31 August 2014

Call for papers: "Managing Buyer-Seller Relationships in Emerging Markets"

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

Effectively managing buyer-seller relationships in emerging markets such as the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and the MIKT (Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey) countries has been a key focus and strategic concern for many multinational enterprises (MNEs) and domestic firms. In conducting day-to-day operations and fulfilling channel and supply chain tasks, boundary spanners between the buyer firm and the seller firm play an importance role in managing buyer-seller relationships. Previous research on boundary spanners in emerging markets has mostly focused on top executives. More recently, other levels of boundary spanners such as purchasing and sales personnel have also been examined.

In managing buyer-seller relationships, previous research has revealed various governance mechanisms, including formal (such as contracts) and informal (such as personal ties) mechanisms. However, the efficacy of the governance mechanisms in managing buyer-seller relationships in emerging markets has remained a lacuna.

This special issue is focused on the role of boundary spanners in managing buyer-seller relationships in emerging markets. What roles do boundary spanners play in formal and informal governance of buyer-seller relationships? Under what conditions are the formal or informal governance mechanisms more effective? We are particularly interested in informal governance using personal ties between boundary spanners.

Both conceptual and empirical articles are encouraged. In particular, we welcome papers that address the legal and social challenges in managing buyer-seller relationships in emerging markets, as well as papers that offer unique managerial implications and insights on managing buyer-seller relationships in emerging markets.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • The roles of boundary spanners in managing buyer-seller relationships in emerging markets
  • The efficacy of formal and informal governance mechanisms in emerging markets
  • The legal and social challenges of using formal and informal governance mechanisms in emerging markets
  • Personal ties between boundary spanners and their effect on buyer-seller relationships in emerging markets
  • The ethical and legal issues of personal ties between boundary spanners in emerging markets

Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 30 January, 2016
Feedback to authors: 30 April, 2016
Revised papers accepted: August 30, 2016

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

30 August 2014

Special issue published: "Cities as Sustainable Wealth Creators"

International Journal of Global Environmental Issues 13(2/3/4) 2014
  • The role of culture in sustainable urban development: some economic issues
  • Swedish perspectives on creative cities
  • The regenerative city and wealth creation/conservation: the role of urban planning
  • From urban-rural to global dependencies
  • International migrations and urbanisation: 1960-2010
  • Equilibrium vs. optimal city size: evidence from Italian cities
  • Urbanisation and sustainability: the role of the spatial allocation of property rights and public investment
  • Evaluation model for cultural heritage in spatial planning
  • Clusters of supernova stars in knowledge-based spaces: value creation through cooperation
  • Critical factors in health innovation in cities: from ivory tower to living lab
  • Entrepreneurship and economic development: the relative attraction of employment centres by firm size
  • Which attributes of culture can we measure? The case of Hungarian micro-regions
  • Issues regarding the effective municipal real property management: the question of classification criteria with a case study in Romania
  • Urban design and architecture in the service of colonialism in Morocco
  • Port cities and urban wealth: between global networks and local transformations
  • Interconnected responses for interconnected problems: synergistic pathways for sustainable wealth in port cities

Call for papers: "Dynamic Models and Optimal Control in Biomathematics"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Applied Nonlinear Science.

This special issue aims to solicit research papers that address recent advances and current challenges in mathematical modelling and analysis of dynamical systems (whether deterministic or stochastic) associated with various biological systems (population dynamics, epidemiology, oncology, medicine) and their significance in decision making, through incorporating optimal control theory.

Optimal control theory has developed into a valuable tool that helps policy makers to concoct harvesting, hunting/fishing and culling or re-introduction schemes in populations, and to devise treatment, prophylaxis, vaccination, screening and quarantine strategies in order to reduce or eliminate a disease from a community.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • Optimal control in biological systems
  • Optimal control theory in ecology
  • Optimal control of transmission and spread of diseases
  • Optimal control in medicine
  • Optimal control theory in oncology

Important Dates
Submission deadline: 31 May, 2015

29 August 2014

Inderscience is media partner for Americas Family Office Forum 2014

Inderscience is a media partner for the Americas Family Office Forum 2014 (19-20 November 2014, Miami, USA).

The journals involved are:

Call for papers: "Selected Topics in Mathematical and Computational Sciences"

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

Computational sciences have taken a new shape and lead in the present research world. Fast, accurate and speedy computation for various scientific and industrial applications is an inevitable requirement of the present scientific world. Many researchers have contributed enormously to the improvement of the area of scientific computing.

The aim of this special issue is to bring together active researchers from various disciplines such as mathematics, computer science and electrical and electronics engineering to share their state-of-the-art research results and hopefully to forge new cross-disciplinary interactions among them. This issue is expected to provide a unique opportunity for in-depth technical discussions and the exchange of ideas in mathematical and computational sciences.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the International Conference on Mathematical and Computational Sciences (ICMACS) 2015, but we also strongly encourage researchers unable to participate in this event to submit articles for this call.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • Mathematical methods
  • Numerical analysis
  • Functional analysis and operator theory
  • Mathematical methods and applications
  • PDE methods in computation
  • Inverse problems and applications
  • Graph theory and applications
  • Computational sciences
  • Image, speech, signal and video processing
  • Pattern recognition and analysis
  • Computer and social networks
  • High-performance computing
  • Data mining applications
  • Neural network applications
  • Computer graphics, cloud computing

Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 30 April, 2015
Notification to authors: 30 June, 2015
Final versions due: 30 August, 2015

Special issue published: "Game-Based Learning"

International Journal of Learning Technology 9(2) 2014
  • Challenging interfaces are more fun! Operant conditioning for the interaction designer 
  • Game-based assessment: an integrated model for capturing evidence of learning in play
  • Using game mechanisms to foster GBL designers' cooperation and creativity
  • Model and authoring tool to help teachers adapt serious games to their educational contexts 
  • Gameful learning as a way of being
  • Game-Based Learning

Call for papers: "Advanced Safety and Security Techniques in Vehicular Networks"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Internet Protocol Technology.

Many traffic accidents such as rear-end collisions and overtaking crashes happen when drivers are unable to recognise obstacles or hazards in their surroundings and thus cannot correctly judge the relative distance between neighboring vehicles on the roads. Many driver assistance systems have been proposed in vehicular networks. Various types of sensors, such as acoustic, optical and wireless sensors, are commonly used in providing collision warnings and pedestrian collision warnings. The sensors detect the shape and distance of front obstacles to produce these warnings.

Moreover, these sensors are used in advanced cars with autonomous cruise control systems and automatic driving. Global positioning systems and dedicated short-range communication technologies are helping to support our understanding of the non-line-of-sight of neighboring vehicles for warning functions, such as emergency electronic brake lights and intersection collision warnings. It is anticipated that advanced safety and security techniques in vehicular networks will continue to play an important role in the future Internet, thereby stimulating the creation of many interesting and novel applications.

This special issue is intended to foster the dissemination of state-of-the-art research in the area of advanced safety and security techniques in vehicular networks. Submissions of high-quality papers describing final results or ongoing work are invited. Additionally, this issue will also include selected best papers from the First International Workshop on Advanced Data Delivery and Security Techniques in Wireless and Mobile Networks 2014.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • Advanced safety techniques in vehicular or mobile networks
  • Advanced security techniques in vehicular or mobile networks
  • Advanced data management in vehicular or mobile networks
  • Advanced file sharing in vehicular or mobile networks
  • Information sensing and fusion in vehicular or mobile networks
  • Systems and platforms for vehicular or mobile networks
  • Multimedia communication techniques in vehicular or mobile networks
  • Signal processing for vehicular or mobile networks
  • Multimedia intelligent computing for vehicular or mobile networks
  • Next generation services in vehicular or mobile networks

Important Dates
Full manuscript due: 31 December, 2014
Acceptance notification: 31 March, 2015
Revised manuscript due: 31 May, 2015
Final manuscript due: 30 June, 2015

28 August 2014

Inderscience is media partner for Private Banking Latin America 2014

Inderscience is a media partner for Private Banking Latin America 2014 (19-20 November 2014, Miami, USA).

