Inderscience news: September 2013

30 September 2013

Special issue: "Transitions to Sustainability: Systems Analysis, Design and Engineering"

International Journal of Sustainable Development 16(3/4) 2013

Includes expanded versions of papers presented at the Fourth International Conference on Sustainability Engineering and Science.

Transitioning to sustainability: pathways, directions and opportunities
Sustainable planning and design of large-scale metropolitan development projects
The limits to growth and 'finite' mineral resources: re-visiting the assumptions and drinking from that half-capacity glass
The New Zealand footprint project
What is sustainable air quality?
Sustainable cooling solutions for application in Western Cape Province, South Africa
Embedding sustainability: 'painless is just delay'
Strategic entry points for sustainability in university construction and engineering curricula
The development of an integrated model for assessing sustainability of complex systems
Transition engineering: adaptation of complex systems for survival

Additional Papers

What triggers consumers' interest toward sustainable tourism?
Multicriteria analysis for grouping and ranking European Union rural areas based on social sustainability indicators

Call for papers: "Supply Chain and Operational Resilience in the Energy Sector"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Supply Chain and Operations Resilience.

According to the recent “International Energy Outlook 2013”, world energy use will grow by 56 percent between 2010 and 2040. Half of the increase is attributed to growth in China and India. Fossil fuels will continue to supply almost 80 percent of world energy use through to 2040. Natural gas is the fastest growing fossil fuel, supported by increasing supplies of shale gas, particularly in the United States. In the electricity sector, renewable energy and nuclear power are the world’s fastest-growing energy sources, each increasing by 2.5 percent per year.

In this evolving scenario several different factors, either opportunities or threats, contribute to increasing the uncertainty and complexity of policy- and business-related decisions. The 2009 Russia-Ukraine gas dispute and recent events in North Africa demonstrate the intrinsic vulnerability of a “fossil fuel supply chain” to geopolitical risks. The emerging role of shale gas and shale oil represents a controversial phenomenon, since the risk balance of this option remains largely unexplored. Moreover, traditional base load generation technologies (e.g. coal, nuclear) and large distribution infrastructures (e.g. power transmission lines, LNG platforms, oil pipelines) continue to show their vulnerability to a wide spectrum of issues such as natural disasters and incidents along with growing social unacceptability, particularly in the OECD countries.

The mass deployment of renewable sources (mainly wind, solar and biomass) could positively contribute to increasing the operational and supply chain resilience of the energy sector. However, the technical feasibility and the economics of possible solutions are largely uncertain, especially when considering the intrinsic variability of these sources where a technological limit is still difficult to overcome. The deployment of existing and new renewable technologies is also strongly influenced by the evolution of government policies.

Supply chain and operational resilience will be a critical factor in granting or supporting the sustainable development (economic, environmental and social) of energy systems in the future.

Given the extreme relevance and complexity of the field, this special issue aims to bring together the contributions of scholars and practitioners with state-of-the-art papers focused on supply chain and operational resilience in the energy sector. Senior managers, policy makers, practitioners and the wider community of scholars are the targeted audience.

Considering the need for a holistic approach, managerial, financial and technically oriented papers are all welcome, as long as the content can be understood by the target audience and the scope is adequately broad. Case studies, benchmarking of technological or operational alternatives and review papers are particularly welcome.

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

Uncertainty modelling and analysis for decision support in the energy sector
Application of real options to investment evaluation in the energy sector
Maintenance management and power plant life extension
Impact of policy and regulatory decisions on plant operations
Supply chain and operational resilience of plants in remote locations
Resilience engineering of energy systems
Risk management of energy infrastructures
Fuel supply chain resilience (including appropriateness of fuel processing)
Resilience of energy systems during major events
Emergency and crisis management of energy systems
Business resilience and external factors (environmental, social and regulatory issues) in the energy sector
Resilience capabilities of renewables
Resilience and sustainability in the energy sector
Other related topics

Important Dates

Full paper submission: 31 March, 2014

Notification to authors: 20 June, 2014

Final version due: 31 July, 2014

Special issue: "New Challenges in Resource Discovery"

International Journal of Metadata, Semantics and Ontologies 8(2) 2013

Includes expanded versions of papers from the International Workshop on Resource Discovery (RED) 2011.

Scalable discovery of Linked APIs
Enabling web service discovery in heterogeneous environments
Live linked data: synchronising semantic stores with commutative replicated data types

Regularly submitted papers

Solving aggregation problems of Greek cultural and educational repositories in the framework of Europeana
Automatic extraction of prerequisites and learning outcome from learning material
A framework for evaluating and ranking ontologies
Social data interoperability in educational repositories and federations

29 September 2013

Editor's pick of Int. Journal of Web Based Communities articles available for free

Papers specially selected by the Editors of the International Journal of Web Based Communities (IJWBC) are available as free sample articles here. These articles have been selected to represent the journal's range and quality.

Designing and evaluating online communities: research speaks to emerging practice
The rationale of online learning communities
SIOC: an approach to connect web-based communities
Identifying communities in blogs: roles for social network analysis and survey instruments
Learning relations and networks in web-based communities
Enhancing the understanding of genres of web-based communities: the role of the ecological cognition framework
Supporting a virtual community of tutors in experience capitalising
Bridging and bonding in social network sites – investigating family-based capital
A cross-cultural analysis of Flickr users from Peru, Israel, Iran, Taiwan and the UK
Twitter for crisis communication: lessons learned from Japan's tsunami disaster

Inderscience journals to publish expanded papers from 2nd Annual International Conference of RESD-2014

Expanded versions of papers presented at the 2nd Annual International Conference of RESD-2014 (26-27 July 2014, Shenyang, China) will be published by the following journals:

Editor's pick of Int. Journal of Vehicle Autonomous Systems articles available for free

Papers specially selected by the Editors of the International Journal of Vehicle Autonomous Systems (IJVAS) are available as free sample articles here. These articles have been selected to represent the journal's range and quality.

Comparison of GPS-based autonomous vehicle following using global and relative positioning
Imaging sensor technology for intelligent vehicle active safety and driver assistant systems
Autonomous vehicle front lighting systems
The VisLab Intercontinental Autonomous Challenge: an extensive test for a platoon of intelligent vehicles
Towards characterising and classifying communication-based automotive applications from a wireless networking perspective
Optimisation of high-speed crash avoidance in autonomous vehicles
Autonomous vehicle control at the limits of handling
Regulation control of multi-vehicle formation systems

28 September 2013

Editor's pick of Int. Journal of Nuclear Law articles available for free

Papers specially selected by the Editors of the International Journal of Nuclear Law (IJNUCL) are available as free sample articles here. These articles have been selected to represent the journal's range and quality.

