Inderscience journal to publish expanded papers from the 9th C&C Conference

Expanded versions of papers presented at the 9th Cooperation, Competition (C&C) International Conference (8-10) December 2013, Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden) will be published by the International Journal of Strategic Business Alliances.

Newly announced journal: International Journal of Big Data Intelligence

Big data is a significant research area spanning the fields of computer science and information management, and has become a ubiquitous term in understanding and solving complex problems in different disciplinary fields such as engineering, medicine, computational biology, healthcare, social networks, finance, business, government, education, transportation and telecommunications. The International Journal of Big Data Intelligence provides a vehicle for disseminating the latest research in big data research, development and applications.

Inderscience is media partner for Gas to Liquids

Inderscience is a media partner for Gas to Liquids (29-30 October 2013, London, UK).

The journal involved is the International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology.

Special issue: "European Perspectives on Entrepreneurship"

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business 19(2) 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the RENT XXV Conference.

• Entrepreneurship education and boys' and girls' perceptions of entrepreneurs
• Patents and entrepreneurship: the impact of opportunity, motivation and ability
• How do family firm CEOs perceive their competitive advantages and disadvantages? Empirical evidence from the transportation industry
• Disembedded and beheaded? - a critical review of the emerging field of sustainability entrepreneurship
• Financing patterns in new technology-based firms: an extension of the pecking order theory
• Entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation as antecedents of organisational innovation and performance
• Mumpreneurship: a new concept for an old phenomenon?
• The interplay of entrepreneurial cognition and internal stakeholders

Inderscience journals to publish expanded papers from CCSN-13

Expanded versions of papers presented at the 2nd International Conference on Computing,Communication and Sensor Network (22-24 November 2013, Kolkata, India) will be published by the following journals:

• International Journal of Computational Science and Engineering
• International Journal of Embedded Systems

Inderscience Editor receives top award

Professor Constantin Zopounidis awarded with the MCDM Edgeworth-Pareto Award during the 22th International Conference on Multiple Criteria Decision Making, which took place in Malaga, Spain, on 17-21 June 2013. The International Conference is organized every two years. The MCDM Edgeworth-Pareto Award is the highest distinction bestowed by the International Society on Multiple Criteria Decision Making. Professor Zopounidis is Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Multicriteria Decision Making and the International Journal of Financial Engineering and Risk Management. Last year, Professor Zopounidis received recognition from ESCP Europe for his long-standing research contribution in the field of financial engineering and decision making.

Int. J. of Telemedicine and Clinical Practices to publish expanded papers from AMTCP

Expanded versions of papers presented at the International Conference on Advances in Medical Technologies and Clinical Practice (29 December 2013, Bhubaneswar, India) will be published by the International Journal of Telemedicine and Clinical Practices.

Call for papers: "Advanced Data Management for Sensor Networks"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Sensor Networks.

With the rapid advent of the Internet of Things, sensor cloud, mobile Internet and Web 3.0, more and more mobile devices, such as smart phones, Google glasses, and RFID, plus deployed various sensor networks, can sense and collect sensory data anytime and anywhere. We are moving towards the era of worldwide sensor networks, in which a huge amount of heterogeneous sensory data will be created every day and require advanced data management.

Efficiently gathering, sharing and integrating these spatial temporal data and then deriving valuable knowledge in a timely manner are a big challenge in this context. Furthermore, in the mobile environment, data management means a collection of centralised and distributed algorithms, architectures and systems to store, process and analyse the immense amount of spatial temporal data, where these data are cooperatively gathered through collections of mobile sensing devices which move in space over time.

In this special issue, we are interested in inviting and gathering recent advanced data management techniques. The topics suggested below can be discussed in terms of concepts, states of the art, standards, designs, implementations, and running experiments or applications.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the 2013 IEEE International Conference on Cyber, Physical and Social Computing (CPScom 2013), but we also strongly encourage researchers unable to participate in the conference to submit articles for this call.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• Sensory data sharing
• Query processing in sensor networks
• Data gathering in mobile sensor networks or energy harvesting-based sensor networks
• Data heterogeneity in mobile environments
• Data duplication and replication issues in mobile environments
• Searching, discovering and locating things and services in mobile environments
• Security with data management
• Sensory data caching and storing for wireless multimedia sensor networks
• Big sensor data management
• Data mining in big sensor data
• Machine learning applied to sensor data
• Energy-efficiency and other resource trade-offs with sensing systems
• Participatory and opportunistic sensing
• Applications over clouds
• Mobile sensor-based personal informatics
• Mobile sensing deployment experiences and user studies
• Social and people-centric sensor data networking
• Data processing and management in industrial sensor networks

Important Dates
Manuscript due: 31 October, 2013
Acceptance/rejection notification: 31 January, 2014
Final manuscript due: 28 February, 2014

Inderscience is media partner for the Shale Gas Environmental Summit

Inderscience is a media partner for the Shale Gas Environmental Summit (22-23 October 2013, London, UK).

The journals involved are:

• International Journal of Energy Technology and Policy
• International Journal of Petroleum Engineering
• International Journal of Risk Assessment and Management

Special issue: "Intelligent Computing and Electronic Information Engineering"

International Journal of Information and Communication Technology 5(3/4) 2013

• An improved multi-expression programming algorithm applied in function discovery and data prediction
• The method of gaze tracking based on iris detection
• Community-based multi-agent cooperative interactive evolutionary computation model
• 3D motion retrieval based on double index and user interaction
• A fast fuzzy c-means algorithm for colour image segmentation
• The technical security issues in cloud computing
• Adaptive friction compensation for a position control system with Stribeck friction using hybrid unscented Kalman filter
• Implementation of correlation power analysis attack on an FPGA DES design
• A study on the scalable flow model of web services choreography and orchestration based on dynamic workflow
• A low energy consumption wireless sensor network control system
• Domain-epidemic spray and forward routing algorithm of opportunistic networks
• A novel algorithm for image denoising based on unscented Kalman filtering

Inderscience is media partner for Telecoms for Smart Grids

Inderscience is a media partner for Telecoms for Smart Grids (23-24 September 2013, London, UK).

The journal involved is the International Journal of Mobile Communications.

Call for papers: "Network Computing and Its Security"

For a special issue of the International Journal of High Performance Systems Architecture.

Cloud computing prompts new research with special emphasis on distributed system architecture and big data management and processing methods. In the more general sense of cloud computing, network computing covers the novel algorithms, architectures, implementations, experiences and security related to this issue.

The goal of network computing is to allow computers and servers to collaborate together to offer powerful computing and improved security relative to that what is currently available. Many research works have been carried out in respective fields such as grid computing and distributed computing.

This special issue aims to find a good point at which two fields can be combined with each other or introduce promising properties to each other. It will cover a number of related topics, demonstrate pioneering work, investigate novel solutions and discuss future trends in this field.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• Neural networks and applications
• Image and video signal processing
• Distributed and parallel computing
• Trusted network computing
• Trust-related security and privacy
• Web and internet computing
• Wireless network computing
• Social network computing
• Future internet architecture
• Management of data centre networks
• Cognitive radio networks
• Security and privacy in network computing

Important Dates

Paper submission: 30 October, 2013 (extended)

Int. J. of Information and Communication Technology to publish expanded papers from CIMET-2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the International Conference on Creativity and Innovation in Management Engineering and Technology (27 December 2013, Bhubaneswar, India) will be published by the International Journal of Information and Communication Technology.

