29 May 2010

Call for papers: Innovative Modelling and Simulation Techniques in Environmental Technology and Management

A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Technology and Management

Modelling and simulation techniques are widely applied in many fields, including environmental technology and management. Over the past few decades, many environmental problems have been realized, predicted, designed, controlled, and solved by adopting modelling and simulation techniques such as those indicated below. Recently, innovative algorithms have also been developed and applied, also included below.

Therefore, this special issue calls for papers addressing research on innovative modelling and simulation techniques and applications in environmental technology and management and related areas. We welcome any study in novel modelling and simulation techniques or in innovative applications of existing methodologies.

Suitable topics, applied to environmental technology anf management, include but are not limited to:
  • Chaos theory
  • Fractal theory
  • Particle swarm optimization (PSO)
  • Ant colony optimisation (ACO)
  • Clonal selection algorithms (CSA)
  • Numerical analysis
  • Artificial neural network
  • Fuzzy logic
  • Monte Carlo simulation
  • Grey system theory
  • Genetic algorithms
  • Simulated annealing algorithms
Important Dates
Paper submission deadline: 1 September, 2010
Author notification: 1 November, 2010

27 May 2010

Call for papers: Intelligent and Evolutionary Systems

A special issue of International Journal of Bio-Inspired Computation

Intelligent and adaptive systems using evolutionary computational techniques have attracted increasing attentions in recent years. They are more robust than traditional systems based on formal logics for many real world problems. They can adapt to an unknown environment without explicitly modelling the environment. They can also be applied to a wide range of practical problems.

The objective of this special issue is to provide original, high-quality papers that present, analyze, and discuss the designing and developing intelligent and adaptive systems using evolutionary computational techniques and/or machine learning.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
  • Artificial life and application
  • Information technology
  • Social networks
  • Machine learning systems
  • Agents and complex systems
  • Planning and scheduling
  • Human behaviour dynamics
  • Environmental management
  • Traffic management
  • Distributed systems
  • Evolutionary game theory
  • Multi agent systems
  • Bioinformatics
  • Project management
  • Management of network systems
  • Synchronization
  • Socio-physics
  • Human-environment-social systems
  • Dynamical systems
  • Complexity of nature
Important Dates
Draft submission deadline: 20 December, 2010
Final paper submission deadline: 14 February, 2011

Call for papers: RFID-Enhanced Technology Intelligence and Management

A special issue of International Journal of Radio Frequency Identification Technology and Applications

Radio frequency identification (RFID) is one of the automated identification technologies (AIT). An RFID tag is attached to or incorporated into an item or person for identification through radio waves. RFID has been used in many areas such as business and supply chain management, product and asset tracking, manufacturing streamlining, and logistics management in navy, etc. However, RFID tag cost, standards, data management, system integration, information security, and design of tags and readers are still challenges in some applications. The objective of this special issue is to publish the advances of RFID in technology intelligence and management.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
  • New theories and algorithms in RFID
  • Hardware and software of RFID
  • RFID middleware and data management
  • RFID and database
  • Network in RFID systems
  • RFID standards and standardization
  • Integration of the RFID system with other systems
  • Information security and privacy issues of RFID
  • RFID in business and supply chain management
  • RFID in government management
  • RFID in pharmaceuticals, medical devices and healthcare services
  • RFID in materials, manufacturing and products
  • RFID in libraries
  • RFID in agriculture and food industry
  • RFID in homeland security
  • RFID in disaster tracking, response and relief operations
  • RFID in postal/shipping services
Important Dates
Manuscript due date: 1 September, 2010
Notification of acceptance: 1 October, 2010
Submission of final manuscript: 1 December, 2010

25 May 2010

Call for papers: Application of Foresight Process on Innovation Strategy Planning

A special issue of International Journal of Foresight and Innovation Policy

By the first half of the 1990s, national foresight exercises were launched in most of the OECD members which are classified industrial countries. They may have varied economic and social conditions and technological progress, leading to their requirements regarding various foresight exercises. Some developing countries in Asia and South America also conducted national foresight in the 1990s. Through these activities, countries have considered development of new foresight covering their various needs. The foresight methods could differ depending on the survey scope – nationwide or regional, on time span and on target discipline.

This special issue focuses on the application of foresight process to innovation strategy planning. Researchers and business managers have discussed how to develop foresight methodology or the framework, but have not discussed enough how to apply foresight to innovation strategy planning and to integrate the foresight process with innovation strategy.

Recently, the meaning of foresight has changed rapidly as the world experienced fast globalization and intensifying international competition. As uncertainties about the social realization of science and technology increased in line with intensifying industrial and economic competition, foresight should cover establishment of different visions of the ideal future for communities, economic organizations or governments in addition to the selection and prioritization of technologies and future predictions/estimates for strategic policy planning. Under a growing recognition that future economic and social benefits would stem from fusion or cooperation of different disciplines and development of innovative technologies covering increasing social needs, foresight has also begun to play a role as a learning tool linking a variety of disciplines.

More concretely, what types and/or scopes of methodological applications of foresight have been performed so far? This special issue calls for papers on case studies and methodological studies of foresight applications on national, regional and firm level, aiming to accumulate and enhance knowledge and skills of foresight applications to be able to implement more effective foresight projects.

Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • Case studies of foresight application at national, regional and firm level
  • Generation and utilisation of new foresight methodologies
  • Relations between strategy planning and foresight
  • Impact of foresight on innovation strategy planning
  • Contribution of foresight knowledge to national, regional and firm innovation strategies
  • Context dependency and transferability of foresight methodologies
  • Methodological differences between foresight process
  • International and intranational cooperation to learn how to apply foresight methodologies on strategy building
  • Stimulation of knowledge-based strategy planning
  • Methodological aspects on each specific technology field
  • Implementation of foresight projects on environment, lifescience, energy and ICT fields
  • Role of foresight in regulation management
  • Influence of foresight results on R&D experts
  • Application of foresight on innovation policies
Important Date
Deadline for submission: 30 April, 2011

23 May 2010

Special issue: Leveraging technological innovation for competitive advantage

International Journal of Technology Marketing 5(1) 2010

Revised versions of cases from the International Conference on Business Cases (ICBC 2009) held in Ghaziabad, India, 26-27 November 2009.
  • International Conference on Business Cases 2009 (ICBC 2009): a brief
  • Digital content delivery and monetisation issues at vReach
  • Launching enterprise data backup and recovery solutions: the case of Ozonetel
  • Google: organising the worlds' information
  • Silverline Technologies: fight for revival
  • KMA Remarketing Corporation
  • Semco: cultural transformation and strategic leadership
  • Oberoi-Hilton strategic alliance that died in infancy
  • Seizing the opportunity for innovation: a case study from India

Special issue: Evaluation aspects of semantic search applications

International Journal of Metadata, Semantics and Ontologies 5(2) 2010

Papers from the First International Workshop on Aspects in Evaluating Holistic Quality of Ontology-based Information Retrieval (ENQOIR 2009) held in Suzhou, China on 1 April 2009.
  • Reflections on five years of evaluating semantic search systems
  • Evaluation of scalable multi-agent system architectures for searching the Semantic Web
  • Measuring intrinsic quality of semantic search based on feature vectors
Submitted papers
  • A systematic review of research on integration of ontologies with the model-driven approach
  • Approach and tool to evolve ontology and maintain its coherence

Special issue: Critical considerations in healthcare delivery

International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management 11(1/2) 2010