Wakening the serpent: reflections on the possible modification of the Euratom Treaty Nuria Prieto Serrano
Nuclear liability for international transport accidents under the modernised nuclear liability conventions: an assessment
Status of laws related to physical protection and radiological emergency in the Republic of Korea
The Euratom Community Treaty's prospects at the start of the new millennium
The renewal of licensing system for nuclear reactors in Indonesia
INDO-US 123 agreement – a saga of controversies and compromises
Interpreting the withdrawal clause of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT): options within the 2010 NPT review cycle
The future of the regulation of nuclear safety in the EU

Special issue: "New Networking and Application Solutions for Next-Generation Distributed Service Infrastructures"

International Journal of High Performance Computing and Networking 7(3) 2013

Meta-scheduling algorithms for managing inter-cloud interoperability
Security event correlation approach for cloud computing
Reliable accounting in grids
A grid monitoring model over network-aware IaaS cloud infrastructure
A hybrid approach for the personalisation of cloud-based e-governance services

Additional Papers

Dynamic web service selection group decision-making method based on hybrid QoS
An automatic thread decomposition approach for pipelined multithreading

Editor's pick of Int. Journal of Nuclear Knowledge Management articles available for free

Papers specially selected by the Editors of the International Journal of Nuclear Knowledge Management (IJNKM) are available as free sample articles here. These articles have been selected to represent the journal's range and quality.

Euratom research and training in nuclear reactor safety: towards European research and the higher education area Georges Van Goethem
Assuring nuclear safety education in the twenty-first century in Sweden
Risk management of knowledge loss in nuclear industry organisations
Knowledge management for radioactive waste management organisations
A patentometric analysis of the International Nuclear Information System database: 1970-2006
Formal representation of knowledge using Z in fast breeder test reactors
Fuzzy logic based fault diagnosis of a PWR nuclear power plant
A fuzzy expert system for the human reliability analysis of crews in simulated nuclear emergency procedures

27 September 2013

Inderscience is media partner for Gulf Of Mexico Ultra Deep, HPHT Reservoirs: Basin Modeling, Drilling & Completions 2013

Inderscience is a media partner for Gulf Of Mexico Ultra Deep, HPHT Reservoirs: Basin Modeling, Drilling & Completions 2013 (20-21 November 2013, Houston, Texas, USA).

The journals involved are:

Editor's pick of Int. Journal of Nuclear Desalination articles available for free

Papers specially selected by the Editors of the International Journal of Nuclear Desalination (IJND) are available as free sample articles here. These articles have been selected to represent the journal's range and quality.

Advances in nuclear desalination
The role of nuclear desalination in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
The pebble bed modular reactor, desalination challenges and options
Fouling and cleaning of seawater reverse osmosis membranes in Kalpakkam nuclear desalination plant
IAEA's DEEP in Carlsbad: co-producing energy and water in Southern California
Nuclear seawater desalination plant coupled with 200 MW heating reactor
A global overview on nuclear desalination
Practical application of the RUTA safe pool-type nuclear reactor to demonstrate the advantages of atomic energy use

Special issue: "Intelligent Systems and Applications using Knowledge and Agent Based Technologies"

International Journal of Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications 12(3/4) 2013

Similar video detection using multiple direct-mapped cache
Attention information extraction of the foreign visitors using Text Mining
A multi-criteria decision-making model to increase productivity: AHP and fuzzy AHP approach
Comparative analysis of software reliability predictions using statistical and machine learning methods
Agent-based communication systems for elders using a reminiscence therapy
Snowball sampling consumer behaviour research to characterise the influence of market mavens on social networks
An evolutionary approach to discover intra- and inter-class exceptions in databases
Extended causal map for reasoning explanation in multi-agent systems
A method of extraction and visualisation for relationships among objects on web
Analysing the influence of headline news on the stock market in Japan

26 September 2013

Inderscience is media partner for Global Strategic Sourcing and Procurement Summit 2013

Inderscience is a media partner for the Global Strategic Sourcing and Procurement Summit 2013 (15-17 October 2013, Barcelona, Spain).

The journal involved is the International Journal of Procurement Management.

Special issue: "Looking"

International Journal of Management Concepts and Philosophy 7(3/4) 2013

Associated with the Aesthetics & Organization Workshop on the Senses, co-organised by UvH, the University for Humanistics at Utrecht, Essex Business School at University of Essex and the Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy at Copenhagen Business School.

Is leadership a visible phenomenon? On the (im)possibility of studying leadership
Feeling to see: oversight in knowledge production
Making invisible forces visible. Managing employees' values and attitudes through transient emotions
Looking forward: on the uses of forecasting in market formation
Fandom as a mode of second production: active audienceship of the rising shadow
Organising images of futures-past: remembering the Apollo moon landings

Editor's pick of Int. Journal of Green Economics articles available for free

Papers specially selected by the Editors of the International Journal of Green Economics (IJGE) are available as free sample articles here. These articles have been selected to represent the journal's range and quality.

Green Economics: setting the scene. Aims, context, and philosophical underpinning of the distinctive new solutions offered by Green Economics
Comments on 'Green economics: setting the scene. Aims, context, and philosophical underpinnings of the distinctive new solutions offered by green economics'
Editorial: progress in Green Economics: ontology, concepts and philosophy. Civilisation and the lost factor of reality in social and environmental justice
Patriarchy and accumulation on a world scale – revisited. (Keynote lecture at the Green Economics Institute, Reading, 29 October 2005)
Growing the green economy – globally
Urbanisation and global environmental change: new intergenerational challenges
Economics is philosophy, economics is not science
Current developments in international trade – an opportunity for a new progressive approach in economic policies
Towards a model of green political economy: from ecological modernisation to economic security

Call for papers: "Adaptive and Creative System Design: Applications to Signal Processing"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Signal and Imaging Systems Engineering.

Today, adaptive systems find their application in various research areas including signal, image and video processing and communications and computing. They can be employed for system identification, low complexity dynamic designs, channel equalisation and modelling,etc.

This special issue aims to provide a research symposium exploring current trends and advances in the field of adaptive filter applications, with a focus on the application of adaptive and creative system design to signal processing. The goal of the issue is to present recent original research works, review articles, case studies and comparative performance analyses in the said domain from researchers, academicians and practitioners around the globe.

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

Image processing and applications
Sensory signal processing
Speech, image, video coding
Recent developments in adaptive filtering algorithms
Adaptive networking and current challenges
Innovative system design for solving real world issues
Dynamic and innovative system designs using adaptive filter
Adaptive system identification and channel modelling
Adaptive filter applications for cellular network control and management
Advances in computing using adaptive and innovative systems
Image and speech enhancement using adaptive filters
Statistical signal analysis
Acoustic noise and echo reduction applying adaptive algorithms and designs
Channel equalisation/modelling, communication system design and fault analysis employing adaptive algorithms
Adaptive filters for mobile computing, networking and wireless system designs
Artificial intelligence and soft computing applications of adaptive systems
Implantation of adaptive filters for real time applications using DSP processors and FPGA

Important Dates

Original paper submission: 15 February, 2014

Notification of first revisions/acceptance/rejection: 30 April, 2014

Submission of revised versions: 20 May, 2014

Final notification of acceptance/rejection: 20 June, 2014

25 September 2013

Call for papers: "Consensus and Control in Networked Multi-Vehicle Systems"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Vehicle Autonomous Systems.
In recent years, the coordination problem of networked systems has received a lot of attention from various scientific researchers due to the diversity of applications in various areas such as mobile robots, air traffic control, scheduling of automated highway systems (agents), unmanned air vehicles, autonomous underwater vehicles, sensor networks and satellites. However, a problem arising from networked systems is to develop distributed control policies based on local information that enables all systems to reach an agreement on certain quantities of interest.

