
* Thoughts on the future of education in information technology
* Articulating case-based learning outcomes and assessment
* A shift in content of the IS fundamentals course
* Educating future IS professionals through real-world integration
* Business informatics as a research discipline
* Electronic case studies: a problem-based learning approach to management development
* Use of conversation theory to underpin blended learning
* The impact of social technologies on student performance in a collaborative learning environment
* Teaching appropriate ethnographic methodologies for pervasive computing
* Towards active case based learning in IS
* PASER: a curricula synthesis system based on automated problem solving

Special issue: Innovation in healthcare operations

International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management 8(6) 2007 is a special issue: Innovation in healthcare operations, with 4 articles based on papers from the fourth
International Conference on the Management of Healthcare & Medical Technology, Aalborg, Denmark, 25–26 August 2005, organised jointly by the Association for Healthcare Technology and Management (HCTM) and the Center for Industrial Production (CIP) at Aalborg University.

Article titles:
* Managing variation through system redesign
* Balancing the surgical capacity in a hospital
* Implementation and use of an electronic health record: measuring relevance and participation in four hospitals
* Using the benefits of picture archiving and communicating systems – constraints in stakeholder governance
* The dengue fever outbreak in Hawaii: a bioterrorism model for vector-borne illnesses
* Renewing regulatory practices: the case of stem cells

Featured article: Securing e-voting as a legitimate option for e-governance

Securing e-voting as a legitimate option for e-governance
Alan D. Smith, Robert Morris University, Pittsburgh, USA
Electronic Government, an International Journal 4(3) 2007, 269 - 289
The constant change of technology has put increased pressure on e-governance initiatives to modernise its election process to keep pace with e-commerce activities. After several national elections, many citizens have noticed first hand the numerous voter irregularities that included long lines, hanging chads, and other polling problems as many countries rush to update their aging and out-dated voter machines and traditional forms of capturing and identifying voters' information. Although e-voting could gradually lead to a smoother, electoral process, citizens and politicians must not assume electronic machines are cure-alls to the traditional ballot crisis. Since e-voting entails plugging votes across a network into a central IT-infrastructure, security and privacy concerns become increasingly imminent. This paper focuses on such e-governance initiatives and what steps election officials could take to ensure its elections via e-voting are secure through a cost/benefit analysis.

Call for papers: Global Entrepreneurship through Innovation

Call for papers: Global Entrepreneurship through Innovation

A special issue of International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management

Entrepreneurship is a key facilitator of new business creation, market competitiveness and sustainability. Innovation in the global economy is a major driver of organisation leaderships, business dynamism and business value chain. Entrepreneurship and innovation are integral players in global business ecology.

However, how to foster global entrepreneurs through innovation has rarely been explored. To achieve this urgent and timely topic, global businesses need more sustainable profitability, better business models, stronger leaderships in order to launch innovative high-value business ventures.

This special issue’s main objective is to establish an outlet for scholars and practitioners interested in a variety of topics in entrepreneurship and innovation management in global business perspectives. Thus, papers submitted for the special issue should address the global implications of entrepreneurship through innovation.

Examples of topics appropriate to the theme of global entrepreneurship through innovation include:

• Case studies of global entrepreneurs
• Global leadership with innovation
• New business creation within a global perspective
• Pedagogy to foster global entrepreneurial and innovative mindsets
• Process accessing to global business resources such as finance, human resources, marketing, and operations
• Role of government in business creation and growth
• Successes and failures in global small and medium enterprises (SMEs)
• Other related topics

Important Date
Paper Submission Deadline: 31 July 2008

First issue: International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology

The first issue of International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology has just been published.

The journal aims to advance cutting edge research in the multi-disciplinary subject of biomedical engineering and technology. This area provides a synthesis of physical, chemical, mathematical, and computational sciences combined with engineering principles to enhance research and developments in biology, medicine, behaviour, and health. It advances fundamental concepts; creates knowledge from the molecular to the organ systems level; and develops innovative biologics, materials, processes, implants, devices and informatics approaches for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, for patient rehabilitation, and providing an overall enhancement of healthcare.

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

Special issue: Value chain management

International Journal of Manufacturing Technology and Management 12(4) 2007 is a special issue: Value chain management.

Article titles:
* The effect of margin guarantees on pricing and production
* The constraints of the valuation distribution for solving a class of games by using a best response algorithm
* The impact of ERP implementation on business performance – an integrated investigation model
* Development of an internet retail value chain model for electronic business
* A three-stage field service management model for effective post-sales service supply chain management

Special issue: High performance grinding processes

International Journal of Manufacturing Technology and Management 12(1/2/3) 2007 is a special issue: High performance grinding processes.

Article titles:
* Laser processing of high performance grinding wheels
* Microgrinding force predictive modelling based on microscale single grain interaction analysis
* Advanced grinding of titanium aluminides
* Thermal analysis of grind-hardening process
* Economical aspects of profiling diamond-grinding wheels
* Development of a new cutting fluid delivery system for creepfeed grinding
* Development of ultra-precision machining system for small lens mould
* Indirect measurement of grinding wheel run-out using acoustic emission
* Interaction of process and machine during high-performance grinding: towards a comprehensive simulation concept
* Development of a dressing monitoring system through artificial intelligence and acoustic maps for high performance grinding
* Mechanical and thermal behaviours of grinding acoustic emission
* Grinding titanium aluminide: subsurface damage
* Coolant and oil mist reduction in grinding processes
* Study on surface grind-hardening of SKD-11 hardened steel
* Laser dressing of resin-bond diamond grinding wheel
* Using the size effect of specific energy in grinding for work hardening
* The role of crystallographic orientation on the forces generated in ultra-precision grinding of anisotropic materials such as monocrystalline silicon
* Rotary ultrasonic machining of silicon carbide: designed experiments
* Grinding force modelling: combining dimensional analysis with response surface methodology

Special issue: Intelligent sensing technologies and applications

International Journal of Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications 3(1/2) 2007 is a special issue: Intelligent sensing technologies and applications. Most of the articles are enhanced versions of papers from the 1st International Conference of Sensing Technology, 21–23 November 2005, Palmerston North, New Zealand.

Article titles:
* Implementation of a framework to integrate sensors and controllers
* Scalable infrared sensor network for multiple three-dimensional indoor targets localisation
* Measuring of exhaust gas emissions using absorption spectroscopy
* Hydrogen gas sensor based upon perylene-imide derivatives
* A smart gas sensor for environmental monitoring, compliant with the IEEE 1451 standard and featuring a simplified transducer interface
* Inaccuracies in measurement of contact pressure due to the measuring grid of a foil sensor
* An accurate model of a highly ordered 81/19 Permalloy AMR Wheatstone bridge sensor against a 48 pole pair ring-magnet
* Applications of SV-GMR sensor for detecting micro non-magnetic and ferromagnetic material
* Fibre Bragg gratings with one defect towards development of optical networks interrogators
* Solutions to the inverse problem in a two-dimensional model for microwave breast tumour detection
* On-chip electrometer using MEMS parallel-plate pull-in sensing

Special issue: Transportation disaster and degradation management

International Journal of Critical Infrastructures 3(3/4) 2007 is a special issue: Transportation disaster and degradation management.

Article titles:
* An evolving paradigm for managing hazardous materials transportation risk
* Requirements for transport network flow models used in reliability analysis
* Flight-delay propagation, allowing for behavioural response
* Disaster and degradation management: relevance of the concept of flexibility
* Road network unreliability: impact assessment and mitigation
* Review of pedestrian and evacuation simulations
* A framework for evaluating risk to the transportation network from terrorism and security policies
* Competitive egress behaviour: a fuzzy logic-inspired microscopic model
* Airport availability modelling: a different perspective
* Risk and vulnerability games. The anti-satellite weaponry (ASAT)
* Social values and material threat: the European Programme for Critical Infrastructure Protection
* From complexity science to reliability efficiency: a new way of looking at complex network systems and critical infrastructures

Special issue: Service-oriented business process integration

International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management 2(1) 2007 is a special issue: Service-oriented business process integration.

