29 March 2019

Inderscience journals to invite expanded papers from International Conference on Information Technology and Management for the Sustainable Development for potential publication

Extended versions of papers presented at the International Conference on Information Technology and Management for the Sustainable Development (ICITMSD-2019) (9-10 August 2019, Uttaranchal University, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India) will be invited for review and potential publication by the following journals:

Research pick: European refuge - "The European refugee crisis in Europe and multicultural integration"

The refugee crisis in Europe has become a global humanitarian problem argues Edita Calakovic of the Karl Franzens Universität, in Graz, Austria. Writing in the International Journal of Foresight and Innovation Policy explains how in the summer of 2015, the problem came to a head and finally gained international recognition as the biggest refugee crisis facing Europe since World War II. Many of the refugees and asylum seekers came from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and number at least one million attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea and begin a new, safer life in 2015 in Europe.

While many people were seeking asylum there was the wider issue of migration to address and this has led to a rising sentiment of alienation. Hundreds of people have died attempting to escape, war, extremists, and tyrants. The image of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi lying face down and dead on a Turkish beach was perhaps a turning point in awareness. His death in attempting to reach the safety of Greece has become a symbol for the suffering of Syrian refugees.

In the bigger political picture, the issue of migration, growing population, and other issues are constantly high on the agenda. Fed by misinformation, disinformation and the often distorted perspectives of those with their own political agendas, the public can either see the crisis as being one with which they must help or persuade their leaders to help or they can turn their backs on those seeking our help, closing borders and reducing immigration allowances irrespective of need.

In this mixed and often polarized debate Calakovic says that migrants and asylum seekers can help themselves by ensuring they quickly become part of the community in the country where they seek refuge, they must attempt to successfully integrate or risk the inevitable rejection by the more right-wing factions within European society. Learning the local language and, if not adopting, then at least learning about and accepting local culture and traditions could play an important part in this integration process. Of course, there should be no pressure to abandon or forget their own cultural traditions and language.

“Even if the anti-immigration and anti-refugee political parties have been doing very well in recent years, this should not stop the refugees to secure multiculturalism,” concludes Calakovic.

Calakovic, E. (2019) ‘The European refugee crisis in Europe and multicultural integration‘, Int. J. Foresight and Innovation Policy, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp.19-36.

28 March 2019

Special issue published: "Lean, Agile, Resilient and Green Supply Chain Management"

International Journal of Advanced Operations Management 11(1/2) 2019

  • Enhancing stock efficiency and environmental sustainability goals in direct distribution logistic networks
  • Exploring ecosystem network analysis to balance resilience and performance in sustainable supply chain design
  • Green optimisation for LRP problem using a genetic algorithm and a dynamic island model
  • Trade-off among lean, agile, resilient and green paradigms: an empirical study on pharmaceutical industry in Jordan using a TOPSIS-entropy method
  • Improvement of steel melting operations at a Caribbean company: a lean manufacturing approach
  • The effect of IT integration on improving agility, integration and performance of supply chain
  • Which practices are lean, agile and resilient? Literature review and practitioners' perspective

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management are now available here for free:
  • Productivity growth, efficiency change and source of inefficiency: evidence from the Indian automobile industry
  • The automotive industry and the increasing relevance of a consumer perspective: a research agenda
  • Heterogeneity of the steering of foreign subsidiaries in multinational automotive companies
  • Integrated peripheral markets in the auto industries of Europe and North America

Special issue published: "Ethics and Social Responsibility"

World Review of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable Development 15(1/2) 2019

  • Collective social entrepreneurship for sustainable impact: a framework proposal
  • 'Portugal, the best destination': the case study of a CSR communication that changed mentalities and increased business performance
  • Sustainability disclosure imbalances. A qualitative case-study analysis
  • AIDA Books&More: a project beyond reading
  • Consumer perception of corporate social responsibility: points of view from Portuguese undergraduate students
  • Corporate social responsibility, job satisfaction, and customer orientation in Angola
  • Corporate hypocrisy and social responsibility: a comparative study of brand crises effect on consumer's attitude toward brands
  • Corporate social responsibility and consumer behaviour in the hospitality sector: its effects on the decision-making process
  • Impact of CSR perceptions on workers' innovative behaviour: exploring the social exchange process and the role of perceived external prestige
  • Drivers and barriers of University Social Responsibility: integration into strategic plans
Additional papers
  • Uscio e Bottega: an exploratory study on conflict management and negotiation during family business succession in Tuscany
  • Literature review of emerging trends and future directions of e-commerce in global business landscape
  • Sustainable leadership and entrepreneurship for corporate sustainability in small enterprises: an empirical analysis

Research pick: "Venezuela divided"

Venezuela is one of the world’s biggest oil producers. Is it any wonder that it is a political hotbed? Oil means money, money means power. Unfortunately, none of that seems to have led the country to a settled state. Initially, the discovery of oil led to development and industrialization. But, the wealth ended up in few hands and the poverty was widespread.

Venezuela has proven oil reserves amounting to 300 billion barrels, this is the largest reserve in the world. It also has extensive natural gas reserves and mineral deposits. And, yet this somehow led to extremely high inflation, economic recession and an energy crisis accompanied major politic upheaval which is ongoing at the time of writing but had changed considerably since the research paper discussed here was itself written.

Writing in the International Journal of Foresight and Innovation Policy, Nikolina Jankovic, Mariana Olvera Colin, Melissa Ari, and Agnes Haidacher of the University of Graz, Austria, explain how, as popular unrest rose, Hugo Chávez came to power. He declared war on capitalism and left a divided society and a country currently afflicted by a deep economic crisis. The researchers discuss this rise to power and roles of the various “actors” in the conflict.