As an alternative, cooperative control strategies must be addressed, including the definition and management of shared information among a group of agents to facilitate the coordination of these agents. In networks of agents (or dynamic systems), consensus as a protocol algorithm means reaching an agreement regarding a certain quantity of interest that depends on the state of all agents. Hence, an interaction rule that specifies the information exchange between an agent and all of its neighbours must be defined, using synchronisation, flocking theory, rendezvous problems, distributed sensor fusion in sensor networks, distributed formation control, etc.

This special issue aims to showcase recent advances, basic concepts and theoretical results in information consensus, convergence and performance analysis of consensus on networks, cooperative control of formations and stability in networked multi-vehicle systems.

Topics in (but not limited to) the following areas are welcome:

Consensus and cooperation in networked multi-vehicle systems
Consensus-seeking in multi-agent systems
Robustness to changes in network topology
Consensus problems in networked dynamic systems
Consensus algorithms for multi-vehicle networks
Aggregation of information from multiple sensors
Networked vehicles stability
Terrestrial group of vehicles in coordination
Path planning in networked vehicles
Coordination of networks
Mobile transport

Important Dates
Submission of full paper before: 31 March, 2014

Special issue: "Technological Innovation and Social Change Processes"

International Journal of Learning and Change 7(1/2) 2013

Design management, learning and innovation: results from a Portuguese online questionnaire
How is corporate social responsibility addressed by biotech firms? A case study analysis
Designing for multiple stakeholder interests within the humanitarian market: the case of off-grid energy devices
Meeting the Shanghai cooperation organisation's (SCO) challenges: what role can technology play?
Styling and design in multi-segmented market strategies: the case of the Italian knitwear sector
A knowledge management model for firms in the financial services industry
Examining the predictive power of autonomy and self-evaluation on high school students' language achievement

Editor's pick of Int. Journal of Functional Informatics and Personalised Medicine articles available for free

Papers specially selected by the Editors of the International Journal of Functional Informatics and Personalised Medicine (IJFIPM) are available as free sample articles here. These articles have been selected to represent the journal's range and quality.

A kernelised fuzzy-Support Vector Machine CAD system for the diagnosis of lung cancer from tissue images
Computational prediction of protein interaction networks through supervised classification techniques
Development of spatiotemporal validation methods of an agent-based model of epithelial cells: analysis of a colony of keratinocytes
Tele-doc: an open architecture robotic system for telemedicine applications
Imaging informatics for personalised medicine: applications and challenges
Mutual understanding between Traditional Chinese Medicine and systems biology: gaps, challenges and opportunities
Nonlinear analysis of auscultation signals in Traditional Chinese Medicine using Wavelet Packet Transform and Approximate Entropy
An integrated service for Personalised Healthcare and Wellness (PHW)

24 September 2013

Inderscience is media partner for Oil and Gas Telecommunications 2014

Inderscience is a media partner for Oil and Gas Telecommunications 2014 (19-20 March 2014, London, UK).

The journals involved are:

Call for papers: "Port and Hinterland Strategic Development"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Shipping and Transport Logistics.

Researchers and practitioners are increasingly recognising the managerial complexity that exists in shipping and port-related logistics. Effective management of ports requires a thorough understanding of their hinterlands and, more particularly, of port-hinterland relationships and interactions. The hinterland is the outlying region that supports a port, and is therefore the area from which goods are delivered to a port for shipping. It also extends to the concept of a transport complex economy which is “an economy that emerges from the joint location of transport-related activities that have sustainable links with one another”. To examine the linkage between a port and its hinterland, trade flows and related intermodal transport activities must first be explored.

Intermodal transport involves the shipping of goods using two or more transport modes. Intermodal transport has become an integral part of shipping, whereby an effective and efficient intermodal system is crucial to port and hinterland development. The increasing complexity of global supply chains has increased pressures on ports to improve their operations and strengthen their linkages with hinterlands. As key nodes in the intermodal chain, ports must continuously take proactive actions to enhance their competitiveness and work closely with actors in the transport chain to meet today’s traders’ demands. These port-hinterland relationships are developed primarily in terms of trading links, and then strengthened by effective transport systems.

This special issue aims to collect recent original contributions related to the strategic development of ports and their hinterlands. It will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the 2014 International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME) Conference, but we also strongly encourage researchers who are unable to participate in the conference to submit papers for this call.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

Growth strategies of ports
Port development strategies
Green port and shipping management
Hinterland development
Intermodal transport
Transport complex economy
Port competitiveness and regional competitiveness
Emerging market opportunities and trends
International shipping and trade
Competition and collaboration in ports and shipping operations
Economies of scale and cost leadership strategies in port development
Integration in shipping and transport logistics

Important Dates
Submission deadline: 30 September, 2014

Editor's pick of Int. Journal of Business Environment articles available for free

Papers specially selected by the Editors of the International Journal of Business Environment (IJBE) are available as free sample articles here. These articles have been selected to represent the journal's range and quality.

Strategic and operational issues in implementing a CRM tool
Competition versus cooperation: analysing strategy dilemma in business growth under changing social paradigms
Towards an alternative logic for electronic customer relationship management
Internationalisation and global competitive advantage: implications for Asian emerging market multinational enterprises
Understanding customers' service experience: review and research propositions
Organisational identity and the business environment: the strategic connection
Brand communities: influencing organisations' identities and their perception of the business environment
Environmental scanning literature – past, present and future research propositions

Thematic issue: "Towards an Integration of Global Leadership Practice and Scholarship: Repairing Disconnects and Heightening Mutual Understanding"

European Journal of International Management 7(5) 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the Institute for Management Development Conference 2011.

An exploration of two perspectives on leadership in globalised contexts
Exceptional global leadership as cognitive expertise in the domain of global change
Developing global leaders through building cultural self-awareness
Intercultural competencies as antecedents of responsible global leadership
Are you willing to do what it takes to become a senior global leader? Explaining the willingness to undertake challenging leadership development activities
Demystifying the myth about marginals: implications for global leadership
Global leadership and supportive stereotypes

23 September 2013

Inderscience is media partner for Unconventional Gas 2014

Inderscience is a media partner for Unconventional Gas 2014 (5-6 March 2014, London, UK).

The journals involved are:

Call for papers: "Advances of Robotics in Medical Applications and Healthcare"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Mechanisms and Robotic Systems.

Robotics plays a growing role in medical applications and healthcare. Robots have already been used to assist humans in repetitive and physical work, such as dispensing medication to patients and moving medical inventory. Medical professionals have also used robots to monitor patient vitals and perform delicate surgical procedures. More and more medical robots will be expected to enter healthcare because they help minimise human work, improve the quality of patient care, and reduce costs.

Robotics has great potential in medical applications and healthcare; however, it is still fairly new to medicine and faces many challenges. In reality, multifunction robots are often a patient’s preference. Robots are expected to have a stronger ability to understand, interact with, and respond to their environments. Robots should be able to recognise danger signals and alert humans in time. Many medical applications of robots are still very expensive. Robotics in some healthcare sectors is still an emerging area, with successes and failures.

