Int. J. of Computational Vision and Robotics to publish expanded papers from SISE2014

Expanded versions of papers presented at the 2014 International Conference on Signal and Imaging Systems Engineering (2 March 2014, Coimbatore, India) will be published by the International Journal of Computational Vision and Robotics.

Call for papers: "ICT and the Net Economy"

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

Since the last decade of 20th century, the “virtual” economy (or “web economy”, or “net economy”, or “new economy”) has been widely accepted as a technology which influences the production of goods and services and the distribution of the same (Kollmann, 2002, 2011), providing a global platform over which people and organisations devise strategies (Haltinwager, Jarmin, 2000; Kollmann, Hàssel, 2007), interact, communicate, collaborate, co-operate (Walley, 2007; Branderburger, Nalebuff, 2011) and search for information.

According to authoritative experts (Nalebuff, Branderburger, Tapscott, 1996; Tapscott, Lowy, Ticoll, 1998; Haltinwager, Jarmin, 2000; Rifkin, 2001; Schwartz, 2002; Smith, 2003; Biswas, 2004), the virtual economy is of growing interest to the economic activities carried out by companies in the digital economy, changing competition and market rules (Brynjolfsson, Kahin, 2002) from competition to co-opetition (Biondi, Giannocolo, 2012; Katsanokis, Konyva, 2012; Himpel, 2012; Sroka, 2013).

To investigate these issues, this special issue solicits the submission of

1. papers studying the impact of the net economy in private and public companies;
2. papers investigating the changes in business models and in accounting management;
3. papers that analyse and discuss the different configurations of the net economy in different organisations surveyed in different countries, in different sectors of economic activity;
4. papers studying the economic changement from competition to co-opetition due to the advent of the net economy.

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

• Virtual property and digital economy
• “Digital based” and “digital related” companies
• Web accountability and web governance of web business
• The providers of network access
• The effects of net economy systems on the public sector

Important Dates

Submission deadline: 20 March, 2014

Special issue published: "Sensually Exploring Culture and Affect at Work"

International Journal of Work Organisation and Emotion 5(4) 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the Seventh International Critical Management Studies Conference.

• A phenomenology of embodied senses: the 'making' of sense in organisational culture
• Sounds of the salon: the auditory routines of hairdressers at work
• The human touch versus 'silver-handedness': the importance of the haptic in organisational life 
• The sense of smell in researching a bakery
• Mobilising the cultural consumer through the senses: festivals as sensory experiences

Inderscience is media partner for Graphene Commercialization & Applications 2013

Inderscience is a media partner for Graphene Commercialization & Applications 2013 (10-11 December 2013, San Mateo, California, USA).

The journals involved are:

• International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management
• International Journal of Biomedical Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
• International Journal of Computational Materials Science and Surface Engineering
• International Journal of Materials Engineering Innovation
• International Journal of Manufacturing Research
• International Journal of Manufacturing Technology and Management
• International Journal of Nano and Biomaterials
• International Journal of Nanomanufacturing
• International Journal of Nanoparticles
• International Journal of Nanotechnology
• International Journal of Power Electronics
• International Journal of Surface Science and Engineering
• International Journal of Vehicle Design

To claim an exclusive 15% discount when registering, enter IND15 at the checkout.

Follow this link for more information and to register.

Special issue published: "Information Technology for Chinese Medicine"

International Journal of Functional Informatics and Personalised Medicine 4(2) 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the International Workshop on Information Technology for Chinese Medicine (ITCM), held in conjunction with the 2012 IEEE International Bioinformatics and Biomedicine (BIBM2012).

• The neurological principle: how traditional Chinese medicine unifies body and mind
• TCMSearch: an in-use semantic web infrastructure for traditional Chinese medicine
• Progress in research of peritoneal dialysis complicated with peritonitis
• Sore throat to patients with IgA nephropathy: traditional Chinese medicine treatment
• Modelling traditional Chinese medicine therapy planning with POMDP
• Subhealth state classification with AdaBoost learner

Terrorism obsession – a capitalist plot?

The current apparent obsession with terrorism, particularly in the USA, could be a natural progression from the “red scares” of the anti-communist McCarthy era of the 20th Century and the subsequent Cold War, stretches back to 19th Century political scaremongering and has its roots in deliberate campaigns by the capitalist elite, according to a new study published in the International Journal of Human Rights and Constitutional Studies.

Doomsday proclamations seem to have been present throughout history. It might be argued that imminent the plagues, pestilence and destruction associated with armageddon stories fed this for centuries, not least through religious mythology. In the modern era, as visions of hell and damnation ceased to grip the imagination of lay people quite so strongly as they once did, demons and ghosts made way for new threats – alien invaders, epidemic diseases, the coming ice age, global warming and countless others. Then there are those who promote a colourful threat from across the globe one that somehow will extinguish “our” way of life as it invades our homelands and our homes: the reds under the bed, the yellow peril, the bearded enemy with dark skin.

It’s all intrinsically locked into racism and ignorance, of course. Many of the threats facing American society arise not from the outside but from the enemy within, the deranged or psychopathic shooter on a college campus, the home bombmaker with a serious grudge, the agencies that spy on our every move, our every email and the reformers of education who proclaim that evolution is just a theory and that their creation myth should be taught alongside science as a valid perspective on reality.

Now, Geoffrey Skoll of the Criminal Justice Department, Buffalo State College, New York and economist Maximiliano Korstanje of the University of Palermo, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, have built on social analytics work to come to the conclusion that capitalist elites have built on centuries of fear and modern obsessions and an inherent tendency in too many people to xenophobia. For their argument the team makes the significant disconnection between perceived reality and what is actually happening in the world:

“It is irrelevant whether Communist spies threatened US security, or whether crime has increasingly threatened personal security since the 1960s, or whether terrorists have and continue to pose a substantial threat to Americans and their way of life,” they say. “Causal relationships are set aside, for instance, between crime rates, the actual occurrence of crimes, and the burgeoning criminal justice apparatuses such as police and prisons.”

Some researchers, most notably Steven Pinker, have argued that we live in the best of times, not the worst of times, today, he says, humans are less likely to encounter violence and murder than at any time in our past. This may well be true. Moreover, crime rates have indeed fallen, we are more likely to negotiate with former enemies on sharing trade routes and swapping email addresses than ever before. Acts of terrorism certainly occur, but thankfully despite 24/7 media coverage outside the most unstable regions, violence and destruction remain the rare tragedy.

“Persistent fear is easily transferred to irrational objects,” the team says. “The working classes have had residual, and often realistic, anxieties about losing jobs, losing homes, not getting healthcare, and not having sufficient retirement income, to name some of the more prominent. These are not new. The culture of fear does not and cannot neutralise such fears, but it can offer transference objects.”

If the terrorists become the focus of blame for the everyday problems we all face, just as it was the devil in centuries past and the communists after the Second World War, then it is not the capitalist elite who must face up to the complaints consumer advocates nor the politicians to the disgruntled voters. The greater majority of the people can simply vent their anger and frustration on the nameless devil that is the terrorist.

“The culture of fear encourages diffidence and dependency on authorities, just as does over-protective parenting,” the team argues. “Atomised social relations turn the potential for liberation movements such as those from the 1960s into identity politics. Together, the new social relations and the dominant culture of the 21st Century produce a ‘great and powerful Wizard of Oz’ that demands fear and obedience.”

It is perhaps time to pull back the curtain and reveal that “Oz” for what it really is.