Papers from the various healthcare minitracks at the 15th Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS 2009) held in San Francisco, USA, 6-9 August 2009
  • Location context for knowledge management in healthcare
  • Healthcare knowledge transfer through a web 2.0 portal: an Austrian approach
  • Exploring how security features affect the use of electronic health records
  • Evaluating task-technology fit and user performance for an electronic health record system
  • Pricing transparency in healthcare for the underserved: a lesson from the Persian Gulf
  • Understanding an electronic medical records system implementation through the punctuated equilibrium lens
  • Examining the effects of healthcare technology on US hospitals' operational cost
  • Information security foundations for the interoperability of electronic health records
Submitted paper
  • Critical analysis of the usage of patient demographic and clinical records during doctor-patient consultations: a Malaysian perspective

Special issue: Bioinformatics and biomedicine

International Journal of Functional Informatics and Personalised Medicine 3(1) 2010

Includes six papers from the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedicine (BIBM 2009), held in Washington DC, USA, 1–4 November 2009.
  • Analysing DNA copy number changes using Fused Margin Regression
  • Biomedical Relationship Extraction from literature based on bio-semantic token subsequences
  • Hybrid Support Vector Machine for imbalanced data in multiclass arrhythmia classification
  • Non-Rigid Registration for brain MRI: faster and cheaper
  • MOACO Biclustering of gene expression data
  • Analysis of microarray data to infer transcription regulation in the yeast cell cycle

Special issue: Tribology and surface engineering

International Journal of Surface Science and Engineering 4(3) 2010

Includes papers from the 5th China International Symposium on Tribology (CIST2008) and 1st International Tribology Symposium of IFToMM (ITS – IFToMM 2008) held in Beijing China, 24-28 September 2008.
  • Fabrication and wear resistance of Ni-CeO2 nanocomposite coatings by electrodeposition under ultrasound condition
  • The effect of laser-induced oxygen-diffusion hardening on the surface structure and scratch resistance of commercially pure Ti
  • The biotribological behaviour researches on the α-tocopherol-doped and gamma-irradiated UHMWPE
  • Slurry parameters effect on Chemical–Mechanical Planarisation (CMP) of deposited silver (Ag) on chips
  • Preparation and characterisation of carbon nitride films deposited by pulsed laser arc deposition
  • Influence of surfactants on the tribological behaviour of electroless Ni–P coatings
  • Frequency shift of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube under axial load
  • Study of worn surface characterisation based on singular entropy
  • Deposition of Fe-based metallic glass coatings by Air Plasma Spraying process
  • Microstructure, phase and microhardness distribution of laser-deposited Ni-based amorphous coating

Special issue: New challenges in global chassis control

International Journal of Vehicle Autonomous Systems 7(3/4) 2009
  • Frequency and current effects in a MR damper
  • Control strategy for ride improvement
  • Application of the CRONE control-design method to a low-frequency active suspension system
  • A feedback-feedforward suspension control strategy for global chassis control through anti-roll distribution
  • Global chassis control by sensing forces/moments at the wheels
  • Active braking control of two-wheeled vehicles on curves
  • Robust stop-and-go control strategy: an algebraic approach for non-linear estimation and control
  • Experimental validation of integrated steering and braking model predictive control

Special issue: Small-scale gold mining, mercury and environmental health: perspectives on rural Ghana

International Journal of Environment and Pollution 41(3/4) 2010
  • Small-scale gold mining, the environment and human health: an introduction to the Ghana case
  • A viewpoint on small-scale gold mining in Ghana: a regulatory perspective on current practices, mercury use and the UNIDO and EU projects
  • Policy challenges on mercury use in Ghana's artisanal and small-scale mining sector
  • Mercury in fish: a critical examination of gold mining and human contamination in Ghana
  • Potential repercussions of a mercury ban on the artisanal and small-scale gold-mining sector: a viewpoint
  • Appraising the Global Mercury Project: an adaptive management approach to combating mercury pollution in small-scale gold mining
  • 'Fair trade' gold: A key to alleviating mercury pollution in sub-Saharan Africa?
  • The myth of alternative livelihoods: artisanal mining, gold and poverty
  • The identification and testing of a method for mercury-free gold processing for artisanal and small-scale gold miners in Ghana
  • The application of direct smelting of gold concentrates as an alternative to mercury amalgamation in small-scale gold mining operations in Ghana
  • The effect of comminution equipment on gravity gold recovery in small-scale mining operations
  • Comparison of removal of chromium (III) from aqueous solution by two kinds of modified diatomite: manganese-oxide-modified diatomite and microemulsion-modified diatomite
  • Optimising the rehabilitation of polluted mine tailings and water by an organic medium passive acid mine drainage treatment in South Africa
  • Novel method for producing uncertainty-weighted averages from a time series of ambient air measurements

Call for papers: Combat Sports: Growth and Impacts

A special issue of International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing

ombat sports such as boxing, wrestling, and martial arts have been around for thousands of years. Recently, the nature of combat sports has changed with the emergence of a new sport, Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). MMA has grown from a niche event into a major, worldwide sport generating interest from television viewers, spectators, and participants over the past 15 years. The sport is expanding globally with major events staged in the United States, Japan, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Along with the recent success of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), other professional promoters such as Strikeforce, Dream, and Bellator have grown their presence on television and pay-per-view. On a smaller scale, many regional promoters have emerged offering live professional and amateur fight cards for both male and female fighters. As such, many existing martial arts schools have begun teaching mixed martial arts in addition to traditional martial arts. Further, the growth in numbers of interested participants has created a demand for facilities solely devoted to mixed martial arts training and competition.

While combat sports such as mixed martial arts have experienced rapid growth and success, these sports are not without controversy. Critics have decried the violent nature of combat sports citing the physiological dangers to participants and potential anti-social messages passed along to viewers. While numerous governmental entities have legalized and regulated the combat sports in their jurisdictions, many others either do not regulate combat sports or have chosen to outlaw sports such as mixed martial arts.

This special issue invites manuscripts investigating the management and marketing of combat sports, exploring the future of combat sports, and identifying combat sports’ economic, managerial, ethical, legal, socio-cultural, and political impacts. Qualitative, quantitative, and conceptual papers are all encouraged. Considering that MMA as we know it was non-existent prior to 1993, sport management scholars have a unique opportunity to research a sport in its formative years. Despite the rapid growth in the sport’s popularity and its increasing impacts on business and society, little research exists concerning this phenomenon (Andrew, Kim, O’Neal, Greenwell, & James, 2009; Garcia & Malcolm, 2010; Kim, Andrew, & Greenwell, 2009; Kim, Greenwell, Andrew, Lee, & Mahony, 2008; Lim, Martin, & Kwak, 2010).

Submissions are welcome on a broad range of topics related to Mixed Martial Arts or other related combat sports. Appropriate perspectives for this special issue may include (but are not limited to):
  • Economic impact
  • Sociological perspectives
  • Legal and regulatory issues
  • Spectator motivations
  • Sponsorship issues
  • Challenges to growth and development
  • Ethical issues surrounding combat sports
  • Sport participation (including youth and women's participation)
  • The role of martial arts in various cultures
  • Global expansion of combat sports
Important Date
Deadline for submission: 7 February, 2011

Call for papers: Behavioural Perspectives on Financial Regulation

A special issue of International Journal of Behavioural Accounting and Finance

In the wake of the recent financial crisis, we have entered a highpoint of the regulatory cycle perhaps not matched since the Great Crash of 1929. But in searching for new foundations for a regulatory regime capable of forestalling the next Crisis, we have learnt much more than our forebears about the nature of investors decision-making, biases, internal contradictions and stabilising properties. This may yet help us as the regulatory response to the financial crisis emerges.