The objective of this issue is to examine the advances of robotics in medical applications and healthcare.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to the following:

Robotics for surgery
Robotics for stroke patients
Rehabilitation robotics
Robot assistive technologies
Robots for medication dispensing
Multi-robot systems
Multifunction robots
Human-robot interfaces and interaction
Human-computer interaction
Medical haptics
Sensory integration and robotics
Multi-sensory data fusion and robotics
Sensors and wireless sensor networks for robot navigation
Mobile robots
Mobile robots and m-health
Mobile robotic systems for telerehabilitation
Telerobotics in telemedicine and telehealth
Telerobots for telerehabilitation
Telerobotics and telementoring
Telerobotic surgery
Robotics and medical/healthcare informatics
Robotics and electronic health record (EHR) Systems
Robotics and electronic medical record (EMR) Systems
Robotics and health information technology (HIT)
Robotics and cloud computing
Robotics and digital hospitals
Barcodes and medical/healthcare robotics
Biometrics and medical/healthcare robotics
Radio frequency identification (RFID) in medical/healthcare robotics

Important Dates

Submission of manuscripts: 15 January, 2014

Notification to authors: 15 March, 2014

Final versions due: 25 April, 2014

Special issue: "Impact of Culture on Educational and Psychological Measurement"

International Journal of Quantitative Research in Education 1(2) 2013

Cultural differences in teachers' narrative evaluations of students in non-academic areas: a study of school report cards of students from four ethnic backgrounds
Teacher burnout: a comparison of two cultures using confirmatory factor and item response models
Cultural differences in tertiary students' conceptions of learning as a duty and student achievement
A cross-validation of between country differences in personality using the OPQ32
US born vs. immigrant Latino sexual minority women satisfaction with life: an item response theory analysis

The real cost of school furniture – student pain

Undersize school chairs, low desks and overweight backpacks are contributing to chronic back pain in adolescents, according to a study from researchers in Portugal to be published in the International Journal of Human Factors and Ergonomics.

Ana Assunção and colleagues in the Biomechanics and Functional Morphology Laboratory, at the University of Lisbon, carried out a cross-sectional study of 138 twelve to fifteen-year olds of differing maturity to examine the effect of a mismatch between school furniture dimensions, the weight of their school bags and the student’s anthropometric characteristics.

They found that almost two thirds (80) of the students studied suffered from back pain and that large differences between desk height and elbow height was associated with a greater likelihood of the adolescents having this problem. Girls were more likely to suffer from the desk height discrepancy than boys; 59% of girls and 47% of boys. “Our results also showed that there was no association between backpack weight, body mass index (BMI) and back pain,” the team says.

“These results highlight the importance to study the school environment to establish preventive programmes for back pain in youths,” the researchers say. They point out that the number of school-aged children and adolescents reporting frequent episodes of back and neck pain and headache has increased in the last few decades and that it is now recognised that people suffering during childhood are likely to suffer back pain in adulthood too, unless the problem is treated appropriately.

The researchers concede that back pain is, of course, a multi-factorial problem that results from an interaction of different risk factors, such as, age, family clinical history, injury, gender, lifestyle, sport, stress and anxiety. However, ergonomic factors such as a student’s desk and chair dimensions are also likely to play a significant role. This is especially true given that students spend considerable amounts of time sitting at a desk, with physical activity and sports at a low in many educational establishments despite today’s supposed drive to make everyone more active. The World Health Organisation recommends at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity every day.

“These results highlight how relevant it is to study the school environment in order to establish preventive programs for back pain in children and adolescents, not only health wise, but also in terms of school education,” the team asserts. “These results show the importance of promoting healthy lifestyles in what concerns physical activity and a balanced nutrition.”

“Mismatch of school furniture and back pain in adolescents with different maturation levels” in Int. J. Human Factors and Ergonomics, 2013, 2, 66-81

The real cost of school furniture – student pain is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/the-real-cost-of-school-furniture-student-pain.html

22 September 2013

Inderscience is media partner for M2M Telematics for Usage Based Insurance

Inderscience is a media partner for M2M Telematics for Usage Based Insurance (19-20 February 2014, London, UK).

The journals involved are:

Int. J. of Human Factors and Ergonomics to publish expanded papers from ODAM-NES 2014

Expanded versions of papers presented at the ODAM-NES 2014 Conference (17-20 August 2014, Copenhagen, Denmark) will be published by the International Journal of Human Factors and Ergonomics.

Call for papers: "Entrepreneurship Infrastructure Definition Requirements in Post-Socialist Societies"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business.

Entrepreneurship and enterprise development take on different forms of development and are affected by distinctive regional, cultural and political landscapes. This special issue aims to highlight our understanding of entrepreneurial processes in developing economies, focusing on Eastern European countries and China, as well as other post-socialist economies.

Attempts to "westernise" post-socialist economies of Eastern Europe resulted in little or no progress. Likewise, attempts to develop a strong entrepreneurial spirit in China met with modest success.

A shortage of resources, many of which are taken for granted in Western societies, is identified as a reason why some "Western-style" approaches did not work. Richardian, functional-regulatory and tacit culturally based resources are credited with building national entrepreneurial activity and developing a unique national competency.

Understanding resource infrastructures, cultural practices and norms and their relationship to entrepreneurial growth provides promise towards assisting the development of underdeveloped regions of the world as well as less developed regions of industrialised countries.

This special issue aims to help develop knowledge that will be useful to policymakers and entrepreneurs alike towards the monumental task of rebuilding these new democracies. Papers may be purely theoretical works or methodological or theory-driven empirical works, either quantitative or qualitative. Papers will be judged on significance, originality, relevance and clarity.

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

Dominant resource requirements of new ventures in post-socialist societies
Composition of entrepreneurial activity
Social capital and its role in new venture formation in post-socialist societies
Comparative analysis of entrepreneurship in post-socialist societies and their counterparts in "Western" societies
Role of intellectual capital in new venture development in post-socialist societies
Social networking requirements in new venture formation in post-socialist societies
Intellectual capital protection in post-socialist societies
Risks and benefits of investing in ventures located in post-socialist societies

Important Dates

Submission of manuscripts: 30 November, 2014

Notification to authors: 28 February, 2015

Final versions due: 15 April, 2015

Editor's pick of Int. Journal of Automotive Technology and Management articles available for free

Papers specially selected by the Editors of the International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management (IJATM) are available as free sample articles here. These articles have been selected to represent the journal's range and quality.

Evaluating governmental support to automotive research and development (R&D): a Swedish case
Knowledge transfer initiatives as a doorstep formula to open innovation
Firm's efficiency and foreign ownership: evidence from Turin automotive cluster Alessandro Manello
Phoenix from the ashes: can low carbon vehicles ensure the long-term viability of the West Midlands automotive cluster?
Diverse regional sustainability strategies: template for the future or squandered resources?
Ontologies for interoperating sustainable manufacturing: new opportunities for the automotive sector
Managing the transition to electric mobility in Chinese automotive subsidiaries of MNCs
Changing labour relations in China's automotive industry

21 September 2013

Inderscience is media partner for Floating LNG

Inderscience is a media partner for Floating LNG (17-18 February 2014, London, UK).

The journals involved are:

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

Expanded versions of papers presented at the 2nd International Conference on Information Systems for Business Competitiveness (5-6 December 2013, Semarang, Indonesia) will be published by the International Journal of Information and Communication Technology.

