Inderscience is media partner for EuroMed 2014

Inderscience is a media partner for the 7th Annual Euromed Academy of Business Conference (18-19 September 2014, Kristiansand, Norway).

The journal involved is the International Journal of Technology Marketing.

Special issue published: "Aerodynamics of Land Vehicles"

International Journal of Aerodynamics 4(1/2) 2014

• A new approximation for a general shear inviscid flow past a circle
• Aerodynamics in train cross wind studies
• Characterisation of the flow past real road vehicles with blunt afterbodies
• Aerodynamic characterisation of a square back bluff body flow
• Analytical models for the boundary condition of a control by pulsed jets
• A glimpse on passive control using porous media for incompressible aerodynamics
• Experimental correlations between aerodynamics, wall-pressure fluctuations, and noise transmission through a window downstream of a step in a flow
• About the POD application for separating acoustic and turbulent fluctuations from wall pressure synthesised field

First issue: International Journal of Vehicle Performance (free sample issue available)

The International Journal of Vehicle Performance, a journal of the International Association for Vehicle Design, addresses multidisciplinary issues relevant to performance of ground vehicle systems and sub-systems for vehicle engineers/scientists. Its scope covers theoretical and experimental developments in performance analyses/assessments of ground vehicles including road, off-road, all-terrain and guided vehicles. In light of the diversified performance requirements for different vehicles, IJVP focuses on identification of measures relevant to different performance aspects of a vehicle system and new concepts/methods/pioneering techniques in analysis/assessment/improvements in vehicle performance.

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

Call for papers: "Challenging Government: e-Participation and the Social Web"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Electronic Governance.

Social media platforms are lowering the boundaries to access and participation in conversation linked to governmental services. Participation is being facilitated in numerous ways, for instance: through national and local government adopting social media channels for citizen communication; community groups using social media as platforms to engender community action; and citizen-citizen communication about problems in their local region. In addition, there is a perception that this development can help to enhance the prospects for existing democracies to include their citizens in the political process.

However, at the same time a brief look at the public sphere in democratic states will show an ambivalent impact of social media on the public sphere. Here the keywords surveillance, sousveillance, coveillance, digital divide and censorship are essential to sketching the field of discussion. The question is whether e-participation through social media really enhances participation of the people, or whether it privileges those who are already participating, regardless of the technical possibilities.

This special issue encourages discussion of the range of different ways in which e-participation through social media is occurring, including what it is facilitating. In addition, it will help in determining potential future research directions in this area of interest and enable discussion on the impact of social media on the public sphere and its consequences for democracy and its practises.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the European Conference on Social Media (ECSM 2014) minitrack on eParticipation and Democracy, 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:

• Social media and democracy
• Social media and participation
• Social media and the public sphere
• Future chances of social media and e-participation
• Risks of e-participation

Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 31 January, 2015 (extended deadline)
Interim notification to authors: 31 March, 2015
Revised versions due: 30 April, 2015
Final notification to authors: 31 May, 2015
Final versions due: 15 June, 2015

Special issue published: "Metadata, Semantics and Ontologies for Web Intelligence"

International Journal of Metadata, Semantics and Ontologies 8(3) 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the International Workshop on Web Intelligence 2012 (WEBI 2012).

• Using adaptable SPARQL to manipulate and to retrieve domain ontologies: application to social intelligence domain
• Datalog-based framework for efficient query answering over fuzzy ontologies
• A framework for knowledge reuse in product design and development process
• OntoPart: at the cross-roads of ontology partitioning and scalable ontology alignment systems
• Improving multimedia as a service (MaaS) approach for dynamic multimedia content integration
• Social linkage and ranking model for tags-based resources
• Exploiting the Arabic Wikipedia for semi-automatic construction of a lexical ontology
• How to accelerate the process of designing domain ontologies based on XML schemas

Call for papers: "New Challenges in Bio-inspired Algorithms in Complex and Distributed Problems"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Bio-Inspired Computation.

Bio-inspired algorithms and methods – from computational intelligence techniques as swarm or evolutionary algorithms to other techniques based on principles or models of biological systems – are currently a hot topic in wide number of research areas. The problems related to the representation and practical application of these kinds of algorithms provide new and interesting solutions in traditionally complex domains.

Distributed computing develops methods and technology to build systems that are composed of collaborating components. The domains and problems traditionally handled by distributed computing allow us to look for new challenges in bio-inspired computation approaches.

This special issue welcomes submissions of original papers introducing research results in all aspects covering the roles of knowledge and intelligence in distributed systems, ranging from concepts and theoretical developments to advanced technologies and innovative applications. The key topic will be based on practical and real world utilisation of bio-inspired methods, techniques and algorithms in previous types of systems and domains.

Paper acceptance and publication will be judged on the basis of quality, relevance to the issue’s themes, clarity of presentation, originality, and accuracy of results and proposed solutions.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the 8th International Symposium on Intelligent Distributed Computing (IDC'2014) and its joint workshops, 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:

• Hybrid systems involving software agents and human actors
• Bio-inspired integration of data, information and processes
• Autonomic, adaptive and self-organised distributed computing
• Intelligent service-oriented distributed systems
• Self-organising and adaptive distributed systems
• Emerging behaviours in complex distributed systems
• Knowledge integration and fusion from distributed sources
• Data mining and knowledge discovery in distributed settings based on bio-inspired methods
• Intelligent distributed problem solving and decision making
• Bio-inspired computation in complex and real applications (videogames, e-business/e-commerce, e-learning, e-health, e-science, e-government, crisis management, etc.)
• Swarm intelligence and evolutionary computation in distributed and intelligent applications
• Bio-inspired computation for unmanned systems
• Bio-inspired computation for social-based knowledge
• Forecasting through complex system models and bio-inspired models

Important Dates
Submission of papers: 30 November, 2014

Predicting medal winners, an Olympic feat

Sochi on the Black Sea coast in Russia will host the XXII Olympic Winter Games and XI Paralympic Winter Games in 2014 which country will win what number of medals is open to debate. A study published in the International Journal of Economic Policy in Emerging Economies suggest that the USA will win the most models followed by Germany and Canada and then Russia, with China arriving ninth.

Economist, Wladimir Andreff, based in Lédignan, France, suggests that gross domestic product (GDP) is the major determinant of medal winners at the Olympics. Various other factors play a minor role in the final outcome and he has now analysed the relevant economics data from the nations taking part in the Games from 1964 to 2010 to arrive at a leader board for next year’s Winter Olympics. He adds that given the rapid economic growth of China it is only a matter of time before it reaches one of the top slots.

Andreff has calculated that per capita GDP, a nation’s population and the endowment it receives in ski and winter sports resorts can predict the outcome of the Winter Games with a degree of certainty. His prediction conflicts, of course, with the Russian government’s suggestion that the Russian Federation will be overall winner in Sochi. This is despite the outstanding performance of the host nation at the 2008 Beijing Summer Games. He points out that The former Soviet Union was for many decades a top-ranking Olympic performer at both the Summer and Winter Games finding itself ahead of or second only to the USA .However, economic and political transition and the break-up of the USSR have disrupted the medal haul for the former high achiever, suggests Andreff.

Of course, surprises often happen in sport. “My predictions on the Winter Olympics should be taken with a pinch of salt,” Andreff concedes. Russia has not recovered well from the world banking crisis despite its growth following the 1998 recession. China meanwhile is growing rapidly. The biggest of surprises might be that China overtakes other nations sooner rather than later as it did in Beijing and that Russia slides further down the medals table. However, retrospective prediction of the 2008 Olympics based on Andreff’s system correctly identified the medal leaders, so his medal model may well turn out to be right again, just don’t bet on it.