We seek papers concerning current regulatory interventions, which include but are not restricted to:
  • Recent recommendations for the overhauling of self-regulatory procedures amongst banks and other financial institutions
  • The ineffective nature of Sarbox reforms and their irrelevance to the emerging Crisis
  • The monitoring and control of conflicts of interest, between fund managers and Financial Directors/CFOs and analysts and their clients
  • The certification and control of investment products as suitable for retail investors,
  • The regulation and control of Hedge Funds and Sovereign Wealth Funds, the rise of a new investor activism
  • The economics and policy wisdom of restrictions on short-selling
  • Representations of and potential bias in perceiving institutional "connectedness" and the consequent dangers of institutions becoming or remaining "too connected to fail"
  • The degree to which a financial order is "grown not made", via the evolution of appropriate norms of how trade is conducted
Important Date
Deadline for the manuscript submission: 31 January 2011

Call for papers: Data Mining Concept and Applications in Business Intelligence

A special issue of International Journal of Business and Systems Research

Data mining is the process of analyzing data from different perspectives and summarizing it into useful information - information that can be used to increase revenue, cut costs, or both. It allows users to analyze data from many different dimensions or angles, categorize it and summarize the relationships identified. It is the process of finding correlations or patterns among dozens of fields in large relational databases.

Companies with a strong consumer focus - retail, financial, communication and marketing organizations, primarily use data mining today. It enables these companies to analyze the relationships among "internal" factors such as price, product positioning, staff skills, etc., and "external" factors such as economic indicators, technology, competition and customer demographics in order to determine the impact on sales, customer satisfaction, and corporate profits.

The purpose of this special issue is to capture the current state of methodologies and models for achieving sustainable business intelligence. Both theoretical and empirical research papers are encouraged.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to the following related assessments:
  • Data processing
  • Mining frequent patterns
  • Data association
  • Data correlation
  • Data classification
  • Data prediction
  • Cluster Analysis
  • Stream mining
  • Graph mining
  • Mining WWW
  • Social impact of data mining
  • Decision support systems
  • Management information systems
  • Expert systems
  • Knowledge networks
  • Knowledge discovery in databases
  • Knowledge-based analysis
Important Dates
Deadline for submission of manuscripts: 30 November, 2010
Communication of peer review to authors: 20 February, 2011
Deadline for revised manuscripts: 31 March, 2011

Call for papers: Population and Sustainable Development

A special issue of International Journal of Sustainable Development

Population has been a critical factor in sustainable development. While the relationship between population and sustainable development has evoked considerable debates both for and against from a Malthusian perspective, in recent years there is a growing emphasis, apart from size and growth, on other aspects of population such as age structure, geographical distribution of population, migration, urbanisation and related policies influencing sustainable development. This special issue will focus on population and sustainable development, treating the diversity in the field of population studies and not from the point of view of a narrow demographic perspective.

Both macro and micro studies highlighting the complex relationship between population structure and demographic behaviour on the one hand and its linkages with sustainable development on the other would be welcome. The papers need not be only quantitative but those focusing on cultural and behavioural aspects of different social groups would also be considered along with aggregate and quantitative studies. Papers representing different parts of the world and representing both ecological and cultural diversity are encouraged.

We invite population scientists, geographers, sociologists, economists and those working in the field of social and ecological sciences to submit papers of theoretical, methodological and empirical import on the relationship between population and sustainable development.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:
  • Population, environment and development interactions - theoretical, methodological and empirical perspectives
  • Trend in population growth, consumption of resources and sustainable development
  • Population growth, migration and sustainable development
  • Population, gender and sustainable development
  • Population, food security and climate change
  • Urbanisation and sustainable development
  • Policies for population stabilisation and sustainable development
Important Date
Deadline for Submissions: 31 December 2010

Call for papers: Industrial Case Studies of Demand-Supply Chain Management

A special issue of International Journal of Manufacturing Research

The notion that companies have both demand and supply chains, which require active management to maximize organization's effectiveness and efficiency, is well recognized. The demand chain comprises all the demand processes necessary to understand, create, and stimulate customer demand, whilst supply chain contains all the supply processes necessary to fulfill time, accuracy, and quality requirements of customers and the profitably of the supply chain. The need to coordinate these processes and their general management has been emphasized in both the demand and supply chain literature as well as in the emerging demand-supply chain management (DSCM) concept. It has been concluded that there is a lack of real-life based case study research addressing, how the different demand and supply processes influence each other, and how these processes effectively can be coordinated on intra and inter-organizational level. This implies that the concept and application of DSCM is still in its infancy and needs to be researched further from both demand and supply chain perspective. Hence, this special issue is aiming to contribute in the understanding of DSCM by analyzing the concept from a theoretical and practical perspective, determining what are the key principles that characterize the concept as well as to illustrate its appearance in practice. However, our main interest is in industrial case studies, and real-life implementations.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
  • Supply chain management
  • Demand chain management
  • Demand-supply chain management
  • Supply chain design
  • Supply chain differentiation
  • Supply chain segmentation
  • Sourcing systems
  • Manufacturing systems
  • Distribution systems
  • Transportation systems
  • New product development
  • Market intelligence
  • Market segmentation
  • Life cycle management

Important Dates
Full paper due: 31 December, 2010
Notification of acceptance: 15 March, 2011
Final version of the paper due: 31 May, 2011

Call for papers: Uncertainty, Risk and Information Management

A special issue of International Journal of Intercultural Information Management

The issue of uncertainty and risk has attracted increasing interest. This special issue is designed to provide the latest discussion on information management in dealing with uncertainty and risk. Its primary objective is to enrich our understanding of role of information management both inter- and intra- enterprises and nations. Papers in all areas of information management are welcome.

Suitable topics include but not limited to:
  • Different perceptions of risk problems concerning uncertainty
  • Innovation in risk and information management: concepts, research framework, applications
  • Intercultural issues of risk and information management
  • The relationship of national and corporate culture on safety related issues
  • Co-operation in global information management in dealing with uncertainty and risk
  • Risk analysis, hazard analysis, risk and hazard mitigation
  • Management and processing of uncertainty
  • Trends in risk management
  • Case studies of uncertainty and risk related issues
  • Innovation and risk management in different countries
  • Information sharing and safety
Important Dates
Deadline for paper submission: December 15, 2010
Notification to authors: January 15, 2011
Deadline for camera ready papers: February 1st, 2011

14 May 2010

Special issue: Comparative analysis of local government performance measurement systems: a global perspective

International Journal of Public Sector Performance Management 1(4) 2010
  • The quality of local governance – ranking local governments in Belgium
  • Who designs local government performance measurement systems?
  • A comparative study of municipal performance measurement systems in Ontario and Quebec, Canada
  • Comparative performance measurement in decentralised systems: the case of the Florida Benchmarking Consortium
  • Local budgeting and the process of providing an account from a comparative perspective: a comparison of progress made

13 May 2010

Call for papers: Uncertainty, Risk and Information Management

A special issue of International Journal of Intercultural Information Management

The issue of uncertainty and risk has attracted increasing interest. This special issue is designed to provide the latest discussion on information management in dealing with uncertainty and risk. Its primary objective is to enrich our understanding of role of information management both inter- and intra- enterprises and nations. Papers in all areas of information management are welcome.