“Constructing an American fear culture from red scares to terrorism”, Int. J. Human Rights and Constitutional Studies, 2013, 1, 341-364

Terrorism obsession – a capitalist plot? is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/terrorism-obsession-a-capitalist-plot.html

Special issue published: "Behavioural Financial Regulation"

International Journal of Behavioural Accounting and Finance 4(1) 2013

• Two theories of the subprime crisis: governance failure or mere greed?
• Behavioural economics and public policy: some insights
• The effect of the legal system and empathy in venture capital contracting: theory and evidence
• Social capital and selection criteria of independent non-executive directors: some evidence from Malaysia
• Bernie Madoff, and the creation and subversion of regulatory authority

The Global Search for Education: More from Dr Pak Tee Ng (2)

Following his previous interviews in the Huffington Post series, "The Global Search for Education: In Search of Professionals - Singapore" and The Global Search for Education: More From Singapore, Dr. Pak Tee Ng returns with an update on Masterplan Three (2009-2014) in Singapores education system - The Global Search for Education: Got Tech? Singapore. Dr. Pak Tee Ng, from the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, has recently stepped down as Interim Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Innovation in Education and is now its Editorial Advisor as he is with the International Journal of Quality and Innovation. He is also an Editor of the International Journal of Complexity in Leadership and Management.

      

Call for papers: "Entrepreneurship and Behavioural Finance"

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

Traditional finance and economic theories provide many concepts and useful solutions to the main problems involving decision making under risk and uncertainty. However, all these approaches are based on the assumption that economic agents are rational.

When considering entrepreneurs, who make decisions to start a new venture in a complex setting and manage many quantifiable and non quantifiable risks in the course of their business, the assumption of rationality is strongly debatable. The same remark applies to investors, and particularly VCs, who choose such ventures for investment purposes.

The academic field of behavioural finance offers the opportunity to include psychological, social and emotional characteristics in the analysis of entrepreneurs and VCs financial decisions.

With this issue, we intend to cover the whole spectrum of behavioural topics in entrepreneurial finance as outlined below. We welcome conceptual and empirical research.

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

• Decision making of entrepreneurs / VCs
• Behavioural corporate finance: financing / investment / firm failure / exit
• Behavioural biases of entrepreneurs
• Attitudes towards risk / risk perception
• Entrepreneurs' psychological profile
• Entrepreneurs' financial literacy

Important Dates

Submission of manuscripts: 15 June, 2014
Notification to authors: 15 July, 2014
Final versions due: 15 August, 2014

Down at heel don’t suffer bad knees

If you often find yourself running after a bus, escaping a burning building or taking part in competitive athletics in high-heeled footwear, you may be storing up knee problems for later in life, according to a study published this month in the International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology.

9 out of 10 wearers of high-heels report associated soreness, fatigue, numbness and bunions when wearing such footwear. Despite this, the wearing of high-heels apparently represents an ongoing fashion statement. It gives the wearer a shorter stride, a purportedly more graceful gait and a superficial “shaping” of the leg towards the slender. It is perhaps no surprise then that given the perception of increased attractiveness and an apparent boost to self-confidence that high-heeled footwear remains popular despite the pain.

Now, Yaodong Gu, Yan Zhang and Wenwen Shen of the Faculty of Sports Science, at Ningbo University, in Zhejiang, China, have demonstrated that there are additional long-term risks for wearers of high-heels who find themselves regularly having to run.

The team measured the hip and ankle movements in young women running in different types of footwear – flat shoes heel (15 mm heel), low heel (45 mm) and high heels (70 mm). The team observed an increased motion of range of knee abduction-adduction and hip flexion-extension while the volunteers where running in high heels. This, they explain, could induce high loading forces on knee joints. Moreover, they observed a decrease in ankle movement and inversion while running that correlated with heel height, which would be linked to a greater risk of sprain. The researchers suggest that the higher the heel the greater the risk of an ankle sprain if running.

Perhaps more worrying than an ankle sprain in the long-term is that their findings suggest that the regular use of high-heeled footwear may contribute to osteoarthritis of the knee joints. The greater movement and force focused on the knees while running in such footwear being the major risk factor. Although the team studied only a small group of women aged 21-25 years in laboratory conditions, it is likely that other people wearing heeled footwear would be exposed to the same risks of injury and joint wear and tear.

“Lower extremities kinematics variety of young women jogging with different heel height” in Int. J. Biomedical Engineering and Technology, 2013, 12, 240-251

Down at heel don’t suffer bad knees is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/down-at-heel-dont-suffer-bad-knees.html

Special issue published: "Recent Advances and Innovations in Information Technology"

International Journal of Computational Science and Engineering 8(4) 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the 2011 National Computer Symposium, Taiwan.

• Effective forgery detection using DCT+SVD-based watermarking for region of interest in key frames of vision-based surveillance
• An exact method for estimating maximum errors of multi-mode floating-point iterative booth multiplier
• Novel view image synthesis based on photo-consistent 3D model deformation
• Selection of canonical images of travel attractions using image clustering and aesthetics analysis
• Parallel approximation algorithms for minimum routing cost spanning tree
• Data flow analysis and testing for OWL-S semantic web service compositions

Additional Papers

• Relationship exploration among PPI, ATGP and VCA via theoretical analysis
• Classification of mechanical prosthetic heart valve sounds
• Linear-spline element for meshing of irregular boundaries
• ABK-means: an algorithm for data clustering using ABC and K-means algorithm

Climate change special issue available as open access

Coincidentally appearing in Open Access Week, the Special Issue on Loss and Damage from Climate Change, published as the International Journal of Global Warming, 5(4), is being offered as an open access issue, i.e. is freely available to all users. Read more about the issue at http://inderscience.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/saving-us-from-climate-change.html and/or access the issue at http://www.inderscience.com/info/inarticletoc.php?jcode=ijgw&year=2013&vol=5&issue=4.

Open Access special issue published: "Loss and Damage from Climate Change" (free articles)

International Journal of Global Warming 5(4) 2013

The following articles are available for free as Open Access articles here.

• Loss and damage from climate change: local-level evidence from nine vulnerable countries
• The costs of adaptation: changes in water availability and farmers' responses in Punakha district, Bhutan
• Salinity-induced loss and damage to farming households in coastal Bangladesh
• Limits to autonomous adaptation in response to coastal erosion in Kosrae, Micronesia
• Are preventive and coping measures enough to avoid loss and damage from flooding in Udayapur district, Nepal?
• Erosive coping after the 2011 floods in Kenya
• Coping measures not enough to avoid loss and damage from drought in the North Bank Region of The Gambia
• Loss and damage from flooding in the Gambela region, Ethiopia
• Dirty droughts causing loss and damage in Northern Burkina Faso
• Loss and damage from the double blow of flood and drought in Mozambique

Call for papers: "Extended Arts: From Virtual to Real"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Arts and Technology.

The extended use of digital technologies in physical, biological and artificial environments enables artists to design and implement new forms of art.