The team concludes that the societal imbalances are largely the fault of political corruption. If corruption could be fought, then that would make an essential contribution to poverty alleviation efforts. Such a statement applies in whatever political situation a nation finds itself where there are unethical power struggles.

Jankovic, N., Olvera Colin, M., Ari, M. and Haidacher, A. (2019) ‘The divided Venezuela’, Int. J. Foresight and Innovation Policy, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp.5–18.

27 March 2019

New Editor's Pick of free sample articles newly available from World Review of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable Development

The following sample articles from the World Review of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable Development are now available here for free:
  • Collective efficiency: a prerequisite for cluster development?
  • The phenomenon of entrepreneurial leadership in gazelles and mice: a qualitative study from Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • Combating rural poverty through altruism: a model for sustainable education
  • Privatisation, stakeholder power, and weak institutions: the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo
  • Optimisation model for industrial complex competitiveness: a path to sustainable innovation process
  • Rethinking the cross-border acquisition process in terms of territorial social responsibility
  • Female entrepreneurs in transition economies: insights from Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo

Special issue published: "Future of Internet of Things (IoT): Information Digital Era and Societal Challenges"

International Journal of Internet Protocol Technology 12(1) 2019

  • Analysis of factors affecting customer satisfaction in e-commerce applications using Condorcet - AHP method
  • ATM PIN generation - a formal mathematical model to generate PIN using regular grammar, context free grammar and recognition through finite state machine, pushdown automata
  • Security analysis of a cloud authentication protocol using applied pi calculus
  • Improvement of WBAN performances by a hybrid model: design and evaluation of a novel inter-MAC layer exploited in medical applications
  • Modified QUIC protocol for improved network performance and comparison with QUIC and TCP
  • A general purpose deployment method for wireless mesh network
  • Addressing for 6LoWPAN

Free open access article available: "Study on learning resource authentication in MOOCs based on blockchain"

The following paper, "Study on learning resource authentication in MOOCs based on blockchain" (International Journal of Computational Science and Engineering 18(3) 2019) is freely available for download as an open access article.

It can be downloaded via the full-text link available here.

Research pick: Incivility as a barrier to knowledge sharing in the ICT workplace

If people who work together don’t have good interpersonal relationships, and more to the point, there is actual incivility between them, this can seriously impede the flow of knowledge within a company. A survey conducted among workers in the information technology and communications industry is analysed and discussed in the International Journal of Information Systems and Change Management. Incivility is generally characterized, not as physical violence, but as rude behaviour displaying disrespect and a lack of regard for others.

Muhammad Farrukh of Cyberjaya University College of Medical Sciences, He Ting of SEGi University, and Imran Ahmad Shahzad and Zhou Hua of Limkokwing University of Creative Technology in Malaysia, found a statistically significant correlation between incivility and knowledge sharing behaviour in ICT companies. There was also a demonstrable mediating effect of perceived organisational support. The team also points out that their analytical approach contributes to theory in this area of management by bonding two opposing poles of social exchange theory in one framework.

“Social exchange theory underpins the basis for studying workplace incivility that is based on a ‘tit for tat’ pattern and is reciprocal in nature,” the team writes. They add that “In a work context, these norms of reciprocity would respond favourable actions of management in a positive way, whereby negative and unfavourable treatment would produce negative reciprocity.” In contrast, knowledge sharing is a positive phenomenon and the team points out that it is to the detriment of this that factors that do not lubricate knowledge sharing are ignored by management. It is vital to understand the barriers of knowledge sharing and to overcome them in order to nurture and enhance active knowledge sharing in the workplace, the team suggests.

“This study confirmed the importance and value of a supportive organisational climate for sharing knowledge,” the team concludes.

Farrukh, M., Ting, H., Shahzad, I.A. and Hua, Z. (2018) ‘Can incivility impede knowledge sharing behaviour?’, Int. J. Information Systems and Change Management, Vol. 10, No. 4, pp.295–310.

26 March 2019

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Internet Protocol Technology

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Internet Protocol Technology are now available here for free:
  • Scenario-based trustworthiness verification for systems of internet of things
  • Security access control policy of information system under multi-domain mode
  • Research and realisation of similar information high precision purification and mining technology
  • Research on mobile internet big data detecting method for the redundant data
  • An improved routing algorithm in communication network based on cloud computing technology
  • Wireless sensor network node deployment based on multi-objective immune algorithm
  • Broadcasting algorithm based on successful broadcasting ratio and energy balance of nodes in mobile ad hoc networks

Special issue published: "Smart Urban Mobility Futures"

International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management 19(1/2) 2019

  • Examining the myths of connected and autonomous vehicles: analysing the pathway to a driverless mobility paradigm
  • Management and business of autonomous vehicles: a systematic integrative bibliographic review
  • From electric cars to energy-efficient houses - the automotive retail sector at the crossroads
  • Closed-open innovation strategy for autonomous vehicle development
  • Range extenders: an innovative approach to range anxiety in electric vehicles
  • The concept supply chain technological capability in case of new product development process
  • Patterns of knowledge development and diffusion in the global autonomous vehicle technological innovation system: a patent-based analysis

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Advanced Operations Management

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Advanced Operations Management are now available here for free:
  • Identifying significant drivers for sustainable practices in achieving sustainable food supply chain using modified fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory approach
  • Contributions to the planning of human resources in the territorial level
  • Implementation of simulation for the analysis of available layout alternatives of manufacturing plant
  • Evaluating the performance of robust and stochastic programming approaches in a supply chain network design problem under uncertainty

WHO recognises research in Inderscience journal

Research into the changing position and posture of gender in the context of female-dominated occupations first published in Inderscience’s International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business (IJESB) has been cited in an important World Health Organization (WHO) report this month.