Special issue: "Design and Processes for Medical Devices"

International Journal of Mechatronics and Manufacturing Systems 6(3) 2013

Extended versions of papers presented at the First International Conference International Conference on Design and Processes for Medical Devices.

Laser surface texturing of medical needles for friction control
The design and fabrication of a porous polymer-based three-dimensional cell culture device for drug screening
Fabrication of a biopsy meso-forceps prototype with incremental sheet forming variants
Multi-scale directed surface topography machined by electro discharge machining in combination with plasma electrolytic conversion for improved osseointegration
Design considerations of an electromechanical generator implanted in human total knee prosthesis

Editor's pick of European Journal of Cross-Cultural Competence and Management articles available for free

Papers specially selected by the Editors of the European Journal of Cross-Cultural Competence and Management (EJCCM) are available as free sample articles here. These articles have been selected to represent the journal's range and quality.

Cross-cultural research diary: a personal odyssey
Incoherent culture
Cross-cultural competence and management – setting the stage
Organisational citizenship behaviour in the People's Republic of China and comparison to the West: construct, antecedents, consequences and implications for future research
Lessons from beyond the Great Wall: what cross-cultural management researchers can learn from the Middle Kingdom

20 September 2013

Denial of cloud services

As more and more organizations switch over the cloud-based computing services, so there is an increased security threat from distributed denial of service attacks (dDOS). In a dDOS attack a site or server is flooded with thousands of fake requests sent by a distributed network of computers, often a bot net, with the aim of using up all the site’s resources so that legitimate users cannot access the site. There are many motives for such attacks, sometimes they are done in protest against a particular organization, for its perceived unethical behavior, for instance. Other times a dDOS attack is carried out to open up a security loophole through which criminals can break into a system and steal data (user accounts, credit card details, and such) or even take control of a cloud service transparently for malicious intent.

Now, N. Jeyanthi of the VIT University, in Vellore, India, and colleagues have devised a filter that cloud services can use to check incoming information requests and to spot whether the packets of information data are arriving from spoofed internet addresses (IP addresses) or whether they are legitimate. The identification of spoofed IP addresses would allow the servers to block such requests and so avoid a security breach, or re-route traffic to auxiliary servers so that legitimate users are not locked out by the dDOS attack.

The researchers explain how cloud computing provides high availability of various large-scale geographically distributed resources for users ranging from small to large-scale on demand. The two key advantages of this model are ease of use and cost effectiveness, i.e., cost as per the usage and maximum resource utilization. But, cloud computing services are sensitive to security issues. The biggest problem in protecting such resources is that by their very nature dDOS attacks come from multiple computers with multiple IP addresses, so differentiating between natural spikes in traffic and deliberate and malicious attacks has been an almost insurmountable problem for network security.

The team’s approach is to determine whether incoming packet requests are arriving from spoofed IP addresses and so block them at the system’s top-level firewall before they impinge on resources or force the cloud system to recruit additional software and hardware from others servers in its network to cope with the increased demand. “Our detection algorithm will detect whether an incoming packet is spoofed or from a legitimate user before passing it to cloud virtual server,” the team explains. “If the packet is suspicious according to the algorithm, the requesting packet will be dropped.”

“Detection of distributed denial of service attacks in cloud computing by identifying spoofed IP” in Int. J. Communication Networks and Distributed Systems, 2013, 11, 262-279

Denial of cloud services is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/denial-of-cloud-services.html

Inderscience is media partner for 2nd Annual East Atlantic Oil & Gas 2013 Summit

Inderscience is a media partner for the 2nd Annual East Atlantic Oil & Gas 2013 Summit (14-15 November 2013, Madrid, Spain).

The journals involved are:

Call for papers: "Making Sense of Service Ecosystem Dynamics"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Services Sciences.

Creating world-class processes and products may not provide sustainable business success anymore. There is a growing need to understand the systemic nature and dynamics of business and organisational environments. James Moore (1993) argued as long as two decades ago that business actors should no longer focus on their local environments, but should instead try to understand the cross-industrial ecosystems they are acting in. Due to constant change in business logics and the movement towards service-orientation, a similar need has arisen in the context of services. Viroli and Zambonelli (2009) propose that an inspiration for a potential explanation to tackle issues of modern service system may originate from natural systems: a need to find “the basic rules of the game”.

One of the analogues between natural and non-natural systems is provided through various ecosystem conceptualisations focusing on organisational and business contexts. For example, Lusch (2008, 15) defines a service ecosystem as a spontaneously sensing and responding spatial and temporal structure of largely loosely coupled value-proposing social and economic actors interacting through institutions and technology to 1) coproduce service offerings, 2) exchange service offerings and 3) cocreate value. Basole and Rouse (2008) state that the structure and dynamics of value networks as well as customer expectations influence the complexity of the services ecosystem, which indicates that the traditional tools and approaches relevant in static contexts may not be applicable when explaining dynamic service ecosystem functionalities.

Despite the growing interest in service ecosystems and related themes, research approaches tend to focus on exploring and describing service systems on an abstract level without the goal of explaining why the ecosystem perspective is valuable, how it should be used and – perhaps most importantly – what kind of new knowledge it offers to service organisations and their management in business or public-sector contexts.

Through this call we propose that there is both a scientific and empirical gap in how services are analysed and managed as systems. Adopting more or less novel abstract definitions and concepts is not beneficial if they cannot be used to explain service phenomena in a new way for business or public-sector actors.

The main goal of this special issue is to challenge researchers to move forward: from exploration towards potential explanations. We encourage both conceptual and empirical research with the following foci:

Conceptual focus: How do we explain the behaviour and influence mechanisms of a business ecosystem as a holistic entity? (Conceptual and theoretical developments)

Empirical focus: How do we study business ecosystems empirically? (Empirical studies and rigorous research methodologies used in them)

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

Conceptual approaches and models explaining the behaviour of service ecosystems as a whole and/or explaining influence mechanisms related to the behaviour of the ecosystem.
Empirical studies explaining how service ecosystems can be studied empirically while maintaining both scientific and managerial relevancy throughout the study.
Studies may focus on themes such as:
service ecosystem evolution
emergent properties of service ecosystems
resource integration logics and mechanisms
value creation logics in service ecosystems
conditions to support sustainability of service ecosystems
other relevant themes that provide a clear connection to existing theoretical discussions.
Approaches such as systems theory, complexity theory, service-dominant networks, service engineering, design theory are expected; however, other rigorous approaches are also welcome.

Important Dates

Submission of manuscripts: 31 December, 2013

Notification to authors: 28 February, 2014

Revisions by authors: 30 April, 2014

Final acceptance: 30 June, 2014

Final versions due: 31 August, 2014

Special issue: "Collaboration, Information Sharing and Integration in Supply Chains: Models for Decision Making"

International Journal of Management and Decision Making 12(3) 2013

Collaborative supply chain: a conceptual model for operationalisation
Demand information sharing in supply chains: the impact of lead-time and inventory to backorder cost ratio
A decision management tool: modelling the order fulfilment process by multi-agent systems
A cooperative options-based strategy for coordinating supply chain and resource allocation decisions
Structuring and quantifying the value contribution of supply chain initiatives
No news, good news: positive impacts of delayed information in MRP

Holding on to microbloggers

To be successful and to keep users coming back for more so-called microblogging services, of which Twitter is probably the most well known have to be useful, easy to use and be enjoyable otherwise new users will abandon the service before they become fully engaged in the community.