“Economic development as major determinant of Olympic medal wins: predicting performances of Russian and Chinese teams at Sochi Games”, in Int. J. Economic Policy in Emerging Economies, 2013, 6, 314-340

Predicting medal winners, an Olympic feat is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/predicting-medal-winners-an-olympic-feat.html

Twitter opinion detector

We can all flout our opinions widely now thanks to the likes of Twitter and Facebook. Whether anybody takes any notice of those opinions is a moot point. We see endlessly strident and highly offensive comments on virtually every Youtube clip. News stories, particularly those on emotive subjects such as abortion, religion, evolution, climate change, twerking and selfies, are trolled narcissistically.

But, for those in the world of commerce and in particular the marketing wing of many organizations, all that commentary is not meaningless, it is a deep lode of information to be mined. Within the gems unearthed one might find the collective opinion on almost any product or service, the trends, the fancies of the early adopters and the likes and dislikes of the masses. Marketing mavens everywhere are looking for ways to dust off these gems and to polish them up for the consumption of their sales and advertising teams. One such methods of ways of panning the Twitterhood for precious nuggets of insight that could mean the difference between a marginal profit margin or a company marginalized on the whim of publicity has been developed by a research team in Greece.

Informatics experts Michail Salampasis of the Alexander Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki, in Sindos, Anastasia Giachanou of the University of Macedonia, in Thessaloniki working with Georgios Paltoglou of the School of Technology, at the University of Wolverhampton in the UK, have analyse d hundreds of thousands of microblogging messages containing comments, sentiments and opinions about food and brand products.

Social networking on sites like Facebook and Google+ and microblogging services, such as Twitter, coupled with our 24/7 always connected via mobile or broadband attitude means that countless people cannot escape the opinions of others or of sharing their own ever wider. The team’s system harvested millions of tweets and used a computer algorithm to automatically extract the sentiment from those tweets.

“Our results provide strong indications that given the use of such services by millions of users, they can play a key role in supporting and enhancing important business processes,” the team says. They suggest that key aspects of the world of modern marketing are not so different from those that existed before online social media – company-to-customer relationship management, brand image building and Word-of-Mouth (WoM) branding – but today the rate at which information might be exchanged is so much faster than it ever was before. Moreover, a positive message that goes viral can lead to an enormous sales boom whereas a deleterious comment adopted as a true reflection of a given product by the many will lead to a bust that could lead to the subduction of a product or even a company very rapidly.

The team’s analysis of well known brands as well as world affairs demonstrates how data mining twitter can spot shifting opinion on fast-food outlets, wars or potentially even famine and flood. “We believe that the amount of information contained in microblogging websites makes them an invaluable source of data for continuous monitoring …using opinion mining and sentiment analysis techniques,” the team concludes.

“Using social media for continuous monitoring and mining of consumer behaviour” in Int. J. Electronic Business, 2013, 11, 85-96

Twitter opinion detector is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/twitter-opinion-detector.html

New Editor for the International Journal of Remanufacturing

Dr. Ing. Mohammed Dahane has been appointed to develop the International Journal of Remanufacturing. Dr. Dahane is from the Laboratoire de Gnie Industriel et de Production de Metz (LGIPM) at the Ecole Nationale d'Ingnieurs de Metz (ENIM) in France.

Call for papers: "The Role of Quality in Services and Standards"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Services and Standards.

This special issue aims to publish papers that provide greater insights into services, operations, quality management, decision making and performance improvement in a broad range of organisations and industries. It solicits conceptual or empirical papers that pursue either theory building or theory testing related to demonstrating that quality is critical to maintaining high-quality service delivery and quality standards.

Papers based on empirical methodologies (e.g. case research, survey research, etc.), simulation, modelling or literature review and theory that fulfil the mission of the journal are encouraged. The issue also welcomes interdisciplinary papers that support the same mission.

Quality is an essential component of establishing and maintaining effective services and standards. The increase in demand for performance improvement is the result of evolving technology. The challenge today is to deliver services with efficiency and effectiveness in a cost-effective manner, while meeting organisational financial and philosophical objectives.

The intent of this call is to disseminate research that is relevant to practitioners and that identifies ways to improve operations, management and quality service delivery.

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

• Improvements in quality and services related to healthcare delivery
• Maximising revenues via improved compliance with standards
• Quality improvement in organisational settings
• Measurement of quality
• Tools for effective managerial decision making in operations
• Organisational culture and quality improvement
• Use of technology to improve service delivery

Important Dates

Submission of manuscripts: 30 December, 2013

Notification to authors: 12 January, 2014

Final versions due: 30 January, 2014

Special issue published: "Compliance in Italy"

International Journal of Auditing Technology 1(3/4) 2013

• Auditor-client alignment through competitive priorities - evidence from Italy
• Corporate governance and profitability. Value relevance of compliance to corporate governance best practice in Italian listed SMEs
• Graiciunas principle and hyperlinks in the prevention of audit failures. A challenge for auditors and ICT audit supports
• Liability of corporations in Italy and risk prevention: toward a cloud-governance system
• Italian compliance programmes in groups of companies
• Opportunities, motivations and approaches of earnings management: a structured theoretical review of the corporate virus

Inderscience journals to publish expanded papers from NSS 2014

Expanded versions of papers presented at the 8th International Conference on Network and System Security (15-17 October 2014, Xi'an, China) will be published by the following journals:

• International Journal of High Performance Computing and Networking
• International Journal of Embedded Systems

Int. J. of Computer Aided Engineering and Technology to publish expanded papers from ETES 2014

Expanded versions of papers presented at the National Conference on Emerging Trends in Engineering & Science 2014 (30-31 January 2014, Asansol Engineering College, Asansol, India) will be published by the International Journal of Computer Aided Engineering and Technology.

Legal hook catches phishers of men

Phishing is a fraudulent attempt seeking to acquire money, confidential information or other gain such as usernames, passwords or credit card details from people by masquerading as a trustworthy entity such as a bank, service provider, social network, email systems or institutions. In order to improve security and reduce the risk that any of us is caught out by a phishing attack there is a need to carry out research so that countermeasures can be designed. Unfortunately, in carrying out such research it is possible for the scientists taking part to come unstuck by laws that are in place to protect users from the very attacks they wish to study.

Writing in the International Journal of Intellectual Property Management, UK researchers explain how the legal framework and ethical considerations involved in mobile and computer security research must be updated to allow such research to take place without legal impediment. Rasha Salah El-Din of the Department of Computer Science at the University of York working with Lisa Sugiura of the University of Southampton, explain how they were studying mobile users’ susceptibility to phishing attacks, through the use of deception in research and discovered that they were subject to regulations concerning its use. The regulations were implemented despite the fact that their covert work was for the benefit of users and did not represent a fraudulent phishing attack in itself.

As a result of this, the team suggests that the research community needs to start a dialogue on self-regulation and boundaries of legal and ethical conduct. “We are currently in the process of organising an international conference to discuss the legal and ethical challenges that face phishing researchers,” the team says. “The conference will source multi-discipline expertise including: phishing researchers, board members of ethics committees, law professionals and industries affected by phishing such as mobile phone operators and banks.”

They point out that while deception is a well-established research methodology in psychology research projects, there is no clear law on whether or not deception is allowable in security or phishing research.

“To deceive or not to deceive! Legal implications of phishing covert research” in Int. J. Intellectual Property Management, 2013, 6, 285-293

Legal hook catches phishers of men is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/legal-hook-catches-phishers-of-men.html

High-power, self-cleaning solar panels

There are two obvious problems with photovoltaic cells, solar panels. First, they are very shiny and so a lot of the incident sunlight is simply reflected back into the sky rather than being converted into electricity. Secondly, they get dirty with dust and debris caught on the wind and residues left behind by rain and birds. Now, research published in the International Journal of Nanomanufacturing suggests that it might be possible to add a nanoscopic relief pattern to the surface of solar cells that makes them non-reflective significantly boosting efficiency and at the same time making them highly non-stick and self-cleaning.