The WHO report was produced by the WHO Global Health Workforce Network’s Gender Equity Hub, (this is co-chaired by the WHO and Women in Global Health). It represents the latest gender and equity analysis of the health workforce. Collectively, the report has taken the first-ever look at the issues of leadership, decent work free from discrimination, harassment, the gender pay gap, and occupational segregation across the entire workforce.

The report is a clarion call for gender-transformative policies and measures to be instigated by policymakers and leaders. It suggests that if global targets such as universal health coverage are to be achieved then these policies and measures must be implemented urgently. “This report serves as an essential resource to all policy-makers, practitioners, researchers, educators and activists that must make it part of their core business to understand and effect change,” the WHO authors write.

The IJESB paper cited in the WHO report was authored by Nnamdi Madichie, currently Director of the Centre for Research & Enterprise at the Bloomsbury Institute in London. He offers a gender entrepreneurship slant on the evolving landscape of the “culinary underbelly”. The well-known occupations stereotypically associated with women more than men social work, nursing, and elementary education.

The research cited brings to the boil the notion of “chef life” and gender segregation in the world of the commercial kitchen. Traditionally it seems cooking has been the preserve of women, in Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa. The modern culture of celebrity chefs and the prestige associated with glamorous restaurants has, however, enticed men to don the white apron more than ever before. It is as if men have adopted and adapted to this one last bastion of female career choice.

Author of the IJESB paper had this to say following the publication of the WHO report:
"My research article speaks to the conversation on misplaced gender stereotypes and the changing dynamics in the social workforce. It also highlights subtle elements of occupational segregation, safety in the workplace and the empathy of the collective in occupations. These issues, in addition to several others, have prompted both scholarly and policy intervention across unilateral, bilateral, and multilateral levels."

ReferencesMadichie, N.O. (2013) ‘Sex in the kitchen: changing gender roles in a female-dominated occupation’, Int. J. Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp.90–102.
Delivered by Women, Led by Men: A Gender and Equity Analysis of the Global Health and Social Workforce Human Resources for Health Observer‘ – Issue No. 24 (March 2019). ISBN: 978-92-4-151546-7

25 March 2019

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Computational Systems Engineering

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Computational Systems Engineering are now available here for free:
  • A graph-based approach for feature selection from higher order correlations
  • Reduction of computation time in differential evolution-based quantisation table optimisation for the JPEG baseline algorithm
  • Exception discovery using ant colony optimisation
  • An effective topic-based ranking technique for categorised research articles
  • HiRSA: computing hit ratio for SOA-based applications through Tcases
  • Development of software effort estimation using a non-fuzzy model
  • Dynamic priority-based packet handling protocol for healthcare wireless body area network system

Special issue published: "8th International Conference on Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology (Amn-8)"

International Journal of Nanotechnology 15(8/9/10) 2018

  • Electronic and structural properties of few-layer antimonene
  • The influence of pre-treatment of poly(ethylene terephthalate) on its barrier properties base on ALD Al2O3
  • The effect of pulsed electric fields on the rheology and microstructure of chitosan-poly(vinyl alcohol) composites
  • Investigation of dose and development time for thin e-beam resist poly(methyl methacrylate) for large area dense nanopattern applications
  • Photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue dye using catalyst based on the gold-containing clusters supported on TiO2
  • Enhancing the resolution of bioimprinted casein microdevices
  • Caesium and strontium adsorption ability of activated bamboo charcoal
  • Poly(ethylene oxide) in polypyrrole doped dodecylbenzenesulfonate: characterisation and linear actuation
  • The potential of nanoclay modified Spartium junceum L. fibres used as reinforcement in PLA matrix composites for automotive applications
  • Thermal and mechanical properties of polyurethane composites filled with thermally expanded hollow microspheres
  • Characterisation of the polyketone fibre reinforced thermoplastic composites with different interfacial conditions
  • Novel prism designs for solid immersion optical lithography in the ultra high-NA regime
  • The caesium and strontium adsorption properties of bamboo charcoal-containing concrete blocks
  • Effect of holding time on electrochemical analysis of milk antioxidants using PEDOT electrodes
  • Room-temperature synthesis of nickel nanoparticles and their use as catalyst for methyl orange dye degradation
  • Thermal characterisation of high density polyethylene with multi-walled carbon nanotube
  • PVP treatment of PS/PtOEPK sensor films for improved adherence of cancer cells
  • Surface roughness of fibre reinforced composite sails as quality indicator for their appropriate use
  • Microstructure characterisation through ultra-small-angle neutron scattering
  • Self-assembling dairy proteins for the production of novel bionanomaterials
  • Synthesis and characterisation of supported Re nanoparticles for the synthesis of biofuels
  • Materials genome approach to organic ferroelectrics and piezoelectrics
  • Effect of heat on grape marc extract
  • Synthesis of metal oxide nanocomposites from self-assembled block copolymer templates as cathode materials for all-solid-state lithium batteries
  • Sonochemical synthesis of Ga-doped ZnS nanoballs with enhanced photocatalytic activity for Orange II dye degradation in wastewater

22 March 2019

Research pick: Juggling gun law - "A Marxist analysis of American gun culture"

Much has been written about the USA’s so-called “gun culture”. Opinions are extremely divided between those for and against firearms in the context of the right to bear arms, “open carry” law, and other issues. Indeed, while there may well be a spectrum of opinion if one examines the issue closely, American society, and indeed foreign opinion about American society, is largely split between those who are pro- and those who are anti-gun.