Article titles:
* Complex adaptive services
* Service adaptation through trace inspection
* Relational to object-oriented database wrapper solution in the data grid architecture with query optimisation issues
* Service-oriented enterprise modelling and analysis: a case study
* Transforming business process models in the presence of irreducibility and concurrency
* Foundations for specifying OWL-S groundings

Newly announced title: International Journal of Medical Engineering and Informatics

International Journal of Medical Engineering and Informatics - to begin publication in 2008 - will promote an understanding of the structural and functional aspects of disease mechanisms and the application of technology towards the treatment and management of such diseases. The journal seeks to promote genuine interdisciplinary collaboration between those interested in the theoretical and clinical aspects of medicine and to encourage the application of computers and mathematics to problems arising from the medical sciences.
Features will include authoritative review papers, the reporting of original research, and evaluation reports on new and existing techniques and devices. Each issue of will contain a comprehensive information service which provides news relevant to the world of medical engineering, health informatics, details of new products, book reviews, and the new developments of appropriate technologies.

Inderscience is part of the ticTOCs project to produce a table of contents service

Inderscience is pleased to have become one of the partners in the ticTOCs project. The aim of this project is to develop a service which will transform journal current awareness by making it easy for academics and researchers to find, display, store, combine and reuse tables of contents from multiple publishers in a personalisable web based environment. JISC is the primary funder of the ticTOCs project, which will run for two years from April 2007.

The service will:

1. Enable academics and researchers, without having to understand the technical or procedural concepts involved in the process, to discover, subscribe to, search within, be alerted to, aggregate, personalise, export and re-use standardised table of contents (TOC) RSS feeds and their content for a large and growing number of journals, from any networked PC, at their convenience.

2. Facilitate the re-use of aggregated journal TOC content on a subject basis by gateways, subject-based resource discovery services, VREs, library services and others, where it can be exposed to a wider market, act as a showcase of the latest research output, and deliver relevant content to researchers.

3. Enable library and information services (for example, from journal lists), commercial and open access journal publishers, gateways, content aggregators and journal directories to allow their users to embed journal TOC RSS feeds of interest, with one click, into a freely available personalisable web-based interface which will perform as a current awareness environment.

4. Encourage the production of standardised journal TOC RSS feeds, and thereby facilitate their interoperability and improve the quality of their data.

Call for papers: Changes in Society, Changes in Organisations, and the Changing Role of HRM: Managing International Human Resources in a Complex World

Call for papers: Changes in Society, Changes in Organisations, and the Changing Role of HRM: Managing International Human Resources in a Complex World

A special issue of European Journal of International Management

In 2007, the 9th IHRM conference was hosted by Estonian Business School and The Cranfield Network on Comparative Human Resource Management (Cranet). Selected papers from this conference are being reviewed for inclusion in this special issue, but papers not presented at the conference may also be submitted for review. The conference theme is of increasing interest to academics and practitioners in international human resource management, as well as among those professionals involved in complex organisational change.

The modern world is increasingly facing radical and rapid change in the nature of the international social fabric. As broad social changes occur at an ever-increasing pace, organisations must adapt within this context, and workers must change within their own organisations. All of these have major implications for the way we manage the human resources of firms, especially in the international arena, where such complexities become especially pronounced.

Papers appropriate to this special issue should deal with the impact of IHRM on changing organisations and we especially welcome papers dealing with the nature of change as we enter the 21st century. Papers that deal with complex change across levels of analysis are also especially welcome, as are dynamic models of the IHRM function. An international focus should be made within the paper.

Papers are invited primarily but not exclusively on the following topics:

• the impact of globalisation on HRM practices
• international organisations as reflections of national and organisational culture
• the role of HRM in altering organisational practice
• implementing change in transitional countries through changes in HRM practices
• aligning education and training for HRM practitioners with cultural values
• cross-level impacts of HRM on global organisations

Important Dates
Deadline for full paper submissions: 1 September, 2007
Double blind review of paper and feedback from review given to the author(s): 1 November, 2007
Deadline for final submission of corrected papers: 1 January, 2008
No changes can be made to the papers after: 1 February, 2008

Special issue: Network architecture and service model

International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing 2(4) 2007 is a special issue: Network architecture and service model.

Article titles:
* Hybrid Busy tone and Carrier sense-based MAC protocol in multi-hop ad hoc networks
* Overlay multicasting for small group application in MANETs
* ACVoD: a peer-to-peer based video-on-demand scheme in broadband residential access networks
* CBroadcast: an Application Layer Multicast mechanism based on combination of central control and self-organisation
* Performance evaluation of mobile wireless communication and services with modelling of real environment

Additional Papers
* Service Location Protocols for mobile wireless ad hoc networks
* A survey on context-aware systems

Special issue: Web and grid information systems: measurement, provisioning and scheduling

International Journal of Web and Grid Services 3(2) 2007 is a special issue: Web and grid information systems: measurement, provisioning and scheduling.

Article titles:
* Improving website search with server log analysis and multiple evidence combination
* Pragmatics of storyboarding for web information systems: usage analysis
* Relevance measures for XML information retrieval
* Context-oriented and transaction-based service provisioning
* Immediate mode scheduling in grid system

Special issue: Risk assessment and management in the minerals industry

International Journal of Risk Assessment and Management 7(5) 2007 is a special issue: Risk assessment and management in the minerals industry.

Article titles:
* Mine reclamation bonding and environmental insurance
* Risk assessment as a tool to explore sustainable development issues: lessons from the Australian coal industry
* Risk management programme for occupational safety and health in surface mining operations
* Optimum short-term futures hedge using stochastic linear programming
* Flexibility valuation in operating mine decisions using real options pricing
* Mineral reserve risk in continuous-time stochastic mine valuation
* Assessment of horizontal pillar burst in deep hard rock mines
* Automation vs. human intervention: What is the best mix for optimum system performance? A case study
* Perceptions of risk in the mining industry
* Fiscal risk to West Virginia's special reclamation fund

Call for papers: Economic Development, Technology Growth and Protection of Intellectual Properties

Call for papers: Economic Development, Technology Growth and Protection of Intellectual Properties

A special issue of International Journal of Intellectual Property Management

Economic growth of a country is measured by the amount of wealth it has created over the years. Though stock of physical wealth has been treated as the main yardstick of evaluating any country’s level of development, importance of intangible wealth has been gaining prominence in recent years. A country’s economic development is also measured by its level of technological progress achieved over the years. The recent worldwide trend is that the value of intangible wealth has been growing much faster than the tangible wealth.

Intangible wealth is highly knowledge-based, depending on the level of inventions and new ideas emanated from human beings over the generations. The transformation of future society into a knowledge-based society depends on how much knowledge one can generate and to what extent this knowledge can be disseminated. It is rational to argue that inventions and innovations can be promoted only when they are well protected through protection of intellectual properties.

Technological progress of any country depends on the level of inventions, which in turn depends on the level of protection available to the intellectual properties in the form of patents and other forms of protection. Apart from protection of intellectual properties, adequate level of investment is needed for new inventions in frontier research. It is a priori as well as empirically true that country’s technological progress depends on the level of investment made on research and development (R&D). Therefore, there is a strong correlation between economic development, technological progress, level of expenditure on R&D and the level of protection available to intellectual properties.

Although there are several studies available in this area, they are scattered over a range of journals. It is in this context that the contribution of this special issue will be to collect excellent papers from experts and deliver to the interested readers through a single source.