Zuobin Wang of Changchun University of Science and Technology (China), Jin Zhang of Xi’an Technological University (China) and colleagues at Cardiff University (UK), who are partners of the EU FP7 LaserNaMi project, have devised an approach to lithography, the process used to “print” microelectronic circuits, that allows them to add a pattern to the surface of a solar cell. The features of the pattern are so small that individual parts are shorter than the wavelength of light. This means that incident sunlight becomes trapped rather than reflected passing on more of its energy to electricity-generation process that takes place within the panel.

The same pattern also makes the surface of the solar cell behave like the surface of a lotus leaf, a natural material that is known to be very water repellant, or hydrophobic, so that particles and liquids that land on it do not become stuck as there is no surface to which the droplets can grip. When it rains any deposits are sloughed away and the rainwater runs off efficiently leaving the panel clean and dry after the downpour.

The team’s work indicates that a patterned layer on top of the active part of the panel can avoid the energy losses due to reflection from the surface. It directly boosts absorption of sunlight in the visible spectrum and into the near-infrared part of the spectrum, all of which contributes to a boost to the overall electrical efficiency of the panel. The team suggests that printing the surface of the photovoltaic cell so that it is covered with nanoscopic cones would provide the optimal combination of making the panel non-reflective and hydrophobic and so self-cleaning.

“Nanoscale structures for implementation of anti-reflection and self-cleaning functions” in Int. J. Nanomanufacturing, 2013, 9, 520-531

High-power, self-cleaning solar panels is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/high-power-self-cleaning-solar-panels.html

Int. J. of Embedded Systems to publish expanded papers from MCSoC-14

Expanded versions of papers presented at the IEEE 8th International Symposium on Embedded Multicore/Many-core Systems-on-Chip (23-25 September 2014, University of Aizu, Aizu-Wakamatsu, Japan) will be published by the International Journal of Embedded Systems.

Call for papers: "Internationalisation of SMEs: Learning and Managing Change Processes"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Learning and Change.

The internationalisation process of firms has been studied extensively. However, an area which has obtained fairly limited attention is the internationalisation process of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the 21st century.

These firms are affected by the globalisation of markets, forcing them to act and think more globally. With this backdrop, there is still a huge segment of companies engaged in trade that are yet to reap the benefits that their bigger cousins have harvested. While MNCs have established a form of hegemony over the world economy, SMEs are still facing similar international issues and are trying to grapple for stability.

Hence internationalisation among SMEs is a topic of considerable relevance, principally owing to the observed growth effects of cross-border venturing, and the demonstrated capacity of SMEs to drive economic development at national, regional and global levels.

While there are several documented studies about SMEs and internationalisation which have provided insights and empirical evidence, these need to be analysed and documented as guides for researchers, scholars, consultants, entrepreneurs, business people, managers, government agencies and policy makers.

The main aim of this special issue is to highlight the current state of internationalisation and SMEs as a result of new factors that characterise today’s international economic climate. The issue will deal with the diverse and complex characteristics of internationalisation in small organisations that lead to competitiveness in the face of the effects of globalisation.

We invite conceptual and empirical submissions drawing on a range of theoretical perspectives and diverse methodologies. We expect papers to advance our theoretical understanding of the various lessons and changes expected from the impact of internationalisation in SMEs.

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

• Barriers and drivers for SME internationalisation
• R&D hegemony of MNCs in internationalisation of SMEs
• Education and internationalisation in SMEs
• Role of skill sectors in internationalisation of SMEs
• Role policy and regulatory authorities in internationalisation of SMEs
• Demographic diversity and internationalisation of SMEs
• Heterogeneity of boards of SMEs for internationalisation
• Sustainability practices for internationalisation of SMEs
• Women entrepreneurs and SMEs
• BRIC economy and internationalization of SMEs
• Knowledge and technology transfer models in international small enterprises
• Intellectual property and rights practices in internationalised SMEs
• Venture capitalist economics in internationalisation of SMEs
• Interdisciplinary approaches to the study of internationalisation in SMEs
• Internationalisation and its relation to human resources in small business
• Internationalisation in the small not-for-profit sector
• Implications of management in the international small public sector
• Comparison of internationalisation of SMEs in different countries
• Internationalisation training for emerging small organisations
• Internationalisation in microenterprises
• New tendencies and research in internationalisation and small business

Important Dates

Paper submission deadline: 30 June, 2014

New Editor for IJ Intelligent Defence Support Systems

Dr Michael Bowman has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Intelligent Defence Support Systems. Dr. Bowman, who has previous experience in the defence industry, is currently with the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems at Murray State University in the USA.

European J. of Cross-Cultural Competence and Management to publish expanded papers from IACCM 2014

Expanded versions of papers presented at the IACCM Annual Conference 2014 (26-28 June 2014, The University of Warwick, Coventry, UK) will be published by the European Journal of Cross-Cultural Competence and Management.

Special issue published: "Evolutionary Computation and Related Metaheuristics"

International Journal of Data Mining, Modelling and Management 5(4) 2013

• Improving K-means clustering algorithm with the intelligent water drops (IWD) algorithm
• A new memetic approach for the classification rules extraction problem
• Biclustering of gene expression data based on hybrid genetic algorithm
• Bacteria foraging optimisation algorithm for tuning of PSS and STATCOM-based controller parameters
• A dynamic resource constrained project scheduling problem

Additional Paper

• Document summarisation based on sentence ranking using vector space model

Special issue: "Situation Awareness: Theory and Methodologies"

International Journal of System of Systems Engineering 4(3/4) 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the 2012 International Defense and Homeland Security Simulation Workshop.

• Homeland situation awareness through mining and fusing heterogeneous information from intelligence databases and field sensors
• Detection and impact of cyber attacks in a critical infrastructures scenario: the CockpitCI approach
• Optimal location of flow intercepting facilities to improve security in urban areas
• An interoperable simulation framework for protecting port as critical infrastructures
• Path planning for marine fleet using heuristic approach
• Distributed opinion dynamics with heterogeneous reputation
• SeNsiM-SEC: secure sensor networks integration to monitor rail freight transport
• A smart decision support systems based on a fast classifier and a semantic post reasoner

Call for papers: "Advances in Computer Graphics, Visualisation and Game Technology"

For a special issue of the the International Journal of Computational Vision and Robotics.

The purpose of this special issue is to present a collection of original papers which gives an overview of recent progress in research and development in computer graphics, visualisation and game technology.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the 2013 International Conferences on Computer Graphics, Visualization, Computer Vision, and Game Technology (VisioGame 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:

• Animation
• Computer graphics and modelling
• Human-computer interaction
• Imaging and image processing
• Rendering
• Visualisation

Important Dates
Submission deadline: 20 January, 2014
Acceptance/rejection notification: 20 February, 2014
Final paper due: 1 June, 2014

Special issue published: "Advanced Control Method and Application"

International Journal of Advanced Mechatronic Systems 5(4) 2013

Expanded version of papers presented at the 2012 International Conference on Advanced Mechatronic Systems (ICAMechS 2012).