The journals involved are:

Call for papers: "Advancements in Additive Manufacturing"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Materials Engineering Innovation.

This special issue will present high-quality research papers and reviews on additive manufacturing for academia and world-leading industry. It aims to acknowledge the innovative nature of additive manufacturing, and to outline its broad applications and current and future developments in the field.

The issue will cover a wide scope comprising new technologies, processes, methods, materials, systems and applications in the field of additive manufacturing.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • Additive manufacturing processes and process enhancements
    • Advancements in additive manufacturing processes
    • Multi-technology (hybrid) systems
  • Multiple and novel materials
    • Characterisation and performance - mechanical, electrical, chemical, optical
    • New material formulations and composite materials
    • Processing of materials in additive manufacturing and for use in additive manufacturing
  • Special applications with multi-functionality
    • Additive manufacturing for space and in-space additive manufacturing
    • Improved energy utilisation in and using additive manufacturing
    • Other novel applications of additive manufacturing

Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 13 February, 2015
Notification to authors: 13 April, 2015
Final versions due: 13 May, 2015

Int. J. of Mechatronics and Manufacturing Systems to publish expanded papers from Int. Conf. on Design and Production of Machines and Dies/Molds

Expanded versions of papers presented at the 8th International Conference and Exhibition on Design and Production of Machines and Dies/Molds (18-21 June 2015 Aydin, KuÅŸadasi, Turkey) will be published by the International Journal of Mechatronics and Manufacturing Systems.

Special issue published: "Strategy in Emerging Markets"

Journal for International Business and Entrepreneurship Development 7(4) 2014
  • Inside the mind of a Global CEO: an interview with Caterpillar CEO Douglas R. Oberhleman
  • To grow or not to grow: international growth of Russian SMEs in the context of a local institutional environment for entrepreneurship
  • Investigating the international expansion of high growth power providers in emerging markets: motives, management and entry modes
  • Marketing strategy in emerging market alliance: a longitudinal study
  • Beyond entry mode - SME escalation in emerging markets: a conceptual framework

27 August 2014

Inderscience is media partner for Mining Security and Crisis Management Forum 2014

Inderscience is a media partner for the Mining Security and Crisis Management Forum 2014 (12-13 November 2014, Cape Town, South Africa).

New Editor for the International Journal of Complexity in Leadership and Management

Professor Walter R. J. Baets has been appointed as the new Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Complexity in Leadership and Management. Professor Baets is Director of the Graduate School of Business of the University of Cape Town and Allan Gray Chair in Values-Based Leadership.

Inderscience is media partner for 2nd Annual AIDF Food Security Summit: Asia 2014

Inderscience is a media partner for the 2nd Annual AIDF Food Security Summit: Asia 2014 (8-9 October 2014, Jakarta, Indonesia).

The journals involved are:

Call for papers: "Software Defined Networks and Infrastructures, Network Function Virtualisation, Autonomous Systems and Network Management"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Communication Networks and Distributed Systems.

For last few years, there has been a tremendous growth in data traffic due to high adoption rate of mobile devices and cloud computing. Internet of things (IoT) will stimulate even further growth. This is increasing scale and complexity of telecoms/internet service providers’ (SP) and enterprise data centres’ (DC) computer and network infrastructures. As a result, managing these large network-computer converged infrastructures is becoming complex and cumbersome. To cope, network and data centre operators are trying to automate network operations and system management functions.

By getting the human operator out of the management loop, improved operational and economic efficiencies and operational scalability is being achieved. Automation is reducing capital and operation expenditures; this in turn is driving down cost, stimulating service demand, increasing revenues and maintaining profitability. New paradigms such as software defined networks (SDN), software defined infrastructures (SDI), network function virtualisation (NFV) and automation of network and system management operations are helping in achieving these business objectives.

Centralisation of the control plane in a SDN controller avoids the need to have human operators to manage a large number of network devices individually. By virtue of centralisation, SDN can implement automated network management and control plane logic. Similarly, many large internet application providers have implemented home grown non-traditional automated network and system management systems at their DCs.
On the other hand, telecom SPs are proposing to address manageability-at-scale problems with virtual network devices running on generic hardware. This will replace a large variety of specialised network device hardware, simplify and bring in operational efficiencies. For all these paradigms, the key success factors are intelligent software, its programmability to implement complex logic at low cost and scaling opportunities through elasticity at different time scales.

This special issue aims to showcase and disseminate new ideas and high quality research for enabling automation, optimisation and/or improving economics of network and system management and operations. We solicit original research articles, review papers, theoretical studies, practical software systems incorporating new paradigms, experimental prototypes and insightful industry analysis with the above theme. Articles from industry authors will be given special consideration. Only new ideas and unpublished work will be considered. Submitted papers will be peer reviewed and selected for publication on the based on quality, unique contribution and relevance to the theme of this special issue.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • New ideas that improve network, computer and storage infrastructure economics, programmability and security
  • New paradigms in network operations and management, converged network-computer and data centre management
  • Software defined network (SDN), abstraction, programmability, application Interface, south and northbound API
  • Software defined infrastructure (storage, etc.)
  • Network function virtualisation (NFV), distributed control, virtual switches, routing virtualisation
  • Network and system management, orchestration, resource management and optimisation, integration, interoperability
  • Network operations and management related automation, troubleshooting and management tools
  • Cloud based network and system management application paradigms
  • Application of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), analytics and big data in network and system management
  • Performance analysis and evaluation, simulation, QoS/QoE, benchmarking
  • Security, privacy, authentication, trust, verification
  • Insights about SDN, SDI, NFV, NMS architectural requirements and analysis
  • Application and use cases: wireless and mobile networks, carrier ethernet, optical transport, converged optical and packet, data centre networks, transitioning existing networks to SDN
  • User experience, user interface design issues and challenges in NMS, ethnographic studies on network operations centres, usability studies of management applications
  • Insights about telco (SP), enterprise DC business and industry trends related to SDN, SDI, NFV and NMS

Important Dates
Full paper regular submission due: 30 June, 2015

26 August 2014

Int. J. of Embedded Systems to publish expanded papers from SBESC 2014

Expanded versions of papers presented at the Brazilian Symposium on Computing Systems Engineering (3-7 November 2014, Manaus city, Amazonas, Brazil) will be published by the International Journal of Embedded Systems.

Newly announced journal: International Journal of Humanitarian Technology

The world faces many environmental, developmental, social and health challenges. These include ageing societies, the digital divide, poverty, climate change, energy efficiency and security. There is an ever-increasing need to find solutions to such complex problems. Technology today is evolving at an extraordinary pace, changing the way we live and work. The International Journal of Humanitarian Technology addresses research into the responsible use of advanced technologies which offer concrete ways to improve the life and society of people worldwide.

Call for papers: "Critical and Real-time Cyber-Physical Systems"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Embedded Systems.

Critical and real-time embedded systems integrate the modelling, design and analysis of hardware, software and communication systems that are deeply integrated with physical processes and with strict time and other requirements. These systems have special features that differentiate them from regular computer systems: (1) they are closely integrated into physical systems; (2) software is normally embedded in hardware with limited resources; (3) the system is distributed and in a large scale; (4) they must be adaptable and reconfigurable; (5) and must be dependable, secure and reliable.

Some critical embedded systems have even more strict constraints of resources and reliability, e.g. systems used in operating rooms for surgeries assisted by robots or for the controlling of electric power grids (smart grids) and unmanned vehicles. The development of such systems that attend these features, mainly through the fact of being large scale and the necessity of adaptability and reliability, is the main challenge addressed by this special issue.

In addition, critical and real-time embedded systems are required to be dependable, secure, reliable, adaptable and reconfigurable. Adaptability is a key feature, as it allows the system its own configuration to bring about more security, reliability and dependability. One special case of such systems are autonomous computing systems, which refer to systems able to self-manage features to provide adaptation and awareness. Modelling and simulation are listed among the research challenges bound to those systems.