As with much on the Internet, especially in the web 2.0 age of user-generated and user-aggregated content as opposed to the original more static and less interactive websites of the 1990s, services come and go. Here’s a short list of sites that offer users the ability to post short updates and links – to micro blog – in other words: Blauk, Facebook, Google+, Heello, ImaHima, MeetMe, Plurk, Soup, Tout, Tumblr, Twitter and Weibo. Which ones have you used? Were you an early adopter, did you stick with them or move on to the next best thing as soon as it popped up in public beta?

Regardless, research published in the International Journal of Electronic Business, by Chien-Lung Hsu of the Department of Marketing Management at Takming University of Science and Technology in Taipei City, Taiwan, and colleagues suggests that microblogging is still growing apace and that more and more people are trying out services like Twitter and Google+. Whether they continue to use these services after an initial personal trial period is a different matter, despite what the companies that host the services will tell you about the number of active subscribers or users.

A standardized survey of hundreds of microbloggers (500+ in Taiwan) revealed to Hsu and colleagues what might seem obvious. If there is a sense of community identity, if the service is easy to use and if it is also enjoyable to participate then users will stick around.

“The effect of community identity on continuance intention of microblogging” in Int. J. Electronic Business, 2013, 10, 355-382

Holding on to microbloggers is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/holding-on-to-microbloggers.html

19 September 2013

Inderscience is media partner for Italy and Malta Oil & Gas 2013 Summit

Inderscience is a media partner for the Italy and Malta Oil & Gas 2013 Summit (30-31 October 2013, Rome, Italy).

The journals involved are:

Special issue: "Advanced Algorithms Trust, Performance and Optimisation"

International Journal of Trust Management in Computing and Communications 1(3/4) 2013

Archimedean copula-based estimation of distribution algorithm for multi-objective optimisation
Selective opportunistic routing based on QoS in wireless mesh network
Enhanced t-closeness for balancing utility and privacy
Fuzzy logic-based detection of DDoS attacks in IEEE 802.15.4 low rate wireless personal area network
Cyber security: testing the effects of attack strategy, similarity, and experience on cyber attack detection

Additional Papers

Theory and implementation of a virtualisation level Future Internet defence in depth architecture
Slow DoS attacks: definition and categorisation
GTC: a geographical topology control protocol to conserve energy in wireless sensor networks

We now have over 3000 likes on Facebook. Thanks so much for following and engaging with us!

Inderscience's Facebook page has just passed a landmark of 3000 followers. We're very grateful to all of those who have 'liked' our page, and look forward to continuing to use the page to inform and engage with you.

A Russian smile for better business

Encouraging Russian business executives to smile

International borders are not necessarily policed with armed guards and barbed wire, armless smiles and barbed comments can be the barrier to international communication. Larissa Zelezinskaya of the Blagoveshchensk State Pedagogical University knows this only too well. As a post-graduate student of History, Philosophy and Cultural Studies she is attempting to understand how humour and a smile might lubricate business between an apparently unsmiling Russia and international associates. As such, she has reported 14 characteristics that feature prominently in social interactions that misinterpreted a seeming unfriendliness may well have been the demise of many a business transaction over the years. It’s not that she is suggesting Russians should “lighten up” or change their ways, but she does

In Russia a smile is not a sign of courtesy instead constant “polite” smiling is considered a sign of insincerity, secrecy and an unwillingness to show one’s true feelings.

Russians rarely smile at strangers.

Responding to a smile with a smile is not common.

Russians will avert their gaze rather than smile following a chance meeting of eyes.

Russians do not often smile when looking at small children or pets.

A smile in Russia is a sign of personal favour, so Russians usually only smile at friends.

Smiling when doing serious business is unacceptable, whether executive, bank teller or waiter.

When Russians do smile it is sincere, reflecting friendship and a good mood.

Russians must have a good reason to smile.

Decent (and in fact the only) reason to smile in Russian business communication is to reflect the current financial wellbeing of person.

In Russian culture smiling to cheer someone up is not accepted.

Russians take their time to smile.

A smile must be relevant to all parties and should correspond to the communication.

In Russia there is no clear distinction between a smile and a laugh, in practice, often these phenomena are the same.

Of course, cultures change…where once Russians were once considered a gloomy, unsmiling nation jocularity even in the workplace is becoming increasingly common and especially in international business relationships. “Humour plays a great role in personnel management,” says Zelezinskaya, “it helps to create a favourable work atmosphere, to increase productivity and profits of the company, it relieves distrust and tension, and generally facilitates social adaptation to the new environment.”

Research Blogging Icon Zelezinskaya, L. (2013) ‘Humour as a means of management’, Int. J. Qualitative Research in Services, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp.173–181.

A Russian smile for better business is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/a-russian-smile-for-better-business.html

18 September 2013

Int. J. of Mechatronics and Automation to publish expanded papers from ICMA 2014

Expanded versions of papers presented at the 2014 IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation (3-6 August 2014, Tianjin, China) will be published by the International Journal of Mechatronics and Automation.

Call for papers: "Large-Scale Distributed Systems for Big Data"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Big Data Intelligence.

This special issue solicits papers in the area of large-scale distributed systems for big data. Big data can be defined as datasets/data streams that become so large that they become awkward to work with using on-hand computer data and computation management tools.

Such datasets are often from various sources (Variety) in unstructured form, such as those from social media, sensors, scientific applications, surveillance, video and image archives, Internet texts and documents, Internet search indexing, medical records, business transactions and web logs. In general, these data streams are not only of a large size (Volume) that cannot be stored but also have fast data in/out (Velocity) and hide valuable knowledge.

Big data size is beyond the capacity of commonly used system storage or computing capabilities within a reasonable time frame, hence demanding new innovative solutions. Considering the complexity and scale of big data, using traditional techniques and models is not enough, and we need to propose new methodologies and frameworks for big data.

This opens several research questions and challenges, including investigating computing systems which can handle the storage, processing and networking requirements of big data. Using cloud resources for the storage and processing of big data applications is currently under investigation by many researchers.

In this special issue, our aim is to explore a broad range of distributed systems including cloud, grid, multi-cluster and volunteer computing systems to handle big data. We believe this issue will be an excellent venue to help the research community define the current state, determine future goals, and propose new frameworks for big data processing.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the 12th Australasian Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Computing (AusPDC 2014), 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, the following:

Performance analysis of big data on distributed systems (cloud, grid, multi-cluster)
Computational models for big data on distributed systems
Performance modelling and evaluation of big data applications
Big data theoretical models, standards and theories
Simulation and debugging of big data systems and tools
Modelling and simulation frameworks for big data
Modelling cloud services for big data
Performance optimisation of big data applications on distributed systems
Big data processing in e-research and e-science
Workflow models for big data on distributed systems
Distributed storage models for big data

Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 30 April, 2014

Editor's pick of Int. Journal of Shipping and Transport Logistics articles available for free

Papers specially selected by the Editors of the International Journal of Shipping and Transport Logistics (IJSTL) are available as free sample articles here. These articles have been selected to represent the journal's range and quality.