• Design of robust finite time functional observers in uncertain linear systems
• The navigation of mobile robots in non-stationary and non-structured environments
• Control of multi-legged robot using reinforcement learning with body image and application to rubble
• A design method of a mode control and an unbalance vibration control for five-axes active magnetic bearing systems
• Development of priority decision for renewable energy potential using analytical hierarchy process and geographical information system method
• Effective energy regeneration from multi-mode-based vehicle vibration
• Suppression of flow disturbance to pneumatic active anti-vibration apparatuses by smoothed and shaped signals

Special issue published: "Multiagent and Other Intelligent Applications"

International Journal of Computational Intelligence Studies 2(3/4) 2013

• Petri net-based approach to modelling ATM and minimising logistic costs in ATM network
• Contextualised mLearning service delivery through a multi-agent platform
• Towards a semantically enhanced interoperability service utility to support small-medium enterprises
• Methodologies for recognition of old Slavic Cyrillic characters
• High dimensional data clustering through fuzzy possibilistic C-means with symmetry-based distance measure
• R-AIMS: a reactive multi-agent system-based incident/emergency management system
• IEETA brain computer interface technologies

Additional papers on Ant Colony-based Optimisation Algorithms

• Solving 0-1 knapsack problem by continuous ACO algorithm
• The ant colony optimisation solving continuous problems
• Max-min ant system algorithm for dartboard design

Inderscience journals to publish expanded papers from Int. Conf. on Information Technology, Entrepreneurship, Investment

Expanded versions of papers presented at the First International Conference on Information Technology, Entrepreneurship, Investment (14-15 May 2014, Qom, Iran) will be published by the following journals:

• International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business
• International Journal of Information Technology and Management
• Journal for International Business and Entrepreneurship Development

Special issue published: "Human Factors and Ergonomics in Emergency Management"

International Journal of Human Factors and Ergonomics 2(2/3) 2013

• Medical emergency dynamics in disaster-prone countries - implications for medical device design
• The role of human factors and ergonomics in mining emergency management: three case studies
• Obtaining information in emergency management: a case study from an Australian emergency operations centre
• Highway traffic incident management: an operator-centred investigation
• Disruption management processes during emergencies on the railways

Additional Paper

• The effects of a scientifically-based team resource management intervention for fire service teams

Inderscience journals to publish expanded papers from ICMIC 2014

Expanded versions of papers presented at the 6th International Conference on Modelling, Identification and Control (3-5 December 2014, Melbourne, Australia) will be published by the following journals:

• International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology
• International Journal of Modelling, Identification and Control

Special issue published: "Fire Safety Design and Robustness Considerations in Structural Engineering"

International Journal of Lifecycle Performance Engineering 1(2) 2013

• Basis of the analysis and design for fire-induced collapses in structures
• Different design approaches to structural fire safety
• Advanced numerical analyses for the assessment of steel structures under fire
• Performance-based fire design of complex structures

Call for papers: "The Inclusion of Highly Skilled Migrant Women in the Global Workforce - Opportunities and Obstacles: A Socio-Economic Perspective"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Learning and Change.

This special issue will publish papers that address the increased feminisation in migration flows as a reality that includes the worldwide mobility of highly skilled professional women (i.e. those who have gained tertiary education) in a variety of industries and professions. These women, who either choose to migrate as a career strategy resulting in self-initiated expatriation or choose to relocate for personal and family reasons, face particular circumstances and are often unable to continue their professional careers and find adequate employment after they relocate. Furthermore, highly qualified female migrants risk being pushed into underemployment or lower-skilled occupations with negative consequences at economic and social macro and micro levels.

Despite the global fight for talent in highly skilled professions, it appears that there are a number of challenges and obstacles hindering the smooth transition and the mobilisation of female talent. For example, the evident de-skilling of highly skilled women relocating with their families results in a lost opportunity for building human capital, innovation and economic growth, and consequently in “brain waste” at the levels of society, organisations and individuals. Moreover, for these individuals, the lack of career wellbeing and loss of professional identity negatively impacts their family and social relationships and results in differentiated economic and social consequences.

This call for papers seeks to advance and contribute towards the global debate on the migration of highly skilled professional women. Furthermore, research is needed to fill in the current gaps in understanding the diverse experiences and trajectories of these highly skilled female migrants. Specifically, we aim to receive papers with an interdisciplinary research approach that, on the one hand, investigate the improvement of integration systems and collaborative initiatives that are likely to better support the integration of skills and experience of professional migrant women into labour markets for the benefit of society; and on the other hand, that illustrate mechanisms for personal resilience and success for a more personal perspective, from which other highly skilled migrant workers can learn.

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

• Key elements in creating equal opportunities for highly skilled migrant women in the global labour market
• Multilevel and interdisciplinary perspectives when investigating the dynamics behind temporary and permanent migration
• Initiatives aimed at leveraging the talent of highly qualified migrant women
• The socio-economic measurement of "brain waste" and the "de-skilling" of highly qualified migrant women
• The focus on human capital and other forms of capital in female migration
• Assessment of mentoring or placement programmes aimed at highly skilled migrant women and their critical success factors
• The role of highly qualified mobile females in the global fight for talent
• Specific challenges faced by highly skilled migrant women with regard to their integration into new labour markets and their personal success strategies to tackle these
• Institutional and organisational dynamics that hinder international careers of minorities, such as this target group
• The impact of different entry channels for migration and marital status on the severity of migrant women's de-skilling
• Psychological effects of de-skilling and underemployment in the lives of highly skilled migrant women working in occupations below their levels of education and professional experience

Important Dates

Deadline for paper submission: 30 April, 2014

Deadline for final versions: 31 August, 2014

Int. J. of Mechatronics and Manufacturing Systems to publish expanded papers from PROMED 2014

Expanded versions of papers presented at the 2nd International Conference on Design and Processes for Medical Devices (17-19 March 2014, Monterrey, Mexico) will be published by the International Journal of Mechatronics and Manufacturing Systems.

Int. J. of Automotive Technology and Management to publish expanded papers from International Colloquium of GERPISA

Expanded versions of papers presented at the 22nd International Colloquium of GERPISA (4-6 June 2014, Kyoto, Japan) will be published by the International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management.

Inderscience journals to publish expanded papers from ASTeM 2014

Expanded versions of papers presented at the International Conference on Applied Science, Technology and Management (23-25 April 2014, Bangkok, Thailand) will be published by the following journals:

• International Journal of Business Information Systems
• International Journal of Biotechnology
• International Journal of Information Systems and Management
• International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management
• International Journal of Telemedicine and Clinical Practices

Special issue published: "Research Challenges in Developing Advanced Solutions in Industry and Supply Chains Modelling and Simulation for Building 21st Century Enterprises"

International Journal of Simulation and Process Modelling 8(2/3) 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the International Multidisciplinary Modelling and Simulation 
Multiconference 2011 (I3M-2011).

• Optimising plant layout decisions based on emulation models - technical framework and practical insights
• Advanced design of the pasta drying process with simulation tools
• An agent-based simulation study for exploring organisation design under environmental uncertainty
• Analysis of demand-supply interaction and inventory build-up strategies for products with short life cycles
• Intelligent agent-based simulation for supporting operational planning in country reconstruction
• Interoperable simulation for asymmetric threats in maritime scenarios: a case based on virtual simulation and intelligent agents
• A comparison of process modelling methods for healthcare redesign
• Multi-agent financial market simulation: evolutionist approach

Nanotech drug smugglers

Tiny capsules of carbon are invisible to the chemical gatekeeper that flushes potentially harmful substances out of our bodies’ cells, according to research published in the International Journal of Computational Biology and Drug Design. The finding might allow a pharmaceutical to be smuggled into cells even when multidrug resistance has evolved.

Sergey Shityakov and Carola Förster of the University of Würzburg, Germany, explain that the protein, P-glycoprotein, acts as a gatekeeper, flushing out potentially harmful chemicals that enter the body as well as the naturally-occurring products of metabolism. The protein thus plays a vital role in the health of the cell. Unfortunately, it is a strong modulator of chemical traffic across the cell membrane that it can also prevent therapeutic agents from working properly, flushing them out as if they were simply harmful compounds. This process underpins the emergence of multidrug resistance in several diseases, including various forms of cancer.

Shityakov and Förster have revealed recently that if there were a way to mask the presence of the therapeutic agent, later the gatekeeper would not see them as “unwanted molecular entities” to be eradicated, and therefore, these drugs might be able to carry out their job unhindered and so overcome drug resistance. However, some of the chemical substances have turned to the realm of nanotechnology, and in particular, tiny capsules of carbon atoms known as fullerenes and the related molecules, the carbon nanotubes. The latter synthetic materials are not recognized by P-glycoprotein and so can penetrate lipid membranes moving freely in and out of cells.