Being reliable and fault tolerant is another feature common to critical and real-time systems which could be listed as another challenge of this project. A system is considered to be fault tolerant if it does not fail despite the presence of faults. The most common way to have a fault-tolerant system is by adding redundancy that can be achieved at hardware, software and network levels.

The main focus of this special issue is to discuss and present state of the art concerning practices and tools for the development of adaptable and reliable systems ready to be embedded into critical and real-time systems.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the III Brazilian Symposium on Computer Systems Engineering (SBESC 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:
  • Modelling, design and simulation of critical and real-time systems
  • Embedded systems in critical and real-time systems
  • Networks, protocols and communication related to critical and real-time systems
  • Distributed computing for support to critical and real-time systems
  • Adaptable and reconfigurable systems and architectures in critical and real-time systems
  • Fault tolerance in critical and real-time systems
  • Harvesting energy and power consuption techniques in critical and real-time systems
  • Applications: smart grids, smart cities, robotics, unmanned vehicles, etc.
  • Autonomous computing systems in critical and real-time systems

Important Dates
Submission deadline: 10 March, 2015
Reviews results due: 8 July, 2015
Final version deadline: 8 August, 2015

25 August 2014

Special issue published: "The Future of Modelling and Simulation: Training, Experimentation and Decision Making"

International Journal of Simulation and Process Modelling 9(3) 2014

Expanded versions of papers presented at the International Multidisciplinary Modelling and Simulation
Multiconference (I3M 2012).
  • A prototype for project management game development using high level architecture
  • A modelling and simulation approach to assessment of a negative binomial approximation in a multi-echelon inventory system
  • Proposal of a structured methodology for the measure of intangible criteria and for decision making
  • Testing the behaviour of different inventory control policies in case of extended reverse logistics by using simulation
  • Innovative models for supporting operational planning
  • Specification of CPN models into MAS platform for the modelling of social policy issues: FUPOL project

Call for papers: "Applications of AHP/ANP in Government Policy and Decision Making"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Management and Decision Making.

The capacity of a country to innovate and create new products and processes plays a dominant and decisive role in the nations' ability to achieve global economic competitiveness. More effective approaches to implementing homeland security, technological advances in the delivery of health care and energy policy, and better ways to protect democracy and human rights, to name but a few, are central to achieving this economic competitiveness and prosperity. Sound government policies and effective decision making play a critical role in reaching the full potential of globalisation and economic prosperity.

The purpose of this special issue is to collect a high-quality selection of contemporary research articles on AHP/ANP in government policy and decision making. The analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and its generalisation, the analytical network process (ANP), are structured techniques for organising and analysing complex decisions, based on mathematics and psychology. These methods are particularly effective for group decision making scenarios and therefore have been used around the world in a wide variety of decision situations including government policy and decision making. At the government level, rather than prescribing a "correct" solution, AHP and ANP help policy makers and decision makers find a compromising and satisfactory solution that best suits the stakeholders.

AHP and ANP provide a comprehensive and rational framework for structuring a decision problem, for representing and quantifying the evaluation criteria, for relating those evaluation criteria to overall goals and for evaluating alternative solutions. We are particularly interested in articles on applications of AHP/ANP in government policy and decision making that also make theoretical contributions.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • Information security
  • Homeland security
  • E-government service quality
  • Global warming
  • Military applications and defence
  • Energy and the environment
  • Immigration
  • Foreign policy
  • Education
  • Ethics
  • Healthcare
  • Civil rights
  • Economy and public finance
  • Technology
  • Telecommunications
  • Industrial strategies
  • Trade
  • Transport
  • Job creation
  • Gender and politics
  
Important Dates
Submission deadline: 30 December 2014
Reviewer reports: 30 March 2015
Revised papers submission: 30 May 2015
Manuscripts acceptance: 30 July 2015

Special issue published: "BikeNet Theory, Technology and Application"

International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing 16(2) 2014
  • A wireless navigation and healthcare system for group recreational cycling
  • Solving station decision problem in bicycle ad hoc networks
  • Implementing a green bicycle alliance using a wireless sensor network
  • SOS: a secure social-aware credit-based stimulating mechanism for BikeNet
  • A location-based context-aware service discovery approach for cycling experience
  • An efficient cloud-assisted best-parking algorithm for BikeNet

22 August 2014

Call for papers: "The Global Katrina Effect, 2005-2015: Hurricane Katrina’s Impact on Disaster Management Systems Worldwide"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Emergency Management.

August 2015 will mark the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, considered to be one of the defining historic events within the emergency management field in the United States.

Accordingly, this anniversary will prompt numerous reflective academic assessments of how this disaster, which struck the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coasts, changed the US emergency management landscape thereafter. Less known, however, is the impact that Hurricane Katrina had on disaster management systems in other countries – over a variety of subject areas ranging from emergency preparedness to coastal management to companion animals.

This special issue seeks to advance new ways of understanding the global lessons drawn from Hurricane Katrina through a cross-national comparative examination of case studies. Papers should adhere to the following structure:

1) Highlighting what happened during Hurricane Katrina regarding a specific subject area;

2) Reviewing changes in institutions, procedures or law in the United States as a result of lessons learned from Katrina in this sector;

3) Most significantly for the scope of this issue, identifying how other countries adapted their emergency management systems/policies post-Katrina and whether these innovative changes might be utilised by the US and other countries.

This issue will partially incorporate revised versions of selected papers presented at an international symposium hosted by the Center for Disaster Research & Education, Millersville University in October 2014. However, the editors are seeking additional studies to complete the issue. Therefore, any researcher interested in this subject area is invited to submit an original paper addressing the global lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina. Interdisciplinary studies are particularly encouraged.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • Vulnerable populations
  • Business/legal/political continuity issues
  • Role of the military
  • National-State/Provincial-Local relations
  • Crisis communications
  • Risk reduction

Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 31 December, 2014

21 August 2014

Special issue published: "Sliding Model Control and Nonlinear System Identifications"

International Journal of Modelling, Identification and Control 22(2) 2014
  • Robust exponential stabilisation of a class of nonlinear systems using a novel technique of higher order sliding mode control
  • Sliding mode-multimodel stabilising control using single and several sliding surfaces: simulation on an autonomous underwater vehicle
  • Support kernels regression for NARMA system identification (SKRNARMA)
  • Estimation of motor parameters for an electrical vehicle application
  • Stability analysis of discrete input output second order sliding mode control
  • Global chaos synchronisation of identical Li-Wu chaotic systems via sliding mode control
  • Research on sample point repairing for free-form curved surface

Smartphone-loss Anxiety

The smart phone has changed our behavior, sometimes for the better as we are now able to connect and engage with many more people than ever before, sometimes for the worse in that we may have become over-reliant on the connectivity with the outside world that these devices afford us. Either way, there is no going back for the majority of users who can almost instantaneously connect with hundreds if not thousands of people through the various social media and other applications available on such devices and not least through the humble phone call.

However, our dependence brings anxiety. The loss of one’s smart phone not only represents an immediate disconnection from one’s online contacts but is also a potential privacy and security risk should the lost phone wend its way into the hands of a malicious third party. Writing in the International Journal of Mobile Communications, a Canadian team outlines the possible coping mechanisms that might be needed following loss or theft and the security problems that the user might face. The researchers point out that the same anxieties apply equally to lost or stolen laptops, tablet computers and other digital devices.

Zhiling Tu, Yufei Yuan and Norm Archer of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, explain that the convenience of mobility, wireless communication and the information processing power of smart phones and other portable digital devices has led to more and more people carrying with them valuable data assets wherever they go. These assets may include personal and business contacts, private pictures and videos, meeting and lecture notes and the like, banking details, utility statements, company spreadsheets and much more. All such assets are potentially sensitive to abuse by third parties.