This call for papers is aimed at the artistic and scientific communities interested in extended arts. We solicit original manuscripts that highlight recent successes and define major research challenges. We hope that contributions will chronicle the current state of the art, the challenges that lie ahead, and the evolution of future directions.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the XARTS 2013 International Conference, 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:

• History of extended arts - Digital art was first confined to research aiming specificity at defining a domain that would be recognised as such by the artistic community. Very soon, however, artists began exploring hybrid solutions to integrate digital media in real or artificial spaces, later targeting the seamless integration of human, digital and physical activities in holistic and systemic environments. We are interested in papers relating the passages from one era to the next, analysing the works of art and the artistic motivations with critical thought.
• Theory of extended arts - Convergence of new media with bioart, 3D fabrication and prototyping, nanotechnology and physical computing is examined under this topic. Among the disciplines concerned, cybernetics, biosemiotics and radical constructivism are confronted in a pluridisciplinary approach. We are interested in papers proposing theoretical models explaining such a convergence, examining multiple parameters of this integration process.
• Artistic practice - Digital art, interactive art, immersive art, open art, extended arts; a lot of terms aiming at describing the artistic practice are proposed by artists and scholars in the field. In this section we expect papers that describe recent art works (from 2000 to the present), authored by the artists themselves or the producers of their works in a quest of self-analysis of the artistic practice, whether it takes a distant approach or not.
• Research in progress - Ongoing research from undergraduates, graduates/postgraduates and professionals is considered under this topic.

Important Dates
Deadline for submission of full paper: 28 February, 2014
First review decision: 31 March, 2014
Submission of revised paper: 15 May, 2014
Final decision on acceptance: 30 June 2014

Call for papers: "Advanced Surface Engineering in Manufacturing Processes"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Surface Science and Engineering.

Advanced surface engineering has been widely applied in different industrial sectors. Recent developments in surface integrity, surface treatment or modification, micro/nano-structure fabrication, surface grinding and polishing, metrology on micro/nano patterns, thin film deposition or coating and analysis of advanced machining are highly related to manufacturing processes.

This special issue will provide a forum for scholars, researchers and engineers to present recent research exploring the challenges and/or surmounting difficulties in advanced surface engineering in manufacturing processes.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the 16th Internatioal Conference on Advances in Materials and Processing Technologies (AMPT 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, the following:

• Surface integrity
• Surface treatment/modification
• Surface grinding/polishing
• Surface metrology
• Micro/nano-structure fabrication
• Multiscale tribology
• Thin film deposition/coatings
• Advanced manufacturing processes
• Analysis of advanced machining
• Advanced materials processing

Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 29 December, 2013
Notification to authors: 31 January, 2014
Final versions due: 15 March, 2014

Special issue published: "Innovations of Intelligent Systems and Engineering"

International Journal of Reasoning-based Intelligent Systems 5(2) 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the International Symposium on Innovations in Intelligent Systems and Applications 2012 (INISTA 2012).

• A fast solver for combined emission/generation allocation using a Hopfield neural network
• A discrete artificial bee colony for multiple Knapsack problem
• Two approaches to multi-criteria optimisation of steel alloys for crankshafts production
• Enhancing artificial bee colony algorithm using inversely proportional mutation
• Chaotic time series prediction using brain emotional learning-based recurrent fuzzy system (BELRFS)
• Curry algebras and propositional algebra C1
• Early video-based smoke detection in outdoor spaces by spatio-temporal clustering

Loss and damage from climate change

An open access special issue of the International Journal of Global Warming brings together, for the first time, empirical evidence of loss and damage from the perspective of affected people in nine vulnerable countries. The articles in this special issue show how climatic stressors affect communities, what measures households take to prevent loss and damage, and what the consequences are when they are unable to adjust sufficiently. The guest-editors, Kees van der Geest and Koko Warner of the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) in Bonn, Germany, introduce the special issue with an overview of key findings from the nine research papers, all of which are available online free of charge.

‘Loss and damage’ refers to adverse effects of climate variability and climate change that occur despite mitigation and adaptation efforts. Warner and van der Geest discuss the loss and damage incurred by people at the local-level based on evidence from research teams working in nine vulnerable countries: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Kenya, Micronesia, Mozambique and Nepal. The research papers pool data from 3269 household surveys and more than 200 focus groups and expert interviews.

The research reveals four loss and damage pathways. Residual impacts of climate stressors occur when:

1) existing coping/adaptation to biophysical impact is not enough;
2) measures have costs (including non-economic) that cannot be regained;
3) despite short-term merits, measures have negative effects in the longer term; or
4) no measures are adopted – or possible – at all.

The articles in this special issue provide evidence that loss and damage happens simultaneously with efforts by people to adjust to climatic stressors. The evidence illustrates loss and damage around barriers and limits to adaptation: growing food and livelihood insecurity, unreliable water supplies, deteriorating human welfare and increasing manifestation of erosive coping measures (e.g. eating less, distress sale of productive assets to buy food, reducing the years of schooling for children, etc.). These negative impacts touch upon people’s welfare and health, social cohesion, culture and identity – values that contribute to the functioning of society but which elude monetary valuation.

The publication of this set of research papers is very timely as loss and damage will be a key topic during the climate negotiations in Warsaw next month (11-22 November 2013), and empirical evidence is still scarce. The findings also contribute to the emerging body of literature on adaptation limits and constraints, a topic that – for the first time – is discussed in a separate chapter of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Working Group 2 (IPCC AR5 WG2).

The issues that have arisen through this research point to an even greater urgency for ambitious mitigation and adaptation that are sufficient to manage climate stressors. If this goal is missed, loss and damage will undermine society´s ability to pursue sustainable development.

"The special issue of the International Journal of Global Warming focuses on a crucial topic: 'Loss and damage' which refers to adverse effects of climate variability and climate change that occur despite mitigation and adaptation efforts," Editor-in-Chief Ibrahim Dincer of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology says. The issue reports on the first ever multi-country study on this emerging topic from the perspective of vulnerable communities in Africa, Asia and the Pacific. The research papers included show that current mitigation and adaptation efforts are not enough. People across the study sites were not passive victims of climate change. A large majority implemented a wide variety of adaptation and coping measures to avoid impacts of climate stressors, but these measures were often insufficient or came at a cost. The negative effects were not simply monetary, there were cultural losses and non-economic costs, in terms of time investment, social-cohesion and livelihood security, were also widespread. "IJGW positions itself uniquely by addressing the issue and offering solutions," Dincer adds.

"Loss and damage from climate change: local-level evidence from nine vulnerable countries" in Int. J. Global Warming, 2013, 5, 367-386

Please contact the corresponding author, Koko Warner, by email on warner@ehs.unu.edu for further information on the research published in the special issue.

In the interests of enhancing global discussions of critical and urgent issues arising from climate change now, the research papers are being made available by Inderscience Publishers free of charge to all readers from 23rd October 2013 at the following link:

http://www.inderscience.com/info/inarticletoc.php?jcode=ijgw&year=2013&vol=5&issue=4

Inderscience is media partner for M2M for Oil and Gas 2014

Inderscience is a media partner for M2M for Oil and Gas 2014 (28-29 April 2014, London, UK).

The journals involved are:

• International Journal of Critical Infrastructures
• International Journal of Information Technology, Communications and Convergence
• International Journal of Mobile Communications
• International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology
• International Journal of Systems, Control and Communications
• International Journal of Satellite Communications Policy and Management
  

Call for papers: "Foreign Affairs and Applied Diplomacy"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Business and Globalisation.

Foreign affairs and diplomacy have traditionally been instrumental in the management of relations between states. In the era of globalisation, the understanding of the management of international affairs has become decisive to successful and effective interactions among states, global firms and institutions.

This special issue is devoted to foreign affairs, applied diplomacy, international business and globalisation, and seeks papers that will contribute to the understanding of contemporary developments in this field.

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

• Diplomacy and globalisation
• Foreign policy, economics and global affairs
• Foreign affairs and applied diplomacy
• Diplomacy and international trade
• Diplomacy and foreign direct investments
• Public diplomacy and business
• Multinational entities and diplomacy
• Techniques of negotiations in the globalised world
• Cross-cultural negotiations
• International business strategies
• Strategies for international communication

Important Dates

Submission of manuscripts: 1 February, 2014

Inderscience is media partner for Social Media in the Utilities Sector 2014

Inderscience is a media partner for Social Media in the Utilities Sector (2-3 April 2014, London, UK).