Special issue: "New Competences in Tomorrow's Automotive Management"

International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management 13(3) 2013

• Building real modularity competence in automotive design, development, production, and after-service
• Service transition in the automotive industry
• Facilitating ambidexterity with HR practices - a case study of an automotive supplier
• Competence building in electric mobility: solving the paradox of specific investments in nascent industries
• Exploring scenarios for the possibility of developing design and production competencies of electrical vehicles in Brazil

Call for papers for inaugural issue of Int. Journal of Migration and Border Studies

The International Journal of Migration and Border Studies has announced a call for papers for its inaugural issue.

The call for papers is available here.

Special issue: "Community Structure in Complex Networks"

International Journal of Web Based Communities 9(3) 2013

• Towards multi-ego-centred communities: a node similarity approach
• Multi-scale community detection using stability optimisation
• Towards realistic artificial benchmark for community detection algorithms evaluation
• Characterising and modelling social networks with overlapping communities
• Community structure in interaction web service networks
• The community structure of a multidimensional network of news clips 

Antibacterial silver in a spin

The antibacterial effects of silver are well established. Now, researchers at Yonsei University in Seoul, Republic of Korea, have developed a technique to coat glass with a layer of silver ions that can prevent growth of pathogenic bacteria including Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhimurium and Campylobacter jejuni. The technology could be used to protect medical equipment and be particularly useful for applications in disaster recovery and the military environment.

Materials scientist Se-Young Choi and colleagues Cheol-Young Kim, Yu-Ri Choi and Kwang-Mahn Kim, explain in the International Journal of Nanotechnology how silver has been known to be an antibacterial substance since the middle of the nineteenth century. It has found applications in bactericidal formulations for medical instruments and even odor-muting socks

A big advantage of the use of this substance rather than organic agents against bacteria is that bacteria are yet to evolve resistance to it whereas genetic mutations that lead to proteins that can assimilate and degrade organic compounds frequently arise. As such, silver solutions have been used widely as disinfectants, in water purification in and in dentistry. Scientists have demonstrated that silver ions can latch on to sulfur-containing thiol groups in bacterial biomolecules disrupting their activity and thereby killing the microbes. Finding a way to add a permanent silver ion coating to glass would expand the antibacterial repertoire much further allowing a wider range of medical instruments, drinking vessels and other equipment to be kept sanitary regardless of working conditions.

The Seoul team has now developed a way to “spin” coat glass with silver present in a so-called sol-gel, a type of gelatinous solution within which are dispersed dissolved silver ions present as their nitrate salt. Spinning takes place at 200 Celsius with a rotation rate of 2000 revolutions per minute. They used atomic force microscopy to demonstrate how a substantial coating could be formed on glass and then successfully tested its activity against various food-poisoning bacteria. The resulting coated glass is more than 90 percent as transparent as uncoated glass bending strength tests show it to be slightly toughened by the presence of the silver coating.

“There are lots of bacteria that can cause serious food poisoning in the military equipment and environments,” Choi explains. “So, the antimicrobial activity of the silver ion containing film showed its potential for use as a coating for medical devices and military equipment.” The team suggests that the same approach could be used to spin coat other smooth materials.

“Fabrication and antibacterial properties of silver-coated glass substrate against Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhimurium, and Campylobacter jejuni ” in Int. J. Nanotechnol, 2013, 10, 643-652

Antibacterial silver in a spin is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/antibacterial-silver-in-a-spin.html

Mood music

Could a computer distinguish between the moods of a mournful classical movement or an angst-ridden emo rock song? Research to be published in the International Journal of Computational Intelligence Studies, suggests that it should be possible to categorise music accurately without human listeners having to listen in. An algorithm developed by researchers in Poland could help the record industry automate playlist generation based on listener choices as well as allow users themselves to better organise their music collections.

Multimedia experts Bozena Kostek and Magdalena Plewa of Gdansk University of Technology, point out that so-called “meta data” associated with a music file becomes redundant in a large collection where lots of pieces of music will share basic information such as composer, performer, copyright details and perhaps genre tags. As such, conventional management of music content of the kind used by web sites that stream and suggest music as well as the software used on computers and portable music players is often ineffective. Handling vast music collections, which might contain hundreds, if not tens of thousands of song excerpts with overlapping meta data is increasingly difficult, especially in terms of allowing streaming sites and users to select songs across genres that share particular moods.

Of course, music appreciate is highly subjective as is appreciation of any art form. “Musical expressivity can be described by properties such as meter, rhythm, tonality, harmony, melody and form,” the team explains. These allow a technical definition of a given piece. “On the other hand, music can also be depicted by evaluative characteristics such as aesthetic experience, perception of preference, mood or emotions,” they add. “Mood, as one of the pre-eminent functions of music should be an important means for music classification,” the team says.

Previous mood classification systems have used words, such as rousing, passionate, fun, brooding, wistful in clusters to help categorise a given piece. There are dozens of words to describe a piece of music and that each might be associated with various emotions. The team has turned to a database of mp3 files containing more than 52,000 pieces of music to help them develop a statistical analysis that can automatically correlate different adjectives and their associated emotions with the specific pieces of music in the database.

Fundamentally, the algorithm carries out an analysis of the audio spectrum of samples from each track and is “taught” by human users, which spectral patterns are associated with given moods. It can thus automatically classify future sound files with which it is presented across a range of musical genres: alternative rock, classical, jazz, opera and rock. Artists including Coldplay, Maroon 5, Linda Eder, Imogen Heap, Paco De Lucia, Nina Sky, Dave Brubek and many others were analysed, the team says.

“Parametrisation and correlation analysis applied to music mood classification” in Int. J. Computational Intelligence Studies, 2013, 2, 4-25

Mood music is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/mood-music.html

Special issue: "Digital Signal and Image Processing Applications"

International Journal of Signal and Imaging Systems Engineering 6(3) 2013

• Improved speaker identification in wireless environment
• Pitch-based cepstral features for gender classification in noisy environments
• Analysis and interpretation of weld flaws using ANN
• Modified FFT features for fingerprint matching
• Visual-cryptography-based blind watermarking scheme for copyright protection
• Hindi phoneme-viseme recognition from continuous speech
• Raga identification of Carnatic music based on the construction of Raga model
• Comparative evaluation of denoising methods on brain CT images
• A robust approach for background subtraction with shadow removal for moving object detection

Ingested nanoparticle safety

Ingestion of commonly encountered nanoparticles at typical environmental levels is unlikely to cause overt toxicity, according to US researchers. Nevertheless there is insufficient evidence to determine whether chronic exposures could lead to subtle alterations in intestinal immune function, protein profiles, or microbial balance.

Writing in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Biomedical Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, researchers have compared existing laboratory and experimental animal studies pertaining to the toxicity of nanoparticles most likely to be intentionally or accidentally ingested. Based on their review, the researchers determined ingestion of nanoparticles at likely exposure levels is unlikely to cause health problems, at least with respect to acute toxicity. Furthermore, in vitro laboratory testing, which often shows toxicity at a cellular level, does not correspond well with in vivo testing, which tends to show less adverse effects.

Ingrid Bergin in the Unit for Laboratory Animal Medicine, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and Frank Witzmann in the Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology, at Indiana University School of Medicine, in Indianapolis, explain that the use of particles that are in the nano size range (from 1 billionth to 100 billionths of a meter in diameter, 1-100 nm, other thereabouts) are finding applications in consumer products and medicine. These include particles such as nanosilver, which is increasingly used in consumer products and dietary supplements for its purported antimicrobial properties. Nanoparticles can have some intriguing and useful properties because they do not necessarily behave in the same chemical and physical ways as non-nanoparticle versions of the same material.