The researchers add that as many companies now have a BYOD (bring-your-own-device) policy rather than dispensing a standard corporate device to all employees there are additional security issues that arise from their being centralized control of the data on a given device. The value of lost hardware might be negligible when compared to the loss of sensitive or proprietary data. Perhaps more troubling is that while there are various countermeasures that can be used to cope with mobile device loss and theft, users are either unaware of their existence or unwilling to use them. The cost and convenience of security countermeasures also need to be weighed up.

The team has investigated how general mobile phone users might not cope with the threat of losing their device. They found that a few active and security-conscious users were aware of countermeasures but many users were either not aware of “time bomb” data deletion settings and remote device locks and such or were simply in denial of the risk of their losing their phone. Their findings suggest that an awareness campaign might be needed to encourage general users to make their devices more secure and that organizations must enforce certain features on their employees and members to protect sensitive data that might be on those devices beyond their direct control.

Tu, Z.L., Yuan, Y.F. and Archer, N. (2014) ‘Understanding user behaviour in coping with security threats of mobile device loss and theft’, Int. J. Mobile Communications, Vol. 12, No. 6, pp.603–623.

Smartphone-loss Anxiety is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://ift.tt/1wbVoJF

20 August 2014

Say it with flowers and nanotech

Cut flowers last longer with silver nanotechnology

Once cut and dunked in a vase of water, flowers are susceptible to bacterial growth that shortens the length of time one has to enjoy the blooms. A few silver nanoparticles sprinkled into the water, might be the answer to longer-lasting cut flowers according to research published in the International Journal of Postharvest Technology and Innovation.

Once the stems are cut and flowers added to a vase bacteria start to colonize the open ends of the stems and block the channels through which water enters. This is the main cause of a short-loved display even for the most expensive flowers, such as lilies, roses and freesias. Many florists provide a small packet of plant food with their bouquets, but this does nothing to prevent the stems becoming blocked with bacteria. Adding a drop of household bleach is perhaps a useful tip, but not all flower lovers which to have the odor of bleach in the vase spoiling the scent of their flowers.

Now, a team in the Department of Horticulture at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran, have tested silver nanoparticles, which are known to have antibacterial activity, in extending the blooming life of cut lilies (Lilium orientalis cv. ‘Shocking’). They used suspensions of silver nanoparticles in water at levels of 5, 15, 25, 35 parts per million (ppm) and compared the floral life against controls with untreated vase water.

Seyed Hossein Nemati and colleagues found that control blooms gave a bright flora display on average for just under a week. Whereas the lower concentrations of silver nanoparticles extended this period by a couple of days. However, at 35 ppm their blooms were maintained with good color and healthy petals for almost twice as long as the controls (less than 12 days). Analysis of the stems and water revealed that at this concentration of silver nanoparticles bacterial growth was stymied for the longest period compared with controls where bacterial growth began within the first two days.

Nemati, S.H., Esfandiyari, B., Tehranifar, A., Rezaei, A. and Ashrafi, S.J. (2014) ‘Effect of nano-silver particles on postharvest life of Lilium orientalis cv. ‘Shocking’, Int. J. Postharvest Technology and Innovation, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp.46–53.

Say it with flowers and nanotech is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://ift.tt/1oQWdDU

Call for papers: "Impact of Energy Utilisation on Sustainable Aviation"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Sustainable Aviation.

This issue is devoted to energy systems and environmental issues in aviation. As is known, energy systems have an important role in sustainable development and global warming. In addition to that, aviation applications have a considerable impact on global warming. This special issue will cover sustainable applications in aviation, environmental impact, thermodynamic applications in aviation, green airports, and design and optimisation in aviation.

The issue will carry revised and selected papers presented at the International Conference on Clean Energy 2014 and International Conference on Energy 2014, but we also strongly encourage researchers unable to participate in this event to submit articles for this call.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • Sustainable aviation; green aircraft and airlines
  • Environmental impacts: emissions/noise, global warming/climate change
  • Renewable energy sources; alternative/green aviation fuels
  • Combustion instabilities, innovative combustion technologies
  • Energy, exergy, performance analysis; flight and fluid mechanics
  • Air conditioning and refrigeration applications of aircrafts
  • Energy recovery systems, alternative/renewable/clean energy technologies
  • Mathematical modelling, numerical/experimental methods, optimisation
  • Life cycle design and life cycle assessment; cost efficiency; waste/recycling
  • Sustainable aircraft design, technological change, innovation, research and development
  • Green airport design, management, planning, development

Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 10 September, 2014 (extended)

19 August 2014

Call for papers: "Applications of the Analytic Hierarchy Process in Business and Systems"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Business and Systems Research.

The analytic hierarchy process or AHP, a popular multi-criteria decision making method, has a wide range of applications, particularly in the area of business and management. In the competitive, fast-changing, globalised business world, business leaders and managers often encounter problems in making decisions that involve multiple criteria, some of which may be subjective in nature.

The major advantage of using AHP is that the method can effectively deal with objective as well as subjective factors. It also proposes to break down a complex decision making problem into a number of distinct albeit inter-related components that makes the derivation of a potential solution easier.

In addition, the method is user-friendly and can easily accommodate multiple decision makers. All of these factors make AHP a popular method that can further spur applications in many areas of business and systems. Therefore, a special issue on applications of AHP in business and systems is very timely and relevant.

Scholarly papers are invited from all over the world for publication in this issue.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • Business education
  • Decision support systems
  • E-commerce
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Environmental applications
  • Forecasting and prediction
  • Group decision making in business
  • Healthcare management and systems
  • Information systems
  • International business
  • Marketing
  • Performance measurement
  • Production and operation systems
  • Project management
  • Quality management and systems
  • Strategic management and systems
  • Supply-chain management
  • Sustainable development
  • Systems dynamics
  • Technology and decision making
  • Value-based management

Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 28 February, 2015
Notification to authors: 30 April, 2015
Final versions due: 30 June, 2016

18 August 2014

Call for papers: "Marketing of Innovation under Conditions of Uncertainty"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Technology Marketing.

One of the central issues in management and marketing theories is coping with different types of uncertainty. It is widely accepted that environments simultaneously pose both constraints and opportunities for organisational actions. Introducing new products or services is especially important in environments characterised by high levels of change and uncertainty. Unpredictable environments are likely to provide a richer source of innovation opportunities than stable ones.

In this context, some scholars have attempted to examine the direct effect of environmental uncertainty on firms’ structure, strategy and performance. But most of them have used environmental uncertainty as a moderate variable and have tried to investigate its potential and actual effects indirectly. Rarely is this construct used as mediate variable. Researchers avoid using it as an antecedent or consequence of firms’ strategy or chosen (given) behaviour.

In this call for papers, our approach is driven by two basic ideas. Firstly, we consider uncertainty as one of key variables in explaining organisational behaviour. Secondly, we believe that different types of uncertainty will have different effects on organisation structure, strategy, marketing and innovation activities.
However, a lot of unsolved and ambiguous issues remain with regard to uncertainty, marketing and innovation literature, and more effort is needed to open the black box of these central constructs in the field of strategic management. In such a scenario, this special issue aims to provide a forum for original papers covering marketing of innovation under conditions of uncertainty.

Any researcher who would be interested in this special issue is strongly encouraged to submit an original paper covering one of the topics listed below.

The following research question might be considered:
  • How can a lack of information about the potential or actual behaviour of competitors effect a firm's innovative tendency?
  • Why do some firms engage in innovative activities in which they are unable to predict the direction, effect and consequence of main event and trend changes in their operating environment, while at the same time, other firms attempt to imitate competitors' products and services and thus somehow avoid experimenting the new ideas and actions?
  • Do different types of perceived uncertainties have distinct effects upon an organisation's inclinations to engage in innovative behavior? 
Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • Firms' innovativeness
  • Uncertainty and firms' strategy
  • Radical and incremental innovation
  • Innovation vs. imitation
  • Technological capability and firms' innovative performance
  • Technological opportunism and innovation
  • Exploration and exploitation in product and service innovation
  • Competitive uncertainty and innovation tendency
  • Uncertainty as antecedent or consequence of (open) innovation
  • Uncertainty and marketing strategies
  • Innovation and the economy

Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 15 February, 2015
Notification to authors: 15 June, 2015

Demystifying the dis-domestication of consumer products

Prolonging the lifespan of products is vital in order to decouple economic success from environmental impact, according to Marie Hebrok of the National Institute for Consumer Research (SIFO) in Oslo, Norway. Writing in the Journal of Design Research she is developing a theory of dis-domestication of products that should help inform designers and manufacturers as to the social perspective on how consumers dispose of products as that product becomes obsolete.