The journals involved are:

• International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising
• International Journal of Knowledge and Web Intelligence
• International Journal of Social Media and Interactive Learning Environments

Special issue published: "Social Media Applications for Business, Learning and Society"

International Journal of Innovation in Education 2(1) 2013

• Social media: fad or tool? What motivates college faculty to utilise Web 2.0 and 3.0 technologies in the classroom?
• Using social media tools for enhancing student-institution interaction. A study at an Indian distance learning institute
• Exploring the innovative use of audio-based journaling to enhance student reflection
• Bit-wise learning: a didactical-methodological design and evaluation concept for a mobile learning pilot project in junior enterprises

Call for papers: "Entrepreneurial Development"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Organisational Design and Engineering.

Organisational design issues are becoming increasingly relevant to very small (VSEs) and small and medium (SMEs) entrepreneurial ventures. It is well recognised that from the time of their inception, VSEs rely extensively on various types of support through both formal (e.g. business support providers, incubators, etc.) and informal networks, to complement internal capabilities and competences that are lacking.

Yet, little research has been conducted on the role organisational design plays at these early stages, where the entrepreneur must negotiate, for instance, trade-offs between entrepreneurial and administrative actions. At perhaps different scales, are these organisational design tradeoffs in VSEs and SMEs similar or different to the ones that consist in resolving tensions between external entrepreneurial supports versus internal activity coordination? Is organisational design in an entrepreneurial context a search for a fixed outcome or an evolving activity as the venture follows its development? What are the possible interorganisational design dependency and coordination issues that need to be balanced for VSEs and SMEs at the early development stage?

This special issue is devoted to research aimed at understanding implications of organisational design in early-stage venture development in VSEs and SMEs. We seek papers that explore how such organisations address organisational design issues arising from having to balance their need for external knowledge and support with internal action coordination. This tension may represent a genuine challenge in such firms as they generally lack an abundance of resources and capabilities which would otherwise reduce the need for balancing organisational design issues.

Potential research topics might include but are not limited to research that offer insights into the performance implications of organisational design; adoption of strategies for organisational design in early-stage ventures; balancing external support and internal coordination; strategies of early-stage ventures for organisational design that supports the building of firm-level resources and competencies (human and financial resources, etc.); creation of dynamic capabilities; and implications for organisational performance, innovation and sustainability.

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

• Impact of entrepreneurial administrative actions and processes on organisational design
• Organisational design as an evolving activity in entrepreneurial development rather than a search for an outcome
• VSEs' and SMEs' organisational design and the role of internal and external uncertainty
• Organisational design performance in resolving tensions between external entrepreneurial support and internal firm coordination
• Organisational design and its influence on the exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities, whether locally or internationally
• External information and its influence on entrepreneurial development and organisational design
• Interorganisational design priorities and issues for VSEs and SMEs

We welcome contributions that tackle organisational design and related issues from a variety of theoretical and empirical perspectives. Contributions to this special issue may take a range of form s(case studies, action research, grounded theory, design science, statistical analysis and simulation), may focus on different units and levels of analysis, and may employ quantitative, qualitative or mixed research approaches.

Important Dates

Submission deadline: 31 May, 2015
Reviews: 31 July 2015
Final versions due: 1 October, 2015

New editorial team for International Journal of Innovation in Education

The International Journal of Innovation in Education has appointed a new Editor-in-Chief, Professor Dr. Nicole Kimmelmann, and a new Executive Editor, Professor Des Hewitt. Professor Dr. Kimmelmann is from the Friedrich-Alexander-Universitt Erlangen-Nrnberg in Germany and Professor Hewitt from the University of Derby School of Education.

Special issue published: "Effective Communication in Online Environment"

International Journal of Web Based Communities 9(4) 2013

• Cooperation and participation in online education: social presence in collective writing environments
• Students' web-based actions when linking theory and practice
• The positive outcomes of a sense of virtual community
• A new ego network model and an approach to extracting an ego network compliant with this model from a social internetworking system
• Perspectives on the evaluation of affective quality in social software
• Web 2.0 and digital art communities: applications and potentialities
• Fan moderation of professional sports organisations' social media content: strategic brilliance or pending disaster?

Get ready for Generation-C

A generational movement consisting of creative consumers who modify proprietary offerings, and of members of society who in turn use their developments, all without any moral and legal considerations. Think video and audio mashups, jailbreaks for game consoles, unlocked mobile phones, tuned cars, even ‘hacked’ vacuum cleaners that can now be controlled remotely, via mobile phone apps.

Authors Jan Kietzmann of the Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada and Ian Angell of the London School of Economics, UK, have coined the term “Generation-C”, in the spirit of the well-known Generation-X and others, to encompass these “constantly connected citizens – creative, capable, content-centric, and community- oriented – who collectively communicate, collaborate, copy, co-develop, combine, contribute and consume common content.”

Writing in the International Journal of Technology Marketing, the authors discuss the resulting controversies associated with existing intellectual property rights, and suggest that the future can only bring conflict if such legislation is not changed. Generation-C will only grow as more and more of our products become increasingly modifiable, and as creative consumers freely exchange their ideas for product improvements online. The authors propose that governments and politicians should allow creative consumers’ derivative innovations for the ‘good of society’ and for the benefit of their economies. This is a controversial perspective – one that intellectual property rights owners would rather not debate.

The article concludes with important messages to organizations, intellectual property rights lawyers, owners of property rights, governments and politicians, suggesting they reconsider the impact that the current intellectual property legislation has, not only on those who modify proprietary products, but on all of us.

“Generation-C: creative consumers in a world of intellectual property rights” in Int. J. Technology Marketing, 2013, 9, 86-98.

Get ready for Generation-C is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/get-ready-for-generation-c.html

Call for papers: "Sustainable Manufacturing Systems"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Mechatronics and Manufacturing Systems.

This special issue aims to bring researchers together to present the latest advances in the fields of sustainable products and processes, industrial energy efficiency and sustainable manufacturing systems; process modelling, system modelling, control and optimisation; material handling, production planning, scheduling, and smart and automated systems to increase efficiency and reduce the ecological impact of manufacturing processes and systems.

This issue invites the submission of high-quality research articles relating to sustainable manufacturing systems.

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

• Decision support for sustainable manufacturing
• Design of products and processes for sustainability
• Energy-efficient machine tools
• Energy-efficient manufacturing processes
• Green or environmentally benign manufacturing
• High-efficiency process design and optimisation
• Intelligent and smart systems for industrial energy efficiency
• Multi-criteria optimisation for sustainable manufacturing
• Reconfigurable manufacturing systems
• Waste reduction in manufacturing processes

Important Dates

Submission of full papers: 30 April, 2014

Inderscience is media partner for AIDF Food Security Summit: Asia 2013

Inderscience is a media partner for AIDF Food Security Summit: Asia 2013 (26-27 November 2013, Bangkok, Thailand).

The journals involved are:

• International Journal of Agricultural Resources, Governance and Ecology
• International Journal of Food Safety, Nutrition and Public Health

Special issue published: "Mechanism Design for Robotics"

International Journal of Mechanisms and Robotic Systems 1(2/3) 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the International Symposium on Mechanism Design for Robotics 2012 (MEDER 2012).