The team has investigated whether it might be possible to carry drug molecules inside these nanocapsules so that they are unimpeded by interactions with P-glycoprotein or other receptors. They used high-power computational techniques to demonstrate that carbon nanotubes are not able to “dock” with the gatekeeper protein. Moreover, their analysis of the binding energy needed to push a nanotube into P-glycoprotein shows that the process is unfavourable and so rather than “docking” with this gatekeeper protein these peculiar materials are repelled by it to maintain the interior of the cell and so have the potential to act as a molecular drug smuggler.

“Multidrug resistance protein P-gp interaction with nanoparticles (fullerenes and carbon nanotube) to assess their drug delivery potential: a theoretical molecular docking study” in Int. J. Computational Biology and Drug Design, 2013, 6, 343-357 (Open Access)

Nanotech drug smugglers is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/nanotech-drug-smugglers.html

Special issue published: "Complex Adaptive Systems and Their Dilemmas in the 21st Century: a Critical Perspective of Our Times"

International Journal of Complexity in Leadership and Management 2(3) 2013

• Dysfunctional leadership and group unconscious dynamics in the psychoanalytic and complex living system perspectives
• The rhetoric of business and complexity
• Conceptualising the essential qualities of complex adaptive leadership: networks that organise
• PISA's failure to test - the limitations of standardisation
• Music piracy and digital rights management in Mexico: shifting to a sound model
• Rupturing the cycle: Japan's leadership vacuum
• Embracing complexity in academic performance appraisal

Inderscience journals to publish expanded papers from International Conference of Critical Accounting

Expanded versions of papers presented at the International Conference of Critical Accounting (16-17 April 2014, City University of New York, USA) will be published by the following journals:

• African Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance
• African Journal of Economic and Sustainable Development
• International Journal of Critical Accounting
• International Journal of Economics and Accounting

Inderscience is media partner for World HRD Congress

Inderscience is a media partner for the World HRD Congress (15-17 February 2014, Taj Lands End (Bandra), Mumbai, India).

The journals involved are:

• International Journal of Human Resources Development and Management
• International Journal of Work Organisation and Emotion

Inderscience is media partner for 2nd Plant Genomics Congress USA

Inderscience is a media partner for the 2nd Plant Genomics Congress USA (11-12 September 2014, St Louis, Missouri USA).

The journals involved are:

• International Journal of Bioinformatics Research and Applications
• International Journal of Computational Intelligence in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology
• International Journal of Data Mining and Bioinformatics

Special issue published: "Selected Topics on Sensor Networks"

International Journal of Sensor Networks 14(3) 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the 5th International Workshop on Sensor Networks (SN 2012).

• Virtual gateways: enabling connectivity between MAC heterogeneous sensor networks
• A software-defined radio tool for experimenting with RSS measurements in IEEE 802.15.4: implementation and applications
• Reliable localised event detection in a wireless distributed radio telescope
• TCTM: an evaluation framework for architecture design on wireless sensor networks
• A stochastic geometric approach to coverage and connectivity in wireless sensor networks: cooperation and mobility
• A hybrid optimisation algorithm for coverage enhancement in 3D directional sensor networks

Int. J. of Computational Vision and Robotics to publish expanded papers from itSIP2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the International Conference on Information Technology in Signal and Image Processing (1 December 2013, Bhubaneswar, India) will be published by the International Journal of Computational Vision and Robotics.

New Editor for Int. Journal of Collaborative Enterprise

Dr. Emad S. Abouel Nasr has been appointed Editor-in-Chief for the International Journal of Collaborative Enterprise. Dr. Abouel Nasr is affiliated with King Saud University in Saudi Arabia and Helwan University, Egypt. Professor Ali Kamrani takes up the position of Editor for the journal.

Global Business and Economics Review to publish expanded papers from IFKAD 2014

Expanded versions of papers presented at the International Forum on Knowledge Asset Dynamics (11-13 June 2014, Matera, Italy) will be published by the Global Business and Economics Review.

Special issue published: "Using Facebook as an Educational Tool"

International Journal of Social Media and Interactive Learning Environments 1(4) 2013

• What do they really think? Higher education students' perceptions of using Facebook and Twitter in formal higher education learning
• More than a social network: Facebook as a catalyst for an online educational community of practice 
• Using Facebook to explore adolescent identities
• Undergraduates' Facebook use: evidence-based practice to implement social media in education
• Facebook group as a space for interactive and collaborative learning
• The Café: creating the 'collaborative application for education'; a dedicated e-learning environment in Facebook

First issue: International Journal of Circuits and Architecture Design (free sample issue available)

Rapid developments and convergence in consumer electronics have made the theory of VLSI circuits a burgeoning area of research and development. The International Journal of Circuits and Architecture Design proposes and fosters discussions on circuits, architecture design, systems, processor architecture and electronic design automation. The journal provides a platform for research scholars, scientists and academicians worldwide to promote, share and discuss the various new issues and developments in different areas of circuits, architecture and design.

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

Call for papers: "Metaheuristics and the Cloud"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Metaheuristics.

Cloud computing is undoubtedly one of the main computing paradigms existing today. In recent years it has attracted the interest of both the academic and industrial worlds thanks to its interesting properties, such as elasticity, flexibility and computational power, among many others. Cloud computing is becoming very popular and has extended across Internet users thanks to the wide variety of services it provides, from high performance computing to storage or web services.

Cloud providers need to face many different optimisation problems in order to provide the best service to their users and to minimise their costs. Metaheuristics are well-known optimisation methods that have proved to be extremely useful in many different domains. In the cloud, metaheuristics are being used to optimise a variety of problems focused on minimising energy consumption, optimising data allocation and replication, or maximising the use of resources, among others.

This special issue will focus on novel solutions that contribute to the optimisation of problems that are identified in the framework of the cloud.

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

• Optimisation of cloud-related problems
• New parallel metaheuristics for the cloud
• Energy efficiency in the cloud
• Scheduling in the cloud
• Optimisation of data centres and cloud networking
• Optimisation of protocols for the cloud
• Optimisation of data management in the cloud
• Optimisation of services for the cloud
• Efficient virtualisation and consolidation
• Metaheuristics for security in the cloud
• Metaheuristics for reliability in the cloud

Important Dates

Full paper submission due: 15 January, 2015 (extended)

Hold your nose at the boutique festival

The advent of a boutique festival culture is nothing new. Humanity has always had celebratory gatherings with music, dancing, arts and crafts, food and drink. But, in the modern world there is a n urge to study how such gatherings are experienced, and more to the point how they are marketed to the prospective clients who will attend, buy the goodies on offer, listen and dance to the music, take part in the proverbial barrel rolling and Wellington-boot throwing, and drink the beer.

Maria Laura Toraldo of the University Federico II of Naples, Italy, has investigated to modern boutique festivals that take place annually in the UK – a pop music festival and a foodies’ festival on a farm. Specifically, she has looked at the role of the senses in building a sense of anticipation for these events, capturing the imaginations of the punters before they arrive. She points out that until now research into the festival phenomenon has focused largely on managerial aspects and all but ignored the multi-sensory nature of consumption at such events, the sights and sounds, the aromas, the rain, the mud…the sunburn.

Toraldo’s research shows just how much of the marketing and festivalgoer anticipation is driven by visual and textual means to hint strongly at the sensory experience promised. Of course, thousands of people attend these and other festivals and have a good time, many repeat the experience while others opt not to part with the hard-earned cash for such an event again. The research fills a gap in festival management knowledge, revealing how the senses extend into the cultural production sector, where seemingly spontaneous experiences are highly orchestrated and planned by festival organizers and promoters.