Contributions are solicited from scholars, academicians and faculty of universities engaged in research on different economic dimensions of intellectual properties encompassing patents, copyrights, design and layout, trade and service marks, trade secrets etc. The papers should be both theoretical as well as empirical in nature. Strong encouragement will be given to the studies estimating the economic benefits of patents and other forms of protection of intellectual properties and the proofs of theoretical abstractions. Studies should be at the macro level as well as different sectors of the economy, viz. drugs and pharmaceuticals, agro-chemicals, biotech industry, computer software and different areas of cultural industry, e.g. songs and music, films, books and publications etc.

The purpose of this special issue is to elicit research on the impact of patent protection on the prices of products, especially to what extent prices of commodities will be increased due to different level of protection both in form of product as well as process. How will increase in prices encourage investment, especially R&D expenditure for inventing new features of products, and ensure competition rather than monopoly profit due to market imperfections? Another objective of this special issue is to examine the policy options for the developing countries which had not granted product patents prior to 2005.

Research questions to be examined in this issue include the following list, which is not exhaustive :

• What are the linkages between economic development, technological progress and protection of intellectual properties?
• How does protection of intellectual properties encourage inventions and thus promote investment on R&D?
• What is the impact of protection on prices of the products both in goods and services? How much will be the increase in price due to patents both at the aggregate as well as at the sectoral level?
• Does protection lead to monopoly or encourages competition by encouraging more investment flows into the sectors?
• How to develop a macro-econometric model incorporating parameters like GDP growth, technical progress, investment, level of innovations and protection of intellectual properties both at the time series as well as cross section basis?
• Inter-linkages between industrial growth and patent protection.
• Whether and to what extent cost of public health services will be increased due to patent protection
• Whether patent can be used as an engine of economic growth in the developing countries
• What should be the optimum level of protection (both theoretically as well as empirically)?

We are interested in papers, which cover, but not limited to, the following areas:

• Patents
• Copyrights
• Trade & service marks
• Industrial designs
• Integrated circuits
• Geographical indications
• Trade secrets

Important Dates
Deadline for Paper Submissions: 31 October 2007
Deadline for Review: 31 December 2007
Notification of Acceptance: 31 January 2008
Deadline of Revised Papers: 31 March 2008
Final Decisions: 31 May 2008

Special issue: Collaborative multimedia applications in technology

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology 29(1) 2007 is a special issue: Collaborative multimedia applications in technology.

Article titles:
* Design and development of a general purpose collaborative environment
* A review of telecollaboration technologies with respect to closely coupled collaboration
* Synchronous collaborative systems for distributed virtual environments in Java
* Realising voice dialogue management in a collaborative virtual environment
* A collaborative approval process for accessing sensitive data
* Collaborative multimedia environment for chess teaching
* Towards understanding expression for tele-operation
* INCA: qualitative reference framework for incentive mechanisms in P2P networks
* Prediction-based decorators for distributed collaborative haptic virtual environments

Special issue: Future business and technology. Part II: Business simulation and knowledge management

World Review of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable Development 3(3/4) 2007 is a special issue: Future business and technology. Part II: Business simulation and knowledge management, with further papers from the 3rd Annual Future Business Technology Conference 2006 (FUBUTEC2006) held in Athens, Greece, 17-19 April 2006 to add to those in Part I published in World Review of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development 4(2/3) 2007.

Article titles:
* System simulation across the developmental divide: toward achieving global business advantage and consumer surplus through transfer pricing
* Sustainable energy policies as a source of competitive advantage in the UK service industry
* Prediction markets: an information aggregation perspective to the forecasting problem
* Improving the use of Visual Interactive Simulation as a knowledge elicitation tool
* Incorporating uncertainty in optimal investment decisions
* Reverse logistics and resource recovery: modelling car dismantling facilities
* Queueing networks in equilibrium and Markov chains: numerical solution methods
* Project's duration prediction: traditional tools or simulation?
* Using Taguchi method for post optimality analysis in MCDM
* An ontology oriented approach for knowledge criticality analysis
* Role of electronic commerce tools in European automobile trade
* An enhanced approach to the ranked voting system
* Introduction to various dimensions of cost control

Call for papers: Globalisation of Innovative Capabilities: A Late-industrialising Perspective

Call for papers: Globalisation of Innovative Capabilities: A Late-industrialising Perspective

A special issue of International Journal of Technological Learning, Innovation and Development

Following World War 2 and the work of R. Vernon during the 1960s, there has been a profusion of studies on the globalisation of innovative capabilities. While some studies hold a non-globalisation perspective, others claim that the spread of such activities is conditioned by certain situations of host and home countries and product types. However, most of the existing studies examine this issue from the perspective of contemporary advanced industrialised countries.

Despite a few exceptions, there is still a scarcity of studies addressing the issue of globalisation of innovative activities from the standpoint of late-industrialising (or developing) countries. Specifically, a deeper empirical notion of this issue, from the perspective of foreign direct investment (FDI) and foreign trans-national corporations (TNCs) in association with different kinds of indigenous organisations in late-industrialising countries, is badly needed.

As far as the role of FDI and TNCs in late-industrialising countries is concerned, there are some common generalisations in the related literature:

(i) that TNC-subsidiaries are passive users of ready-made technologies and they contribute very little to technological development in their host countries;

(ii) that the acquisition of local firms by FDI, particularly during the early 1990s, has led to an erosion of the innovative capabilities that been accumulated during the state-led industrialisation regime; and

(iii) whenever it occurs, globalisation of innovation is a one-way knowledge flow from industrialised into developing countries.

However, there is some convincing evidence that TNCs have sought to intensify the allocation of their knowledge-intensive activities in different developing countries. Additionally, it seems that FDI no longer search only for low-cost host locations, but places that can offer (or can potentially develop) creative human resources and an active innovation system supporting organisations (e.g universities, vocational training centres, research institutes, laboratories, and consulting firms) to supplement their innovative efforts.

Additionally, it appears that globalisation of innovative activities has moved beyond the one-way knowledge flow from parent-companies into their subsidiaries in developing countries. There are not only reversed innovative knowledge-flows from subsidiaries to their corporation in industrialised countries, but, under certain circumstances, TNC-subsidiaries in developing countries may actively involve in various kinds of local and/or global innovative knowledge-links over time. Such (multiple) links may be built up, for instance, with global and local partners such as sister-subsidiaries in other developing countries, suppliers, users, competitors plus innovation system supporting organisations.

The way such knowledge-links develop over time may have implications for different types of spill-overs in host countries. In addition, over the past few years we have witnessed the emergence of TNCs from developing countries. (However, this specific topic is outside the scope of this Special Issue).

Thus is seems that over the past two decades, the nature of the process of globalisation of innovative activities has dramatically changed, especially if we consider the role of developing countries. There is an urgent need of new empirical analyses and explanations in order to further our understanding of this issue and to generate clear and practical recommendations for companies, investors, development agencies, and governments involved with innovation-related and FDI decision-making processes in the context of late-industrialising economies and regions.

The purpose of this Special Issue is to bring together recent original studies from around the world, centred on the issue of globalisation of innovative capabilities from a late-industrialising perspective. Specifically, the aim is to contribute to disseminating and communicating research findings and conclusions among academicians, corporate managers and government policy makers.