Suitable topics include but not limited to:
  • Different perceptions of risk problems concerning uncertainty
  • Innovation in risk and information management: concepts, research framework, applications
  • Intercultural issues of risk and information management
  • The relationship of national and corporate culture on safety related issues
  • Co-operation in global information management in dealing with uncertainty and risk
  • Risk analysis, hazard analysis, risk and hazard mitigation
  • Management and processing of uncertainty
  • Trends in risk management
  • Case studies of uncertainty and risk related issues
  • Innovation and risk management in different countries
  • Information sharing and safety
Important Dates
Deadline for paper submission: December 15, 2010
Notification to authors: January 15, 2011
Deadline for camera ready papers: February 1st, 2011

Call for papers: Command and Control Ontologies

A special issue of International Journal of Intelligent Defence Support Systems

Information systems are often applied to support command and control in the military domain and elsewhere. Agile command and control requires agile information sharing among an increasingly wide variety of partners with very different world and business views. Current net-centric approaches improve information sharing on the technical level, but they fall short when it comes to the alignment of interpretations and of represented content. They fail to do justice to heterogeneous views regarding data, processes and constraints, and as a result current approaches do not support efficient and reliable information sharing across the larger command and control domain.

Intelligent defense decision support technologies should contribute to bridging this gap. One of the most promising approaches to improve understanding and alignment as a presupposition of semantic interoperability between supporting systems is the use of ontologies.

This special issue seeks contributions focusing on the theory and applications of ontology-based methods, with a focus on ontology for intelligent defense decision support. We are seeking descriptions of underlying principles and lessons learned and of success stories designed to show how ontologies can be used both within and without the defense domain.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:
  • Agile command and control
  • Battle management
  • Command and control systems
  • Data and messages
  • Integratability and Interoperability
  • Lexical services
  • Ontology
  • Semantic alignment
  • Situation awareness
  • System of systems
Important Dates
Submission: 7 January 2011
Feedback to authors: 5 April 2011
Final submission: 3 June 2011

Call for papers: Collaborative Technologies and Applications

A special issue of International Journal of Collaborative Enterprise

Collaboration has become more important to global organizations as they handle the increasing dispersal of their activities across space, time, and organizational boundaries. How to get dispersed teams of knowledge workers and decision-makers to work together in more efficient and effective ways has driven organizational adoption and use of collaborative technologies.

Collaborative systems support networks of spatially dispersed actors (either humans or not) that play different roles and cooperate to achieve common goals, which are usually non-technological goals. On the other hand, collaboration is obviously enabled by the several technological building blocks that contribute to set up a collaborative system.

Traditionally, most of the efforts in the context of collaborative systems have mainly addressed technology issues, while collaboration issues have been dealt with to a very limited extent, more as a side effect of an innovative technology rather than as a driver that brings technology closer to people and organizational needs.

This special issue fosters innovative research contributions addressing collaborative systems that help to create the right conditions for effective cooperation and coordination, thereby boosting factors like productivity, innovation and creativity. It will include invited papers from experts from academia, industry, and government as well as contributed papers describing original work on the current state of research in collaborative technologies, collaborative systems and all related issues.

The issue aims at presenting the state-of-the-art and future of collaborative technologies and systems. Another aim is discussion of the emergence of integrated collaborative environments, as well as other issues and trends that are influencing the collaboration marketplace.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:
  • Collaboration enabling technologies
  • Architectures and design of collaborative systems
  • Collaboration technologies in industry and businesses
  • Collaborative technologies in learning environments
  • E-transaction systems
  • Distributed collaborative sensor networks
  • Multi-agent systems and collaborative technologies
  • Agent communication, languages and protocols
  • Agent models and architectures
  • Multi-agent coordination and cooperation
  • Collaborative human-centered systems
  • Mobile and wireless collaboration systems
Important Dates
Initial submissions due: 20 August, 2010
Notification of review results: 20 September, 2010
Camera-ready submissions due: 20 October, 2010

11 May 2010

Special issue: Human adaptive and friendly mechatronics: robotics, sensing and intelligence

International Journal of Mechatronics and Manufacturing Systems 3(3/4) 2010
  • Position-based impedance control using inner servo system and its application to a desktop NC machine tool
  • Self-calibration for industrial robots with rotational joints
  • Profile measurement sensor for robotic laser welding
  • Vibration suppression control for a dies-driving spindle of a form rolling machine using a model-based control with a rotational speed sensor
  • Visual evaluation and fuzzy voice commands for controlling a robot manipulator
  • A six-line ternary barcode detection system with a dual threshold method
  • Control of lateral motion in bipedal walking based on PDAC
  • Development of passive wearable walking helper controlled by servo brake
  • Enhanced safety with joint compliance control of Pneumatic Muscles

Special issue: Scientific workflows

International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management 5(1) 2010
  • A declarative language and toolkit for scientific workflow implementation and execution
  • Context-aware scientific workflow systems using KEPLER
  • Process space-based scientific workflow enactment
  • Polymorphic type framework for scientific workflows with relational data model
  • Scientific workflow management systems and workflow patterns
  • Towards supporting the life cycle of large scale scientific experiments
  • Scientific workflow interoperability framework

Special issue: Family and cultural factors impacting entrepreneurship and innovation

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management 12(1) 2010
  • The transgenerational family effect on new venture growth strategy
  • Family business contribution to the sustainable development in the rural US Midwest: the case of new technology adoption
  • Family and cultural factors impacting entrepreneurship in war time Lebanon
  • Firm resources, opportunity recognition, entrepreneurial orientation and performance: the case of Russian women-led family businesses
  • Does culture matter? The impact of cultural differences on VC-CEO interaction
  • Perceived opportunity, team attributes, and entrepreneurial orientation in Chinese new technology ventures: a cognitive perspective
  • Islam, entrepreneurship and business values in the Middle East

Call for papers: The Science, Economics and Policy of Environment Flows

A special issue of International Journal of Water

The conflict between extractive and environmental use of surface water is growing and becoming a pressing issue as climate change threatens. This special issue will explore the science of establishing suitable flow regimes and the political, social and economic policy issues associated with restoring flow regimes in catchments fully allocated to extractive use.

This special issue is devoted to questions such as:
  • The where, when and in what quantity are environmental flows required?
  • How should water be acquired when it is fully allocated to extractive use?
  • Should environmental entitlements be established and made tradeable?
  • What institutions are necessary to ensure effective environmental flow management?
  • How should the conflict between environmental and extractive demand be managed?
Answering this range of questions requires the skills of many disciplines. As such, this special issue is open to a large range of disciplines – papers from catchment hydrology and riverine ecology through to resource/ecological economics, law and policy are welcome. The notion is to present a set of papers that cover the range of issues associated with restoring environmental flows.

Topics include but are not limited to the following:
  • Environmental flow modelling: determining environmental flow regimes
  • Modelling the policy implications of environmental flows
  • Environmental and extractive water values, prices and costs
  • Environmental flows and water policy
  • Environmental flows and water markets
  • Environmental water rights
  • Indigenous water rights and the environment
  • Conflict between extractive and environmental water use
  • The role of authorities and other groups in restoring environmental flows
  • The politics of environmental flows
Important Date
Deadline for submission: November 30th, 2010

10 May 2010

First issue: International Journal of Metaheuristics

Concerning all aspects of metaheuristic practice, including theoretical studies, empirical investigations, comparisons, and applications, International Journal of Metaheuristics particularly welcomes papers on methods that have shown to produce financial or environmental improvements in a real-world setting.