Nanoparticles are now used as natural flavor enhancers in the form of liposomes and related materials, food pigments and in some so-called “health supplements”. They are also used in antibacterial toothbrushes coated with silver nanoparticles, for instance in food and drink containers and in hygienic infant feeding equipment. They are also used to carry pharmaceuticals to specific disease sites in the body to reduce side effects. Nanoparticles actually encompass a very wide range of materials from pure metals and alloys, to metal oxide nanoparticles, and carbon-based and plastic nanoparticles. Because of their increasing utilization in consumer products, there has been concern over whether these small scale materials could have unique toxicity effects when compared to more traditional versions of the same materials.

Difficulties in assessing the health risks of nanoparticles include the fact that particles of differing materials and shapes can have different properties. Furthermore, the route of exposure (e.g. ingestion vs. inhalation) affects the likelihood of toxicity. The U.S. researchers evaluated the current literature specifically with respect to toxicity of ingested nanoparticles. They point out that, in addition to intentional ingestion as with dietary supplements, unintentional ingestion can occur due to nanoparticle presence in water or as a breakdown product from coated consumer goods. Inhaled nanoparticles also represent an ingestion hazard since they are coughed up, swallowed, and eliminated through the intestinal tract.

Based on their review, the team concludes that, “Ingested nanoparticles appear unlikely to have acute or severe toxic effects at typical levels of exposure.” Nevertheless, they add that the current literature is inadequate to assess whether nanoparticles can accumulate in tissues and have long-term effects or whether they might cause subtle alterations in gut microbial populations. The researchers stress that better methods are needed for correlating particle concentrations used for cell-based assessment of toxicity with the actual likely exposure levels to body cells. Such methods may lead to better predictive value for laboratory in vitro testing, which currently over-predicts toxicity of ingested nanoparticles as compared to in vivo testing.

“Nanoparticle toxicity by the gastrointestinal route: evidence and knowledge gaps” in Int. J. Biomed Nanosci Nanotechnol, 2013, 3, 163-210

Ingested nanoparticle safety is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/ingested-nanoparticle-safety.html

Call for papers: "Information Technology and Intellectual Property Law"

For a special issue of the Int. J. of Information and Communication Technology.

The application of information technology has been expanded and extended to every society in the world. It has a strong connection and association with many areas such as business, engineering, science, healthcare, arts and public administration. Particularly, students from all ages are exposed to the Internet and to online information at different levels from K-12 to higher education. A part of their daily life relies on social networking and cloud computing services for connecting with friends and taking advantage of online services for learning. With mobile technology becoming more common and accessible, the population of and activity in the cyberworld will continue to grow tremendously.

With the growth of the cyberworld, the level of cybercrime will continue to increase and poses a serious threat to online users now and in the future. The limitations of the current law systems which vary between countries create a real challenge in formulating any solution to combat the cybercrime. In addition, the protection of intellectual property rights such as raised privacy and copyright and freedom of expression issues are critical issues in the cyberworld. The future challenge of how to protect intellectual property from violation both in the real world and cyberworld requires further efforts in research.

We solicit high-quality original research papers (including significant works-in-progress) in any aspect of information technology and intellectual property law, e.g. copyrights, patent and design law, trademarks, software and hardware systems, telecommunications, e-business, data protection and privacy, and information and communications technology crime.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• Intellectual property rights
• Copyright law
• The law of confidence
• Patent law
• Design law
• Trademarks
• Copyright and computer programs
• Database copyright and the database right
• Criminal offences
• Information technology contracts
• Liability for defective hardware or software
• Contracts for writing software
• License agreements
• Open source software
• Website development
• Hardware contracts
• Cybercrime
• Computer fraud
• Hacking
• Content crimes
• Data protection and privacy
• Data controllers and the data protection
• Data subjects’ rights
• Freedom of information
• Privacy in electronic communications
• Professional and social issues of information and communications technology
• Computer professionals
• The impact of ICT on society

Important Dates

Submission of papers: 1 April, 2014
Notification of acceptance: 1 July, 2014
Final papers due: 1 September, 2014

Special issue: "Modelling of Emerging Internet Services: Social Networks and Crowdsourcing"

International Journal of Communication Networks and Distributed Systems 11(1) 2013

• Towards Future Internet services through crowdsourcing-based sensor platforms
• From sensing to controlling: the state of the art in ubiquitous crowdsourcing
• Improved concept-based query expansion using Wikipedia
• Formation and interaction patterns in social crowdsourcing environments
• Measuring message propagation and social influence on Twitter.com
• On user perception of safety in online social networks

Regular Paper

• AODV-based technique for quick and secure local recovery from link failures in MANETs

Special issue: "Knowledge Sharing within Knowledge Intensive Organisations"

International Journal of Information Technology and Management 12(3/4) 2013

• Understanding the effect of organisational reward on knowledge sharing: the role of exchange ideology and knowledge sharing visibility
• To share or not to share? Research-knowledge sharing in higher education institution: preliminary results
• Successful knowledge sharing in virtual projects - a review of an EU FP7 project
• Knowledge lost in translation: the role of knowledge brokers in knowledge transfer
• On the praxeological dimension of organisational knowledge conversion: the example of a 'professionalisation year' for trainee teachers in French agricultural education
• Inter-organisational knowledge sharing in regional sustainable development communities
• The development and application of a community maturity model
• Organisational knowledge management capability: a multi case study
• KM versus enterprise 2.0: a framework to tame the clash
• Success of enterprise wiki systems

Inderscience is media partner for 17-ICIT

Inderscience is a media partner for 17th International Conference on ISO & TQM (23-25 August 2013, Sydney, Australia).

The journal involved is the International Journal of Strategic Business Alliances.

Special issue: "SMEs after the Crisis or In Between?"

International Journal of Globalisation and Small Business 5(3) 2013

• Micro and small business in Brazil: asymmetries and financial fragility
• Entrepreneurship and small business in Eastern Europe: overcoming challenges, sustaining growth
• Revisiting the prescription of corporate governance standards: a panacea for big players and SMEs in the German financial industry alike?
• Liquidity, probability of bankruptcy and the corporate life cycle: the evidence from Czech Republic
• SMEs can overcome challenges and improve sustainability through preventive management strategies: some empirical evidences from a cluster of chemical industries in Western India

Call for papers: "Organisational and Community Aspects of Crowdfunding"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Web Based Communities.

As the economic crisis continues, an urgent need for alternative financing forms arises. Many nonprofit organisations are facing reductions of government grants and start-up companies are having difficulties getting funding from banks or other investors. Crowdfunding is a new way of funding that facilitates financing from a large number of – often distant - strangers and thus may reduce important market failures in the provision of public and market goods (Agrawal et al 2011).

Crowdfunding is the raising of funding from large audiences approached via social networks or social media. Usually, each individual funder provides a small amount. Lambert and Schwienbacher (2010) defined crowdfunding as “an open call, essentially through the internet, for the provision of financial resources either in the form of donation or in exchange for some form of reward and/or voting rights in order to support initiatives for specific purposes”. Crowdfunding has been in existence since 2006 when SellABand started their first crowdfunding platform for musicians. Nowadays crowdfunding is applied for a variety of purposes: financing start-up companies, nonprofit organisations, scientific research, political campaigns and individual financial needs. Target amounts vary from a few hundred to several million dollars. Crowdfunding campaigns can be targeted on existing communities – benefiting from social networking patterns of existing community members – or give rise to the creation of a new community.

Four different crowdfunding types can be distinguished based on the reward that a funder gets in return for his/her financial contribution (Crowdsourcing.org 2012; Griffin 2012). In the case of donation-basedcrowdfunding, funders donate to causes that they want to support, with no expected compensation (i.e. philanthropic- or sponsorship-based incentive). In reward-based crowdfunding, funders’ primary objective for funding is to gain nonfinancial reward, such as a token or a first-edition release. In lending-basedcrowdfunding initiatives, funders receive a fixed periodic income and expect repayment of the original principal investment. Finally, equity-based crowdfunding refers to cases in which funders receive compensation in the form of fundraiser’s revenue or profit-share. Donation- and reward-based crowdfunding are typically used by cultural heritage and charity organisations since no repayment of the funding is required and are therefore identical to subsidies. Equity- and lending-based crowdfunding can be considered as substitutes for financing by banks, venture capitalists or business angels.