We will welcome papers which address, but are not limited to, the following issues/questions:

• Nature of paths of technological capability accumulation in foreign TNC-subsidiaries in developing countries. How do they differ among companies in the same industrial sector and across sectors over time? How do they differ inside the company? At which rate do firms move from production-based capabilities into different levels of innovative capabilities?
• Development of non-technical capabilities (e.g. marketing, logistics, finance, and managerial) in TNC-subsidiaries in developing countries. How do they support and/or influence innovative activities? To what extent do they interact with non-technical capabilities and to what extent do such interactions inhibit and/or stimulate innovative and techno-economic/market performance?
• Evolution of knowledge sources for technological capability building in TNC-subsidiaries. Nature of underlying intra-firm technological learning processes.
• Nature of inter-organisational knowledge-links established over time between TNC-subsidiaries, not only with their parent-company, but with other subsidiaries in the same group located in other countries and also with suppliers, users, competitors, and local innovation system supporting organisations? To what extent do these various kinds of the knowledge-linkages influence the direction and rate of production and innovative capability building and, in turn, the subsidiary's techno-economic performance over time?
• Evolution of technological strategies in TNC-subsidiaries. How do they differ over time among subsidiaries of the same group and sector and across sectors and/or countries? To what extent is their decision-making process independent from their parent-company? How do their technological and managerial mandates change over time and to what extent they influence companies' techno-economic performance? What are the technological and managerial characteristics TNC-subsidiaries and indigenous companies that have actively and successfully been engaged in global value chains?
• To what extent do innovative activities in TNC-subsidiaries and their various knowledge-building activities (intra- and inter-firm) lead to spill-overs in their host countries? What kind of organisational learning factors do influence such spill-overs?
• Key changes in technological capability-accumulation paths and in the various knowledge-building activities in TNC-subsidiaries after the changes in policy regime (from inward- into outward-looking) during the 1990s in some developing countries.
• Evolution of technological capabilities and knowledge-building activities in indigenous firms that were taken over by foreign TNCs during the 1990s. In which manner - and at which rate - have their innovative technological activities changed since then? What kind of implications have such changes had for techno-economic performance of those companies?
• The role of host-countries' innovation system in attracting, building and/or strengthening TNC-subsidiaries' innovative activities. To what extent do foreign TNC-subsidiaries influence changes in the host-countries innovation system in order to speed up (or not) innovative activities?
• What is the nature and evolution of the host-country's macro-level institutions (e.g macro-economic, political, property rights, tax-incentive systems, and other 'local rules of the game') and to what extent do they attract innovative FDI and/or stimulate and/or constrain technological-related decision-making process and innovative activities in the TNC-subsidiary.We will also welcome papers that, although may not fit into these specific issues/questions, but are in line with the spirit of this Special Issue.

Important Dates
Extended abstract submission (max. 500 words) due: 31 August 2007
Full paper submission due: 31 October 2007

International Journal of Revenue Management partners with IQPC's Strategic Pricing conference

The International Journal of Revenue Management is a partner with the International Quality and Productivity Center's Strategic Pricing conference to be held in Barcelona, 16-18 October 2007.

The conference, subtitled 'Developing an Optimal Pricing Strategy to Increase Market Share and Profitability' recognises that product pricing is the most effective lever to drive profits and market share and that a true pricing strategy is not simply about raising prices, but is about building a foundation for profitable growth.

A panel of experts and practitioners will share their experience on how to design and implement an optimal pricing strategy. They will also lend their views on the secrets of “value-based pricing” and review the latest tools and techniques for translating vital data into an effective pricing strategy.

A conference brochure is available.

Special issue: Applying decision making and evaluation-related techniques in nuclear-related 'soft' systems

International Journal of Nuclear Knowledge Management 2(4) 2007 is a special issue: Applying decision making and evaluation-related techniques in nuclear-related 'soft' systems, with papers from the Seventh International FLINS Conference on Applied AI (FLINS06) Genoa, Italy, 29-31 August 2006.

Article titles:
* A risk-risk analysis-based socio-legal abstraction approach to complex decision making in nuclear systems
* A financial-option procedure for determining a fuzzy discount rate in radioactive waste management
* Uncertainty analysis via aggregation operators for cost estimation in a large-scale nuclear project
* Intelligent system supporting defect identification and sizing using eddy current testing signals in nuclear power plants
* A decision-support system for safeguards information analysis
* Warning message generation by information filtering techniques
* Analysing success criteria for ICT projects

Call for papers: Emergent Computing for Service Management

Call for papers: Emergent Computing for Service Management

A special issue of European Journal of Industrial Engineering

The global economy is becoming increasingly service-oriented due to the key role of services, where the service industry produces over 80% of GNP and total employment in developed countries, with emerging and inspiring figures in developing countries, too. As a result, service management has received growing interest in recent years.

The importance of studying service systems and finding “robust solutions” for the problems encountered in service management (design, strategy, quality, deployment and configuration of services, service operations management, service pricing, service reliability, etc.) has been also increasing. The main aim is to find “robust and acceptable solutions” for the problems within an affordable time period. However, many problems of service industry remain with difficulties to be solved within a reasonable time due to the complexity and dynamic nature of the service systems.

Emergent computing (EC) studies offer use of nature-inspired problem solving systems, for this purpose. Examples typically cited as EC applications include (but are not limited to) agent-based systems, swarm intelligence (ant-colony, bee-colony, particle swarm algorithms etc.), cellular automata, chaos theory, evolutionary algorithms, artificial immune systems, neural and fuzzy systems etc. We believe that the use of EC for solving service management problems can improve not only “service intelligence” but also quality and performance of the service systems.

The main goal of this special issue is to increase the awareness of the service sector on the effectiveness and power of emergent computing technology, through high quality research papers. We are inviting people from both academia and industry to submit papers on their recent research experience considering emergent computing to be applied to service management problems.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

Service Management

• Service design and development processes
• Supply chain management and logistics
• Service project management
• Service quality management
• Service operations design, development and management
• Service delivery, deployment and maintenance
• Human resource management in services

Emergent Computing

• Evolutionary algorithms and metaheuristcs
• Neural and fuzzy systems
• Swarm intelligence (ant-colonies, bee-colonies and particle swarm
• optimisation etc.)
• Agent-based systems
• Cellular automata
• Chaos theory
• Artificial immune systems

Important Dates
Submission Deadline: 30 January, 2008
Notification of the Initial Decision: 30 April, 2008
Notification of Acceptance: 30 July, 2008

Newly announced journal: International Journal of Reasoning-based Intelligent Systems

International Journal of Reasoning-based Intelligent Systems - to begin publication in 2008 - is an interdisciplinary journal that will publish original and significant work related to intelligent systems based on all kinds of formal and informal reasoning. Intelligent systems imply any systems that can do systematized reasoning, including automated and heuristic reasoning.

The objectives of the journal are to provide a forum for computer scientists, knowledge engineers, logicians and linguists widely concerned with reasoning based intelligent systems, and to uncover hidden logics that have not yet been systematized but are applicable to intelligent systems.

Call for papers: Technoentrepreneurship in South-East Asia

Call for papers: Technoentrepreneurship in South-East Asia

A special issue of International Journal of Technoentrepreneurship

South-East Asia is often described as an area of burgeoning entrepreneurship. In fact, initiatives have been developed in several countries to go beyond that stage and develop a real pool of technoentrepreneurs and high-tech start-ups. Past and present initiatives, such as Cyberjaya in Malaysia, or the Technoentrepreneurship 21 in Singapore, are showing a real commitment toward this goal. This Special Issue aims at gathering current research on the development of technoentrepreneurship in South-East Asia

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to:

• Clustering of high-tech activities
• Alliances/transfer of technologies/knowledge spillovers
• Spin-offs/intrapreneuship in South-East Asian companies
• Regional/local initiatives to promote technoentrepreneurship
• University activities to promote a technoentrepreneurial spirit
• Internationalisation of South-East Asian high-tech start-ups
• Role of technoentrepreneurship in changing the economic landscape
• Venture capital structuration in South-East Asian countries
• Social/political implications of technoentrepreneurship in South-East Asia

Important Dates
Deadline for submission: 31 December, 2007
Reviewer’s comments: 31 March, 2008
Final acceptance: 31 July, 2008

Call for papers: Total Quality Management in the 21st Century Service Sector

Call for papers: Total Quality Management in the 21st Century Service Sector

A special issue of International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management

Quality holds the key to competitiveness in today’s global market, regardless of the size of the company. Despite the fact that quality management practices are primarily embraced in manufacturing sector, quality management in the service industries has been gaining momentum over the past decade. Today, we observe that a large number of service organisations are taking initiatives to implement TQM. To implement TQM effectively, it is necessary to understand clearly the unique characteristics of the service operations. While much has been researched about quality management in manufacturing, the focus on quality in service industries has only been recent.