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

Special issue: Social innovation

International Journal of Technology Management 51(1) 2010
  • Understanding social innovation: a provisional framework
  • The effects of government SMS in Taiwan
  • Workspace design: a case study applying participatory design principles of healthy workplaces in an industrial setting
  • Transitions and strategic niche management: towards a competence kit for practitioners
  • 'Last orders' at the rural 'cyber pub': a failure of 'social learning'?
  • Socially shaping supply chain integration through learning
  • Social innovation in services: technologically assisted new care models for people with dementia and their usability
  • Social economy-based local initiatives and social innovation: a Montreal case study
  • The social innovation process: themes, challenges and implications for practice

Special issue: Data quality management in wireless sensor networks

International Journal of Sensor Networks 7(3) 2010
  • Quality-aware sensor data collection
  • Ensuring high sensor data quality through use of online outlier detection techniques
  • Fault perturbations in building sensor network data streams
  • A systematic probabilistic approach to energy-efficient and robust data collections in wireless sensor networks
  • Efficient multipath in wireless networks using network coding over braided meshes

Call for papers: Waste Recycling through Vermicomposting: Current Trends and Future Perspectives

A special issue of International Journal of Environment and Waste Management

Waste, also referred to as rubbish, trash, refuse, garbage, or junk, is unwanted or unusable materials. They are byproducts of some economically important products, agricultural crops or living being remains. Today, due to availability of sophisticated instruments, man is increasingly exploring nature to produce a number of products to be used in day-to-day life. This exploitation is producing a huge amount of waste.

Some wastes are degradable in nature whereas many are non-degradable. They are dumped either in the soil or in the sea. Dumping is not the solution to waste removal. If these wastes are not properly treated, they may then pollute groundwater or seawater. One way to reduce the risk of pollution is chemical or mechanical treatment of wastes, which is quite costly. Another, cheaper way is use of micro- or macro-organisms. Use of microorganisms requires their expensive cultivation in the laboratory and is also highly sensitive to degradation conditions. On the other hand macroorganisms such as earthworms are freely available in nature and their rearing is also cheap.

Conversion of waste materials kept in heaps via earthworms into valuable products is known as vermicomposting and its product is called vermicompost. Efficiency of this process depends on a number of factors including size of waste, size of pile, nature of waste, amount of moisture present, ratio of waste and dung, availability of sufficient protection measures, species of earthworms to be used, presence of any toxic material in waste etc. Selling of worms itself generates employment especially in rural areas.

In this context, we call for papers addressing research on the above-mentioned factors affecting the rate of vermicomposting. The outcomes will help planners to develop policies in this regard and also guide researchers to make this process more efficient and economic.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:
  • Nature and composition of different wastes to be vermicomposted
  • Different species of earthworms to be used
  • Nature and physiology of different earthworm species
  • Effect of heap size
  • Effect of size of waste materials
  • Effect of moisture and nutrient content
  • Effect of additives
  • Basic needs of earthworms for optimum growth and activity
  • Habitat and ecology of earthworms
  • Mechanism of waste degradation by earthworms
  • Physical, chemical or biological pre-treatment of wastes before vermicomposting
  • In-situ activities of earthworms
  • Economics of vermicomposting
  • Role of earthworms in nutrient cycling
  • Release of nutrients during vermicomposting
  • Microbiological and enzymic changes during vermicomposting
  • Microbiology and biochemistry of vermicomposting
  • Pollution control by vermicomposting
  • Fertilizer value of vermicompost
  • Designs or special instruments to be used for vermicomposting
  • Changes in content of vitamins, amino acids, antibiotics and other elements during vermicomposting
Important Dates
Deadline for paper submission: 31 August 2010
First turn of papers review: 31 October 2010
Second turn of papers review: 30 November 2010
Final papers submission: 31 December 2010

8 May 2010

Special issue:Entrepreneurial contexts, decisions and strategies

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business 10(1) 2010


Papers from the 6th Interdisciplinary European Conference on Entrepreneurship Research (IECER) held in Regensburg, Germany, 5-6 March 2008.

Entrepreneurial context
  • Academic entrepreneurship in knowledge and technology-based industries: the fundamental determinants at German research universities and universities of applied sciences
  • Exploring determinants of life sciences spin-off creation: empirical evidence from the Netherlands
Learning strategies and decision making
  • The direct and indirect effects of new businesses on regional employment: an empirical analysis
  • How female entrepreneurs learn and acquire (business-relevant) knowledge
  • Modelling self-regulated learning strategies in early-stage entrepreneurs: the role of intentionality and interaction
Entrepreneurial strategies in specific types of firms or environments
  • On the evaluation of the performance of SMEs from a human and organisational capital perspective
  • The evolution of entrepreneurship forms and strategies in transition economies: the case of Romania
  • Formal cooperation activities for product and process innovation in Bulgaria: go international or stay national?

Special issue: Change management in healthcare

International Journal of Information Systems and Change Management 4(3) 2010
  • Understanding employee cynicism toward change in healthcare contexts
  • Physicians' acceptance of telemedicine technology: an empirical test of competing theories
  • Information systems and change management in healthcare: the (un)solved quest for changing physicians' behaviour
  • Strategic change within the pharmaceutical industry: the impact of direct-to-consumer advertising for prescription medicines
  • The impact of market demand, government intervention and environment changes on the output of healthcare research in China

Special issue: Wireless ad hoc and sensor networks

International Journal of Wireless and Mobile Computing 4(2) 2010

Revised papers from the IEEE International Conference on Advanced Information Networking (AINA-2005), held in Tamkang, Taiwan, 28–30 March 2005.
  • A biologically inspired QoS routing algorithm for mobile ad hoc networks
  • Evaluation of dissemination-based inter-vehicle ad-hoc communication protocols for local traffic information services
  • Simultaneous aggregate sum retrieval from multiple regions in sensor networks by distributed data cubes
  • Recent developments and experimental guidelines in mobile ad-hoc networks
  • Using the ellipse propagation model for mobile location estimation
  • Design and implementation of transactional agent
  • Performance analysis of movements detection with RA beaconing in wireless IP networks
  • Fast channel estimation using maximum-length shift-register sequences

Special issue: Recent advances on differential evolution

International Journal of Bio-Inspired Computation 2(3/4) 2010
  • A differential evolution for optimisation in noisy environment
  • Differential evolution and threshold accepting hybrid algorithm for unconstrained optimisation
  • Floating-point to integer mapping schemes in differential evolution for permutation flow shop scheduling
  • Multi-area hydrothermal coordination using modified mixed integer hybrid differential evolution
  • Hybrid multi-objective differential evolution (H-MODE) for optimisation of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) reactor
  • Differential evolution trained radial basis function network: application to bankruptcy prediction in banks
  • Analogue filter design using differential evolution
  • A differential evolution approach for protein structure optimisation using a 2D off-lattice model
  • Optimal image colour extraction by differential evolution
Additional Papers
  • Distributed systems – from natural to engineered: three phases of inspiration by nature
  • Perceptual image analysis
  • Dynamic economic load dispatch with wind energy using modified harmony search