An analysis of a survey undertaken of US citizens by researchers in the UK and published in the Internation Journal of Critical Accounting comes to some intriguing conclusions about gun culture. Fundamentally, the attitudes of gun owners is mostly aligned with the political and public views of the National Rifle Association while people who do not own a gun favour the idea of government passing tougher gun control laws in the future. The researchers have then examined this split in opinion in terms of the Marxist perspectives of Alienation Theory and Conflict Theory to help them better understand American gun culture within the context of what is perhaps the archetypal capitalist society.

The researchers discuss the modern wave of gun violence in their paper and point out that more people are killed by guns in a typical week in the USA than in all of Western Europe in a year. US society’s apparent love affair with firearms pours outwardly from TV and movie screens every day while much of the media reinforces the notion that guns are the solution to the violence that is already occurring. It is beyond doubt that history lies at the centre of the American gun debate. The original meaning and intention of the second amendment of the US constitution essentially lost to that history but used to this day controversially to argue the pro-gun case.

Unfortunately, the team points out, there is a lack of current political will, an inability to pass reasonable laws, the existence of a toxic violent society, and the sheer proliferation of firearms that ensure that the industry will always put its profit ahead of the public’s safety despite the number of firearm deaths including the many of children often in school. “Until this situation changes, the cycle of gun culture violence in the USA will continue on unabated,” the team concludes.

James, K. and McKenzie, J. (2018) ‘A Marxist analysis of American gun culture’, Int. J. Critical Accounting, Vol. 10, No. 6, pp.491–518.

Taken from https://sciencespot.co.uk/juggling-gun-law.html 

International Journal of Cloud Computing to invite expanded papers from International Conference on Information Technology and Management for the Sustainable Development for potential publication

Extended versions of papers presented at the International Conference on Information Technology and Management for the Sustainable Development (ICITMSD-2019) (9-10 August 2019, Uttaranchal University, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India) will be invited for review and potential publication by the
International Journal of Cloud Computing.

21 March 2019

Research pick: Drinking water? There’s an app for that - "A practical approach for estimating human daily water intake"

The human body is well equipped to maintain an adequate level of hydration through the various biological feedback control mechanisms of homeostasis. However, this regulation relies on an adequate supply of water. While there is much mythology surrounding how many glasses of water we each must drink daily to stay healthy. Many people sip at a water bottle throughout the day in the belief that this will keep them well hydrated without considering the possibility that it might nudge their systems to expect such levels of water consistently and so when they have no access to their bottle they feel far more thirsty and suffer a feeling of dryness more than another individual who drinks water only when they feel thirsty and is perfectly well hydrated nevertheless.

Of course, the problem with recommendations for how much we each need and when we should drink it varies from person to person, changes with body weight, environment and specifically temperatures and humidity, personal fitness level, physical activity, age, and illness.

Monitoring water intake, which comes from drinks and food, of course, is the top of a paper published by a team in China in the International Journal of Embedded Systems. Bin Dai, Rung-Ching Chen, and Yuan-Yu Ding of Xiamen University of Technology. They have used “fuzzy” reasoning taking into account the various personal factors such as age, weight, temperature, activity level etc, to develop an application on the Arduino platform that uses Bluetooth electronic scales to connect to a smart phone and can monitor a person’s water intake and give them a recommendation on whether they need to drink more or less water.

Dai, B., Chen, R-C. and Ding, Y-Y. (2019) ‘A practical approach for estimating human daily water intake’, Int. J. Embedded Systems, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp.210–219.

20 March 2019

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Dynamical Systems and Differential Equations

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Dynamical Systems and Differential Equations are now available here for free:
  • Regional boundary controllability of semi-linear parabolic systems with state constraints
  • Numerical analysis of some time-fractional partial differential equations for noise removal
  • Content frequency and shape features based on CBIR: application to colour images
  • Nonlinear Steklov eigenvalue problem with variable exponents and without Ambrosetti-Rabinowitz condition
  • Vector extrapolation method for non-overlapping Schwarz iterations
  • Cryptanalysis of Farash et al.'s SIP authentication protocol
  • Weighted eigenvalue problems involving a fourth-order elliptic equation with variable exponent
  • Positive solutions to a non-homogeneous elliptic system of fourth order
  • Periodic solutions to singular damped delay differential equations with impulses
  • The best strategy for local mesh refinement with the PCD method
  • On a non-scalar damping model in micromagnetism

Research pick: Storming cloud storage security - "An identity-based cryptographic scheme for cloud storage applications"

Storing one’s personal or company data on remote storage systems “in the cloud” is an increasingly popular way to reduce internal computing costs and to provide all the securities of off-site backup without having to deal with encryption and data limits in-house. A team from Tunisia has now looked at an identity-based cryptographic scheme that cloud computing providers might employer to make that data even more secure.

Manel Medhioub of the Faculty of Economic Sciences and Management of Sfax, ESPRIT School of Engineering, Sfax and Mohamed Hamdi of the School of Communication Engineering (Sup’Com), Ariana provide details in the International Journal of Grid and Utility Computing. They point out that while cloud computing and remote storage systems have many advantages there is always the issue of outsourcing one’s data to a third party in terms of critical security, confidentiality, integrity, authentication, anonymity, and resiliency.

The team’s approach to addressing that issue lies in an ID-based authentication approach in which the cloud tenant is assigned a private key generator function, technically the IBC-Private Key Generator (PKG) function, which is certificate free and so removes one of the possible entry points for a malicious third party. The tenant can then use this to issue public elements to each of its users but keep confidential and private from the provider the resulting IBC secrets. The team suggests that their approach might be used by a popular cloud storage service, such as Dropbox.