The service sector covers a very wide spectrum of differentiated organisations such as health care, education, banking, insurance, hotels, transport, etc., to name but a few. It involves a very large number of people in a variety of work processes. The service sector has become the dominant element of the economy in the industrialised nations. This special issue invites submission of papers that present role, barriers, challenges and issues of new quality improvement initiatives in the service sector. It will have implications for all managers and entrepreneurs responsible for quality improvement in service sector including SMEs. Conceptual, empirical, survey, and case-based papers are welcome.

Topics of interest include (but not limited to) the following:

• Strategies of quality improvement in the service sector
• Impact of ISO 9000 on quality assurance in the service sector
• Barriers in implementing quality improvement programmes, techniques and tools in the service sector
• Challenges and issues of quality improvement efforts in the service sector
• Tools and techniques of quality improvement
• Diffusion of quality improvement initiatives in the service sector
• Information technology/systems (IT/S) such as the Internet, WWW, e-commerce, ERP and RFID in quality improvement in the service sector
• Lean and six sigma for service quality assurance
• Quality function deployment (QFD) in service sector quality management
• Application of concurrent engineering (CE) in service sector quality management
• Total quality management (TQM) in service supply chain (SSS)
• Implications of ethics, globalisation and technology in service quality management
• Role of service product and process design in service quality assurance (SQA).
• Managing human resource for total quality assurance in the service sector

Important Dates
Manuscript submission: 31 December, 2007
Notification of editorial decision: 31 March, 2008
Submission of final manuscript: 31 May, 2008

Special issue: Making sense of the e-phenomenon

International Journal of Information Technology and Management 6(2/3/4) 2007 is a special issue: Making sense of the e-phenomenon.

Article titles:
* What is e-business and does it still matter?
* Understanding e-government (G2C) in the knowledge society
* Electronic service delivery in a multi-channel public sector: an assessment of the government of Canada
* E-health: essential and eagerly awaited?
* From e-learning to games-based e-learning: using interactive technologies in teaching an IS course
* Critical success factors in introducing e-learning
* Privacy as a shared feature of the e-phenomenon: a comparison of privacy policies in e-government, e-commerce and e-teaching
* The phenomenon of e-business networking: a critical review
* Going virtual in the e-world – an environment-adaptation perspective on organisational virtuality
* E-supply chains: understanding current and future opportunities and barriers
* Emerging business models and trends in the mobile wireless industry
* Stages of e-democracy: towards an open-source political model
* A conceptual model for e-commerce adoption in developing countries: a task-technology fit perspective

Special issue: The future of manufacturing

International Journal of Foresight and Innovation Policy 3(3) 2007 is a special issue: The future of manufacturing.

Article titles:
* Tipping the balance of power: the case of Large Scale Systems Integrators and their supply chains
* Managing knowledge in manufacturing: results of a Delphi study in European manufacturing industry
* Feeling for the future: strategic responses to industrial, economic and technological change in the European instruments and sensors sector
* RFID and its influence on manufacturing
* A brief history of the future of manufacturing: US manufacturing technology forecasts in retrospective, 1950-present

Call for papers: Toward Virtual Universities

Call for papers: Toward Virtual Universities

A special issue of International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations

Advances in communications technology, particularly with the new and emerging Web 2.0 and mobile technologies as a means of the global dissemination of information, have created opportunities for universities to move beyond traditional face-to-face and correspondence modes toward a virtual or online classroom. Virtual online education provides opportunities for innovative approaches to learning and teaching and allows the dissemination and sharing of knowledge to occur independent of the constraints of time and place.

University educators can now take advantage of a growing array of resources on the Internet to provide a rich technology-based learning environment that fosters flexibility, connectivity, collaboration and engages students by making learning fun. Moreover, ready access to multimedia at the desk-top and on hand-held devices has provided an opportunity for educators to develop engaging and interactive learning resources.

In this special edition, we seek to explore the field of virtual online education in the tertiary sector and identify effective practice. What are the current trends in virtual education in the tertiary sector? How effective is virtual online education in achieving key learning outcomes? What are the drivers of virtual education and what are the critical success factors? What new approaches and skills are required for educators? What are the barriers to effective virtual education and how might these be overcome? This special issue aims to provide a forum for addressing these questions.

Two types of papers are solicited:

• Theoretical papers that provide original work on the current trends and issues in virtual education in the tertiary sector.
• Applications and case studies that deal with the design, implementation and evaluation of virtual education in the tertiary sector.

Recommended general topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Current trends and effective practice in virtual education in the university sector
• Design, implementation and evaluation of virtual education in the university sector
• Drivers of virtual education in the university sector and critical success factors
• Barriers to the design, implementation and evaluation of virtual education in the university sector
• The changing environment of virtual education in the university sector
• Empirical and case studies
• Future trends

Important Dates

Extended abstract of no more than 3 pages due: 5 October, 2007
Preliminary acceptance/rejection notification: 2 November, 2007
Full paper due: 29 February, 2008
Final acceptance notification by: 2 May, 2008
Camera-ready paper due: 6 June, 2008

Call for papers: New Advances of Risk Management in Services

Call for papers: New Advances of Risk Management in Services

A special issue of International Journal of Services Sciences

In recent years, risk management has attracted a great deal of attention from both researchers and practitioners. Typical financial hedging contracts have been used in the area of operation services by a growing number of operations management researchers. Risk creates lots of opportunity to make profits. Complexity and uncertainty in many practical problems require new methods and tools to handle. Risk management can be used as a tool for greater rewards, not just control against losses.

This special issue seeks to provide a platform for exchanging new ideas and to bring together state-of-the-art research from different perspectives. It focuses on real problems and opportunities that are being experienced in industry, and looks for papers that describe helpful, relevant research, or that reflect on the current state and identify new research directions.

We solicit papers that address the issues raised above with an emphasis on the use of models and tools from the areas of, but not limited to:

• Risk issues in operations services
• Integrated financial and operational hedging
• Global risk management in manufacturing
• Real options valuation and hedging in operations management
• Risk issues in commodity procurement
• Risk measures, performance evaluation and incentives
• Financial risk management
• Risk aversion in supply chain management
• Managing operational risks
• Risk assessment applications and performance analysis in the service sector (banking, entertainment, travel, rentals etc.).

Important Dates

Deadline for submission of manuscripts: 30 October, 2007
Approximate date for final submission of accepted manuscripts: May 2008

Special issue: Operations and global competitiveness in services

International Journal of Services Technology and Management 8(6) 2007 is a special issue: Operations and global competitiveness in services, with papers from the 12th International Annual EurOMA (European Operations Management Association) Conference, Budapest, 2005.

Article titles:
* Through-life management: the provision of total customer solutions in the aerospace industry
* Operations Management activities and operational performance in service firms
* Six Sigma action research in Thailand: a comparative study
* A classification of after-sales services within the capital goods industry
* Identifying and determining the key processes for quality management systems in the hotel sector

Special issue: Advancing knowledge for management improvement using information-based systems

International Journal of Services Technology and Management 8(4/5) 2007 is a special issue: Advancing knowledge for management improvement using information-based systems.

Article titles:
* Management of indexed government debt: assessing the case for an inflation-indexed bond
* Measuring financial synergies in cross-border M&A transactions using diffusion processes
* The impact of employee stock ownership on firms' investments and market value
* Random effect modelling using Bayesian methods
* The influence of firm-specific advantages and entry mode choice on performance: the case of Japanese foreign direct investment in Australia
* A control chart procedure for monitoring university student grading
* Assessment on the social responsibility of Taiwan's manufacturing industry
* Improvement of beehive management practices in biology using kernel-based subset vector autoregressive modelling
* Are mortgage and capital markets integrated in the USA? A study of time-varying cointegration
* Risk management of banking industry in Taiwan

Special issue: Systems assurance

International Journal of Information and Computer Security 1(3) 2007 is a special issue: Systems assurance.