• Modelling, analysis and experiments of a screw propelling capsule robot
• A design procedure for conceptual design of mechanisms
• Force capabilities analysis of a typical mechanism of forging manipulator using a modified scaling factor method
• Bennett motion analysis based on specific regulus
• A novel prism deployable mechanism based on straight-line mechanism
• Fuzzy-PID control of the 6-DOF deep-sea mining ship motion simulator
• New design of 6-RSS parallel manipulator with large rotation workspace
• Orientation capability of PS-3-SPS-type parallel robot with application in segment erector

Inderscience journals to publish expanded papers from Annual Consumer Telematics Show 2014

Expanded versions of papers presented at the 12th Annual Consumer Telematics Show 2014 (6 January 2014, The Rio Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, USA) will be published by the following journals:

• International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management
• International Journal of Vehicle Autonomous Systems
• International Journal of Vehicle Information and Communication Systems
• International Journal of Vehicle Systems Modelling and Testing

Call for papers: "Advanced Cloud and Big Data"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Cloud Computing.

Cloud computing and big data share similar intrinsic features, such as distribution, parallelisation, space-time and being geographically dispersed. Utilising these intrinsic features would help provide cloud computing solutions for big data with computing infrastructure capability to process and obtain unprecedented information. At the same time, big data poses grand challenges as opportunities to advance cloud computing.

This special issue aims to provide a fresh and state-of-the-art report on relevant recent advances in cloud and big data technologies. It will attempt to address the different technical challenges related to cloud and big data technologies from different perspectives by providing a good overview of the differentiated approaches that are currently possible and promising. The issue also aims to introduce readers to the challenging, multi-faceted and broad scope of cloud and big data technologies, and to present an up-to-date picture of current hot topics and state-of-the-art solutions in the field.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the First International Conference on Advanced Cloud and Big Data (ICCD 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, the following:

• Research:
• Cloud storage and data management
• Cloud resource management and performance optimisation
• Cloud computing security
• Economic models and energy management
• Big data modelling, processing, storage and management
• Industry:
• Cloud computing standards, integration and solutions
• Big data economic analytics
• Big data business cases and experiences
• Application:
• Cloud computing platforms and realisations
• Mobile cloud computing applications
• Big data as a service
• Big data platforms and toolkits

Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 15 January, 2014
Notification to authors: 15 April, 2014
Final versions due: 30 May, 2014

Call for papers: "Big Data and Smart Computing"

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

Big data and smart computing are emerging research fields that have recently drawn much attention and interest in computer science and information technology as well as in social sciences and other disciplines.

This special issue will include revised and substantially extended versions of papers presented at theInternational Conference on Big Data and Smart Computing (BigComp 2014), organised by KIISE (Korean Institute of Information Scientists and Engineers). In addition, it strongly solicits high-quality original research papers and new work-in-progress reports in any aspect of big data and smart computing from researchers worldwide who are unable to participate in the conference.

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

• Techniques and models for big data
• Algorithms and systems for big data
• Machine learning and AI for big data
• Databases and data mining for big data
• Graph mining and opinion mining
• Web search and information retrieval
• Bioinformatics data management
• Infrastructure and platforms for smart computing
• Models and tools for smart computing
• Mobile smartphone applications
• Big data analytics and social media
• Parallel and distributed computing for big data
• Hardware/software infrastructure for big data
• Security and privacy for big data
• Image/multimedia data management
• Cloud and grid computing
• Mobile communication and networks
• Smart devices and hardware
• Smart location-based services
• Mobile software and data science
• Big data and smart computing applications (healthcare, medicine, finance, business, law, education, transportation, telecommunication, science, engineering, ecosystem, etc.)

Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 30 June, 2014

Int. J. of Big Data Intelligence to publish expanded papers from BigComp 2014

Expanded versions of papers presented at the 2014 International Conference on Big Data and Smart Computing (15-17 January 2014, Bangkok, Thailand) will be published by the International Journal of Big Data Intelligence.

Special issue published: "Emerging Polymers for Novel Applications"

International Journal of Materials Engineering Innovation 4(3/4) 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the Malaysia Polymer International Conference 2011 (MPIC2011).

• Preparation and characterisation of NiZn ferrite/multiwalled nanotubes thermoplastic natural rubber composite
• Comparison of rheological and lubricity properties of polymer beads and glass beads in water-based mud
• Enhanced properties of fly ash-reinforced unsaturated polyester composites
• Effect of modified tapioca starch on mechanical properties of styrene-grafted natural-rubber/starch composites
• Influence of solvent and drop distance on the formation of ENR/PVC/silica aerogel beads
• Ionic conductivity studies on PEMA/PVC-NH4I polymer electrolytes
• The effect of particle size on the electrical and thermal properties of recycled copper filled polyester composites
• Effect of crude palm oil as plasticiser on the mechanical and morphology properties of low density polyethylene blown film
• Preparation and characterisation of blends of poly(ethylene oxide) and functionalised epoxidised natural rubber
• Investigation on the influence of crosslink promoter on the irradiation crosslinking, dynamic mechanical property and thermal stability of ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA)/natural rubber (SMR L)/organoclay nanocomposites
• Characterisation and properties of HDPE/NR blend-layered silicate nanocomposites prepared by melt intercalation

Newly announced journal: International Journal of Supply Chain and Inventory Management

The International Journal of Supply Chain and Inventory Management provides a unique focus by explicitly linking supply chains with inventory management. Inventory, transport, location of production and storage spaces significantly influence supply chain performance. Modifications of inventory policies can lead to a dramatic alteration of supply chain efficiency and responsiveness. Increasing supply chain inventories will improve customer service and revenue but also increase supply chain cost. Therefore, key areas to be explored include the correct sizing of inventory, links with supply chain efficiency and impact on logistics services.

Call for papers: "Value Co-creation in the Networking Era"

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

Value creation is the main objective of any business. Historically, value has been created inside the firm and then distributed to the market. This firm-centric perspective has established the role of the firm as the creator of value and separated the market from the value creation process. With the rapid pace of technological innovation, the scope of value creation has expanded to include a broader range of activities with other business entities. In other words, value is created in a collaborative network where various stakeholders can share their knowledge and experience in the design and development of new products/services. This network-centric perspective is called value co-creation. For example, UPS and Toshiba have agreed on a new laptop repair process in which UPS picks up broken Toshiba laptops, fixes them in its own facilities and returns them to their owners within four days. Another good example is the BMW Group’s Co-Creation Lab, a website for consumers who want to share their thoughts on BMW products/services. Those consumers can access a variety of projects directly from the website and contribute their suggestions. Clearly, the co-creation view has become central in the development of new products/services.

The concept of value co-creation has been an object of interest in various academic disciplines. The marketing literature delineates the dynamics of value co-creation under service-dominant (SD) logic. SD logic suggests that consumers engage in a dialogue and exchange of value with their suppliers from the early stage of product/service development. The field of information systems examines how innovative uses of new technologies create new value co-creating opportunities for individuals, firms, industries, societies. Strategic management pays attention to the concept of open innovation to explain how various internal and external resources are combined in a platform to create new organisational values.

The purpose of this special issue is to present a collection of up-to-date understanding on value co-creation. The role of consumers and suppliers in creating value, the corporate strategies of value co-creation, and the impacts of value co-creation on firm performance are all of interest in this special issue. Papers that primarily highlight the features of new value co-creating technologies are also welcomed, but the focus should be more on the uses of new technologies.