However, points out Toraldo, such a scientific exploration cannot, no matter how in-depth, provide an insight into “the sensory reality of the festival” it doesn’t capture certain aspects of the festival experience, she says “the incessant noise from other participants, the stench of the toilets, and the smell of burnt grease”…all of which are common to festivals, boutique or otherwise.*

*This description is in no way intended to cast aspersions on any particular festival, anyone who has attended will attest to the noise, the aromatic sanitation and the inevitable burnt offerings at almost every such event.

Toraldo M.L. (2013). Mobilising the cultural consumer through the senses: festivals as sensory experiences, International Journal of Work Organisation and Emotion, 5 (4) 384. DOI: 10.1504/IJWOE.2013.057403

Hold your nose at the boutique festival is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/hold-your-nose-at-the-boutique-festival.html

Getting to grips with seizure prediction

A device that could predict when a person with epilepsy might next have a seizure is one step closer to reality thanks to the development of software by researchers in the USA. Details are to be published in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Data Mining and Bioinformatics.

Seizure prediction is an important medical aim for the many people who suffer from epilepsy and related neurological disorders. Medication is available for controlling seizures but a way to determine in advance when an attack might occur would allow sufferers to live a normal life safe, drive vehicles and operate hazardous machinery etc, safe in the knowledge that they will know when a seizure is about to occur and they can move out of harm’s way in plenty of time.

Shouyi Wang of the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering, at University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX, and Wanpracha Art Chaovalitwongse of the University of Washington, Seattle and Stephen Wong of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, in New Brunswick, explain that current epileptic seizure prediction algorithms require much prior knowledge of a patient’s pre-seizure electroencephalogram (EEG) patterns. This usually makes them entirely impractical as pre-seizure EEGs are rarely available in the requisite detail or number.

The team has now developed software that can learn about the patient’s normal and seizure electrical activity from long-term EEG recordings after diagnosis. The learning process then allows the software to predict when another seizure may occur based on the learned patterns. Ultimately, a portable device with discrete electrodes, perhaps worn under a cap or hat would utilize this algorithm to give the patient an early warning of an imminent seizure. This would allow them to pull over safely if driving or otherwise move out of hazardous situation and into a safe environment well before the seizure begins.

“Our experimental results showed that the adaptive prediction scheme could achieve a consistent better prediction performance than a chance model and the non-updating system,” the team says. “This study confirmed that the concept of using adaptive learning algorithms to improve the adaptability of seizure prediction is conceivable,” the researchers add. “If a seizure-warning device is ever to become a reality, adaptive learning techniques will play an important role.”

“A gradient-based adaptive learning framework for online seisure prediction” International Journal of Data Mining and Bioinformatics, in 2014, 10, 49-64

Getting to grips with seizure prediction is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/getting-to-grips-with-seizure-prediction.html

New Editor for the Int. Journal of Intercultural Information Management

Dr. Nelson K.Y. Leung, of the Northern State University, USA, has been appointed as the new Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Intercultural Information Management. The previous Editor, Professor Jayanthi Rajan, continues to support the journal as an Associate Editor.

Call for papers: "Internationalisation of Business Education in Middle East and North Africa (MENA)"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Business and Emerging Markets.

This special issue seeks papers of all kinds – empirical, conceptual, practitioner and viewpoint – with the exception of case studies to extend previous studies pertaining to the MENA region, which are currently scant in literature. Indeed, in a recent special issue based on whether the Middle East was the land of the future, Madichie (2013a) assembled papers that barely touched upon the efforts in business and/ or higher education across the region. According to him, this omission “obviously calls for further debate in these areas.”

In that special issue, only two papers touched upon HE – albeit only marginally. For example, Kemp (2013) argued that “the UAE society supports education, and government strategy has led to equal educational access and achievement by women over many years with a projection for a supply of educated females in the future.” She, however, acknowledged that the government policies geared towards enhancing female education and employment have made more progress in the former than in the latter. Even though she concluded on a cautionary note that “the progress of the UAE towards achievement of MDG (3) […] has had mixed results which will affect the future”, her contribution centred on matters of gender.

Similarly, Majumdar and Varadarajan (2013) opined that the UAE is now characterised by a generation of young, educated women who are engaged in diverse economic activities using advanced information and communication technologies. Going by their over-optimistic estimates, the “UAE is the only Arab nation that gave equal opportunities to males and females to positively interact in the changing social structure […] an open society without any gender bias and discrimination.” The benefits of such policies, according to these authors, have begun to manifest themselves, especially in terms of career goals and future aspirations devoid of gender considerations.

All of the above obviously pose a challenge to other Arab nations both within and especially those outside the UAE – notably those with “best practices” that have not yet been shared in any scholarly forum. In direct response to this challenge, therefore, this call for papers encourages scholars from the wider MENA region – with a preference for papers from Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia (KSA), Syria and Tunisia – to take the debate on the future of the region to the next level. Furthermore, contributions to this special issue should address the following key areas of concern:

1. What are the most popular internationalisation strategies of HEIs in the MENA region?
2. How have HEIs in the MENA region responded to pressures to internationalise (what strategic alliances have been undertaken in the region both within and across countries)?
3. What are the key challenges (or outstanding issues) facing HEIs in the MENA region – ranging from student recruitment and retention to finance issues?
4. How has the search for legitimacy affected the strategies of HEIs in the region?
5. To what extent has the HE curriculum been modified as a result of alignment of learning, teaching and assessment; curriculum development; licensure or licensing; accreditation and legitimacy; international student recruitment and destination choice; faculty recruitment and/ or retention; quality assurance; student evaluation or satisfaction surveys.

References
Kemp, L. (2013) Progress in female education and employment in the United Arab Emirates towards Millennium Development Goal (3): gender equality, foresight, Vol. 15, Issue 4, pp.264 – 277.
Madichie, N. (2013a) Guest editorial, foresight, Vol. 15, Issue 4.
Madichie, (2013b) Is the Middle East the land of the future? It is not a given! Foresight, Vol. 15, Issue 4, pp.321 – 333.
Madichie, N. (2013c) Unintentional Demarketing in Higher Education. In N. Bradley and J. Blythe (Eds.) De-marketing. London: Routledge. December (Chapter 13, Forthcoming). ISBN: 978-0-415-81648-9.http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415816489/
Majumdar, S., and Varadarajan, D. (2013) Students’ attitude towards entrepreneurship: does gender matter in the UAE?, foresight, Vol. 15, Issue 4, pp.278 – 293.

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

• Internationalisation strategies of HEIs in the MENA region, e.g. international student recruitment, retention and destination choice; faculty recruitment and/ or retention
• Curriculum development in the MENA region
• Challenges of graduate studies in the MENA region
• Funding or financing MENA HEIs
• Learning, teaching and assessment
• Licensure or licensing; accreditation and legitimacy concerns in MENA HEIs
• Quality assurance; student evaluation or satisfaction surveys
• Skills development and employability challenges in MENA HEIs

Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 31 March, 2014
Comments to authors: 30 May, 2014
Revised papers deadline: 30 August, 2014
Papers submitted earlier than the submission date will be sent through the review process on rolling basis, and authors may expect to hear sooner.

Locking up the cloud

A software re-encryption system could allow users to pay for and run applications “in the cloud” without revealing their identity to the cloud host. The same approach would also allow the software providers to lock out malicious users.

Writing in the International Journal of Grid and Utility Computing, Ronald Petrlic, Stephan Sekula and Christoph Sorge of the University of Paderborn, Germany, explain how the emergence of cloud computing has allowed end users access to powerful computer resources hosted at remote locations via the internet. Such services include simple applications such as web-based email and file storage as well as more sophisticated social networking and multimedia communication tools, website hosting systems, file editing and manipulation and many other applications.