Medhioub, M. and Hamdi, M. (2019) ‘An identity-based cryptographic scheme for cloud storage applications’, Int. J. Grid and Utility Computing, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp.93–104.

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Product Development

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Product Development are now available here for free:
  • Optimising product development in industry by alignment of the ISO/IEC 15288 systems engineering standard and the PMBoK guide
  • People in lean product development: the impact of human resource practices on development performance
  • Strategies for facing the crisis: the case of the car design/style supply chain in France and in Italy
  • Fair allocation of cost reductions for a scale-based product family in a hierarchically structured firm

Special issue published: "Paradigms, Policies and Developmental Studies for Migration and Global Society – Part II"

International Journal of Foresight and Innovation Policy 14(1) 2019

  • The divided Venezuela
  • The European refugee crisis in Europe and multicultural integration
  • A centre of excellence for infrastructure project preparation and PPP to fight climate change
  • The Soviet nationalities policies and their contribution to conflicts: law, legacies and ideology
  • The Thabarwa centres - a mindful foresight strategy

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Management Concepts and Philosophy

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Management Concepts and Philosophy are now available here for free:
  • To investigate the critical risk criteria of business continuity management by using analytical hierarchy process
  • Empirical evaluation of dimensionality of alumni giving behaviour in the Indian context
  • How incentive systems arrived in Sweden - a tale of travelling ideas and ghost myths in action
  • Identifying factor affecting service innovation from firm and customer perspective - a qualitative study
  • Do business management students have ethical fallout - a study from India?
  • Fault dependency SRGM with testing effort using learning function

19 March 2019

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Foresight and Innovation Policy

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Foresight and Innovation Policy are now available here for free:
  • Future strategic plan for national immunisation program in Iran: cost effectiveness of acellular pertussis versus whole-cell
  • Corporate crisis management in Italy: execution, monitoring and performance analysis of recovery business and financial plans
  • Building dynamic capabilities in large global advertising agency networks: managing the shift from mass communication to digital interactivity
  • The influence of business and political ties on supplier selection decisions: the case of the Nigerian public sector
  • Revisiting complexity theory to achieve strategic intelligence
  • Competitiveness and sustainability in horticulture: strategy for small businesses
  • Brand ethics and social media engagement
  • Scientific inquiry circle activities of local citizens for bottom-up type innovation

New Editor for International Journal of High Performance Computing and Networking

Dr. Dharma P. Agrawal from the University of Cincinnati in the USA has been appointed to take over editorship of the International Journal of High Performance Computing and Networking. Prof. B.B. Gupta of the National Institute of Technology Kurukshetra, India, will be working alongside Dr. Agrawal in the role of Editor.

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Data Science

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Data Science are now available here for free:
  • Framework for finding maximal association rules in mobile web service environment using soft set
  • Secondary protein structure prediction combining protein structural class, relative surface accessibility, and contact number
  • Design and implementation of non-perfect reconstruction biorthogonal wavelets for edge detection of X-ray images
  • Hurst exponent, fractals and neural networks for forecasting financial asset returns in Brazil
  • Sequence similarity using composition method
  • On the Poisson distribution applicability to the Japanese seismic activity

Research pick: Corporate social responsibility on the science park - "Territorial agglomerations and corporate social responsibility: the role of science and technology parks"

What role might science and technology parks have in the context of corporate social responsibility? That is the question researchers from Spain address in a paper in the International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management.

José Moyano-Fuentes, Antonia Rodríguez-Martínez, and Juan José Jiménez-Delgado of the University of Jaén, explain their work as flowing in the stream of research that investigates the factors that explain corporate social responsibility. They use reasoning derived from institutional theory to examine the effects of the sense of belonging to such a park, the involvement of institutions with links to the park, and the know-how that exists within the park. The research literature has paid much attention to geographical concentrations of companies and been used in some areas to justify the benefits to companies of setting up in such environments.

The study of some 239 companies based on science and technology parks reveals that all three aspects have a significant positive influence on the corporate social responsibility of those companies. However, “know-how” was shown to be of only secondary importance when compared to the corporate sense of belonging and the role played by institutions associated with the parks.
“The literature has also paid significant attention to geographical concentrations of companies and justified the benefits to companies of setting up in such environments,” the team writes. Fundamentally, “Companies could be observed to want to pay back society in return for the benefits that they obtained from being located in a science and technology park,” the team adds.

Moyano-Fuentes, J., Rodríguez-Martínez, A. and Jiménez-Delgado, J.J. (2019) ‘Territorial agglomerations and corporate social responsibility: the role of science and technology parks’, Int. J. Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp.180–203.

15 March 2019

International Journal of Environment and Sustainable Development to invite expanded papers from International Conference on Advances in Renewable Energy and Green Technology for potential publication

Extended versions of papers presented at the International Conference on Advances in Renewable Energy and Green Technology (ICARE 2019) (22-24 August 2019, VIT Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India) will be invited for review and potential publication by the International Journal of Environment and Sustainable Development.