Possible topics for this special issue include, but are not limited to:

• Strategies for co-creation
• Industry convergence and co-creation
• Consumers and co-creation
• Co-creation in virtual worlds
• Co-creation in manufacturing and servicing
• IT-enabled co-creation
• Open innovation
• Crowdsourcing

Important Dates

Submission of manuscripts: 1 May, 2014

Notification to authors: 1 June, 2014

Revisions by authors: 1 July, 2014

Final acceptance: 1 August, 2014

Final versions due: 1 September, 2014

European J. of International Management to publish expanded papers from INBAM 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the Fourth Conference of International Network of Business and Management Journals (INBAM)'s session track on Internationalization of Family Business Groups (ICICT-2013) (25-27 June 2014, Barcelona, Spain) will be published by the European Journal of International Management.

Special issue published: "Advances in Computational Methods in Manufacturing"

International Journal of Mechatronics and Manufacturing Systems 6(4) 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the International Conference on Computational Methods in 
Manufacturing (ICCMM2011).

• Investigations into modelling and assessment of theoretical profiles using capacitive sensor
• Numerical modelling of heat transfer and fluid flow in laser microwelding
• Strategies for measurement of sculptured surfaces using coordinate measuring machines in continuous scanning mode
• Finite element simulation of laser assisted bending with moving mechanical load
• Determination of minimum uncut chip thickness in mechanical micro-machining using Johnson-Cook fracture model
• An approximate fast finite element analysis of temperature distribution in rolling

Call for papers: "Advances in Modelling, Simulation and Computing in Aeronautics and Astronautics"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Service and Computing Oriented Manufacturing.

Computer modelling and simulation, as a powerful decision making tool, plays an increasingly important role in aeronautics and astronautics through, for example, simulation analysis, real-time data processing, parameter optimisation and so on. Computer application requires continuous research and development to guarantee the advancement of aeronautics and astronautics.

Authors are invited to submit articles presenting research work, case studies and applications, both theoretical and applied.

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

• Advanced modelling and simulation technologies in aeronautics
• Advanced modelling and simulation technologies in astronautics
• Advanced computer control astronautics and astronautics
• Environment simulation and modelling for astronautics and astronautics
• Modelling, simulation and computing in aircraft trajectory design
• Modelling, simulation and computing of advanced terminal guidance law
• Modelling, simulation and computing of guidance law with constraints
• Modelling and simulation of aircraft coupling control
• Modelling and simulation of aircraft complex control
• Modelling, simulation and optimisation of aircraft formation flying
• Modelling simulation and optimisation in aero-assisted orbital transfer
• Simulation in spacecraft cooperative guidance and control
• Further topics concerning modelling, simulation and computing in aeronautics and astronautics

Important Dates

Submission of manuscripts: 31 January, 2014

Notification to authors: 30 March, 2014

Final versions due: 30 April, 2014

Special issue published: "Mobile Network Security - Does the Infrastructure Support Proper Security"

International Journal of Mobile Network Design and Innovation 5(1) 2013

• Privacy disclosure risk: smartphone user guide
• An analysis of security vulnerabilities of the Xbox 360 and Xbox Live mobile network
• Agent-based modelling to visualise trustworthiness: a socio-technical framework
• Secure and energy-efficient data aggregation for wireless sensor networks

Additional Papers

• Utilising multiple mobile sinks to improve wireless sensor network lifetime
• Verilog HDL optimisation design and simulation for modified inversionless Berlerkamp-Massey algorithm and the multiplier over canonical field

Inderscience is media partner for Arctic Oil & Gas 2014 Summit

Inderscience is a media partner for the Arctic Oil & Gas 2014 Summit (28-29 January 2014, Osloite).

The journals involved are:

• International Journal of Arab Culture, Management and Sustainable Development
• International Journal of Energy Technology and Policy
• International Journal of Exergy
• International Journal of Global Energy Issues
• International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology
• International Journal of Petroleum Engineering

The perils of text driving

US research reveals that 4 out of 5 college student drivers have used their cell phones to send or receive text messages while driving despite the majority recognizing that the activity represents a risk. Garold Lantz and Sandra Loeb of the McGowan School of Business, at King’s College, in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, found that male drivers are more likely to engage in texting while driving but consider themselves more proficient drivers than others and so less likely to endanger themselves or others while doing so.

Analysis indicates ‘texting impulsiveness’ is positively associated with people who text frequently and those who text while driving, the team reports in the International Journal of Sustainable Strategic Management this month.

Earlier studies have suggested that texting while driving is on a par with driving while intoxicated with alcohol as a significant risk factor for highway accidents. Indeed, some research suggested that texting slows driver reaction times more than being drunk. Other studies reinforce the myth of multitasking and show that very few (2.5%) people can competently undertake two or more tasks at once. Moreover, our brains allow us to focus completely only on a single task at any given time, so those people demonstrated as multitaskers are simply better at switching seamlessly between two activities. Texting while driving is already banned in some countries, including the UK for this reason.

“There seems to be a mentality that use of electronic devices is dangerous for everyone but ‘me’,” the team says. While the US government has introduced a public awareness campaign based around the “distraction.gov” web site, the means to correct for such a risky practice as texting while driving is in dispute. The team’s study provides useful empirical evidence regarding attitudes to this issue.

“If further research conclusively demonstrates that texting while driving is as dangerous as driving drunk this study suggests that a promotional campaign should be undertaken to assure that this point is clearly understood,” the team suggests. Lantz points out that, “Our study, particularly our measurement of impulsiveness, is exploratory. We have been working to develop that measurement and it is still a work in progress,” he says.

“An exploratory study of psychological tendencies related to texting while driving” in Int. J. Sustainable Strategic Management, 2013, 4, 39-49

The perils of text driving is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/the-perils-of-text-driving.html

Call for papers: "Advances in Decision Making with Business Process Management"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Decision Support Systems.

Business process management (BPM) and information systems are experiencing an increasing symbiosis following the shift of focus from data to processes. A growing number of business processes are currently enacted under the supervision of information systems, leading to significant improvements in terms of both performance and compliance.

Organisations strive to streamline and optimise their processes to achieve productivity gains. In addition, BPM provides organisations with knowledge that gives them the opportunity to transform their value chain and innovate.

This special issue welcomes submissions that address the potential of BPM for decision making support.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at 10th MCDA Workshop – HELORS (Thessaloniki, Greece, 21-23 November, 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, the following:

• Process analytics
• Process measurement and metrics
• Process mining
• Business process governance
• Managing process change
• Big data and BPM
• Business process optimisation
• Workflow management

Important Dates

Deadline for full paper submission: 28 February 2014
Notice of acceptance/rejection: 30 May 2014
Revised paper submission: 30 June 2014
Final decision: 15 August 2014

Special issue published: "Advances in Power, Communication and Security in Networking Systems"

International Journal of Embedded Systems 5(3) 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the 4th International Conference on Intelligent Networking and Collaborative Systems (INCoS 2012).

• Energy-aware joint power and rate control in overlay cognitive radio networks: a Nash bargaining perspective
• Outage-optimal power allocation for space-time cooperative network coding with amplify-and-forward protocol
• Impartial spectrum decision under interference temperature model in cognitive wireless mesh networks
• Cooperative transmission with broadcasting and communication
• Network-coding-based hybrid-ARQ for bi-directional regenerative relaying
• Linear precoding design for cognitive multiuser MIMO systems using a leakage-based approach
• Interference alignment for MIMO cognitive networks: a complex FDPM-based subspace tracking approach
• Interference management strategy for multiuser two-way relay networks
• On the security of an ID-based anonymous proxy signature scheme and its improved scheme

Call for papers: "Wireless Robot and Sensor Networks: Opportunities, Challenges, Solutions and Prospects"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Autonomous and Adaptive Communications Systems.