Article titles:
* Accountability in organisations
* PeerCredential: a reputation-based trust framework for Peer-to-Peer applications
* Collaborative Dynamic Source Routing using transitional trust filters
* A synchronous checkpointing protocol for mobile distributed systems: probabilistic approach
* Evaluating the survivability of Intrusion Tolerant Database systems and the impact of intrusion detection deficiencies
* A new assessment and improvement model of risk propagation in information security

Special issue: Regional development in sports

International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing 2(5/6) 2007 is a special issue: Regional development in sports.

Article titles:
* Analysing the relationship between sports and tourism: a case study of the Island of Madeira
* The economic impact of football on the regional economy
* The Euro 2004 – marketing decisions and sponsoring results
* Assessing the impact of sports mega-events in transition economies: EURO 2012 in Poland and Ukraine
* A simple-to-use procedure to evaluate the social and economic impacts of sporting events on local communities
* A review of the economic impact studies done on the Tour de France: methodological aspects and first results
* Can New Orleans play its way past Katrina? The role of professional sports in the redevelopment of New Orleans
* From silos to synergies: a network perspective of the Canadian sport system
* An exploratory study of spectators' motivation in football
* Regional economics tools applied to sport: new perspectives

Special issue: Nanotechnology in Singapore

International Journal of Nanotechnology 4(4) 2007 is a special issue: Nanotechnology in Singapore. Previous special issues have dealt with nanotechnology in China, Korea, Spain, and Ukraine.

Article titles:
* Oriented attachment: a versatile approach for construction of nanomaterials
* Nano-characterisation of dielectric breakdown in the various advanced gate stack MOSFETs
* Nano-fractals from inorganic salts induced by fullerene polymer systems
* Complex and useful polymer micro- and nanostructures via nanoimprint lithography
* Temperature dependent exciton radiative lifetime in ZnO nanorods
* Nanoscale growth of (Zn,Sr)S system for electron-trapping optical memories
* Self-assembled Ni nanoclusters in a diamond-like carbon matrix
* Band structure investigation of strained Si1-xGex/Si coupled quantum wells
* Organic thin-film transistors based on conjugated polymer/carbon nanotube composites

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

International Journal of Enterprise Network Management 1(4) 2007 is a special issue: Advanced enterprise and information systems for enabling supply chain operations in the innovative age.

Article titles:
* A real-time shop floor control system: an integrated RFID approach
* A strategic customer relationship management system: a hybrid OLAP-neural approach
* Development of an intelligent logistics fleet management system: an integrated approach
* Formulation of a stock minimisation algorithm for the management of inbound logistics
* Information system architecture: a framework for Indian small and medium enterprises

Special issue: Mentoring: a tool for social and human capital learning

International Journal of Learning and Change 1(4) 2007 is a special issue: Mentoring: a tool for social and human capital learning.

Article titles:
* Mentoring women in the public sector: expectations and realities
* Mentoring: the unexamined link in strategic human capital management
* The effects of mentoring to reduce stress in a state IT department during times of transformational change
* Mentoring and socialisation: senior female faculty and mentoring practices
* Gender and mentoring of faculty in science and engineering: individual and organisational factors
* Power, double binds, and transcendence in the mentoring relationship: a transpersonal perspective

Call for papers: Information Quality and Usability

Call for papers: Information Quality and Usability

A special issue of International Journal of Information Quality

This special issue is intended to present research and state-of-the-art reviews on the contribution of both system and process usability to information quality. Data is frequently the product or by-product of a human interacting with a computer within the context of a work environment. Information quality problems are often the result of poorly designed or poorly conceived interactions among workplace and business processes, humans, and information systems. For example, practical experience teaches us that business processes differ along a dimension of usability, and that this is a strong determiner of whether humans are able to implement the process in a compliant way.

Information quality can frequently be enhanced through simple changes that increase the usability of the systems and processes that assist us in collecting data. Solving practical problems in data quality will often require attention to usability issues surrounding our data collection environment, including both processes and systems.

We seek papers that explore and illuminate our understanding of the relationships among workplace processes, information systems, usability and information quality, including but not limited to the following:

• Empirical studies of the impact of system and process usability on information accuracy, completeness, validity, and other measures of information quality.
• Reviews of the current state of the art in system and process usability and how usability affects information quality.
• Case studies on the affect of usability and unbalanced or disrupted workplace processes on information quality.
• Studies and reviews of the role of supplying appropriate context (e.g. applying theories of Distributed Cognition and Situated Action) in information quality.
• Reviews and description of methodologies and experimental techniques for assessing the affect of usability and workplace ecology on information quality.
• Description and review of current Best Practices for achieving good usability in systems and processes for the purpose of improving information quality.

Important Dates

Abstract of no more than 3 pages due: 11 January 2008
Preliminary acceptance/rejection notification: 8 February 2008
Full paper due: 11 April 2008
Final acceptance/rejection notification: 30 May 2008
Camera-ready paper due: 18 July 2008

Featured article: Micromachining: technology for the future

Micromachining: technology for the future
S. Gowri, P. Ranjith Kumar, R. Vijayaraj, A.S.S. Balan: Anna University, Chennai, India.
International Journal of Materials and Structural Integrity 1(1/2/3) 2007, 161 - 179
A comprehensive review of the literature, mostly of last 15 years, that is enhancing our understanding of the mechanics of the rapidly growing field of micromachining has been provided. The paper focuses only on tool based micromachining processes, namely, micro cutting and micro Electro Discharge Machining (micro EDM). The main technological developments associated with cutting tools, tool materials, process conditions, experimental work, surface integrity and applications which have led to present day advancement are given detailed consideration in this paper

Newly announced journal: International Journal of Petroleum Engineering

International Journal of Petroleum Engineering - to begin publication in 2008 - is an interdisciplinary journal that will encourage innovative designs for efficient petroleum operations. It promotes feasible system design, development, and management bringing together sustainable technologies, the people, and sound processes. It provides cross learning between various scientific and technological, as well as business and economics, disciplines comprising exploration, drilling, production, and processing, taking into account environment, health and safety, and public concerns.

Newly announced journal: International Journal of Mining and Mineral Engineering

International Journal of Mining and Mineral Engineering - to begin publication in 2008 - is an interdisciplinary journal that will encourage innovative designs for efficient mining systems and mineral processing plants. It promotes feasible system design, development, and management, bringing together sustainable technologies, the people, and sound processes. It provides cross learning between various scientific and technological, as well as business and economics, disciplines comprising exploration, drilling, blasting, extraction, and processing, taking into account environment, health and safety, and public concerns.

Newly announced journal: International Journal of Arts and Technology

International Journal of Arts and Technology - to begin publication in 2008 - will publish high quality research and artworks that advance state-of-the-art contributions in the area of the arts and new technologies. The focus is on the multi-disciplinary emerging area of computational art. With the evolution of intelligent devices, sensors and ambient intelligent/ubiquitous systems, it is not surprising to see many research projects starting to explore the design of intelligent artistic artefacts. This is a new multi-disciplinary area that is still in its infancy. Ambient intelligence(AmI) supports the vision that technology will become invisible, embedded in our natural surroundings, present whenever we need it, attuned to all our senses, adaptive to users and context and autonomously acting. High quality information and content must be available to any user, anywhere, at any time, and on any device.

Movements such as Dada or experiences like Happening or Performance Art were mainly focused on dissolving the barriers between art and life, actor and spectator. AmI technologies aim to bring art to the ordinary people while offering to the artists a creative tool to extend the grammar of the traditional arts. The information environments will be the major drivers of culture.