We are seeking original manuscripts on conceptual and methodological issues related to research on organisational aspects of crowdfunding as well as papers which report on the results of empirical research in the field. Papers can focus on particular crowdfunding initiatives or a particular type or category of crowdfunding and also more general outcomes. We particularly welcome papers that translate findings into theorising of crowdfunders, crowdfunding community behavior, and governance. Since crowdfunding is a relative new phenomenon, we would like to stimulate explorative qualitative research – eventually in combination with the mining of crowdfunding platform system data – to uncover unknown patterns in crowd or community behavior and governance.

References:

Agrawal, A., Catalini, C., Goldfarb, A. 2011. The geography of crowdfunding. NBER Working Paper, No. 16820.
Crowdsourcing.org. 2012. Industry report crowdfunding; market trends, composition and crowdfunding platforms. http://www.crowdfunding.nl/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/92834651-Massolution-abridged-Crowd-Funding-Industry-Report1.pdf.
Griffin, Z. 2012. Crowdfunding: fleecing the American masses. Journal of Law, Technology & the Internet. Forthcoming.
Lambert, T., Schwienbacher, A. 2010. An empirical analysis of crowdfunding. Working paper Louvain School of Management, Louvain-de-Neuve.http://www.crosnerlegal.com/images/47770544_An_Empirical_Analysis_of_Crowdfunding.pdf.

We specifically encourage submission of papers related to organisational and community aspects of crowdfunding: what are relevant research results that contribute to the understanding of individual crowdfunders and the role of the community, the implications for managing crowdfunding campaigns successfully, and the provision of (new) guidelines for governance of communities of crowdfunders?

Suitable topics may include, but are not limited, to the following:

1. Characteristics of crowdfunders

• Motivations for making a positive decision-to-donate or decision–to-finance
• Typology of crowdfunders in terms of amounts donated or invested
• Influence of crowdfunding community resulting in a sense of belonging
• Social distance to crowdfunding creator
• Geographic dispersion (local versus distant funders)
• Return expectations (financial return on investment, social return on investment, other)

We would like to emphasise that crowdfunders characteristics may vary for donation- , reward- , equity- or lending-based crowdfunding.

2. Patterns in crowdfunding campaigns

• Relation between target amounts, number of crowdfunders, duration of crowdfunding campaign
• Conditions influencing success rate (e.g. campaigns yielding 100% or more of target amount)
• Overrun on target amount (not applicable for equity-based crowdfunding)
• Influence of [social] networking factors when a crowdfunding campaign is targeted at existing communities
• Influence of accumulated capital and herding, role of early stage investors
• Bystander and free-rider effects - a reduction in the propensity to fund by new individuals because of the perception that the target will be reached anyway
• Overcoming the slowdown in the middle of crowdfunding campaign
• Effects of incentives and disincentives
• Role of nonfinancial contributions of crowdfunders (participation in organisational activities, promotion in person’s own network, ideation)

3. Position of crowdfunding platforms in crowdfunding community

• Marketplace, broker, trustee (e.g. reducing the risks of crowdfunders through preselection, due diligence, or reducing information asymmetry in underlying investment, ensuring that creators meet their obligations such as repayment of lending-based crowdfunding or adequate spending of donations to charity organisation)
• Enhancing network effects to crowdfunding creators and crowdfunders

4. Impact on crowdfunding creator

• Creation and maintenance of online community of crowdfunders
• Transparency on organisation’s information including financial information
• Progress reporting, continuance social media campaigns
• Formal and informal obligations (voting rights, feedback possibilities)
• Governance of crowdfunders
• Democratisation of crowdfunded organisations

5. Sector-specific requirements

• Start-up companies, social ventures
• Charity organisations
• Involvement public or governmental organisations
• Arts and culture
• Scientific research

Important Dates
Abstract submission: 1 September 2013
(Abstracts should have a length of maximum 1500 words, excluding references)
Notification of acceptance: 15 September 2013
Full paper submission: 1 November 2013
Report reviewers: 1 January 2013
Revised submission: 1 February 2014
Final acceptance notification: 15 January 2014

Special issue: "Body Sensor Networks"

International Journal of Autonomous and Adaptive Communications Systems 6(3) 2013

• Behavioural reconfigurable and adaptive data reduction in body sensor networks
• Short-range wireless sensor network for critical care monitoring
• Random access parameter control for reliable u-healthcare services with highly loaded BAN traffic
• Characterising and minimising sources of error in inertial body sensor networks
• Adaptive and personalised body networking
• A novel approach to multi-sensor data synchronisation using mobile phones

New editor for the International Journal of Strategic Business Alliances

Professor Mosad Zineldin has been appointed as the new Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal for Strategic Business Alliances. Professor Zineldin is from the Faculty of Business and Economics at Linnaeus University in Sweden.

Special issue: "Advances in Affective Computing"

International Journal of Computational Intelligence Studies 2(1) 2013

• Parametrisation and correlation analysis applied to music mood classification
• Emotion-oriented agent in mental state transition learning network
• Modelling basic needs as agent motivations
• Face-voice stimuli distract infants' attention from intermodal detection of numerical invariant

First issue: International Journal of Convergence Computing (free sample issue available)

An increasing number of researchers and scholars now realise that ways of finding new techniques and methods of convergence computing which are better, faster and more accurate than traditional optimal computing are a very important research direction. The International Journal of Convergence Computing publishes papers that address new theories and methods of optimal computing and their corresponding applications in the context of system science and engineering, information and control, algorithms and analysis, computer vision and pattern recognition, computational biology and genome informatics, etc.

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

Special issue: "Bio-Inspired Techniques for Complex Systems"

International Journal of Advanced Intelligence Paradigms 5(1/2) 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the First International Conference on Soft Computing for Problem Solving (SocProS 2011).

• Analysis of electrode thickness variation on performance parameters of polymer thin film transistors using device simulation
• Structure stability analysis of Nin(n = 2 - 22) using nature inspired algorithms: a performance study
• Improved shuffled frog leaping algorithm for continuous optimisation adapted SEVO toolbox
• Route discovery in cellular networks using soft computing techniques
• Stigmergic agent-based adaptive content sequencing in an e-learning environment
• Dynamic promotional allocation for multi-products in segmented market under first and repeat purchase behaviour
• Enhancing different phases of artificial bee colony for continuous global optimisation problems
• Artificial bee colony algorithm: a survey

Call for papers: "Emerging Technologies for Ubiquitous Communications, Computing and Applications in Ad-hoc Networks"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing.

Wireless communications and ubiquitous computing in ad-hoc networks have received considerable attention in literature. In general, wireless sensor networks, vehicular ad-hoc networks and wireless social networks can be treated as ad-hoc networks with different constraints. The ubiquitous computing developed based on ad-hoc networks further supports humans for information access at any time and any place.

However, ubiquitous computing in ad-hoc networks faces various challenges such as network scalability, energy limitations, inaccurate location information, interoperability, connectivity and security. Emerging technologies that improve the efficiency of ubiquitous computing include distributed computing, embedded systems, mobile computing, wearable computers and so forth.