Special issue: Fuzzy neural control for mechatronic systems

International Journal of Advanced Mechatronic Systems 2(3) 2010

Includes some papers from the 6th International Symposium on Neural Networks (ISNN2009), held in Wuhan, China, 26–29 May 2009,
  • Fuzzy-neural control theory applied to task-oriented proactive seamless migration application
  • Adaptive NN control of a class second-order non-linear systems with unknown dead zones
  • Optimal operation control of the raw slurry blending process using the case-based reasoning and neural network
  • Recurrent neural network model for reheating furnace based on sequential learning with unscented Kalman filter
  • Magnetostrictive micropositioning device with fuzzy-neural-based controller
  • Non-linear model predictive control based on neural network model with modified differential evolution adapting weights
  • Perception neural network versus fuzzy neural network for controlling the inverted pendulum
  • Design of optimal MLP and RBF neural network classifier for fault diagnosis of three phase induction motor

7 May 2010

Special issue: Corporate social responsibility in the global economy

European Journal of International Management 4(3) 2010
  • Editorial: Expanding the risk management paradigm – human rights for enhanced corporate social responsibility
  • Explaining firm approaches to corporate social responsibility: institutional environment and firm size
  • The impact of national institutional context on social practices: comparing Finnish and US business communities
  • The role of stakeholders in shaping managerial perceptions of CSR in Russia
  • Traditional versus international influences: CSR disclosures in Turkey
  • Responsible business practice: re-framing CSR for effective SME engagement
  • Offshoring, lean production and a sustainable global supply chain

Special issue: Global sustainable vehicle design

International Journal of Vehicle Design 53(1/2) 2010
  • Feasibility of a globally harmonised Environmentally Friendly Vehicle concept
  • Reducing transport emissions: the simultaneous challenges of global warming and oil shortage
  • Global green car learning clusters
  • History in the making: 10 years of Ford fuel cell vehicles
  • Efficient CVT hybrid driveline with improved drivability
  • Comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of passenger seats and their impact on different vehicle models
  • A collaborative FEA platform for rapid design of lightweight vehicle structures

Special issue: Grid computing and applications

International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing 5(4) 2010

Papers from the 5th Workshop on Grid Technologies and Applications (WoGTA’08) held in Tainan, Taiwan, 12-13 December 2008.
  • Optimising upload bandwidth for quality of VCR operations in P2P VoD systems
  • Malugo: A peer-to-peer storage system
  • Performance- and economisation-oriented scheduling techniques for managing applications with QoS demands in grids
  • Transparent on-demand co-allocation data access for grids
  • A heuristic QoS measurement with domain-based network information model for grid computing environments
  • Secured and trusted three-tier grid architecture
Additional Paper
  • A visual way to talk to strangers: authentication in wireless pervasive computing

Special issue: Stretching the boundaries: new developments in design-enabling tools and systems

International Journal of Product Development 11(1/2) 2010

Revised papers from the Sixth International Tools and Methods of Competitive Engineering Symposium in Ljubljana, Slovenia, 18-22 April 2006.
  • Towards an interactive spatial product visualisation: a comparative analysis of prevailing 3D visualisation paradigms
  • A CAD system based on haptic modelling for conceptual design
  • Integration of virtual reality and haptics to carry out ergonomic tests on virtual control boards
  • The enablers for interactive augmented prototyping
  • New methods for virtual design with a focus on composite materials and structural optimisation
  • An implementation of resource-negotiating agents in telemanufacturing
  • Towards virtual manufacturing: an implementation framework from feasibility to product development

Special issue: Autonomic-centric applications

International Journal of Autonomic Computing 1(3) 2010

Papers from the IEEE International Conference on Soft Computing as Transdisciplinary Science and Technology (CSTST 2008) held in Paris, France, 27-31 October 2008
  • A rule-driven approach for architectural self adaptation in collaborative activities using graph grammars
  • Automatic generation of XML-based editors for autonomic systems
  • An ontology-driven approach for collaborative ubiquitous systems
Additional Papers
  • Autonomous return on investment analysis of additional processing resources
  • Online monitoring and visualisation of database structural deterioration

Special issue:Energy security in the 21st Century

International Journal of Global Energy Issues 33(1/2) 2010
  • New energy order and FAST principles: premises of equitable and sustainable energy security in the 21st century
  • Peak oil and energy security: can alternative fuels and vehicles save us?
  • EU energy security, sustainability and globalisation: What role for Qatari LNG amid calls for greater energy diversification?
  • The role of regional cooperation in energy security: the case of the ASEAN+3
  • International oil companies, US Government and energy security policy: an interest-based analysis
  • US foreign energy policy and grand strategy choice: global systemic crises confronting the Obama Administration

Special issue: Globalisation and economic integration

International Journal of Business and Globalisation 4(4) 2010
  • The handmaiden's tale: Japan's foreign investment as a reflection of its domestic economy
  • Exogenous shocks and exchange rate management in developing countries: a theoretical analysis
  • New regionalism in Asia: the case of Singapore-Australia bilateral free trade agreement
  • Indian banking: changing landscape in a globalised era
  • Modelling the policy challenges confronting globalising developing countries

Special issue: Total quality management in the 21st Century service sector

International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management 5(4) 2010
  • Geographies, motivations and benefits from ISO 9000 standard: a comparison of manufacturing and service organisations
  • The evolution of quality management in DOKPY, Magnesia – Greece: from basic quality initiatives to EFQM
  • An evaluation model for inbound call centres design
  • From customers requirements to customers satisfaction – quality function deployment in service sector
  • A tool based framework for applying Six Sigma methodology to services and transactional data
  • A fuzzy-AHP-based framework for prioritising benchmarks in the service sector
  • Total quality management in higher education institutions: challenges and future directions

Special issue: Electronic knowledge sharing, collaboration and decision making

International Journal of Business and Systems Research 4(3) 2010
  • Ascertaining group decision auditing capabilities
  • A study of factors affecting electronic meeting participation
  • An ontology building approach for knowledge sharing in product lifecycle management
  • A framework for conceptualising virtual organising
  • Work stressors related to geographic distance and electronic dependence in virtual teams
  • Context-dependent vs. content-dependent: an exploration of the cultural behavioural patterns of online intercultural communication using e-mail
  • Effects of training on collaboration: chunk sharing and performance

Special issue: Global logistics

International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management 6(4) 2010
  • Developing bi-level equilibrium models for the global container transportation network from the perspectives of multiple stakeholders
  • A bi-level representational model of hazardous material supply chains
  • Mitigating supply chain disruption: the importance of top management support to collaboration and flexibility
  • A framework for managing supply-chain flexibility using a neural network
  • nalytic Network Process for analysing Supply Chain relationship
  • Profit-based reconfiguration of express courier service network with multiple consolidation terminals
  • Analysing the optimal location of a hub port in Southeast Asia

6 May 2010

Special issue: Application of business intelligence to customer relationship management

International Journal of Services Technology and Management 14(1) 2010

PART I
  • Design and development of Supply Chain Knowledge Discovery System for Customer Relationship Management
  • An Online Analytical Processing based predictive system for better process quality in the supply chain network
  • Development of an e-procurement model for global financial institutions
  • Consumer's optimal policies for purchasing durable goods
PART II
  • A case study on multimedia e-tailing services: can watermarks help build customer relationships?
  • Investigating relationships between organisational commitment, employee empowerment, customer intelligence and Customer Relationship Performance among small service firms
  • A Central Coordination System for managing a large supply base through supply chain collaboration
  • Customer Relationship Management applied to higher education: developing an e-monitoring system to improve relationships in electronic learning environments
  • Customer value segmentation based on cost-sensitive learning Support Vector Machine