Special issue published: "Operations Management of Various Logistics Flows"

International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management 32(3/4) 2019

  • Comparison of static ambulance location models
  • Replenishment behaviour in sequential supply chains
  • A combined vehicle loading and routing problem: a case study of fuel logistics
  • Integrating collaborative and outsourcing strategies for yard trucks assignment in ports with multiple container terminals
  • A new approach for ordering decision under uncertainties: a case study in the retail supply chain
  • An integrated approach for robust inventory routing problem in a three-echelon distribution system
  • A cross-border, long haul freight transportation problem with transhipments
  • A service network design model for an intermodal rail-road freight forwarder
  • Model of shared distribution of newspapers and e-commerce
  • Using a kanban system for multi-echelon inventory management: the case of pharmaceutical supply chains
  • Green supply chain management adoption in Lebanese manufacturing industries: an exploratory study
  • Supply chain risk inter-relationships and mitigation in Indian scenario: an ISM-AHP 

Free sample articles newly available from Interdisciplinary Environmental Review

The following sample articles from the Interdisciplinary Environmental Review are now available here for free:
  • Awareness on climate change: perceived physical and psychological impact among the young generation. Least developing country's perspective
  • Comprehensive assessment of fertiliser-linked environmental externalities and its key determinants: IWRM approach
  • Achieving sustainable industrialisation in Egypt: assessment of the potential for EIPs
  • Wind speed forecasting model for northern-western region of India using decision tree and multilayer perceptron neural network approach
  • Investigation on improved solar dryers for agriculture

14 March 2019

Inderscience journals to invite expanded papers from Volatile Consumer Behaviour and Marketing Conference for potential publication

Extended versions of papers presented at the Volatile Consumer Behaviour and Marketing Conference (VCBMC-2019) (19 April 2019, Lovely Professional University, Punjab, India) will be invited for review and potential publication by the following journals:



Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Mining and Mineral Engineering

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Mining and Mineral Engineering are now available here for free:
  • Oil sands production scheduling and waste management with optimum cut-off grade policy
  • Draw rate management system using mathematical programming in extraction sequence optimisation of block cave mining
  • Review on low-cost wireless communication systems for slope stability monitoring in opencast mines
  • Required strength estimation of a cemented backfill with the front wall exposed and back wall pressured

International Journal of Business and Globalisation to invite expanded papers from International Conference on Banking and Finance (ICBF-2019) for potential publication

Extended versions of papers presented at the International Conference on Banking and Finance (ICBF-2019) (13-14 April 2019, Chitkara University, Punjab, India) will be invited for review and potential publication by the International Journal of Business and Globalisation.

Research picks: Ubiquitous mobile motivation - "Effects of personal motivation and computing characteristics on ubiquitous mobile device usages"

Mobile computing is pervaded society the world over across all walks of life. Smartphones, tablets, and other gadgets are always on, always connected, always in our hands. But, why? Why has grasping a device for the constant feed of novel information grabbed us so tightly? Writing in the International Journal of Mobile Communications, a team from South Korea and the USA discusses the effects of personal motivation and computing characteristics on ubiquitous mobile device usage.

Changsu Kim of the School of Business, at Yeungnam University, Gyeongbuk-Do, South Korea, Jongheon Kim of the Department of Information Systems, at Auburn University Montgomery, Alabama, and Dan Kim of the Department of Information Technology and Decision Sciences at the University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, USA, have focused on intrinsic and extrinsic values that the mobile user experiences when possessing, interacting with, and using ubiquitous computing via mobile devices. The study extends previous research on the use of ubiquitous computing by introducing a theory from consumer research and applying gratifications theory.

The team makes the broad assumption that ubiquitous computing characteristics and user motivation can be considered as the key features of the adoption of such devices. Their results clearly reveal that user attitudes towards the adoption of ubiquitous computing mobile devices are positively related to the individual’s innovativeness, sociability, and ability to personalise their device. In addition, the team reports, users generally perceived the utility of mobile devices through UC dimensions, including mobility, context awareness, interoperability, and personalisation.

Kim, C., Kim, J. and Kim, D.J. (2019) ‘Effects of personal motivation and computing characteristics on ubiquitous mobile device usages’, Int. J. Mobile Communications, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp.127–156.

13 March 2019

International Journal of Swarm Intelligence to invite expanded papers from 9th International Conference Soft Computing for Problem Solving for potential publication

Extended versions of papers presented at the 9th International Conference Soft Computing for Problem Solving (SocProS 2019) (2-4 September 2019, Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool UK) will be invited for review and potential publication by the International Journal of Swarm Intelligence.

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Vehicle Design

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Vehicle Design are now available here for free:
  • Principles of car body digitisation based on geometry extracted from views in 2D drawing documentation
  • Parameter optimisation of engine mounting system based on TRA decoupling
  • Robust terminal sliding mode control for automotive electronic throttle with lumped uncertainty estimation
  • Experimental and numerical analysis for the transmission gear rattle in a power-split hybrid electric vehicle

International Journal of Cloud Computing to invite expanded papers from 3rd International Conference on Big Data and Smart Digital Environments for potential publication

Extended versions of papers presented at the 3rd International Conference on Big Data and Smart Digital Environments (ICBDSDE'19) (28-30 November 2019, Hammamet, Tunisia) will be invited for review and potential publication by the International Journal of Cloud Computing.

Research pick: Happiness, economics, and air pollution - "Happiness, economic growth and air pollution: an empirical investigation"

Is there a link between levels of air pollution, a country’s economic growth, and the happiness of its citizens? That is the question Zahra Fotourehchi and Habib Ebrahimpour of the Department of Management and Economics, at the University of Mohaghegh Ardabili, in Ardabil, Iran, hoped to answer in their paper just published in the aptly named International Journal of Happiness and Development.

Prior research into a putative link between economic growth and happiness has not offered researchers the chance to reach a consensus. The results have been mixed. In an attempt to reconcile this state of affairs, the team has looked at gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and its impact on happiness by taking into account the role of air pollution in each country using annual unbalanced panel data for 59 countries between the years 2005 and 2015.