However, with ease of access, comes the issue of privacy. To utilize proprietary cloud services users must provide personal details or otherwise tie their identity to the digital rights management (DRM) system or the license built into the software. Inherent in this approach to access is the problem that the cloud provider may not be the licensing body for the software itself and so a third party will often require access to the user’s credentials too, which gives rise to privacy issues. Moreover, there is no reason why a legitimate user of the software need give their identity to the software provider either, as long as they have fulfilled their commitments – financial or otherwise – to obtaining a license to use the software.

Petrlic and colleagues have developed what they call “a privacy-friendly architecture” for future cloud computing systems where software licensing and software payment is required. The utility of their approach will be immediately apparent once cloud software providers abandon so-called freemium and advertising-driven business models and simply start charging users to use the applications they develop. In this system, users authorise a service provider – the cloud host – to buy a certain piece of software from a software provider. However, the service provider does not learn what software is bought, as the software provider sends an encrypted version of the application together with the corresponding licence to the cloud host. Each time the user wants to use the software on their cloud host, the program execution is initialized at a computing centre of their choosing anonymously.

By implementing such a system, the cloud host is remunerated for the hosting services and the encryption facilities, they provide, the software company gets its license fee, and the user gets to use the software they paid for “in the cloud” without the cloud host being able to identify them or even knowing what software is being used.

“Privacy protection will become more important in the cloud computing scenarios of the future,” the team says, equally, “Proper payment concepts are crucial for software providers to take part in future cloud computing.”

“A privacy-friendly architecture for future cloud computing” in Int. J. Grid and Utility Computing, 2013, 4, 265-277

Locking up the cloud is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/locking-up-the-cloud.html

First issue: International Journal of Automation and Logistics (free sample issue available)

Green, higher efficiency logistics is a trend in world industry. Besides being economically functional, automation-integrated logistics will result in lower costs, higher profit and is environmentally and socially friendly. The International Journal of Automation and Logistics will attract and disseminate original, theoretically advanced and practically oriented papers pertinent to automation and logistics. IJAL fosters and facilitates communication and networking among researchers in the area of automation and logistics and will stimulate the integration of automation and logistics to yield high-quality theoretical papers with practical application potential.

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

Inderscience is media partner for 2nd Plant Genomics Congress

Inderscience is a media partner for the 2nd Plant Genomics Congress (12-13 May 2014, London, UK).

The journals involved are:

• International Journal of Bioinformatics Research and Applications
• International Journal of Computational Intelligence in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology
• International Journal of Data Mining and Bioinformatics

Call for papers: "Neuro-Management in Emerging Markets"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Business and Emerging Markets.

Human behaviour has been studied by philosophers, theologists, psychologists, historians and management experts. There is no dearth of theories on human motives, attitudes and behaviour. Despite all of the models and methods, no one has been successful in predicting human behavior, even with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Marketers are at a loss to understand why people buy or don’t buy certain brands, even with help of extremely sophisticated research tools. It has not been possible to predict what makes a leader tick or what makes a person successful.

Several concepts such as fame, beauty and trust are difficult to explain using traditional theories. However, new developments in the field of neuroscience have given us an opportunity to peep in to the black box called the brain. Fundamentally, neuroscience is concerned with the scientific study of nervous systems; it is a branch of biology. Over a period of time, the discipline has become a highly interdisciplinary science that collaborates with chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics, medicine and allied disciplines, philosophy, physics, management and psychology.

In the emerging markets of the world, the dominance of neuro-management has created challenges for business houses and all other organisations related to people development. The aim of this special issue is to address matters in neuro-marketing, neuro-finance, neuro-leadership, cognitive neuroscience, organisational behaviour, ethical issues in neuro-research, etc. that the world of business faces today.

Research in the conceptual, empirical and theoretical areas of neuro-management in emerging markets for business and industry applications are invited as contributions to this special issue. IJBEM doesn’t publish case studies and papers should be both national and international.

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

• Neuromarketing: Neuromarketing is the outcome of integration between the neurosciences and the principles of marketing. Neuromarketing helps us to better understand the cognitive, affective and behavioural outcomes of a consumer. Papers in this field should highlight such areas where brain science and marketing meet. Focus could be on increasing sales, product design, branding, buying behaviour, marketing strategies, advertising or on the BUY BUTTON itself.
• Neuroleadership: Neuroleadership is primarily the synchronisation of neurosciences and leadership behaviour. It helps in better understanding leadership behaviour, management training, developing leaders, etc. - the list is exhaustive. Papers are invited in this field which focus on developing leadership skills and personal effectiveness.
• Neurofinance: Neurofinance focuses on identifying cognitive processes that facilitate individuals to make an optimal decision. It also helps us to develop an understanding of behavioural economics. It is a cross-disciplinary field integrating neuroscience with that of finance. Papers in this field could include decision making, information processing, investment behaviour, risk taking and the like.
• Cognitive neuroscience and organisational behaviour: "Cognitive Neuroscience - with its concern about perception, action, memory, language and selective attention - will increasingly come to represent the central focus of all Neurosciences in the 21st century"- Eric R. Kandel, M.D. (Nobel Laureate). Cognitive neuroscience is dedicated to understanding the human thought process, the cause that generates behaviour. Papers relating to perception, attention, thinking, reasoning and other higher order mental functions as relevant to the study of organisational behaviour would be considered in this field. Applications in the areas of creativity and innovation, complex decision making, group behavior, etc. would ideally be suited for this area.
• Ethical issues in neuro-research: Many advocate that marketing is manipulation. But to what extent that is ethical is the big question. Both parties are aware of the process and yet the feeling of free will exists. Neuro-management offers a deeper understanding of consumer behaviour. Ethical dilemmas threaten the existence of this field. Papers addressing these issues would fit into this area.

Important Dates

Submission of manuscripts: 30 July, 2014

Comments to authors: 30 October, 2014

Revised papers deadline: 30 December, 2014

Papers submitted earlier than the submission date will be sent through the review process on rolling basis, and authors may expect to hear back sooner.

Special issue published: "Knowledge Strategies in Learning Organisations"

International Journal of Learning and Intellectual Capital 10(3/4) 2013

• Prioritisation of knowledge management strategies in the learning organisation: an integrated Shannon's entropy-TOPSIS methodology
• Key levels for knowledge creation and management: which is the ontological locus for learning in Spanish manufacturing firms?
• The sustainable knowledge-based organisation from a dynamic capabilities approach
• Caught off balance: managing knowledge value creation through boundary spanning roles
• Service innovation in Indian knowledge-intensive business services: the Wipro case

Additional Papers

• The intellectual capital model: the resource-based theory application
• Potholes of knowledge accounting model
• How cognitive coordination promotes collaborative knowledge-sharing performance: the mediating role of interorganisational knowledge flows

Call for papers: "Innovative Supply Chain Management"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Intelligent Enterprise.

In today’s global competitive environment, innovation in supply chain management (SCM) plays a significant role in enterprise success and, in many cases, has been recognised as the cornerstone for survival and growth.

This special issue is devoted to innovation in SCM.

We welcome submissions addressing innovation in any relevant topic within the broad area of SCM including, but are not limited to, the following:

• Planning
• Designing
• Logistics
• Forecasting
• Inventory
• Location
• Outsourcing
• Global SCM
• Performance measurement
• Intelligent supply chain management
• Integrated supply chain management cycle

Important Dates

Submission deadline: 31 December, 2013

Machines learn to detect breast cancer

Software that can recognize patterns in data is commonly used by scientists and economics. Now, researchers in the US have applied similar algorithms to help them more accurately diagnose breast cancer. The researchers outline details in the International Journal of Medical Engineering and Informatics.

Duo Zhou a biostatistician at pharmaceutical company Pfizer in New York and colleagues Dinesh Mital and Shankar Srinivasan of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, point out that data pattern recognition is widely used in machine-learning applications in science. Computer algorithms trained on historical data can be used to analyze current information and detect patterns and then predict possible future patterns. However, this powerful knowledge discovery technology is little used in medicine.