Special issue: Production line systems: concepts, methods and applications

International Journal of Manufacturing Technology and Management 20(1-4) 2010

  • The sliding frame – extending the concept to various assembly line balancing problems
  • An empirical comparison of improvement heuristics for the mixed-model U-line balancing problem
  • The performance of unpaced production lines with unequal operating time variabilities and buffer sizes
  • Modelling the allocation of protective capacity to design unbalanced production lines
  • Adaptive Kanban control systems for two-stage production lines
  • An investigation of the influence of coefficient of variation in the demand distribution on the performance of several lean production control strategies
  • System model of production inventory control
  • Factorial effects on the performance of closed-loop asynchronous automatic assembly systems
  • An overview and comparison of four sequence generating methods for robotic assembly
  • Cell formation considering real-life production parameters
  • Operator assignment/reassignment problems in incremental cell formation
  • Performance evaluation of hybrid-CLP vs. GA: non-permutation flowshop with constrained resequencing buffers
  • Supervisory-based capacity allocation control for manufacturing systems
  • Multistage production systems with random yields and rigid demand
  • Yield management in TFT-LCD manufacturing by using regression and neural network techniques
  • Solving the response time variability problem by means of the cross-entropy method
  • Note on the behaviour of an improvement heuristic on permutation and blocking flow-shop scheduling
  • Optimum design selection of jigs/fixtures using digraph and matrix methods

Special issue:The future of feelings virtual and visceral: news from practitioners: Part II

International Journal of Work Organisation and Emotion 3(3) 2010

More papers from the 2nd International Emotions Conference held in Guildford, Surrey, UK, 13 June 2008.

See also International Journal of Work Organisation and Emotion 3(2) 2009

Mapping emotions and emotional well being
  • Getting it right': an ethnographic study on how palliative care nurses discuss death
  • Be tough, never let them see what it does to you'': towards an understanding of the emotional lives of economic migrants
  • Perspectives on emotional labour and bullying: reviewing the role of emotions in nursing and healthcare
Gender
  • Now we're talking!' Scripting masculinity and emotionality in everyday life
Specialist practice: The emotional landscape of midwifery
  • Mapping the emotional terrain of midwifery: What can we see and what lies ahead?
  • 'Switching and swapping faces': performativity and emotion in midwifery
Specialist practice: Dementia and emotions
  • Using attachment theory to improve the care of people with dementia
  • Forms of empathy of care home staff working with older people

Special issue: Critical e-business issues in China and other emerging economies

International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations 7(4) 2010

Papers from the Seventh Wuhan International Conference on E-Business held in Wuhan, China, 28–29 May 2008
  • The effect of the internet on FDI in East and Middle/West China
  • A user-oriented model for global enterprise portal design
  • Testing the validity of the purchasing power parity hypothesis: a study based on the RMB/USD exchange rate
  • Intellectual capital and corporate performance: an empirical analysis from Chinese listed companies
  • Empirical research on the relationship between organisational learning and enterprise SCA
  • CRBT customer churn prediction: can data mining techniques work?
  • Is performance driven by industry effects or firm effects? – An empirical research on the listed companies in China by variance components analysis
  • The evolution of value networks

Call for papers: The Informatics of Metadata, Questions and Value Sets

A special issue of International Journal of Functional Informatics and Personalised Medicine

Healthcare research and practice are driven by data collection based on asking and answering questions. Data collection in clinical research studies are informed by protocols based on evidence and patient assessments are required by clinical practice guidelines; both are driven by asking and answering relevant questions and assigning permissible values to data elements. Given their critical role in healthcare research and practice, the curation of question and answer set repositories and IR issues related to those repositories are fundamental aspects of biomedical and healthcare informatics.

This special issue aims to address and attract state-of-the-art solutions and novel attempts in the informatics of meta-data, questions, and value sets.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:
  • Terminology and metadata standards for representing questions and answer sets
  • Ontologies for questions and answer sets
  • Metadata registry standards for questions and answer sets
  • Question answering systems
  • Systems for generating questions and answer sets
  • Reuse, sharing and interoperability of questions and answer sets
  • IR for question and answer set repositories, including system design, human-computer interaction, and evaluation
Important Dates
Submission: 15 August 2010
Notification: 15 October 2010
Camera ready papers: 15 November 2010

Call for papers: The Responsibility of Human Resource Management and Development Professionals in the Development of Low-Skilled Workers

A special issue of International Journal of Human Resources Development and Management

A common definition of the term “low-skilled worker” generally includes high school dropouts, high-school completers without additional education, college non-completers, previously incarcerated persons, immigrants, and veterans who joined the military right after high school. For this special issue, we seek papers that address the role of human resource managers and development professionals in providing training and development for any one or all of these groups of workers.

Many studies, beginning with A Nation at Risk and continuing with Workforce 2000 and Workforce 2020, the SCANS Report, and Tough Times, Tough Choices among others, have warned that an expanding pool of skilled workers is needed in the United States and other industrialized countries to understand, develop, and use complex technology to assure continued competitiveness in a global economy. Since industrialized countries will not be able to compete with their foreign competitors on price alone, they must compete on productivity and innovation. These studies do not deny that some low-skilled jobs will remain in demand; their warning is directed at the fact that simply maintaining prosperity is contingent upon economic growth, which is possible only with a larger and larger pool of skilled workers. As a result, these studies state, American workers, especially job entrants, need more knowledge and skills than ever before.

One of the challenges in developing this skilled talent pool has been that business and industry participation in training programs has been low, and despite calls for more employer involvement, most recommendations for workforce training still focus on public programs administered by local or state governments, non-profits, or community and technical colleges and institutes. Torraco (2007) stated that training for low-skilled job entrants should in fact be considered a human resource function, and Scully-Russ (2005) added that many organizational structures contribute to the inability of low-skilled workers to advance to better-paying, higher-skilled jobs. Ten years earlier, however, the Workforce 2020 report had asked the question of why businesses should become involved in such workforce development efforts and why training should not exclusively take place in educational institutions. The purpose of this special issue is to fill in the gap and furnish that answer.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:
  • Is human resource involvement in the training of low-skilled workers desirable?
  • What role can human resource professionals play in training low-skilled workers?
  • Should human resource professionals become involved in preparing low-skilled workers for entry into the workforce? Why?
  • Should human resource professionals become involved in enhancing the performance and the career mobility of low-skilled workers already employed by them? Why?
  • How can human resource professionals lobby their management for greater organizational involvement in and support of low-skilled worker development?
  • What are the curricula, teaching methods, benefits, and successes of employer-led programs for low-skilled workers that already exist? Which role did human resource professionals play in creating these programs?
  • How can human resource professionals help form partnerships between their employers and external training providers (community colleges, technology centers, non-profits, state and local programs, etc.)?
  • How can human resource professionals help develop programs that benefit employers, educational institutions, and students equally?
  • Which human resource training and development strategies can (and should) be applied to workforce training in educational institutions?
Important Dates
Draft submission deadline: 30, September, 2010
Final paper submission deadline: 30, January, 2011

Call for papers: Structural Vibration and Control

A special issue of International Journal of Structural Engineering

Structural vibrations induced by many dynamic factors, such as earthquakes, accidental impacts and dynamic loads produced in service, are of increasing interest in civil engineering, not only in terms of safety, but also in terms of serviceability and comfort level. The mechanism of nonlinear behaviours, structural modelling and parameter identifications, response performances and their control of structures are among the key issues both of scientific and of engineering concern.