Conspiracy theories often claim that manufacturers of goods in fields as diverse as light bulbs and smart phones incorporate planned obsolescence into their products to hurry along the next purchase rather than building everlasting items. The truth is perhaps less subtle: inexpensive products are made cheaply and of low quality so that they wear out more quickly and have to be replaced frequently. This is the predominant business model, particularly in electronics but also in clothing and furniture manufacture, suggests Hebrok. Environmental pressures in terms of energy, pollution and limited resources are pushing designers towards improving the longevity of their products, and have done for decades, according to Hebrok. “Design scholars have traditionally emphasized the material aspect of longevity and sustainability, leaving the social aspect underexplored,” she adds.

Nevertheless, devices become redundant in the lives of consumers, stop working because of component failure or parts wear out to the point where, in the case of furniture, the item becomes unsightly and uncomfortable. As such, there is much research in the area of eco-design, lifecycle and cradle to grave analysis of manufacturing and use. While the ethos of reduce, reuse, recycle has come to the fore, inevitably products must be replaced if the consumer is to maintain a chosen lifestyle. It would be better economically and environmentally if said product had greater longevity and a “greener” design.

Hebrok has developed a framework for research into eco-design, sustainability and design for life that considers the mutually constitutive social and material factors that might lead to dis-domestication of a given product. These include the consumer’s changing circumstances, moving house, financial gains or losses and changes in social status. They also consider the use of materials that age poorly, difficult and time consuming fabrication methods and maintenance and repair costs. Hebrok also points out that in the case of furniture, the focus of her case study, users may have little knowledge of nor motivation for maintenance and repairs; they may perceive their products as going out of stylistic fashion or having some sentimental reason either to keep the product of dis-domesticate it.

Hebrok suggests that the social aspects of disposing of a worn out product in the home, what she refers to as dis-domestication, should be as important a focus of research into design and sustainability as the material aspect of that product, the actual sourcing of the components and the fabrication of the product. Moreover, designing for longevity might also take into account the psychology of long-term use of a given product in the face of new, modal designs that emerge and in terms of also making it useful in the long term so that it does not become redundant or obsolete in terms of its technology

Hebrok, M. (2014) ‘Design for longevity: taking both the material and social aspects of product-life into account‘, J. Design Research, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp.204-220.

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Could “narbs” help you tell your social media story?

Ananda Mitra of the Department of Communication, at Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina and colleague Sanjay Mamani point out that there are increasing amounts of unstructured data permeating the internet and in big databases. They refer to the narrative bits of unstructured data, the social media updates and the like as “narbs”. They have now developed a theoretical approach that could bring order from the chaos and have demonstrated its advantages in making sense of the data that emerged from Egypt during the so-called Arab Spring. The same approach might be applied to other large-scale events such as political campaigns, terrorist attacks, protests, marketing and advertising campaigns and even at the personal level for biography or autobiography.

“Big Data is becoming an important part of the tools that are available to delve into human behavior,” the team says. “Institutions from grocery stores to law enforcement agencies are interested in gaining access to large amounts of data about individuals and groups so that the analysis of the data would offer greater insights into the ‘what’ people do.” The researchers development of a theoretical paradigm for making sense of Big Data at the level of the narb seems particular pertinent given the state of world affairs at the moment, in terms of wars, revolutions, terrorist activity, the prominence given to celebrity suicide and mental illness, unlawful shootings and many other aspects of events today.

Unlocking the secrets of Big Data one narb at a time might allow us to understand not only the what, when it comes to human behavior, but perhaps also the why. “The construct of looking at culture, communication and human behavior and beliefs through the lens of a narrative was suggested by the work of Walter Fisher in the mid-1980s, far before there was the extensive use of the internet, or any inkling of Big Data and Social Media Systems,” the team explains. Of course, the story of the storyteller is much older than that still, but with widespread access to even the innermost thoughts of individuals through the ubiquitous world of social media there is now the potential to extract belief and behavior with unprecedented detail.

There are hundreds of millions of people and organizations using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other online tools via their computers, mobile phones and tablets, to consume, share and generate data. This comes in the form of textual updates, announcements and commentary, digital photos, audio files, videos, and more besides. This is Big Data, if not at its biggest then most certainly at its most personal. Of course, if privacy concerns are to be believed the companies offering such tools are already mining the vast quantities of narbs for their own commercial purposes. Moreover, national agencies the world over have been revealed to be spying on our every narb for years. It’s no surprise really, unless you live entirely offline or at least use very strong encryption beyond the US military standard, for instance, all of your packets of data could have been open to spying eyes ever since you sent your first text message or clicked send on that email.

The team’s theoretical work suggests a way to processing a narrative through analysis of the unstructured data surrounding a given event and then utilizing appropriate narbs, whether social media status update, blog statement, text message or email to elicit the overarching narrative themes and, more importantly, the connections between them.

Mitra, A. and Mamani, S. (2014) ‘Using narbs to create narrative maps from unstructured Big Data: a case study’, Int. J. Logistics Economics and Globalisation, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp.78-98.

Could “narbs” help you tell your social media story? is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

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15 August 2014

Special issue published: "Nanoparticles and Nanocomposites: Preparation and Properties"

International Journal of Materials Engineering Innovation 5(3) 2014
  • Growth, characterisation, and properties of Bi1.8Lu1.2Fe3.6Al1.4O12 garnet films prepared using two different substrate temperatures
  • Synthesis and photocatalytic activity of ZnO/TiO2 nanoparticle
  • Investigations on the microstructure and mechanical property of friction stir processed AA6061 aluminium sheet metal reinforced with Al2O3 surface composite
  • Optical and AC conductivity studies of Co doped TiO2 nanotubes
  • Structural, specific heat and magnetoresistive properties of Gd0.7Ca0.3MnO3
  • Effect of sintering temperature on the structural properties of cobalt ferrite nanoparticles
  • Theoretical analysis of GaSb/GaAs QWIP
  • Multilayer Zn-Ni-Al2O3 coatings for corrosion protection
  • Manganite nanorods supported palladium - a facile electrocatalyst for direct glycerol fuel cells

14 August 2014

Special issue published: "Entrepreneurship and Piracy"

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business 22(4) 2014
  • The eye-patch of the beholder: introduction to entrepreneurship and piracy
  • The liability of politicalness: legitimacy and legality in piracy-proximate entrepreneurship
  • Piracy as an avant-gardist deviance: how do entrepreneurial pirates contribute to the wealth or misery of nations?
  • Booties, bounties, business models: a map to the next red oceans
  • Three theoretical approaches to pirate entrepreneurship: towards future studies of pirate entrepreneurship
  • Entrepreneurial piracy through strategic deception: the 'make, buy, or steal' decision
  • Piracy in innovation processes: violation or collaboration?
  • Smart-stolen tacit knowledge: institutional arrangements for invited piracy
  • Pirates never sail alone: exploring the mechanics of social entrepreneurship involved in software piracy 

13 August 2014

Call for papers: "Quantitative Methods in Decision Making Processes"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Applied Nonlinear Science.

This special issue aims to cover up-to-date scientific methods (mathematical models, databases and computer programmes) for helping decision makers, managers and directors to solve complex problems in modern organisations.