It is curious that the team’s analysis suggests that rising per capita GDP leads to a decrease in happiness if the air pollution level is sufficiently high but in contrast, if air pollution is low, rising GDP leads to an increased level of happiness. “We also found that leaving air pollution out of the analysis led to about 15-27% underestimation of the income effect, the team reports. “These results provide some important implications for policymakers seeking to increase economic growth without aggravating happiness.”

Fundamentally, “Our research emphasises that improving air quality is an important policy measure to increase happiness in developing countries. Along with economic growth, the current focus on related costs of physical health ignores other hidden costs of pollution on mental health (happiness). If counting these additional costs, the benefits of reducing pollution would be higher,” the team concludes.

Fotourehchi, Z. and Ebrahimpour, H. (2019) ‘Happiness, economic growth and air pollution: an empirical investigation‘, Int. J. Happiness and Development, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp.1-13.

12 March 2019

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Low Radiation

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Low Radiation are now available here for free:
  • A thorough investigation of the uranium concentration in phosphate mines: a case study of Minjingu phosphate mine, Arusha, United Republic of Tanzania
  • Radioactivity measurement of 222Rn, 226Ra and 238U in pharmaceuticals and evaluation of cancer risk
  • Importance of radon studies in rural areas and correlation of indoor radon level with radon inventory
  • Enhancement of natural radioactivity in farm surface soils from Abyan Delta in Yemen
  • Natural radioactivity and hazardous index of major South Indian river sediments
  • Evaluation and analysis of 226Ra, 232Th and 40K and radon exhalation rate in the soil samples for health risk assessment

International Journal of Powertrains to invite expanded papers from International Conference on Advanced Vehicle Powertrains for potential publication

Extended versions of papers presented at the 2019 International Conference on Advanced Vehicle Powertrains (ICAVP2019) (25-27 August 2019, Hefei, China) will be invited for review and potential publication by the International Journal of Powertrains.

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Supply Chain and Inventory Management

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Supply Chain and Inventory Management are now available here for free:
  • Capturing the effect of demand change on inventory classification via transition point method
  • Inventory management in the presence of inventory inaccuracies: an economic analysis by discrete-event simulation
  • A green perspective on capacitated time-dependent vehicle routing problem with time windows
  • Hub location under uncertainty: a minimax regret model for the capacitated problem with multiple allocations

Research pick: Brexit’s impact on inward international investment - "An analysis of different Brexit outcomes and their effect on inward FDI to the UK"

In June 2016, the UK voted to leave the EU in a national referendum vote. At the time of writing, the economic implications of the so-called British Exit from the EU, “Brexit” are yet to be fully clarified. Writing in “Global Business and Economics Review”, Jeremy Head of the International Business and Economics Research Group (IBERG), Sheffield Business School, Sheffield Hallam University, analyses the possible impacts of different Brexit scenarios on inward foreign direct investment (FDI) to the UK.

Head demonstrated that the “harder” forms of Brexit are likely to have worse outcomes in terms of inward FDI to the UK. He also suggested that the export platform FDI will be potentially significantly affected too. “The effects of Brexit could also be diverse in different industries, given the different motives for FDI, and also diverse in terms of the type of activity of the FDI,” explains Head. He also points out that the effects will not be evenly spread across the UK given the patterns of FDI in the UK. There are clear policy implications…

Even though there was slow economic growth in the UK between 2010 and 2015 following the 2018 economic crash, FDI remained an important component of the UK economy. It was reported in 2016, that FDI amounted to the equivalent of almost US$40 billion for 2015. The flows led to a stock of inward FDI in the UK of $1.5 trillion by 2015. Most studies suggest that inward FDI boosts gross domestic product (GDP). Indeed, there is broad agreement that the UK’s membership of the European Union led to greater inward FDI than the country would otherwise have experienced and it is a matter of record that GDP increased. A 2015 report suggested that EU membership enhanced UK inward FDI by 25 to 30 percent.

However, there is some research that suggests that countries outside the EU benefit in terms of inward FDI and thence GDP significantly and that it may well be that the UK would have been better off outside the EU in some economic sense. Unfortunately, there is no way to carry out randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies in the world of economics. Moreover, how things might have been is generally an irrelevant consideration in future prosperity or otherwise, especially given political machinations and the personal and partisan agendas of those playing out the script on behalf of the electorate.

Head, J. (2019) ‘An analysis of different Brexit outcomes and their effect on inward FDI to the UK‘, Global Business and Economics Review, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp.139-155.

11 March 2019

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Mobile Network Design and Innovation

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Mobile Network Design and Innovation are now available here for free:
  • Privacy preserving protocol for secure routing in wireless mesh networks
  • Minimising network cost by employing sliding window method at mobile switching centres in GSM network
  • Optimised watchdog system for detection of DDOS and wormhole attacks in IEEE802.15.4-based wireless sensor networks
  • Reliable and energy efficient cluster-based architecture for underwater wireless sensor networks
  • Resource allocation and rate adaptation for multicast of real-time traffic in MANET
  • An efficient artificial bee colony algorithm for optimising the design of rectangular microstrip patch antenna
  • A PCGL-based data loading algorithm for electrical vehicle time-triggered CAN

Inderscience journals to invite expanded papers from Volatile Consumer Behaviour and Marketing Conference (VCBMC-2019) for potential publication

Extended versions of papers presented at the Volatile Consumer Behaviour and Marketing Conference (VCBMC-2019) (19 April 2019, Lovely Professional University, Punjab, India) will be invited for review and potential publication by the following journals:

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Knowledge-Based Development

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Knowledge-Based Development are now available here for free:
  • Visualised bibliometric mapping on smart specialisation: a co-citation analysis
  • Local public service productivity and performance measurement
  • The communication of intellectual capital in healthcare organisations: what is disclosed and how?
  • Knowledge-based development from the citizen's perspective: a study from Southern Brazil

Research pick: Fair Isle Bird Observatory – Watching the birdwatchers - "Niche tourism (birdwatching) and its impacts on the well-being of a remote island and its residents"

UPDATE: This post was scheduled just as news came in that the Fair Isle Bird Observatory had been destroyed by fire on Sunday, 10th March 2019). Thankfully, nobody was injured in the fire. Plans are already afoot to rebuild, but that will take time and money.