This special issue seeks original and high-quality contributions such as works in progress and experimental and theoretical research in emerging technologies for ubiquitous communications, computing and applications in ad-hoc networks.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• Hardware and architecture for MANETs and WSNs
• Protocol and algorithm designs for MANETs, WSNs or VANETs
• Ubiquitous computing for ad-hoc networks
• Power-aware and energy-efficient design for MANETs or WSNs
• Security, privacy and trust for MANETs or VANETs
• Distributed technologies for ubiquitous computing
• Resource allocation for MANETs and VANETs
• Routing protocols for ad-hoc wireless networks
• Simulation, modelling and analysis for ad-hoc wireless networks
• Services and applications for ad-hoc wireless networks 

Important Dates

Submission deadline: 7 December, 2013 (extended)

First round of review: 28 February, 2014

Notification of acceptance: 30 May, 2014

Special issue: "Engineered Nanomaterials – Toxicology and Potential Health Effects"

International Journal of Biomedical Nanoscience and Nanotechnology 3(1/2) 2013

• Predictive toxicological paradigm and high throughput approach for toxicity screening of engineered nanomaterials
• Using zebrafish to study the biological impact of metal and metal oxide nanoparticles
• Preparation of water soluble carbon nanotubes and assessment of their biological activity in embryonic zebrafish
• Engineered nanomaterial interactions with bilayer lipid membranes: screening platforms to assess nanoparticle toxicity
• Aggregation behaviour of carbon nanotubes in aqueous and physiological media and its influence on toxicity
• Nickel contamination on MWCNT is related to particle bioactivity but not toxicity in the THP-1 transformed macrophage model
• Protein expression profiles of intestinal epithelial co-cultures: effect of functionalised carbon nanotube exposure
• Nanoparticle toxicity by the gastrointestinal route: evidence and knowledge gaps
• Biosynthesis of monodispersed silver nanoparticles and their activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Call for papers: "Mobility Management and Wireless Access"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing.

Over the last few years there has been a huge growth in the area of access to wireless networks as well as in mobility management. As a consequence, today we use a large number of mobile devices that use wireless links to communicate.

In addition, mobility management and wireless access are still very relevant topics in the research arena that lead to a large number of related events wherein researchers and professionals present new advances that aim to provide users with a better day-to-day experience. For instance, in the recent years some commercial airlines have started providing their clients with internet access during the flight duration.

Therefore, this special issue aims at receiving significant contributions that extend the current state of the art with innovative ideas and solutions in the broad area of mobility management and wireless access.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the 11th ACM International Symposium on Mobility Management and Wireless Access (Mobiwac 2013), but we also strongly encourage researchers unable to participate in the conference to submit articles for this special issue.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to the following in the context of pervasive and ubiquitous computing:

• Mobile cloud computing
• Wireless/mobile access protocols
• Wireless/mobile web access
• Wireless internet and all-IP integration
• Next-generation wireless systems
• Mobile broadband wireless access
• Pervasive communication and computing
• Ubiquitous and mobile access
• Wireless applications and testbeds
• Multi-homing and vertical handoff
• Multi-channel multi-radio MAC/network layer management
• Channel and resource allocation algorithms
• Energy and power management algorithms
• Multi-technology switching using software-defined radios
• Context-aware services and applications
• Context-aware protocols and protocol architectures
• Interactive applications
• Mobile database management
• Wireless multimedia protocols
• Mobile and wireless entertainment
• Mobile info-services
• Social mobile networks
• Social mobile applications
• QoS management
• Mobility control and management
• Localisation and tracking
• Mobile/vehicular environment access
• Wireless ad hoc and sensor networks
• Security, trust management and privacy issues
• Fault tolerance solutions
• Wireless systems design
• Analysis/simulation of wireless mobile systems
• Testbeds for experimental and simulation analysis

Important Dates
Paper submission: 10 February, 2014 (extended)
First notification: 1 May, 2014
Revised manuscript submission: 1 July, 2014
Final decision: 1 September, 2014

Inderscience journals to publish expanded papers from MCSoC-13

Expanded versions of papers presented at the International Symposium on Embedded Multicore/Many-core System-on-Chip (26-28 September 2013, Tokyo, Japan) will be published by the following journals:

• International Journal of Adaptive and Innovative Systems
• International Journal of Embedded Systems

Food contamination after the Chernobyl accident

The impact of the Chernobyl nuclear accident has been seriously overestimated, while unfounded statements presented as scientific facts have been used to strangle the nuclear industry, according to Russian researchers. Writing in the International Journal of Low Radiation, Sergei Jargin of the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia in Moscow, suggests that the health effects of food contamination in particular have been distorted in anti-industry propaganda.

Jargin has analyzed the scientific research literature and after the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident, and has investigated the motives and mechanisms of the overestimation of medical risks in an attempt to finally clarify the issues surrounding the Chernobyl legacy. He points out that there are examples in the literature that he considers inaccurate. Moreover, many of these publications cite what Jargin refers to as “numerous references to mass media, websites of unclear affiliation and commercial editions, used to corroborate scientific views,” as opposed to properly referenced, peer-reviewed scientific publications.

“Today, there are no alternatives to nuclear power: fossil fuels will become increasingly expensive, contributing to excessive population growth in fuel-producing countries and poverty elsewhere,” the Jargin says. He adds that, “Natural sources of power generation like wind, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric power and electricity from combustible renewables and waste will make a contribution, but their share in the global energy balance is too small.” It is likely that at some point in the future nuclear fusion reactors will become a viable replacement for the fission reactors we have today, but for the time being, “nuclear energy should be managed and supervised by a powerful international executive,” concludes Jargin. Robust due diligence with regard to sociopolitical, geographic, geologic, and other pre-conditions would also help prevent future accidents.

“Food contamination after the Chernobyl accident: dose assessments and health effects” in Int. J. Low Radiation, 2013, 9, 23-29

Food contamination after the Chernobyl accident is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/food-contamination-after-the-chernobyl-accident.html

Call for papers: "Entrepreneurship and Piracy"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business.
On the one hand, things could not be clearer. Piracy is a problem rather than a key for economic de-velopment and growth. Be it in South East Asia (Vagg, 1995), the Western Indian Ocean (Dua, 2013) or on the Internet (Peitz and Waelbroeck, 2006), piracy represents a – maybe partially excusable – deviation from the standard case of productivity enhancing entrepreneurial activities (Eckhardt and Shane, 2003). Even if piracy can sometimes be considered an act of emancipation, it remains a form of informal economic activities that calls for a re-embedding into the formal economy (Webb et al., 2009) or simply has to be prevented (Sinha and Mandel, 2008).

Walking the lines of yesterday’s grassroots and today’s grasshopper capitalism, the freebooter is a token for a politico-economic tertium datur and dreaded and condemned by both the conservative and the progressive establishment: product piracy represents an attack on both the wealth of a nation and its social or ecological standards. IPR piracy undermines both the business models of developed economies and the indigenous rights of its creative classes. Robbery on the international seaways clearly calls for military interventions because the pirates violate the intimate rights not only of the merchants on the high seas, but also of the human nature in their failed states’ home environments. The worst case of piracy is probably bio-piracy (Odek, 1994), i.e. the act of robbing Gaia’s own genetic resources. A pirate is virtually an economic terrorist.

On the other hand, the concept of piracy has obviously struck a chord for quite some time already. Neither paragon nor pariah (Smith, 1980), the pirate emerged as a role model attractive to larger parts of the creative classes, which are actually said to suffer most from piracy. Even more so, as a label, piracy is the least common denominator of both the business models and the political lobby of the growing number of digital nomads and natives, while acclaimed information piracy springs wikileaks and streams the stuff digital heroes are made of.

Anti-piracy is therefore increasingly considered an old-school form of pro-capitalist propaganda (Yar, 2008) and power politics directed against the core values, creative potential and (social) entrepreneurial activities of the recent fibre-roots movements. Besides, recent research has found that product piracy can have positive effects even for the victims, which is true for cases whenever the copy of a product multiplies the publicity and the value of the original (De Castro et al., 2008).