Wireless robot and sensor networks (WRSNs) have emerged as a confluence of disparate wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and multi-robot networked systems. The potential merits stemming from this mutual collaboration not only enhance and complement existing WSN applications but also introduce a plethora of novel applications that require autonomous and intelligent interaction.

WRSNs are expected to play crucial role in building future cyber-physical systems and promise unprecedented and limitless opportunities. However, such integration introduces various challenges such as collaboration and coordination, task allocation and fulfilment.

This special issue aims at presenting recent advances and hot issues in the design, implementation and evaluation of architectures, algorithms and protocols for existing and prospective applications of WRSN. Moreover, this special issue is expected to spark and promote further research in this multidimensional domain.

Original, unpublished research and survey/tutorial articles are solicited in all aspects of WRSNs and their variants. In particular, we welcome the submission of survey/tutorial articles.

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

• Collaboration and coordination among robots
• Mobile sensor networks/sensor and actor networks
• Robot-powered wireless sensor networks
• Topology management in WRSNs
• Survivability strategies for WRSNs
• Coverage and connectivity issues
• Task allocation and fulfilment
• Mobility management and control
• Integration of WRSNs with other technologies
• Self-organisation and self-managing operation of WRSNs
• Specification, modelling, simulation and experimentation of WRSNs
• Quality of service issues in WRSNs
• Scalability issues in WRSNs
• Applications and prototypes of WRSNs
• Identification of open research issues and future prospects of WRSNs
• Safety and security in WRSNs
• M2M and IoT (Internet of Things) for WRSNs
• Vehicular protocols for WRSNs

Important Dates

Paper submission: 31 December, 2013

First round of reviews: 1 March, 2014

Pulp friction cleans up Brockovich chemical

A byproduct of the manufacture of pulp using the sulfite process for making paper, sodium lignosulfonate, can be used to immobilize and soak up toxic chromium compounds from soil and water, according to research published in the International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development.

Konstantin Volchek and Carl Brown of Environment Canada, and Dario Velicogna of Velicogna Consultants Inc in Ottawa, have carried out two successful parallel tests of efficacy on a laboratory scale. The first involved removal of chromium ions from water using reagent binding and membrane separation and the second was the stabilization of chromium ions in the soil using chemical soil flushing. Lignosulfonates can bind hexavalent chromium and allow it to be removed from contaminated water by subsequent membrane filtration. The soil tests showed that lignosulfonates can reduce the mobility of chromium so that it becomes trapped within the soil matrix; in the field this would reduce the risk of it leaching from a contaminated site into the underlying water table or waterways.

Chromium has many uses in industry but its accidental and even deliberate release into the environment has led to widespread contamination of soil and water. However, chromium salts are also naturally present in rock and soil at relatively high concentration in certain parts of Greece, Italy and the USA. Chromium(III), which carry a 3+ electrical charge and chromium(VI) 6+ charge are the most stable and so the most common. Cr(III) is not very soluble and although it has some toxicity it is the highly soluble and so mobile Cr(VI) that is a significant cause for environmental and health concerns. Cr(VI) ions are both toxic and cancer causing.

There are various technologies that might be used to extract chromium(VI) ions from contaminated soil or water. However, these usually require the addition of expensive chemicals to allow the heavy metal ions to be extracted or immobilized. A much more sustainable approach would be to use a reagent that was just as effective or more so and that was itself a waste product from industry. Sodium salts of lignosulfonates from the paper industry offer such an alternative, the researchers say.

“Inexpensive, effective and easy to use reagents that reduce chromium toxicity and mobility would make a remediation technology more attractive and competitive,” Volchek and colleagues reports. The lignosulfonate first reduces toxic Cr(VI) ions to the less soluble and less hazardous Cr(III) and these bind strongly to the lignosulfonate molecules and can then be removed by membrane filtration.

Volchek K., Brown C.E. & Velicogna D. (2013). Evaluation of sodium lignosulphonate for the remediation of chromium-contaminated soil and water, International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development, 7 (3) 289. DOI: 10.1504/IJISD.2013.056945

Pulp friction cleans up Brockovich chemical is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/pulp-friction-cleans-up-brockovich-chemical.html

Call for papers: "Applications of Intelligent and Connected Vehicle Technologies in Vehicle Monitoring, Controls and Diagnostics"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Powertrains.

The increase in population and the number of cars on the road, the emergence and expansion of mega regions with dense populations, cost and capacity limitations for adding new roads and highways, global climate concerns, energy resource constraints, urban road traffic congestions and increasing demand for vehicle fleet operations are just a few of the drivers for the development and advancement of intelligent vehicle transportation (ITS), vehicle to vehicle (V2V) communication and connected vehicle technologies.

These systems represent a group of technologies that connect vehicles to other vehicles or to infrastructure receivers and monitoring centres to improve transportation system management and vehicle fleet operation, as well as individual vehicle operation including powertrain and vehicle controls for safety, fuel economy and emissions.

This special issue aims to present innovative technologies and applications of ITS and V2V networking technologies in powertrain and vehicle control.

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

• Vehicle to vehicle and vehicle to infrastructure new technologies and applications including monitoring, cloud computing and IT
• ITS and V2V networking applications in vehicle and powertrain control and diagnostics
• ITS and V2V networking applications in fleet vehicle management
• ITS and V2V networking applications in start-stop, hybrid and electric vehicles
• Intelligent driving assistant systems and eco-driving
• Applications of ITS and V2V networking information in improvement of vehicle and fleet fuel economy, emissions and safety

Important Dates

Submission of manuscripts: 31 March, 2014
Notification to authors: 15 September, 2014
Final versions due: 15 November, 2014

Special issue published: "Law and Policy Implications of Media Convergence"

International Journal of Technology Policy and Law 1(3) 2013

• When new media meets an old regulatory structure: the development of IPTV and the challenge of media policy
• The Convergence Review and the principle of Australians' access to and opportunities for participation
• Networks of governance: users, platforms, and the challenges of networked media regulation
• Conceptualising the rights and responsibilities of internet intermediaries in relation to user-generated content: an analysis of European Union law
• Copyrights and copyfights: copyright law and the digital economy

Special issue published: "Collaboration, Organisations and Social Media"

International Journal of Organisational Design and Engineering 3(2) 2013

• The organisation (re)invented by its blogs
• Framing ICT usage in the real estate industry
• Microblogging practices of virtual organisations: commonalities and contrasts
• Measuring creative performance of teams through dynamic semantic social network analysis
• Building trust in virtual organisations: a case study of trust and gender in a scientific virtual organisation breeding environment

Int. J. of Business Governance and Ethics to publish expanded papers from Int. Conf. on Perspectives of Business Law in the Third Millennium

Expanded versions of papers presented at the International Conference on Perspectives of Business Law in the Third Millennium (15-16 November 2013, Bucharest, Romania) will be published by the International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics.

Special issue published: "Economic Diplomacy in Emerging and Developing Economies"

International Journal of Diplomacy and Economy 1(3/4) 2013

• India's economic diplomacy in Africa
• Brazilian geo-economics: a study of the Brazilian model
• Economic diplomacy: what might best serve a developing country?
• The role of China's economic diplomacy in post-crisis
• Commercial diplomacy in practice: experiences of international business executives and representatives in Malaysia
• Serbian economic diplomacy in the context of historical change and the global crisis
• The role of economic diplomacy on energy projects: the exploration of natural gas resources at Cyprus exclusive economic zone
• Exporting Vietnam's agricultural and fishery products to European Union market under green trade barriers
• Strategic resource investment methodology for developing countries

Special issue published: "Surfaces and Their Measurement – Part 1"

International Journal of Precision Technology 3(3) 2013

• Some issues in surface and form metrology
• Lifting wavelet algorithm for freeform surface filtering using a Gaussian prediction operator
• Advanced characterisation methodology for engineered surfaces
• Controllable fabrication of freeform optics
• Correlation of micro and nano-scale defects with WVTR for aluminium oxide barrier coatings for flexible photovoltaic modules
• Selection of metrology and manufacturing process for a functional surface

New Editor for the International Journal of Instrumentation Technology

Professor Marco Mugnaini has been appointed to take over as Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Instrumentation Technology. Professor Mugnaini is from the Universit degli Studi di Siena in Italy.