Papers are encouraged on any topic related to art, technology or the philosophical issues raised by attempts to bridge the gap between art and science. In general, we believe that it is necessary to combine humanism (humanists) and technology (technologists), a mixture of science and art towards a science of general morphology, which will express the universal totality and necessity of human existence. This existence should not be exhausted either on an emotional level or on a logical level.

First issue: International Journal of Computational Materials Science and Surface Engineering

The first issue of International Journal of Computational Materials Science and Surface Engineering is now published.

This bi-monthly journal aims to bring a unique medium of communication for multidisciplinary approaches, either empirical or theoretical, to the study of engineering materials (metallic alloys, tool materials, superplastic materials, ceramics and glasses, composites, amorphous materials, nanomaterials, biomaterials, multifunctional and smart materials, engineering polymers) and their processing technologies and surface engineering.

The scope of includes original scientific papers which describe computer-aided methods of modelling, simulation and prediction for designing new engineering materials and the technological processes of the manufacturing, processing and forming of their structure and properties in the whole volume and their surface and also the description of phenomena and phase transformations appearing in those materials. The journal encourages submission of new fundamental and interdisciplinary contributions on materials science and engineering, surface engineering and computer-aided methods of modelling, simulation and prediction.

The issues addressed involve solutions of real-life problems, in which it is necessary to apply computational materials science and computational surface engineering methodologies for achieving effective results. The emphasis of the reported work is on new and original research and technological developments rather than reports on the application of existing technologies to different types of engineering materials and their processing technologies. It is committed to the highest scientific standards, judging contributions on their contents and scientific value alone, rather than on whether methods, questions, style, or language conform to the professional and academic and other customs in any particular field from nanoscopic (e.g. nanoscience and nanotechnology) to macroscopic scales.

There is a free download of papers from this issue.

First issue: International Journal of Abrasive Technology

The first issue of International Journal of Abrasive Technology is now published.

Abrasive technology concerns the manufacturing processes that involve the use of abrasives in a variety of forms. It has a long history originating from the discovery of minerals. With the increasing requirements for the production of high precision and high surface quality components in various applications, such as silicon wafers in the semiconductor industry and optical lenses in the precision instrument industry, abrasive technology is becoming increasingly important in precision manufacturing.

This journal publishes peer-reviewed quality papers in the area of abrasive technology covering theoretical and applied research, new technologies and applications.

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

First issue: International Journal of Intelligent Enterprise

The first issue of International Journal of Intelligent Enterprise is now published.

Major catalysts such as deregulation, global competition, technological breakthroughs, changing customer expectations, structural changes, excess capacity, environmental concerns and less protectionism, among others, are reshaping the landscape of corporations worldwide. The assumptions about predictability, stability, and clear boundaries are becoming less valid as two factors, by no means exhaustive, have a clear impact on the nature of the competitive space and are changing the sources of competitive advantage of firms and industries in new and unpredictable ways: agents with knowledge and interactions.
The journal provides a global forum for exchanging research findings on new concepts of strategy and organisation as the competitiveness of companies increasingly depends upon exploiting the new strategic potentials of intellect and service technologies.

There is a free download of the papers from this issue

First issue: International Journal of Tourism Policy

The first issue of International Journal of Tourism Policy has just been published.

It provides a forum for scholars and policy makers to exchange views and ideas at an international level on key issues that shape the growth of today’s tourism industry. It takes the view that tourism activity takes place within a socio-cultural, political, economic and environmental context. Therefore, groups involved with tourism need to be sensitive to emerging issues which may affect the industry and future policy-making.

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

First issue: International Journal of Materials and Structural Integrity

The first issue of International Journal of Materials and Structural Integrity has just been published.

The journal aims to provide a unique medium of communication for multidisciplinary approaches, either empirical or theoretical, to the study of materials and structural integrity. Its goals are to promote cross-fertilization of ideas between all the scientific disciplines having to deal with their own materials and structural integrity, including engineering, bionics, physics and chemistry.

It is committed to the highest scientific standards, judging contributions on their contents and scientific value alone, rather than whether methods, questions, style, or language conform to the customs of a particular field. The journal encourages submission of new fundamental and interdisciplinary contributions on materials and structural integrity.

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

First issue: International Journal of Applied Systemic Studies

The first issue of International Journal of Applied Systemic Studies has just been published.

This quarterly journal is dedicated to publishing quality manuscripts on all aspects of systemic analysis, from both a practical and an academic viewpoint. It publishes contributions from practitioners and academics, as well as national and international policy and standard making bodies, and sets out to be the definitive international reference source for such information.

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

First issue: International Journal of Public Sector Performance Management

The first issue of International Journal of Public Sector Performance Management has just been published.

With an international and interdisciplinary approach, the journal covers performance management in the public sector, with an emphasis on the implementation of performance management technologies. This perspective acknowledges the complexity of performance management in the public sector as an interface between the values placed upon public sector activities and their implementation. This gap between what is desirable and what is feasible stands at the crossing of many traditional public sector issues such as cultural and ideological processes as well as regulation and economic processes operating over different space-time scales.

This issue is a special issue: Think performance in public sector organisations and there is a free download of the papers.

Call for papers: Complexity in Manufacturing

Call for papers: Complexity in Manufacturing

A special issue of International Journal of Agile Systems and Management

Agility in manufacturing is one of the many profound qualities companies must posses to succeed in a turbulent business environment. Businesses worldwide are constantly faced with the challenge of offering the ideal product variety in their supply chain because of the conflicting interests between manufacturing and marketing.

Although mass customisation is ideally desirable from a customer service perspective, it is often accompanied by engineering and manufacturing hurdles arising from product proliferation. Manufacturing strategy has evolved through significant changes that occurred in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Companies no longer adhere to the manufacturing philosophy of capturing market share by producing large volumes of a standardised product. Businesses have realised that responding to the market quickly with specific product-targeting to niche markets will be the crucial factor that will give them a cutting edge over their competitors.

The aim of this special issue is to identify the research issues for managing manufacturing complexity in light of these global challenges. The goal of this special issue is to cover a variety of topics and issues related to complexity with specific application to agile manufacturing systems.

Topics include but are not limited to:

A. Concepts and State of Research in Manufacturing Complexity

Complexity Models

• Product
• Operational
• Process

Risk Analysis and Mitigation

• Measure of Complexity
• Cost
• Structural
• Dynamic

Complexity Management

• Project
• Quality
• Risk

Logistics and Supply Chain Complexity
Inventory Analyses
Information Management
Other related subjects

B. Problem Solving Frameworks, Models and Methods

Design for Complexity

• Design for Lean
• Design for Variety
• Design fro Modularity
• Design for Reconfigurability
• Design for Six Sigma

Axiomatic Design
Product Variety Management
Mass Customisation
Agile Manufacturing
Other related subjects

C. Enabling Tool and Technologies

Simulation Models
Optimisation Models
Statistical Models
e -Based Design and Manufacturing
Collaborative and Distributed Engineering
Other related subjects

D. Case Studies
Important Dates

Paper Submission (e-mail): 31 October 2007
Communication of Results (e-mail): 15 December 2007
Final Manuscript submission (e-mail): 15 February 2008

Call for papers: Exports, Export Performance and Export Promotion

Call for papers: Exports, Export Performance and Export Promotion

A special issue of European Journal of International Management

As of today, worldwide exporting accounts for more than 10% of global economic activity (e.g. International Monetary Fund, 2001; World Bank, 2001), world trade increased 16-fold between 1950 and 2000, and international trade flows relative to GDP have doubled between 1970 and 2000 (OECD, 2005). With export quotas in excess of 40%, exports have become a major source of national income for many small, open economies and a source of growth and survival for many micro, small, medium and large enterprises, especially in Europe. Relative to the discussions about various aspects of the global business activities of a multinational enterprise, the extant international business literature is dedicating surprisingly little attention to exporting as a mode of market entry. Little is still known about companies’ motivations to engage in exporting activities, ways and means of assessing their readiness to export, how and to what extent marketing-mix decisions are made in exporting companies, or how foreign target markets are selected, which warrants a closer look at these topics.