Within the tension zone of these two contradicting perspectives, the question of whether particular individuals or groups are pirates or entrepreneurs (Atsushi, 2010) is as hard to answer today as it has always been throughout the entire history of the concept. Piracy therefore calls into reconsideration the question for legitimate business models (Choi and Perez, 2007) as well as the question for frameworks that are sufficiently consistent in defining the legitimacy of entrepreneurial activities. Looking at the history of piracy, we find this question located at the very heart of the wealth of the then-emerging nations, as the answer to the question of whether a privateer was considered a legitimate politico-economic entrepreneur or warranted the death penalty depended very much on whose of the compet-ing nation’s Letter of Marque the freebooter held.

The present call is therefore for contributions that focus on the line between entrepreneurship and piracy from a non-patriotic perspective. Successful submissions will not implicitly consider entrepre-neurs as functional and pirates as dysfunctional chessmen in a game of international innovation com-petition. Rather, they will challenge the distinction of entrepreneur and pirate itself, or look at piracy and entrepreneurship through pirates’ eyes.

In doing so, conceptual or empirical submissions could focus on contemporary or historical examples of pirate entrepreneurship. Who has labelled which forms of entrepreneurial activities as piracy? How has piracy contributed to regional economic development? Which particular forms of political environ-ments have an elective affinity for piracy? How do pirates share the booty? Which forms of (self-) organisation have been realised by pirate organisations? What are, or could be, past, present or future pirate business models? Who are or have been major antagonists and allies of pirate entrepreneurs? How is piracy related to congenial concepts, such as hacking or hacktivism? How about piracy and creative destruction? Is there a measurable link between piracy and creativity? Is piracy a feature, tool, or virtue of emerging economies? What maps do pirates have of the blue ocean?

References
Atsushi, O. (2010) "Pirates or Entrepreneurs?" The Migration and Trade of Sea People in Southwest Kalimantan, c. 1770-1820', Indonesia, No. 90, pp. 67-95.
Choi, D.Y. and Perez, A. (2007) 'Online piracy, innovation, and legitimate business models', Technovation, Vol. 27, No. 4, pp. 168-178.
De Castro, J.O., Balkin, D.B. and Shepherd, D.A. (2008) 'Can entrepreneurial firms benefit from product piracy?', Journal of Business Venturing, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 75-90.
Dua, J. (2013) 'A sea of trade and a sea of fish: piracy and protection in the Western Indian Ocean', Journal of Eastern African Studies, No. ahead-of-print, pp. 1-18.
Eckhardt, J.T. and Shane, S.A. (2003) 'Opportunities and entrepreneurship', Journal of management, Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 333-349.
Odek, J.O. (1994) 'Bio-piracy: creating proprietary rights in plant genetic resources', J. Intell. Prop. L., Vol. 2, p. 141.
Peitz, M. and Waelbroeck, P. (2006) 'Piracy of digital products: A critical review of the theoretical literature', Information Economics and Policy, Vol. 18, No. 4, pp. 449-476.
Sinha, R.K. and Mandel, N. (2008) 'Preventing digital music piracy: the carrot or the stick?', Journal of Marketing, Vol. 72, No. 1, pp. 1-15.
Smith, D.C. (1980) 'Paragons, pariahs, and pirates: a spectrum-based theory of enterprise', Crime & Delinquency, Vol. 26, No. 3, pp. 358-386.
Vagg, J. (1995) 'Rough Seas? Contemporary Piracy in South East Asia', British Journal of Criminology, Vol. 35, No. 1, pp. 63-80.
Webb, J.W., Tihanyi, L., Ireland, R.D. and Sirmon, D.G. (2009) 'You say illegal, I say legitimate: Entrepreneurship in the informal economy', Academy of Management Review, Vol. 34, No. 3, pp. 492-510.
Yar, M. (2008) 'The rhetorics and myths of anti-piracy campaigns: criminalization, moral pedagogy and capitalist property relations in the classroom', New Media & Society, Vol. 10, No. 4, pp. 605-623.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• The history, lessons learned, and history repeated of piracy
• Piracy, organisation and self-organisation
• Piracy, moral and pirate codes
• Piracy and emerging markets
• Buccaneer and entrepreneurial lifestyles
• Safe harbours, buried treasure and blue oceans
• Booties, bounties and business models
• Spaces and places, roots and routes of contemporary piracy
• The risks, pains and pleasures of piracy
• Lessons learned from the early days of piracy
• Role models and examples of modern pirate heroes
• Piracy: exit strategies and retirement modes
• Piracy as attribute, label and brand
• Social footprints of piracy
• Entrepreneurial and economic policies of pirate parties
• Priveteerism and regional development
• Letters of marque: where to get them, and at what costs?
• Vessels, weapons, strategies and targets of contemporary piracy 

Important Dates
Full paper submission: 20 January, 2014
Feedback: 20 March, 2014
Revisions due: 20 April, 2014

Int. J. of Sustainable Aviation to publish expanded papers from IGEC-8

Expanded versions of papers presented at the 8th International Green Energy Conference (17-19 June 2013, Kyiv, Ukraine) will be published by the International Journal of Sustainable Aviation.

Inderscience journals to publish expanded papers from IEEES-6

Expanded versions of papers presented at the Sixth International Exergy, Energy and Environment Symposium (1-4 July 2013, Rize, Turkey) will be published by the following journals:

• International Journal of Exergy
• International Journal of Global Warming
• International Journal of Sustainable Aviation

Int. J. of Sustainable Manufacturing to publish expanded papers from EcoDesign 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the 8th International Symposium on Environmentally Conscious Design and Inverse Manufacturing (4-6 December 2013, Jeju Island, South Korea) will be published by the International Journal of Sustainable Manufacturing.

Special issue: "Tourist Behaviour: Current Trends and Issues"

International Journal of Tourism Anthropology 3(1) 2013

• Towards understanding youth travel experiences in cultural heritage destinations: an integrated framework of youth cultural tourists' behaviour
• Will tourists pay for a healthy environment? Assessing visitors' perceptions and willingness to pay for conservation and preservation in the island of Koh Phi Phi, Thailand
• Relationship between nationality and tourists' behaviour: case of Middle East tourists in Malaysia from tour guides perspective
• Linking island tourist activity participation and satisfaction - evidence from Fiji
• "Tao follows its own way" and tourists' behaviour ecologicalisation: philosophical enlightenment from Chinese Taoism
• Factors influencing self-drive vacation travellers' length of stay

Int. J. of Computer Applications in Technology to publish expanded papers from World E-Conference on Computer Science

Expanded versions of papers presented at the 2013 World E-Conference on Computer Science (2-13 June 2013, Amsterdam, Netherlands) will be published by the International Jouirnal of Computer Applications in Technology.

Special issue: "Trends and Future of Sustainable Development"

Progress in Industrial Ecology, An International Journal 7(4) 2012

Includes expanded versions of papers presented at the 13th International FFRC Conference.

• Beyond the 'indicator industry': use and potential influences of sustainable development indicators in Finland and the EU
• Sustainable development as a guide to the energy technology revolution
• Integrated water resources management - a paradigm to sustainable development in Lao PDR?
• Ecological assessment of developing carbon sequestration in Shenyang, China

Special issue: "Computational Mechanics and Methods in Applied Materials Engineering"

International Journal of Materials Engineering Innovation 4(2) 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the Young Investigators Conference (YIC2012).