Editor's pick of International Journal of Technology Marketing articles available for free

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

• The management of marketing knowledge in the early phases of the innovation process
• Stakeholder perceptions and implications for technology marketing in multi-sector innovations: the case of intelligent transport systems
• Leadership in interorganisational network-based innovation projects
• Innovation politics: how serial innovators gain organisational acceptance for breakthrough new products
• From roles to skills – key persons in the innovation process
• Overcoming resistance to innovations: an approach for the use of communication tools within the innovation process
• Lead-using or lead-refusing? An examination of customer integration in mechanical engineering firms
• Key stakeholders' interaction as a factor of product innovation: the case of Russia
• Launching technological innovations: the relevance of a stakeholder perspective
• Absorptive capability and its mediating effect on the learning and market orientations' influences on performance

Special issue published: "A Crosscutting and Comprehensive Look at Environmental Problems"

International Journal of Environment and Health 6(4) 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at Argentina and the Environment 2012 (AA2012).

• Water quality assessment of a polluted urban river
• Comparative toxicity of cypermethrin and a commercial formulation on Rhinella arenarum larval development (Anura: Bufonidae)
• Screening of pharmaceuticals in surface water bodies of the Pampas region of Argentina
• Sediment phosphorus fractions in an urban lake and its usability for predicting of the internal loading phenomenon
• Accumulation of heavy metals in the bottom sediments of the Irkutsk Reservoir
• Atmospheric pollution and mortality. A comparative study between two Latin American cities: Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Santiago (Chile)
• Limnological changes in two shallow lakes from an urban reserve throughout a complete hydrological cycle: proposals for restoration and management

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

Expanded versions of papers presented at the International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (27 October 2013, India) will be published by the International Journal of Information and Communication Technology.

Special issue published: "Healthcare Workflows and Services"

International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management 6(3) 2013

• Transforming sterile processing departments by service-oriented business process management
• Business process management enabled compliance-aware medical record sharing
• On the evolution of process-oriented approaches for healthcare workflows

Additional Paper

• Applying data mining techniques to business process reengineering based on simultaneous use of two novel proposed approaches

Call for papers: "Recent developments in Active and Semi-Active Suspension System Design for Vehicular Applications"

Suspension systems are of great importance to ride comfort, handing and safety of road vehicles. Unsurprisingly, the design of suspension systems has attracted considerable attentions during the past few decades. Compared with passive suspensions, active and semi-active suspension systems have the capacity to improve the compromise between ride, stability and handling by adjusting suspension damping in real time. Active and semi-active suspensions are expected to become an integral part of future vehicles, beyond the production vehicles that have already adopted them. The proliferation of such advanced systems is aided by the customer demand for improved vehicles, the broad availability of electronics and controllers in most automobiles and the emergence of electric vehicles with novel propulsions such as in-wheel independent electric drives.

The aim of this special issue is to document some of the recent advances in active and semi-active suspension research and development. Of particular interest are papers that are devoted to the most innovative design and control of advanced suspension systems with vehicular applications.

Suggested topics for submission are:

• Active and semi-active suspensions modelling and/or experimental analysis
• Novel control strategies
• Suspension system integration and cost control
• System reliability and life testing analysis
• Integration of advanced suspensions with other controllable systems, such as ESC, ABC, PTC, etc.
• Off-roading application of active and semi-active systems

Important Dates
Submission of full paper before: 30 May, 2014

Special issue published: "Protection and Restoration of the Environment"

International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development 7(3) 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the “Protection and Restoration of the Environment XI” International Conference.

• Indicators and options towards sustainability in industrial areas
• Measuring the sustainability of tourism development in protected areas: an indicator-based approach
• Promoting decision making through a Sustainable Remediation Assessment Matrix (SRAM)
• Riparian areas in urban settings: two case studies from Greece
• Evaluation of sodium lignosulphonate for the remediation of chromium-contaminated soil and water
• The climate challenge and EU cohesion policy: implications for regional policies

Tabling a new concept in creative search

The advancement of web search has focused on developing tools and algorithms that will take you to the most apt page given your search query. Of course, as we have known from the heady days of the early web back in the mid-1990s the advent and demise of AltaVista, AlltheWeb, Dogpile, Lycos, Yahoo and countless other search engines pretty much all-but drowned in the inexorable wake of Google, we rarely find a single site in the results. Commonly, there are page after page of SERPs (search engine results pages) and those above the fold on page one are not necessarily the most appropriate.

But, focus isn’t everything, the original notion of surfing the internet and thence the web as about the serendipitous stumbling upon something of interest, something that was not necessarily what you were originally after. The emergence of sites like StumbleUpon, Digg and Reddit allowed other people to share with you their finds accidental or otherwise and then web 2.0 with its spotlight shining brightly on social has taken that to a whole new level with the likes of Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and many others. Indeed, it is almost as if the old-school search engine that spiders and indexes sites without personal context is almost redundant.

Now, James Hendler of the Department of Computer Science and Cognitive Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), in Troy, New York, USA, working with Andrew Hugill of the Institute of Creative Technologies at De Montfort University, in Leicester, UK, hope to turn the notion of a focused search engine on its head to instill in the search process an element of creative expression that was inherent to the early web. They hope that they can reinvigorate search, not by making it more focused with algorithmic updates and slurpier spiders but by reintroducing the serendipitous, reducing the impact of the social collation and curation. With their approach they want to exploit the precision of semantic web technologies by combining them with the ambiguity of natural language.

Hendler and Hugill talk of the “syzygy surfer”. Syzygy, from the Greek meaning “yoked together”. In their concept they have yoked together, or paired up two very disparate concepts that of natural language, with its fuzzy meanings and ambiguities, which is very difficult to define in computational terms, and the much more algorithmically aligned notion of semantics, definitive definitions and such. Many words are ambiguous, the team says, and contain several possible meanings or embody numerous concepts.

For example, tables can be various different items of furniture but we also have periodic tables, water tables, html web page tables, dissecting tables and times tables…the natural language is multifarious and even a definition that a computer might use would require multiple definitions. An example of where such ambiguity has been used creatively is in the famous physical wooden table constructed to display the chemical elements in their familiar format after the Mendelevian concept of the periodic table. Who knows what creative expressions might emerge from a collision of dissecting tables and times tables or the various other combinations? Such incongruities often underpin humor, as with the periodic table that might double as a dinner table, but also give rise to technological developments such as “table-type” computer systems, such as Microsoft’s Surface. Add a little “t” for a tablet and are we talking tablets of stone, iPads, medication or something else?

The “Syzygy Surfer” – a creative search engine – is currently being developed by the team for the open web.

Hendler J. & Hugill A. (2013). The syzygy surfer: (Ab)using the semantic web to inspire creativity, International Journal of Creative Computing, 1 (1) 20. DOI: 10.1504/IJCRC.2013.056926

Tabling a new concept in creative search is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

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