Decision making is the process by which an optimal choice between alternatives can be made. These decisions can relate to different fields such as management, banking and finance, investment, manufacturing, transportation, etc. Quantitative methods may include multiple criteria analysis, optimisation models, simulation, stochastic processes, game theory, statistics and so on.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at a special session on Quantitative Methods in Business, Finance and Investment during the International Conference on Multidimensional Finance, Insurance and Investment 2013 (ICMFII'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:
  • Multiple criteria analysis
  • Quantitative methods in finance, insurance and investment
  • Quantitative methods in engineering
  • Quantitative management and decision making
  • Fuzziness and uncertainty in decision aid
  • Statistical and probabilistic modelling
  • Optimisation and decision procedures
  • Supply chain and optimal decisions in logistics

Important Dates
Submission deadline: 31 December, 2014

An industrial approach to healthcare

By adapting the “Lean Six Sigma” principle of manufacturing to rural hospitals, Indian researchers suggest that patient queues might be shortened by 91 percent while consultation time could be reduced to about a third of the time. Details of the approach are reported in the International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management.

The Six Sigma approach to manufacturing is a set of techniques and tools developed by electronics company Motorola in 1986 to improve its development and manufacturing processes. It improves quality and efficiency by identifying and treating the causes of errors and defects and minimizing variability in manufacturing and in the associated business processes. It is widely used in many disparate areas of industry. Lean Six Sigma as the name suggests combines these efficiency principles with the concept of “lean manufacturing” in which expenditure that does not add value to the end product and consumer and therefore the company’s profits is minimized if not eradicated.

Now, Shreeranga Bhat of St Joseph Engineering College, in Karnataka, India and colleagues have applied the Lean Six Sigma principles, define, measure, analyze, improve and control process, to a rural Indian hospital to improve quality and care for patients. Their work demonstrates that ergonomic improvements in the healthcare environment as well as improvements to the handling of patient records and the progression of patients from the hospital entrance to the treatment room to their ultimate discharge with relevant prescribed medication and advice. The approach was also able to uncover problems with staff morale, training and administrative issues.

The successful implementation of this approach in a local rural hospital by the team was an “eye opener” for management, they say and “ultimately brought about a cultural change within the organization by involving everyone in the push towards excellence.”

Given the large numbers of people that might enter a rural hospital in India each year and the potential for waste in the face of limited resources, the adoption of a Lean Six Sigma approach that has been successfully applied in manufacturing industries could be a significant step towards improved healthcare for rural communities in the developing world.

Bhat, S. and Jnanesh, N.A. (2014) ‘Application of Lean Six Sigma methodology to reduce the cycle time of out-patient department service in a rural hospital’, Int. J. Healthcare Technology and Management, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp.222-237.

An industrial approach to healthcare is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

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12 August 2014

Call for papers: "The Latest Technologies for Building a Smart City"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Simulation and Process Modelling.

A smart city is a collection of services that accompany the physical services provided by the city and the technologies supporting these services. Smart cities highlight the growing importance of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and social, economic and environmental capital in profiling the competitiveness of cities.

The latest ICT technologies supporting smart city services include the internet, cloud computing, big data analysis and physical devices connected to cyberspace through the Internet of Things, as well as their applications in different sectors. This special issue aims at presenting the latest technologies for building a smart city, particularly in the process modelling, design, simulation, implementation, evaluation and application of these technologies.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • Intelligent transportation and communication systems
  • Advanced communication and networking systems
  • Internet of things, cyber-physical systems and intelligent devices
  • Smart building and environment, effectiveness and sustainability
  • Internet-based finance, business and government systems and services
  • Internet-supported healthcare and medical systems
  • Service-oriented computing, composition and enterprise application integration
  • Cloud computing and big data systems supporting smart city applications
  • Reliability, safety and security in smart city systems and applications

Important Dates
Submission Deadline: 15 November, 2015

11 August 2014

Call for papers: "ICT Infrastructure and e-Governance"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Information and Communication Technology.

Information and communication technology has revolutionised the world, and has set new standards and strategies for the coming era.

This special issue will focus on interdisciplinary research in diversified technologies and other applied fields in computation, engineering and e-governance domains. It aims to propose new technologies for future solutions for design infrastructure in ICT, and to represent various innovative issues at an international level by bringing together the ideas of experts and researchers from different countries.

The issue will carry revised and selected papers presented at the International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Competitive Strategies (ICTCS-2014), but we also strongly encourage researchers unable to participate in this event to submit articles for this call.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • ICT for infrastructure and computation
  • ICT for engineering applications
  • ICT for e-governance and government
  • Fractal theory
  • ICT perspectives in science and engineering
  • Enabling e-business through emergent technology platforms
  • High-performance computing
  • Cloud-based effective strategies for the 21st century
  • Prospect of cloud computing in education
  • Reconfigurable computing engineering
  • Big data analytics using R and Hadoop

Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 15 March, 2015

Special issue published: "Business Model Innovation"

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management 18(4) 2014
  • Service-dominant logic and the business model concept: toward a conceptual integration
  • Incumbents' responses to disruptive business model innovation: the moderating role of technology vs. market-driven innovation
  • Business model innovation in the retail industry: growth by serving the silver generation
  • A six-step approach to business model innovation
  • Dynamic capabilities as drivers of business model innovation - from the perspective of SMEs in mature industries

First issue: International Journal of Fuzzy Computation and Modelling (free sample issue available)

The International Journal of Fuzzy Computation and Modelling includes theoretical, experimental and applications of fuzzy mathematics and computation in general. The journal brings together the leading-edge research on fuzzy set theory, fuzzy logic, soft computing and related topics to present original research of high quality. This perspective acknowledges the complexity of fuzzy computation as an interface between fuzzy mathematics and applications operating in parallel over different subject fields as well as the inherent characteristic of mathematical modelling.

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

8 August 2014

Call for papers: "Management of Copyright and Related Rights by Collective Management Organisations"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Intellectual Property Management.

Collective management organisations develop a crucial role in managing copyright or rights related to copyright on behalf of right holders. A European Union Directive dealing with this issue as well as with licensing of rights in musical works for online use in the internal market entered into force in April 2014 and should be transposed by Member States by April 10, 2016.

This special issue is aimed at encouraging academic researchers worldwide to examine different aspects of the referred Directive. This call for papers also welcomes papers offering a comparative analysis or legal reflections focused on non-EU legal systems. Papers presenting policy perspectives or well-supported stakeholder´s positioning are equally warmly received.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • Protection of right holders
  • Membership rules of collective management organisations
  • Organisation of collective management organisations
  • Management of rights revenue
  • Management of rights on behalf of other collective management organisations
  • Relations with users
  • Duties of transparency and reporting of collective management organisations
  • Multi-territorial licensing by collective management organisations of authors´ rights in musical works for online use.
  • Litigation and alternative dispute resolution on these issues
  • Independent management entities
  • Transposition of Directive 2014/26 in Member States
  • Positioning of the civil society and lobbies on these issues
  • National legislation in non-EU countries

Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 31 October, 2014
Notification to authors: 1 December, 2014
Revised manuscript submission: 1 February, 2015
Final versions due: 1 March, 2015

Inderscience is media partner for Port Finance International Morocco

Inderscience is a media partner for Port Finance International Morocco (15-16 September 2014, Casablanca, Morocco).

The journals involved are:

Call for papers: "Recent Developments in Wireless and Optical Communication Networks"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Information and Communication Technology.