The team suggested that just such an automated statistical analysis methodology might readily be adapted to a clinical setting. They have done just that in using an algorithmic approach to analyzing data from breast cancer screening to more precisely recognize the presence of malignant tumors in breast tissue as opposed to benign growths or calcium deposits. This could help improve outcomes for patients with malignancy but also reduce the number of false positives that otherwise lead patients to unnecessary therapeutic, chemotherapy or radiotherapy, and surgical interventions.

The machine learning approach takes into account nine characteristics of a minimally invasive fine needle biopsy, including clump thickness, uniformity of cell size, adhesions, epithelial cell size, bare cell nuclei and other factors. Trained on definitive data annotated as malignant or benign, the system was able to correlate the many disparate visual factors present in the data with the outcome. The statistical model thus developed could then be used to test new tissue samples for malignancy.

“Breast cancer diagnosis: a statistical analysis-based approach” in Int. J. Medical Engineering and Informatics, 2013, 5, 321-333

Machines learn to detect breast cancer is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/machines-learn-to-detect-breast-cancer.html

Inderscience is media partner for Plant Genomics Congress: Asia

Inderscience is a media partner for the Plant Genomics Congress: Asia (24-25 February 2014, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia).

The journals involved are:

• International Journal of Bioinformatics Research and Applications
• International Journal of Computational Intelligence in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology
• International Journal of Data Mining and Bioinformatics

Call for papers: "Intellectual Capital, Innovation and Value Creation"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Intelligent Enterprise.

The importance of intellectual capital has been widely acknowledged by scholars and corporations as one of the fundamental contributors to the innovation process, and has been recognised as one of the most relevant drivers of the value creation process.

Increasingly, academic investigation efforts and practical needs of many companies are converging in a common purpose: to find out those proper intellectual capital elements capable of acting as key drivers of creating value, and those intellectual capital management initiatives able to support the value creation process.

The acknowledgment of the role of intellectual capital and its potential to create value has driven firms to reassess their capability-based strategies and innovation processes. From an intellectual capital value creation perspective, identifying how intellectual capital elements correlate with the wealth of organisations is a key process as many intellectual capital elements differ in their contributions to the value creation process.

This special issue seeks papers focusing on the subjects listed below. Both theoretical/conceptual papers (i.e. theories of intellectual capital, methodologies and frameworks of intellectual capital management and assessment, etc.) and empirical studies (e.g. case studies or empirical evidences showing how intellectual Capital is managed and assessed, how value creation is developed and sustained, or how strategic management frameworks are implemented) are welcome.

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

• The role of intellectual capital in the context of competitive advantage
• Intellectual capital and innovativeness
• The role of intellectual capital in supporting product/process innovation
• Measurement of intellectual capital for innovation
• The impact of intellectual capital on value creation and value co-creation
• Entrepreneurship and innovation capital
• Strategic management framework
• Intellectual capital management/assessment frameworks/models
• Value drivers of innovation-based entrepreneurship
• Innovation and value creation in complex/networked organisations
• The paradigm of open innovation
• Analysis of the value creation process in open innovation
• Patent quality and patent analysis

Important Dates

Manuscripts due: 31 December, 2013

Notification of acceptance: 1 February, 2014

Revised papers due: 1 March, 2014

Final notification: 1 April, 2014

Special issue published: "New Developments on Advanced Modelling and Control"

International Journal of Advanced Mechatronic Systems 5(3) 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the 2012 International Conference on Advanced Mechatronic Systems (ICAMechS 2012).

• Modelling of a smart micro grid with renewable energy for rural area based on power line communication
• ANN-based reactive power controller with real-time web monitoring
• Supply-side management of CO2 emissions in a competitive market
• Development and control of flexible spherical actuator using flexible pneumatic cylinders
• A study on dynamic characteristics and the power generation characteristics of the magnetically levitated hydraulic generator
• Development of a flexible customised compression garment pattern design system
• Neural-fuzzy sliding mode control of non-linear systems

Gravity solves robot satellite attitude problem

Using an in-orbit robot to capturing a malfunctioning satellite that is tumbling out of control is currently just a theoretical idea. However, research inspired by nature to be published in the forthcoming issue of International Journal of Mechanisms and Robotic Systems, could take us a small step towards making such science fiction science fact.

Angel Flores-Abad and Ou Ma of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, at New Mexico State University, in Las Cruces, explain that capturing a non-cooperative tumbling object in space, such as malfunctioning satellite for repairing, refueling or towing, is increasingly of interest to space agencies. Unfortunately, the nature of orbital motion and the effects of gravity obeying Newton’s Laws of Motion mean that a robot attempting to reach and grab such a tumbling object will succumb to changes in its own inertia that could either damage the equipment or result in the servicing vehicle itself which is the base of the space robot going out of control.

To find a solution to this problem, the team has turned to the way animals, including humans, naturally plot an approach trajectory based on the visual observation of the moving object – usually prey – and capture it. Their mathematical analysis offers a naturalistic way for a robot arm to reach and capture a tumbling satellite where impact forces between the two are minimal so that neither the stability of the servicing craft is disrupted nor the robot hand damaged by the impact. The analysis also allows the connection between the robot hand and the captured object to occur in such a way that the resulting net contact force passes right through or as close as possible to the center of mass of the servicing vehicle and the robot combined system..

The team has studied their newly proposed technology using computer simulations. They simulated a rescue mission and demonstrated how capture can occur with zero relative velocity between the robot hand and tumbling satellite with a minimal contact force. They are developing a robotics test bed to experimentally investigate the new technology. Once the technology is tested in the lab with simulated space conditions, it can be proposed for demonstration in a real space mission.

“Bio-inspired approach for a space manipulator to capture a tumbling object with minimal impact force” in Int. J. Mechanisms and Robotic Systems, 2013, 1, 331-348

Gravity solves robot satellite attitude problem is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/gravity-solves-robot-satellite-attitude-problem.html

Call for papers: "Engineering Management for Enhancing Synergies in Collaborative Environments"

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

Engineering management is an expertise in engineering that appears strongly linked to diverse concepts of management and engineering. In fact, it is a specialised form of management that is concerned with the application of engineering principles to business practice. Example areas of engineering management include organisational management and administratition, planning abilities of management, product development, and any other fields that employ personnel who perform an engineering function from a management perspective.

However, the engineering management concept in the 21st century is overpassing these concepts and is extending to a systemic vision of all fields and departments of production and service systems in an integrated way. Additionally, engineering and management concepts present a horizontal perspective influencing most organisation areas. The way in which engineers solve management problems presents specific characteristics, and in the same line, the management of engineering problems requires other specific perspectives.

Therefore, the multipolar characteristics of today’s problems require a multifaceted analysis, and engineering management arises as the key enabling discipline capable of tackling such a challenge. In this line, the approach to tackle current real life problems requires an analysis that is strengthened when a collaborative management approach is implemented. The motto of this special issue focuses on this vision.

Thus, engineering management in collaborative environments appears as a toolbox of key-enabling skills and abilities providing the most efficient management of complex processes or systems. It relates to the capabilities of designing, developing and implementing integrated solutions for complex systems associated to economical, staff, knowledge, information, equipment, energy and materials subsystems.

This special issue focuses on engineering management for enhancing synergies in collaborative environments in order to tackle multipolar real life management problems.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the 8th International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Industrial Management (Malaga, Spain, 23-25 July, 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, and should be always presented under a collaborative environment perspective:

• Management in industries and technical organisations
• Industrial engineers and leadership
• Decision-making processes
• Life cycle cost analysis
• Managing engineering and production operations
• Industrial engineering approaches for entrepreneurship
• Project planning, acquisition, organisation, leadership/control
• Risk management
• Engineering financial management
• Investment analysis
• Engineering management in the service industry
• Public policy analysis

Important Dates
Full paper submission: 10 November, 2014