• Modelling and simulation of damage in woven fabric composites on meso-macro level using the independent mesh method
• Inverse analysis methodology on metal sheets for constitutive parameters identification
• Splitting methods for relaxation two-phase flow models
• A study on the influence of different variables for determination of flow stress using hydraulic bulge test
• Proper orthogonal decomposition-based model reduction for non-linear biomechanical analysis
• Framework for adaptive fluid-structure interaction with industrial applications
• Pre-strain effect on springback of 2D draw bending

Newly announced journal: International Journal of Data Science

With the Age of Big Data upon us, we risk drowning in a flood of digital data. Big data spans five dimensions (volume, variety, velocity, volatility and veracity), generally steered towards one critical destination - value. Big data has now become a critical part of the business world and daily life. Containing big information and big knowledge, big data does indeed have big value. The International Journal of Data Science confronts the challenges of extracting a fountain of knowledge from "mountains" of big data.

Special issue: "Advanced Software Engineering and its Applications"

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology 47(2/3) 2013

• Prioritisation of software requirements using grey relational analysis
• Empirical model for predicting high, medium and low severity faults using object oriented metrics in Mozilla Firefox
• Towards an institution for Object-Z specifications
• Towards formalising use case maps in Maude strategy language: application to multi-agent systems
• A heuristic approach to locate candidate web service in legacy software
• Object Petri nets marking using UML
• A fuzzy traceability vector model for requirements validation
• Spatial indexing of static maps for navigation in online GIS: application for tourism web GIS
• Image segmentation of noisy digital images using extended fuzzy C-means clustering algorithm
• Performance evaluation of incremental decision tree learning under noisy data streams
• Extensions to ciphertext-policy attribute-based encryption to support distributed environments
• Validation environment of UML2 IOD based on hierarchical coloured Petri nets

Regularly Submitted Papers

• Improved bee colony algorithm based on knowledge strategy for digital filter design
• Bacterial foraging based moon symmetry axis estimation for spacecraft attitude determination
• A new single-mixture source separation method
• A self-organisation particle swarm optimisation algorithm based on L norm multi-measurements diversity feedback
• Ensemble learning for generalised eigenvalues proximal support vector machines
• An improved multi-objective genetic algorithm for fuzzy flexible job-shop scheduling problem
• A novel artificial bee colony algorithm for solving the supply chain network design under disruption scenarios
• A modified artificial bee colony algorithm with its applications in signal processing

Inderscience is media partner for Gas Storage 2013

Inderscience is a media partner for Gas Storage 2013 (19-20 June 2013, London, UK).

The journals involved are:

• International Journal of Energy Technology and Policy
• International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology
• International Journal of Petroleum Engineering
• International Journal of Risk Assessment and Management

Call for papers: "Technology Enhanced Formative Assessment (TEFA)"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning.

Today, learning often occurs collaboratively in learner networks. Formal learning is combined with informal learning and learners use, for example, personalised and personal learning environments adapted to their needs and preferences.

Formative assessment has already demonstrated its positive impact on learning in general. It helps learners to become self-regulated. Providing feedback is an approach to support self-monitoring that is essential during self-regulated learning. Amongst other possibilities, formative assessment is a means to generate feedback and to increase learners’ motivation and learning performance.

While in a general sense any assessment can be used for formative or summative purposes, more genuinely formative assessment needs to provide (a) rich, detailed information on learning (content and process), (b) information that provides guidance on how to improve learning, and (c) opportunities to actively construct an understanding to regulated learning, with negotiability amongst the stakeholders.

Furthermore, information technology allows not only the generation of feedback based on dedicated assessment (e.g. tests, quizzes), but also the use of a wider range of assessment items (e.g. free text) and, indeed, to exploit the information contained in the work/learning process (e.g. log files analysis of student activities in a virtual learning environment).

A final set of challenges arises from the fact that people who are not assessment experts conduct formative assessment: teachers, trainers, and the students themselves. Not only does this require educating the users (including parents and employers), but it also means that the division of labour between those who develop, deploy, are subjected to, and interpret assessments needs to be re-thought.

This special issue will focus on formative assessment as a support for learning in today’s innovative technology enhanced learning (TEL) environments.

The issue will bring together contributions in TEL that deal with approaches and innovative assessment technologies that support the transition from current assessment scenarios towards the development of novel forms of e-assessment through which different types of knowledge and skills are evaluated, continuous feedback is provided, and students are more engaged in the learning process. Contributions are expected in the area of TEL from different fields (technology-based assessment, educational measurement, IT&TEL, pedagogy, teacher education, educational psychology, etc.), which provide insights into how formative assessment could enhance motivation and learning in TEL environments.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• Formative assessment in adaptive systems
• Formative assessment for users with special needs
• Formative assessment for 21st century skills
• Mobile assessment
• Feedback technologies
• Integrated e-assessment, embedded assessment
• Location-based/context-aware educational feedback
• (Automated) item design and generation
• Automated analysis of open answers
• Alignment of formative and summative feedback
• Peer-assessment
• Learning analytics for assessment purposes
• Standard-conform e-assessment, flexible e-assessment, interoperable e-assessment
• e-assessment in complex learning - i.e. collaborative learning, serious games, 3D worlds and digital stories, discussion forums
• Learning analytics and assessment
• Assessment rubrics 

Important Dates

Deadline for paper submission: 3 March, 2014
Completion of first review: 30 April, 2014
Revision due: 31 May, 2014
Final decision notification: 30 June, 2014

First issue: International Journal of Qualitative Research in Services (free sample issue available)

Thanks to the silent revolution of 'tertiarisation' that has been happening for the last hundred or more years, the service sector now accounts for some 80-90% of the economies of the developed world and is also the fastest-growing sector. Qualitative research is ideally suited to exploring the nature and characteristics of services, particularly given the intangibility element involved. The International Journal of Qualitative Research in Services disseminates high-quality, peer-reviewed research, providing an avenue for methodological innovations and insights in qualitative research specifically applied to services.

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

Special issue: "Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Applications"

International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Technology 7(4) 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the Sweden-Japan Joint Colloquium ‘Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Applications.

• Multi-physics modelling of nuclear reactors: current practices in a nutshell
• Predicting actual reactor conditions: why time-domain simulation is necessary for BWR stability
• Characterisation of training scenarios for BWR operator training
• Triaxial rotor model for the study of the nuclear structure and transition between different symmetries in nuclei for A = 120-200 mass region
• Band moment of inertia of identical SD bands in A = 190 mass region
• Design of instrumentation for control and safety rod drive mechanisms of prototype fast breeder reactor
• Covariant treatment of collisions in particle physics

Inderscience is media partner for Distributed Energy Storage 2013

Inderscience is a media partner for Distributed Energy Storage 2013 (17-18 June 2013, London, UK).

The journals involved are:

• International Journal of Enterprise Network Management
• International Journal of Energy Technology and Policy
• International Journal of Global Energy Issues
• International Journal of Integrated Supply Management
• International Journal of Power and Energy Conversion
• International Journal of Smart Grid and Green Communications

Call for papers: "New Facets of Old Risk: A Quantitative Approach"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Financial Engineering and Risk Management.

For this special issue, we invite the submission of original high-quality research papers on all aspects of risks in a changing economic, financial and regulatory environment, with a special emphasis on, but not limited to, market, commodity, credit and liquidity risks. Papers related to these themes but with a more numerical or econometric emphasis are also welcome.