The aim of this special issue is to foster state-of-the-art research in the area of wireless and optical communication networks in order to address new challenges and opportunities. The scope of the issue covers the advancements of wireless and optical systems and networks.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the International Conference of Recent Trends in Information and Communication Technologies 2014 (IRICT 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:
  • Communication networks
  • Wireless communications
  • Computer simulation
  • Mobile communications
  • Sensor networks
  • Control systems
  • Infrastructure for next generation networks
  • Optical communications
  • Information and communication
  • Expert systems
  • Multimedia internet technologies
  • Natural language processing communication software
  • Broadband networks
  • Digital signal processing
  • Network and information security

Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 30 November, 2014
Notification to authors: 31 January, 2015
Final versions due: 28 February, 2015

7 August 2014

Call for papers: "Advances in Intelligent Computing and Cyber Systems"

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

This special issue aims to explore the recent trends in all topics pertaining to intelligent computing, artificial life, computational intelligence, machine learning and robotics. It presents the latest research being conducted on different topics in intelligence technologies. Intelligent systems that can analyse digital information and sensory data, draw the right conclusions and act on them in the digital or physical world, are of rapidly growing importance.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at theInternational Conference of Recent Trends in Information and Communication Technologies 2014 (IRICT 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:
  • Computer vision, AI applications
  • Computer games and animation
  • Cloud computing
  • Web databases, web-based information systems
  • Signal/image processing
  • Image matching, medical imaging
  • Pattern/face recognition
  • Architecture, languages
  • Parallel computer vision
  • Interactive computational models
  • Data mining
  • Information retrieval
  • Intelligent information systems
  • Image processing
  • Biological vision, alternative eyes
  • Renewable energy and sustainability
  • Intelligent systems
  • Chemoinformatics
  • Security, trust and privacy
  • Data fusion
  • Artificial intelligence and its applications
  • Intelligent data management
  • Genetic algorithms
  • Machine learning
  • Grid computing
  • Natural language processing

Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 30 November, 2014
Notification to authors: 31 January, 2015
Final versions due: 28 February, 2015

Inderscience is media partner for Quant World Canada 2014

Inderscience is a media partner for Quant World Canada 2014 (13 November 2014, Toronto, Canada).

The journals involved are:

Call for papers: "Supply Chain Sustainability and Mitigating Risks"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Automation and Logistics.

In the current business environment, there is increasingly more pressure and obligation to make business models sustainable, which essentially means to achieve present objectives without compromising tomorrow’s scopes. More details can be found in World Commission on Environment and Development (1987), Starik and Rands (1995), Shrivastava (1995), etc.

Among other things, supply chain is considered as one of the most important parts of a business model to achieve sustainability. To realise sustainability, supply chains have to meet ecological, social and economic criteria, also known as triple bottom line. However, most research and practice is focused on achieving the ecological aspect of sustainability (Carter and Rogers, 2008) while companies struggle to achieve social sustainability (Klassen and Vereecke, 2012). Organisations also plan and invest heavily to avoid various types of risks in their supply chains (Meenaet. al., 2011; Meena and Sarmah, 2013). These risks may include losing customers or market share, losing skilled workforce to another organisation, inability to meet demand on time, future loss due to inappropriate supplier selection, etc.

Shrivastava (1995) defines sustainability as “the potential for reducing long-term risks associated with resource depletion, fluctuations in energy costs, product liabilities, and pollution and waste management”. Clearly, risks can be evaded through achieving sustainability. More precisely, sustainability is the only way to avoid various risks in future. At the same time, it is possible to achieve sustainability and avoid risks rather than investing time and money on the both fronts separately.

Therefore, the purpose of this special issue is to focus on how we can achieve sustainable supply chain and at the same time avoid various types of risks in supply chain. The issue intends to explore (but is not limited to) the following themes:
  • Building synergy between sustainable supply chain management and supply chain risks by addressing the triple bottom line, i.e. ecological, social and economical concerns
  • Thorough literature reviews and case studies of practices and service supply chain are especially encouraged
  • Roadmaps to make supply chain management sustainable
References
Carter, C.R. and Rogers, D.S. (2008), A framework of sustainable supply chain management: moving toward new theory, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 38(5): 360-387
Klassen, R.D. and Vereecke, A. (2012), Social issues in supply chains: capabilities link responsibility, risk (opportunity), and performance, International Journal of Production Economics, 140(1): 103-115.
Meena, P.L. and Sarmah, S.P. (2013), Multiple Sourcing under Supplier Failure Risk and Quantity Discount: A Genetic Algorithm Approach, Transportation Research Part,50(1): 84–97.
Meena, P.L., Sarmah, S.P. and Sarkar, A. (2011), Sourcing Decisions under Risks of Catastrophic Event Disruptions, Transportation Research Part E, 47(6): 1058–1074.
Shrivastava, P. (1995),The role of corporations in achieving ecological sustainability, Academy of Management Review, 20(4): 936-60.
Starik, M. and Rands, G.P. (1995), Weaving an integrated web: multilevel and multisystem perspectives of ecologically sustainable organizations, Academy of Management Review, 20(4): 908-35.
World Commission on Environment and Development (1987), Our Common Future, Oxford University Press, New York, NY.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • Social sustainability and challenges
  • Closed-loop supply chain/reverse logistics
  • Supply chain integration
  • Supply chain collaboration
  • Risks, collaboration and integration
  • Packaging, sustainability and risks in supply chain management
  • Green and clean supply chains
  • Supply chain resilience, risks and sustainability
  • Supply chain competition
  • Dependence and collaborative/work culture
  • Long term relationships

Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 31 December, 2014

Call for papers: "Smart Devices and Collective Intelligence for the Telemedicine and Healthcare System"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Telemedicine and Clinical Practices.

Integration of technology and medical sciences is playing a major role in the global momentum of the healthcare industry. Smart and collective intelligence medical devices are emerging as a critical component for hospitals as well as telemedicine platforms. Today, more flexible implementations of intelligent devices are being designed that allow access to geographically distributed knowledge and the software capable of processing this information, which is likely to be the patient-confidential.

Intelligent biomedical electronics and devices brings together researchers in studying and using models, equipment and materials inspired by biological systems to monitor devices, instrumentation sensors and systems, micro-nanotechnologies and biomaterials. There are devices which measures physiological information about the patient, and environmental information such as humidity, temperature and carbon monoxide level. This physiological and environmental data is now collated to assess the patient’s state of health and to identify external factors. The ability to automatically capture and manage patient data from intelligent devices is now becoming the part of the function of improving both patient safety and clinical outcomes. The healthcare industry is experiencing an unprecedented level of technology interoperability, integrating multiple sources of real-time and life-critical data.

This special issue will cover various research areas of smart devices and collective intelligence relating to telemedicine and clinical practices.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • Healthcare devices and technologies
  • Intelligent sensors for physiological information
  • Embedded healthcare system
  • Wearable medical devices
  • Medical imaging and image processing
  • Medical signal analysis and processing
  • Bioinstrumentation, biosensors and bio-micro/nano technologies
  • Biomechanics and bio-robotics
  • Neural and rehabilitation engineering
  • Diagnostics and therapeutics devices
  • Smart fitness devices
  • Computer-aided diagnosis
  • Data analytics for clinical care
  • Biomarker discovery and biomedical data mining
  • Intelligent medical data management
  • Predictive modelling for personalised treatment
  • Data integration for healthcare
  • Medical recommender systems
  • Optimisation models for planning and recommending therapies
  • Text mining for biomedical literature and clinical notes
  • Intelligent systems for electronic health records
  • Computational intelligence methodologies for healthcare
  • Effective information retrieval for healthcare applications
  • Fibre optic and laser technology in medical applications
  • User interface keypads and switches
  • Semantic web, linked data, ontology and healthcare
  • Continuous monitoring and streaming technologies for healthcare
  • Collaboration technologies for healthcare
  • E-communities, social networks and social media for patients and caregivers
  • Intelligent user-interfaces for medical devices and software
  • Bioinformatics and computational biology
  • Biomedical modelling and computing
  • Visual analytics for healthcare
  • Wireless communications and device data control and fusion
  • Tissue engineering and biomaterials
  • Clinical engineering
  • Healthcare information systems and telemedicine
  • Emerging topics in biomedical engineering

Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 31 May, 2015
Notification to authors: 31 July, 2015
Final versions due: 31 August, 2015

In short…

While long-form writing, epic cinematic tales and hefty tomes have had something of a renaissance recently, the continued popularity of the so-called microblogging platform Twitter and other such tools highlights the fact that many people still like to be very succinct. The terse commentary, the abstract, the executive summary: all still favored by many of us at some time or in some context.