Editorial: Research in shipping and transport logistics
A two-stage supply chain DEA model for measuring container-terminal efficiency
The impact of capacity on firm performance: a study of the liner shipping industry
North European companies and major Eurasian countries – future outlook on logistics flows and their sustainability
In-transit distribution as a strategy in a global distribution system
An integrated model for ship routing and berth allocation
Protecting Finnish defence security: a logistics challenge
Inverse scheduling: applications in shipping
The effect of safety management on perceived safety performance in container stevedoring operations
A study on the antecedents of supplier commitment in support of logistics operations

IJSTL is indexed by Thomson Reuters' Social Science Citation Index, and also by other indexing services (details are available here).

Network management for schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a potentially debilitating mental illness affecting a person’s thought processes, perception, language and sense of oneself. Globally, 7 out of every 1000 are affected, accounting for 24 million patients. Significant risk factors for the illness in males is serious problems during birth or fetal hypoxia while increased cerebral ventricular size in both infancy and adulthood due to embryological defects can underlie the condition in other patients. However, it is a multifaceted illness that occurs through a combination of biological factors as well as socioeconomic conditions, such as severely traumatic experiences in childhood.

Writing in the International Journal of Advanced Intelligence Paradigms, Subhagata Chattopadhyay of the Camellia Institute of Engineering in Madhyamgram Kolkata, West Bengal, India , and Farhad Daneshgar of IKI-SEA, Bangkok University, Thailand, explain how they have applied and validated a collaborative management approach and an associated analytical tool called the Awareness Information Net (AIN) model to assist in maintaining awareness capabilities among the various people involved in the management of patients with schizophrenia.

Although treatable with modern drugs, relapse and dropout from treatment is common and the suicide risk among people with schizophrenia is much higher than in the general population. However, patients can be rehabilitated if their symptoms and circumstances are monitored and treated appropriately from earliest childhood. In particular, if the warning signs of emerging symptoms of risk to the patient and others are detected early through management, then many problems can be avoided or their impact lessened. The team suggests a collaborative approach is most effective. As such, they are developing and testing a system for monitoring patient behavior and spotting problems so that carers, experts and the patient themselves can become involved or intervene in treatment in a timely manner.

“The ultimate goal of the current study is to develop the conceptual foundations for an automated workflow management system for a collaborative management process for schizophrenia,” the team says. Schizophrenia can paralyze the socioeconomic status of an affected person and its occurrence is almost inevitable given strong vulnerabilities. The team suggests that their assistive modeling approach will not only help patients themselves but raise awareness in society of this debilitating mental illness and so help others to handle adverse circumstances that arise as a result of schizophrenia should it be in their lives.

Research Blogging Icon “An awareness net collaborative model for schizophrenia management” in Int. J. Advanced Intelligence Paradigms, 2013, 5, 217-232

Network management for schizophrenia is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/network-management-for-schizophrenia.html

Special issue: "Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems"

International Journal of Environment and Sustainable Development 13(1) 2014

Extended versions of papers presented at the 7th Conference on Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems (SDEWES).

Carbon costs and savings of Greenways: creating a balance sheet for the sustainable design and construction of cycling routes
Optimisation of renewable forest fuel supply for more sustainable energy production of CHP plant in Finland
Evaluating the energy and the carbon stored from tropical acacias: the first steps
Integration of Fischer-Tropsch fuel production with a complex oil refinery
Modelling energy demand of Croatian industry sector
Economic prospects of advanced biomass-based energy carriers in EU-15 up to 2050

Gaming console monitors Alzheimer’s symptoms

A rapidly aging population means an increased likelihood of the diseases of old age becoming more prevalent and more problematic for those afflicted with such illnesses, their family and carers, and overburdened healthcare services. In particular, dementia, of which Alzheimer’s disease is perhaps the most well-known form, requires long-term care to manage the negative behavioural symptoms. These are notoriously agitation and aggression.

The prevalence of dementia in the under-70s is relatively low, but incidence approximately doubles from the early 70s to the late 70s, into the 80s and late 80s and by the early 90s incidence is 41 percent. Almost half of people in their late 90s have dementia of one form or another.

Now, Philip Moore of Birmingham City University, UK, and colleagues elsewhere in the UK, in Japan and Spain have studied how processing patient monitoring data might be used to identify when newly diagnosed patients are entering a phase of their illness where agitation and aggression will begin to cause problems. The tools they are developing and the discussion they hope to instigate focuses on the potential for secure monitoring and assessment. This might allow those with the early stages of the disease or who are relatively symptom free to carry on with independent assisted living (IAL) without there being an increased risk of the sufferers harming themselves or others.

The team points out that modern “smart” phones, which have movement sensors and gaming consoles, such as the Microsoft Kinect system with its cameras and microphones could be used to non-invasively monitor a patient’s movements and voice patterns. It could theoretically distinguish between everyday movements and sounds and otherwise uncharacteristic violent movements or shouting.

The team’s preliminary findings suggest that the main challenges lie in the effective realisation of IAL. However, achieving this is a primary objective of multi-disciplinary research involving both clinicians and computer scientists who are developing the software and non-invasive sensor technologies that can be implemented in mobile systems. The team points out that regardless of whether specialized sensors are involved in monitoring or a gaming console with its camera and microphone, the issue of processing and tagging the large amounts of data generated for each patient being monitored is an important one for those looking at the context and knowledge locked within.

Research Blogging Icon “Detection of the onset of agitation in patients with dementia: real-time monitoring and the application of big-data solutions” in Int. J. Space-Based and Situated Computing, 2013, 3, 136-154

Gaming console monitors Alzheimer’s symptoms is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/gaming-console-monitors-alzheimers-symptoms.html

17 September 2013

Int. J. of Business and Globalisation to publish expanded papers from 11th International CIRCLE Conference

Expanded versions of papers presented at the 11th International CIRCLE Conference (23-26 April 2014, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK) will be published by the International Journal of Business and Globalisation.

Call for papers: "Advancements in Big Data Analysis"

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

Today, data is everywhere. For example, in sensor networks; social networks; internet documents; internet search indexing; call detail records; astronomy; genomics; biogeochemical, biological and other complex and often interdisciplinary scientific research; military surveillance; medical records; photography archives; video archives; and large-scale e-commerce.

Big data has attracted increasing attention in the academic and industry communities. Big data analysis refers to technologies, tools and methodologies that aim to transform massive quantities of raw data into “data about data” for analytical purposes. Big data analysis aims to extract, process and analyse knowledge from large amounts of various data. It can be seen as the mining or processing of massive data, so that “useful” information can be retrieved from various large dataset.

However, it becomes difficult to process data using on-hand database management tools or traditional data processing and analysis applications. Approaches and techniques are therefore required to solve various large-scale, dynamic big data analysis problems. The challenges in big data analysis include capture, storage, search, sharing, transfer, analysis and visualisation.

For this special issue, we are interested in inviting and gathering recent advanced theories, tools, techniques, frameworks and solutions to challenging problems in big data analysis. The topics suggested below can be discussed in terms of concepts, states of the art, standards, designs, implementations, and running experiments or applications.