In the past decade, significant advances have been made in this field, including a series of new ideas, new theoretical development and new technologies emerging, e.g. recent development of nonlinear mechanics and modelling, structural monitoring and control and stochastic dynamics. This special issue focuses on vibration and control of structures.

Original papers reporting new theoretical and experimental development are welcome, including but not limited to the following areas:
  • Risk and modelling of dynamical excitations
  • Dynamic constitutive law of engineering materials
  • Structural modelling and parameter identification
  • Nonlinear behaviours of members and structures
  • Stochastic dynamics
  • Structural control
  • Testing, inspection and monitoring methods
  • Practical applications
  • Standards and rules
Important Date
Deadline for paper submission: 1st July, 2010

Call for papers: Technology Transfer to Developing and Emerging Countries: the Issues of Firm Size, Context and Knowledge

A special issue of International Journal of Technology Transfer and Commercialisation

Until the 1990s, multinational corporations (MNCs) from developed countries were considered by researchers and policymakers to be the most effective vehicles for the transfer of organisational and technological knowledge to developing and emerging countries. This perception was evident not only in the literature on international technology transfer, but also in the whole field of international business, where the notion of the primacy of large organisations in the cross-border transfer of knowledge was emphasised.

Because of the ‘sticky’, hard-to-transfer nature of tacit knowledge, the organisational and contextual differences between the knowledge suppliers and recipients may constitute important determinants of the transfer effectiveness. In the case of transferors from developed economies and recipients from developing and emerging countries, the cultural and institutional differences, as well as the managerial and technological gap are frequently invoked to explain the importance of resources and firm size. Large firms would then be at an advantage in comparison with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Their considerable tangible and intangible resources – for example the number of international managers, the amount of financial capital and the breadth of tacit knowledge – would give them an advantage over their smaller competitors.

Are large organisations actually more effective than smaller transferors in dealing with the complex issues originating from institutional and cultural distance, as suggests the literature on international knowledge transfer and international business? Of course a definite answer to that question cannot be provided. However, some recent developments in entrepreneurship theory and SME internationalisation may qualify the views generally held in international business. Somewhat paradoxically, these developments have brought out the predominance and advantages of tacit knowledge and localised learning in smaller organisations (Audretsch and Thurik, 2001; Acs, 2009).

In these entrepreneurship-based views, globalisation and the dominance of MNCs are not considered as prime factors of international competitiveness. Thus, Audretsch and Thurik (2001) argued that ‘the so-called death of distance resulting from globalisation has shifted the comparative advantage of high-cost locations towards economic activity that cannot be easily and costlessly diffused across geographical space’. Local and regional characteristics, with their rich source of tacit knowledge, constitute better opportunities for the creation and diffusion of innovations, and are better exploited by SMEs.

For some other researchers, on the contrary, the SMEs’ reliance on tacit knowledge, and the institutional barriers to the international diffusion of that type of knowledge play a constraining role on smaller firms’ capacity to transfer their expertise abroad, especially when the recipient firms are located in less developed countries. Is the constraining effect more important than opportunity creation for smaller organisations? A nuanced answer to that question requires more conceptual and empirical research. In comparison with the international business literature focused on large organisations’ involvement and effectiveness in international knowledge transfer, the research on the role of SMEs in this area of activity has been much less abundant.

We invite scholars to submit conceptual or empirical ─ qualitative or quantitative ─ papers addressing the following themes related to technology transfer to developing or emerging countries:
  • Firm size and effectiveness of technology transfer
  • Contextual - cultural or institutional - issues
  • Forms of knowledge and types of technology
  • Entrepreneurship
References:
Acs, Z. J., Braunerhjelm, P., Audretsch, D. B. and Carlson, B. (2009). The knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship Small Business Economics 32: 15-31.
Audretsch, D. B. and Thurik, A.R. (2001) What’s new about the new economy? Sources of growth in the managed and entrepreneurial economies Industrial and Corporate Change 10: 267-315.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to the following, which must be specifically related to technology transfer to developing or emerging countries:
  • How to measure effectiveness
  • Comparing SMEs and large firms on measures of effectiveness
  • Cultural values
  • Institutional issues
  • Entrepreneurship theory versus international business theories
  • Firm size and modes of transfer
  • Characteristics of entrepreneurs
  • Firm size and forms of knowledge
  • Firm size and types of technologies
Important Date
Deadline for Submission: 1 November, 2010

Call For papers: Recent Technologies in Bioengineering

A special issue of International Journal of Computer Aided Engineering and Technology

Recent developments in bioengineering have opened new doors to how medical treatments and health services are provided. This special issue aims to report latest conceptual prototypes and technologies in biomedical design and device development in a highly interdisciplinary research involving medicine, health, engineering, science, and information technology.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:
  • Wearable medical monitoring sensors
  • Wireless medical devices
  • Physiological sensing
  • Medical systems diagnostics
  • Personalised medicine.
  • E-health
  • Cardiovascular and molecular imaging
  • Optics and optoelectronics
  • Bio-modelling and bio-simulation
Important Dates
Deadline for submissions: 1 September, 2011
Completed first review: 1 December, 2011
Deadline for final revisions: 1 February, 2012

Call for papers: Approach to Water and Waste Management: Characterization, Treatment and By-Product Recovery

A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Engineering

Water quality is a growing concern throughout the developing world. Drinking water sources are under increasing threat from contamination, with far-reaching consequences for the health of children and for the economic and social development of communities and nations.

Deteriorating water quality also threatens the Millennium Goals water target of halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe water. While the world is currently on track to meet the target in terms of numbers of sources constructed, it may not be on track if the quality of water in new sources is fully taken into account.

The chemical contamination of water supplies – both naturally occurring and from pollution – is a very serious problem. Arsenic and fluoride alone threaten the health of hundreds of millions of people. But more serious still is the microbiological contamination of drinking water supplies, especially from human faeces. Faecal contamination of drinking water is a major contributor to diarrhoeal disease, which kills millions of children every year. As populations, pollution and environmental degradation increase, so will the chemical and microbiological contamination of water supplies.

Treatment and valorisation of waste and wastewater for the production of energy and useful materials is a valuable contribution nowadays, to those goals, because waste and wastewater also constitute a threat of contamination for the aquifers and the courses of superficial waters. The application of different alternatives of physical-chemical and biological treatments cooperates to solve this serious problem, including the consideration of reuse.

At the same time, the assessment of the treatment by-products is important, either as source of renewable energy (biogas) or as a source of organic matter for the agriculture (sludge that are produced in the biological treatment systems).

Protecting water, a vital resource necessary for our daily lives, is a never-ending task for individuals, communities, countries, and as a global community of concerned citizens, specially in the 2005-2015 International Decade for Action 'Water for Life'.

Therefore, we would like to call for papers addressing research on water and waste management: characterization, treatment, by-products valorization and the related areas.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:
  • Water, wastewater and solid waste characterization
  • Water, wastewater and solid waste treatment
  • Chemical-physical treatments
  • Biological treatments
  • Wastewater reuse
  • By-product recovery
  • Sludge applications
  • Biogas as renewable energy
Important Dates
Deadline for paper submission: 31 August 2010
First turn of papers review: 31 October 2010
Second turn of papers review: 30 November 2010
Final papers submission: 31 December 2010