Papers must be analytical in nature, i.e. if theoretical, using mathematical models (e.g. propositions with proofs) and, if empirical, using statistical inference. Descriptive or case study papers will not be considered.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• Credit risk modelling, with a special emphasis on counterparty credit risk valuation, credit and debt value adjustment and wrong way risk
• Advanced dependencies modelling in market and credit risk
• Liquidity modelling
• High frequency trading: player interaction, modelling and optimal strategies
• Hedging dependencies risks
• Financial engineering and structured products
• Numerical methods for market and credit risk
• Empirical analysis of market and credit risk
• Catastrophe risk and market risk: modelling and pricing of CAT bonds
• Market risk in commodity markets: modelling of commodity prices, estimating value-at-risk for commodities and commodity derivatives, and pricing of commodity derivatives 

Important Dates

Submission deadline: 31 January, 2014

Final decisions of accepted papers: 31 June, 2014

Inderscience is media partner for Energy from Waste 2013

Inderscience is a media partner for Energy from Waste 2013 (25-26 September 2013, London, UK).

The journals involved are:

• International Journal of Environmental Engineering
• International Journal of Environment and Pollution
• International Journal of Environment and Sustainable Development
• International Journal of Environmental Technology and Management
• International Journal of Environment and Waste Management
• Progress in Industrial Ecology, An International Journal

Thematic issue: "Brokering Knowledge by Corporate Culture"

European Journal of International Management 7(3) 2013

• The importance of an export-oriented culture for export performance
• Exploring the links between goal-setting, satisfaction and corporate culture in exhibitors at international art shows
• Corporate social responsibility: a crossroad between changing values, innovation and internationalisation
• Intrapreneurship conditioning factors from a resource-based theory
• The ethics of foreign knowledge brokers: a conceptual and empirical framework
• The role of institutional investors on the governance of SMEs: evidence from an Italian perspective

Earthquake retrofit protection

Whether or not a building collapses and claims many lives during an earthquake is a matter of structure and statistics, according to researchers in Turkey. Writing in the International Journal of Emergency Management, civil engineer Kubilay Kaptan of Istanbul Aydin University, explains how preventing total building collapse during an earthquake could be as straightforward as identifying and reinforcing those structures susceptible to serious damage.

Kaptan points out that severely damaged but non-collapsing buildings are a major hazard but the occupants often have time to escape. Most lives lost during a major earthquake are taken by those buildings that collapse quickly and completely. Reinforcing all the buildings in a city in an earthquake zone, such as Istanbul, would, Kaptan estimates, cost US$18billion and take two decades to complete. However, he has devised an analytical approach to determining in advance which buildings are most likely to collapse fully. If only the most at-risk buildings are retrofitted with earthquake-resistant reinforcements, the cost would be less than US$1billion.

The researchers suggest a two-phase approach to the problem. In the first phase, all buildings across the city, public or private, school, hospital and dwellings would be inspected visually and photographs taken. Information on ownership, plans, structural materials, load-carrying systems, walls and irregularities, such as subsidence, soil conditions etc would be recorded. Simple calculations could then reveal which are most “collapse susceptible”. In the second phase, a non-linear analysis would be performed to determine which of those would most likely collapse under specific quake conditions. Kaptan adds that a building “rehabilitation” program should be implemented once such surveying and analyses have been carried out to strengthening the buildings most at risk.

This approach to risk management in city plagued by earthquakes could lead to an essentially zero loss of life risk due to total collapse of buildings. If a price is to be put on life in the city, then the costs of analysing the several million buildings would cost less than a twentieth of simply retrofitting all buildings built after the stringent earthquake building code of 1975 was first updated in 1998.

“Zero loss of life during natural hazards” in Int. J. Emergency Management, 2013, 9, 37-45

Earthquake retrofit protection is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/earthquake-retrofit-protection.html

Digital health

Digital personal health records (PHR) represent an important shift away from conventional electronic health records, offering patients and healthcare workers the opportunity for more predictive, personalized, participatory, ubiquitous and interconnected treatment. However, the closure of one major provider in this realm sponsored by Google until 2012, left something of a void and perhaps stymied innovation from third-party providers and the integration of the digital health systems with other systems including mobile networks.

Writing in the International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management, Professor of Management Fernando Mora of the MBA Program in Multi-Sector Health Management at St. George’s University, in Grenada, West Indies, has reviewed the state of the art and suggests that five issues must be addressed to make digital personal health records more useful:

1. More personalization and contextualization in the navigation of personal health records (PHRs).


2. Extensive use of mobile devices to access PHRs.


3. Incorporation of PHRs into innovative but also proven healthcare delivery models. For example, PHRs haven shown promise within an ecosystem for remote follow up of chronic disease management.


4. A trusted relationship between users, technology developers, healthcare providers and governmental regulatory bodies.


5. More evidence about the benefits of the use of these technologies in the improvement of the quality of life of the users, increased accessibility to their own care, and the improvement of healthcare quality at lower costs.

One of the advantages of the Google Health initiative, as with Microsoft HealthVault, was that the technology was enabled by a third party rather than a player within the healthcare domain. This allowed wide adoption based on sponsor popularity and without any restrictions being applied to users and healthcare providers. This led researchers, including Mora, to observe in detail of some of the peculiarities of the PHR’s market and how they might fit into cultural, societal and governmental models in the future, assuming new sponsors for such systems emerge sooner rather than later.

“The demise of Google Health and the future of personal health records” in Int. J. Healthcare Technology and Management, 2013, 5, 363-377

Digital health is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/digital-health.html

Newly announced journal: International Journal of Intelligent Systems Design and Computing

Emerging and evolving systems are integrating intelligent attributes to enable the thrust towards making technology adaptive and functional as an aid to improve existing designs. The International Journal of Intelligent Systems Design and Computing (IJISDC), an international peer-reviewed journal, promotes discussion on the design and implementation of intelligent systems related to emerging areas of communication, computer vision, human-computer interaction, soft computing and related issues. The journal offers an applied approach driven by innovation, to facilitate intelligent design and implementation.

Special issue: "Quality Awareness through Online Courses"

International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning 23(2) 2013

• An experimental study of web usability to encourage life-long learning
• Mining critical least association rules of student suffering language and social anxieties
• Soft computing auto essay grading
• Success factors influencing the adoption of M-learning
• Learning transitions of three doctoral students in a Portuguese higher education institution facilitated by the use of ICT
• Bridging formal and informal lifelong learning using a soccer game metaphor

Newly announced journal: International Journal of Soft Computing and Networking

The International Journal of Soft Computing and Networking (IJSCN) addresses the interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary nature of two of the most promising and rapidly expanding fields of computation: soft computing and networking. IJSCN helps promote the further integration and fusion of both disciplines within practical applications and fosters discussion on theoretical advances of such integration. It addresses state-of-the-art contributions within both fields, acknowledging the complexity of present-day communication networks as well as related abstractions, virtualisations, algorithm design and improvement, thus meeting the challenge of achieving efficiency, sustainability and optimality.

Special issue: "Context-Aware System and Intelligent Middleware for Smart Grid"

International Journal of Communication Networks and Distributed Systems 10(4) 2013

• Communication infrastructure planning for wide area measurement systems in power systems
• Implementation of the fault tolerance in computational grid using agents by meta-modelling approach
• Real-time push middleware and mobile application for electric vehicle smart charging and aggregation

Regular Papers

• Application-centric recovery algorithm for wireless sensor and actor networks
• SAVEUS: SAving Victims in Earthquakes through Unified Systems

Newly announced journal: International Journal of Supply Chain and Operations Resilience

Supply chains and business operations are the backbone for development and growth of organisations and nations. Todays uncertain, turbulent environments expose supply chains and business operations to risks/disruptions that can significantly damage organisations and economies. The International Journal of Supply Chain and Operations Resilience (IJSCOR) presents the latest research/developments in supply chain/operations resilience strategies, highlighting theoretical research with practical applications. Besides being a theoretical platform for the academic community, IJSCOR helps practitioners bridge the gap between supply chain and operations resilience theory and its effective deployment and application.