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

Data query protocol in the cloud and mobile environment
Data gathering and preprocessing in the cloud and mobile environment
Data heterogeneity in mobile environments
Data representation techniques
Searching, mining and discovering data in real-application environments
Security with data analysis
Computational intelligence applied to data analysis
Data processing and management in real-application environments
Performance improvement in data analysis
Applications of big data analysis

Important Dates

Manuscript due: 30 October, 2013

Acceptance/rejection notification: 10 January, 2014

Final manuscript due: 10 February, 2014

Special issue on: "Exploring Some of the Challenges and Opportunities for Growth in the Global Environment"

International Journal of Sustainable Strategic Management 4(1) 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the King’s College School of Business (Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania) annual conference.

Antecedents of proactive and responsive market orientation
The evolving role of general managers in today's global organisations
An exploratory study of psychological tendencies related to texting while driving
Growth and sustainability through test optional admission policies

Additional Papers

Strategic framework for sustainable project portfolio selection and evaluation
Defining a sustainable overbooking approach in the hospitality industry

Editor's pick of Int. Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology articles available for free

Papers specially selected by the Editors of the International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology (IJOGCT) are available as free sample articles here. These articles have been selected to represent the journal's range and quality.

Biomass gasification with pure steam in fluidised bed: 12 variables that affect the effectiveness of the biomass gasifier
Development of Surrogate Reservoir Model (SRM) for fast track analysis of a complex reservoir
On the effect of a global adoption of various fractions of biodiesel on key species in the troposphere
Numerical studies on the effects of water presence in the coal matrix and coal shrinkage and swelling phenomena on CO2-enhanced coalbed methane recovery process
Assessment of the EU target on renewable energy for transport in the framework of the European vegetable oil sector
Direct numerical simulation of pore-scale reactive transport: applications to wettability alteration during two-phase flow
Pore scale coupling of fluid displacement and unconsolidated sediment mechanics
Three-dimensional pore networks and transport properties of a shale gas formation determined from focused ion beam serial imaging
Diamondoids: occurrence in fossil fuels, applications in petroleum exploration and fouling in petroleum production. A review paper
The Deutsches EnergieRohstoff-Zentrum Freiberg: advanced prospects for applied organic petrology, focused on the generation of coal based chemical products

IJOGCT is indexed by Thomson Reuters' Social Science Citation Index, and also by other indexing services (details are available here).

16 September 2013

Inderscience journals to publish expanded papers from FGCT 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the Second International Conference on Future Generation Communication Technologies (12-14 December 2013, British Computer Society, London, UK) will be published by the following journals:

Special issue: "Advances in Secure and Trusted Cloud Computing and Distributed Data Storage"

International Journal of Intelligent Information and Database Systems 7(5) 2013

Design and implementation of a secure cloud-based personal health record system using ciphertext-policy attribute-based encryption
Comment on Wang et al.'s anonymous multi-receiver ID-based encryption scheme and its improved schemes
Designated verifier ring signature and ring signcryption
On the security of two multi-use CCA-secure proxy re-encryption schemes
Activity clustering for anomaly detection
Smart wireless sensor networks and biometric authentication for real time traffic light junctions management

Special issue: "Corruption and Financial Performance of Private and Public Firms"

International Journal of Monetary Economics and Finance 6(2/3) 2013

Part I Corruption and Financial Performance in a micro-level perspective

Financial corporations' performances and corruption indices around Europe 1996-2008
The impact of external governance quality on the economic and social success of microfinance institutions
Economic freedom and bank efficiency nexus

Part II Corruption and Financial Performance in a macro-level perspective

The historical economics of corruption and development within Italy
Corruption, political instability and public finance in Europe
Corruption, governance and sustainable development
A new corruption index based on individual attitudes

Part III Corruption, Crime and Economic indicators

Economic aspects of the complementarity between corruption and crime: evidence from Italy in the period 1996-2005
Organised crime and corruption. The effects on legitimate business: evidence from Northern Italy

13 September 2013

Editor's pick of European Journal of International Management articles available for free

Papers specially selected by the Editors of the European Journal of International Management (EJIM) are available as free sample articles here. These articles have been selected to represent the journal's range and quality.

Culture: organisations, personalities and nations. Gerhard Fink interviews
Critical issues in international management research: an agenda for future advancement
Cultural values in organisations: insights for Europe
A European perspective on HRM
A new Zeitgeist for international business activity and scholarship
Publishing in the right place or publishing the right thing: journal targeting and citations' strategies for promotion and tenure committees
Practical wisdom and the development of cross-cultural knowledge management: a global leadership perspective
Case selection biases in management research: the implications for international business studies

EJIM is indexed by Thomson Reuters' Social Science Citation Index, and also by other indexing services (details are available here).

Twitter trend tracking

Twitter is a so-called “micro-blogging” site that provides an open publish-subscribe system to its users. It has a relatively simple design and because of its text-messaging initial public offering it limits “tweets” to 140 characters. It has grown quickly in recent years, has become somewhat saturated with bots, spammers, trolls and celebrities, but remains popular. Its long-anticipated flotation on the stock market was announced in September 2013.

One aspect of Twitter that is particularly attractive to users and to those in the news media, is its rapid response to world events and to the display of topics that are being discussed increasingly at any given time, the trends. Now, computer scientist Yavuz Selim Yilmaz of the University at Buﬀalo, SUNY, New York, USA, and colleagues there and at Universit`a degli Studi dell’Insubria, in Varese, Italy, have devised a passive sensing system for emerging trends. Their system can analyze the ever-changing twitter stream of endless updates from users and extract not only positive and negative emotions represented by those tweets but display the most critical trends in a way that the simple keyword count used by Twitter to display its trending topics cannot.

The team suggests that there are at least two important uses of their trending algorithm. The first one, they say, is sensing trends in public opinion by using the emotion-category corpus. The second is sensing trends in location-types in a city by using a location-category corpus. “Our experiments show that the proposed methods are able to determine changes in trends effectively in both application scenarios,” they report in the journal Int. J. Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing.

The researchers explain that their system has three characteristics that make it a viable alternative to simplistic trend counting:

Our trend sensing framework utilizes a multi-category corpus to detect and process multiple dimensions in tweets. This method enables expanding representation from binary (‘positive or negative’) options with respect to a single dimension to a continuum of options with respect to multiple dimensions, and provides more granularity in trend sensing.

Our trend sensing framework combines vector and set space methods to identify the trends accurately. From the experimental results, we find that using these two methods together eliminates false positives and improves the accuracy.

Our trend sensing framework utilizes a dynamic scoring function to give a synopsis (in terms of a list of prominent words) for the cause of the change in trends.

Yilmaz, Y.S., Bulut, M.F.,

Akcora, C.G., Bayir, M.A. and Demirbas, M. (2013) ‘Trend sensing via Twitter’, Int. J.

Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp.16–26.

Twitter trend tracking is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/twitter-trend-tracking.html

Inderscience is media partner for 5th International Conference on Electromagnetic Fields, Health and Environment (EHE2014)

Inderscience is a media partner for the 5th International Conference on Electromagnetic Fields, Health and Environment (24-26 April, 2014, Porto, Portugal).

The journal involved is Progress in Industrial Ecology, An International Journal.