Moreover, who has the time to read long texts when a chunk of pithy sound bites is needed. Thankfully, researchers in India are developing new software that can make longwinded prose short and sweet.

Esther Hannah of St. Joseph’s College of Engineering, in Sholinganallur and Saswati Mukherjee of Anna University, Guindy Campus, both in Chennai, have developed a classification-based summarization model that performs automatic summarization of text. The direct application of the software will be to remove extraneous noise sentences from bulk text allowing much more efficient and faster text mining to be carried out. Of course, the same summarization would allow a reader to extract the salient points from any given text too. The team suggests that the automatic summarization is comparable to that which might be carried out by an expert editor in terms of removing the redundancy and irrelevance.

The team “trained” their software with 60% of the 105 English-language documents from the Document Understanding Conference (DUC-2002), checking and correcting errors the algorithm makes along the way and thus teaching the software what would be an appropriate summarization and what would not. They then tested the remainder at various levels of summarization – 10%, 20% and 30%. The system works well with grammatically well-constructed, even very long, documents, has problems if there are extensive mathematical and scientific symbols in the text.

Precision was optimal between 20 and 30% percent, which is a significant reduction in text length for parsing by text-mining software. They obtained a precision value of about 0.65, which is significantly better than fuzzy logic summarization software, which scores around 0.47 and far better than Microsoft Word 2007 inbuilt summarization tool, which is a little over 0.46.

Esther Hannah, M. and Mukherjee, S. (2014) ‘A classification-based summarization model for summarising text documents’, Int. J. Information and Communication Technology, Vol. 6, Nos. 3/4, pp.292–308.

In short… is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

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6 August 2014

Special issue published: "Technology Transfer and Innovation"

International Journal of Technology Transfer and Commercialisation 12(1/2/3) 2013
  • Technology transfer and innovation: exploring the multifaceted nature of this interaction
  • International technology transfer and its impact on innovation enhancement for firms based in Sri Lanka 
  • Corporate culture and the adverse impact of cultural differences on technology transfer
  • The role of geographical proximity in university and industry collaboration: case study of Japanese companies in the UK
  • Screening for start-up potential in universities and research institutions - or how to map invisible innovation potentials
  • International technology transfer: innovative quantitative tools
  • Investigating inventive productivity at Sweden's largest medical university
Additional papers
  • Means becoming ends? Recent evidence from patent registration in Portugal
  • Recent trends of technology transfer in US universities with comparison to those following Bayh-Dole Act
  • How do Indonesian industries perceive university-industry collaboration? Motivations, benefits and problems 

Call for papers: "Innovation and Entrepreneurship as Drivers of Competitiveness and Growth"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Work Innovation.

It is widely recognised that innovation and entrepreneurship are key drivers of productivity and economic growth (OECD, 2009; Bibbee, 2012). Boosting innovation is becoming even more important now for firms to be able to remain competitive against global competitors. The development of strategies to foster entrepreneurship to revamp traditional firms or to foster the creation of start-ups has been of high importance in developed and developing economies (Isenberg 2010).

However, innovation and entrepreneurship do not happen in isolation; a set of agents in the [eco] system of innovation needs to be present, and the development of specific roles also needs to take place (Lundvall 1992; Nelson 1993; Edquist 1997; Isenberg 2010). Thus, as Bibbee (2012) states, innovation is most likely to flourish under sound structural conditions that can foster innovation, such as entrepreneurial firms; strong education systems for the formation of human resources; a set of policies that promote and support the innovation process in firms, promote and support entrepreneurship, and encourage linkages between academia and industry; strong financial systems; and developed IPR regimes.

Developed and developing economies face different challenges when fostering innovation and entrepreneurship at the firm level and within the [eco] system. Identifying the main determinants of business innovation and its effect on innovation output and productivity remains of significant importance, and has been of great interest in the last decades, as innovation can play an important role in fostering firms’ competitiveness. Understanding the key components to ignite venture creation has also been recognised as highly important to promoting economic growth.

The relationship between innovation and entrepreneurship has met with challenges as the innovation approach (Schumpeter, 1934) competes with opportunity alertness (Kirzner, 1973; Shane and Venkataraman, 2000). Moreover, there have been contradictory results between developing and developed countries with respect to the relationship between innovation and entrepreneurship (Acs, Desai, Stenholm and Wuebker, 2014; Marcotte, 2014). More exploration in this area has been called for.

Government policies play an important role in fostering innovation and entrepreneurship at the business and systemic level. Thus, looking with special attention at the effect of government policies on innovation and entrepreneurship remains of critical importance to ensuring that government subsidies are actually solving the main challenges.

A broader challenge for fostering innovation and entrepreneurship must recognise the importance of a greater globalised economy; interactions for innovation are not constrained by regional boundaries. Thus, remaining of key importance is a broader discussion on how to engage in open innovation networks, or new forms of collaboration taking advantage of new information and communication technologies, especially for new ventures.

The aim of this special issue is to contribute to and stimulate discussion on the determinants of innovation and entrepreneurship at a business and the [eco] system level, and the contribution of entrepreneurship and innovation to enhanced productivity and economic growth. We are especially interested in identifying new collaboration schemes where different agents such as government, higher education institutions, private organisations, NGOs and individuals engage to foster entrepreneurship and innovation. Collaborations and new ventures can build on novel technologies, methodologies and business models. Equally important is to contribute to the identification and discussion of strategies to overcome barriers for innovation behaviour and entrepreneurship.

This special issue accepts original work from multidisciplinary perspectives that share new approaches, theoretical groundings, empirical findings and new methodologies of the topics described above. We welcome the submission of papers that focus on the analysis of innovation and entrepreneurship in developed and developing countries, preferably from comparative, cross-learning perspectives.
The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the 44th Annual Atlantic Schools of Business Conference 2014, but we also strongly encourage researchers unable to participate in the conference to submit articles for this call.

References
Acs, Zoltan J., Desai, S., Stenholm, P., and Wuebker, R. (2014). Institutional Drivers of Informal Entrepreneurship (June 13) Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2449963 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2449963
Bibbee (2012) Unleashing business innovation in Canada, OECD, Paris
Edquist, C., Ed. (1997). Systems of Innovation Approaches - Their Emergence and Characteristics. Systems of Innovation: Growth, Competitiveness and Employment. UK, Edward Elgar.
Isenberg, D. (2010). How to start an entrepreneurial revolution. Harvard Business Review: 41-50.
Kirzner, I.M. (1973). Competition and Entrepreneurship, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
Lundvall, B.-Ã…. (1992). National systems of innovation: toward a theory of innovation and interactive learning. London; New York, Pinter Publishers.
Marcotte, C. (2014). Entrepreneurship and innovation in emerging economies. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research 20(1): 42-65.
Nelson, R. R., Ed. (1993). National Innovation System. New York, Oxford University Press. OECD (2014) Prospectives on Global Development, OECD, Paris
OECD (2009) Making innovation strategy succeed in a globalised world, OECD, Paris
Schumpeter, J.A. (1934). The Theory of Economic Development: An Inquiry into Profits, Capital, Credit, Interest, and the Business Cycle. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
Shane, S. and Venkataraman, S.(2000). The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of research, Academy of Management Review, 25(1): 217-226.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • Determinants and effects of innovation at firm level
  • Cultivating an environment for innovation
  • New business models underpinning entrepreneurship and innovation
  • Innovation management and the complexity of the innovation process
  • Challenges and barriers to innovation
  • Entrepreneurship and technology innovation
  • Relationships between entrepreneurship and innovation
  • Innovative financial mechanisms for start-ups or technology-based firms
  • Open innovation and new collaboration models
  • Impacts of innovation on society
  • Entrepreneurship and social innovation
  • Innovative ways to provide goods and services to low-income markets
  • Cases of entrepreneurship and innovation
  • Innovative policy approaches to promote innovation and entrepreneurship

Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 1 February, 2015