Of more specific interest is the academic discourse about export performance. Interest in export performance stems from two sources. Governments consider exports as engines of growth and are therefore concerned about the ways of improving their firms’ performances in export markets (Zou, Taylor and Osland, 1998). From the point of view of public policy makers, a better understanding of export performance is important, as exports allow for the accumulation of foreign exchange reserves, result in increased employment levels, improved productivity, and – ultimately - enhanced prosperity (Czinkota, 1994). From the corporate point of view, there has been agreement that export performance is considered a tool to boost corporate growth, strengthen competitive edge, and ensure company survival in a highly competitive marketplace (Samiee and Walters, 1990; Terpstra and Sarathy, 2000).

And yet, little do we know about the determinants and the measurement of export performance. Whilst the definition and determinants of export performance (e.g. Sousa and Alserhan, 2002; Cavusgil and Kirpalani, 1993; Samiee and Anckar, 1998) or factors contributing to export performance have received noticeable research attention (e.g. Aaby and Slater, 1989; Cavusgil and Zou, 1994; Zou, Taylor and Osland, 1998; Thirkell and Dau, 1998), we are still far from a basic agreement. As an example, most studies in the field have measured export performance using objectively verifiable indicators such as export sales, export growth, export profitability, export market share, or export intensity (Zou, Taylor and Osland, 1998). Others have suggested to use subjective scales in the measurement of export performance and even include dimensions such as organizational learning. The further discussion of both such traditional and innovative approaches should shed more light into the matter.

Another important aspect in the research of exporting is export promotion. By providing the knowledge and competence applied to export market development (Gencturk and Kotabe, 2001), governments worldwide try to assist in the development of firms’ competitiveness. There is seldom a government which does not provide a plethora of export assistance or export promotion services through one or several – sometimes many – government and semi-government institutions and programs. So far, the effectiveness of these programmes has not been researched thoroughly and is still far from being clear. According to some researchers, export promotion programmes have impressive results speaking for them. For instance, Coughlin and Cartwright (1987) have found that for every increase of $1 in public export assistance expenditures there is a $432 increase in exports. In a more recent study about export performance of firms in Chile, Alvarez (2004) has shown that permanent and successful exporters have used public export promotion programmes more intensively than less successful exporters. There are others who argue that rather than public export programmes it is the market forces which determine the export performance of firms. Reliable evidence, according to the critics, is simply not available (Nothdurft, 1992). The jury on this issue is still out, and so we would like to encourage new and innovative contributions to this field.

Topics covered include, but are not limited to:

Exporting in general:

• The role of exports for national economies.
• Motivation to engage in exporting activities.
• Corporate readiness for exporting.
• Exporting and marketing-mix decisions.
• Foreign target market selection.
• Export development in small and medium-sized enterprises.
• The importance of exports for company growth.

Export Performance:

• Determinants of export performance.
• Objective vs. subjective measurements of export performance
• Measurement models of export performance.

Export Promotion:

• The role of national governments in export promotion.
• New approaches to export promotion.
• Measuring export promotion effectiveness.

We are looking to include both conceptual and empirical papers in this special issue. Papers with a multi-country, comparative perspective will be preferred.

Important Dates

Deadline for submissions of completed papers: 1 May, 2008
Double blind review of paper and feedback from review given to the author(s) by: 15 August, 2008
Deadline for final submission of corrected papers: 15 November, 2008
No changes can be made to the papers after: 1 February, 2009

Call for papers: China’s New Innovation-Oriented Strategy

Call for papers: China’s New Innovation-Oriented Strategy

A special issue of International Journal of Technology Management

China’s economy has experienced astounding growth during the last two decades and it has become the “World’s Factory.” Such a miracle has largely benefited from China’s gradual reform and opening up to the outside. Particularly important is foreign investment in this process. Nevertheless, China has never been content with its current status of being world’s manufacturing centre and it has long aspired to become a world’s technology/innovation center as well.

Since the middle 1980s, China has initiated a number of programmes to reform its innovation system and China has experienced so-called science and technology take-off since the middle 1990s. In early 2006, China announced its "Guidelines for the National Medium- and Long-Term Science and Technology Development Program (2006-2020)." In this programme, the Chinese government has emphasised the strategic role of indigenous innovation (zhizhu changxin), and has laid out a number of goals and detailed measures so that China will become an innovation-oriented country by 2020.

Given the ambitiousness of this programme and its implications for China itself and the world, it is important to make a critical assessment of the progress that China has made, the problems that are still present in its national innovation system, and the prospect that this new “innovation-oriented strategy” will become a success. This special issue aims to provide a forum for the discussion of above mentioned topics. In particular, we are interested in studies that are theoretically sound, empirically rich, and policy relevant. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches are welcome.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to:

• Technology transfer to China
• Foreign R&D operations in China and Chinese firms' overseas R&D activities
• Reforms of China's national innovation system: higher education system, government laboratories, industrial innovations, and venture capital, among others
• Talent/human resources
• China's high-tech industries
• High-tech cluster building

Important Dates

Email the title of paper to Dr. Yifei Sun (although submissions without informing the editors will also be considered): 20 August, 2007
Deadline for submission of manuscripts: 30 January 2008
Notification of acceptance/rejection to authors: 30 August 2008
Submission of final manuscript: 30 October 2008

Call for papers: Innovation, Market, and Organisations

Call for papers: Innovation, Market, and Organisations

A special issue of International Journal of Technoentrepreneurship

The goal of this special issue is to attract research and papers on the important topic of the interaction between innovation, market and organisation. Some time ago, Schumpeter posed an important question about the organisational origin of innovation: do innovations originate in small or large firms?

Prior research has examined if competence-destroying (and competence-enhancing) innovations are generated in small, innovative firms or in large firms. While this research is mostly geared toward understanding the origins of innovation, it has given much less importance to another critical link, i.e. that many of the founders of the small firms would have gained expertise by working in large organisations (or academic institutions) just before (or while) starting their venture. In some cases of new ventures, these same large organisations (or academic institutions) even play an important role by financing the ventures. These issues suggest a much more complicated interaction between innovation, market, and organisation.

This special issue aims to extend our understanding of these complex issues. To this end, we invite papers that try to uncover these complicated relations. We interpret ‘innovations’ to include wide range: product, process, service, organisational, and technological innovations. We invite papers that study these relations at various levels of analysis including team, organisation, industry, and population. We also invite research that uses R&D consortia, alliances and joint ventures as links between innovations and organizations.

Taking into consideration the international readership, we invite research based in diverse empirical settings. These settings could be based within a national boundary or across different national boundaries. Studies could compare and contrast different cultures of innovation and entrepreneurship, or focus on a specific context and explore rich relationships within that context.

Considering there is so little in the practical world to guide managers, this special issue is also intended to influence the practice of management. Consequently, we invite research that is grounded solidly in theory (and in empirical methodology for empirical papers), and also request the authors to highlight the implications for managers. Specifically, authors should shed light on the principles of management that their research contributes.

Papers may include either theoretical or empirical research. Suitable themes in this issue include but are not limited to the following:

• Do innovations follow or precede venture formation?
• Do entrepreneurs' prior organisations finance new ventures? If so, what are the antecedents and consequences of this financing?
• How do ventures develop their own research capabilities independent of their founders' capabilities? Is this process influenced by venture's relationships with other organisations?
• What role do R&D consortia, alliances and joint ventures play in generating innovations within a new venture? And, are these roles of consortia, alliances, and joint ventures different when a large firm forms these ties?

Important Date

Papers must be received no later than: 31 January 2008