Richard Butler of Strathclyde Business School at the University of Strathclyde, in Glasgow, UK, is worried about the impact of niche tourism, specifically birdwatching, on the well-being of a remote island and its residents. Writing in the International Journal of Tourism Anthropology, he explains how birdwatching has been the predominant form of tourism on Fair Isle, the most remote of the inhabited British islands since tourism began there in 1905.

The research analyses data collected in two surveys of the resident population that were carried out half a century apart. “The information obtained allows a longitudinal examination of the impact of tourism on the well-being of island residents and resident attitudes towards, and involvement with, tourism, and reveals that attitudes have remained positive throughout the half-century of study,” Butler reports. Moreover, the numbers, location, and nature of tourists and tourism are identified as key factors in the positive relationship between residents and visitors. Tourism has benefited Fair Isle in terms of environmental, sociocultural, and economic well-being.

Fair Isle has a world-famous bird observatory and represents something of a pilgrimage site for keen birdwatchers. Aside from resident species, the position of the island halfway between Shetland and Orkney at about seven degrees south of The Arctic Circle makes it a likely place for migrants and vagrant bird species from other continents to pass through on their various travels. Even if many of the human residents departed the island there would likely still be enthusiastic ornithologists and amateur birdwatchers who would take to the see in order to reach the observatory.

“While it would be naïve to claim that the current nature of tourism is completely sustainable or perfect, it is closer to sustainability than in most tourist destinations, and overall achieves a measure of symbiosis with both the human and non-human environment with positive effects upon resident well-being,” Butler concludes.

Butler, R.W. (2019) ‘Niche tourism (birdwatching) and its impacts on the well-being of a remote island and its residents’, Int. J. Tourism Anthropology, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp.5–20.

9 March 2019

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Society Systems Science

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Society Systems Science are now available here for free:
  • Performance in stock transactions by gender: an application with quantile regression models
  • Assessment of fuel choices in a hilly region of Uttarakhand, India
  • Population size and urban health advantage: scaling analyses of four major diseases for 417 US counties
  • Factors affecting long-term economic growth-consistency and stability by soft regression estimation
  • Comparison of regimes of policies for urban development: a social welfare approach

International Journal of Information Technology, Communications and Convergence to invite expanded papers from International Conference on Networking, Information Systems & Security 2019 for potential publication

Extended versions of papers presented at the 2nd International Conference on Networking, Information Systems & Security (NISS 2019) (27-28 March 2019, Rabat, Morocco) will be invited for review and potential publication by the International Journal of Information Technology, Communications and Convergence.

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Internet Technology and Secured Transactions

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Internet Technology and Secured Transactions are now available here for free:
  • Trust assessment of X.509 certificate based on certificate authority trustworthiness and its certificate policy
  • WebRTC security measures and weaknesses
  • Secure RSA implementation against horizontal correlation power analysis attack
  • Light field compression on sliced lenslet array
  • An auto-configuring mesh protocol with proactive source routing for Bluetooth Low Energy
  • Blind spot monitoring at night-time using rear-view camera
  • An intelligent emergency rescue assistance system for mountaineers

8 March 2019

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Computational Biology and Drug Design

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Computational Biology and Drug Design are now available here for free:
  • Neural signature of event-related N200 and P300 modulation in parietal lobe during human response inhibition
  • Risk-associated and pathway-based method to detect association with Alzheimer's disease
  • Identifying the dynamic gene regulatory network during latent HIV-1 reactivation using high-dimensional ordinary differential equations
  • Inhibition of polyamine biosynthesis for toxicity control in Serratia marcescens strain WW4 by targeting ornithine decarboxylase: a structure-based virtual screening study
  • Native state of complement protein C3d analysed via hydrogen exchange and conformational sampling
  • Signal translational efficiency between mRNA expression and antibody-based protein expression for breast cancer and its subtypes from cell lines to tissue
  • A GPU-CPU heterogeneous algorithm for NGS read alignment
  • A flexible approach to reconstruct the genomic spatial structure by the genetic algorithm
  • Heterogeneity in untreated, stressed and drug-tolerant cells: insights into the evolution of cancer resistance
  • Evaluation of biological and technical variations in low-input RNA-Seq and single-cell RNA-Seq

Special issue published: "Security and Privacy for Massive Cloud Data Storage"

International Journal of Information and Computer Security 11(2) 2019

  • A study of the internet financial interest rate risk evaluation index system in cloud computing
  • Novel implementation of defence strategy of relay attack based on cloud in RFID systems
  • Reconfigurable design and implementation of nonlinear Boolean function for cloud computing security platform
  • Network optimisation for improving security and safety level of dangerous goods transportation based on cloud computing
  • Proofs of retrievability from linearly homomorphic structure-preserving signatures

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Tourism Anthropology

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Tourism Anthropology are now available here for free:
  • Sustainable safety and security at museums in Southeast Nigeria: implications for national reformation
  • Domains of public activity in touristic flamenco shows
  • Dimensions of mobilities, tourism and transition of cultural hegemony: a qualitative inquiry from Sri Lanka
  • Ethnography on tourist spaces
  • Analysis of the legacy of conflict among international tourists in Vietnam

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Powertrains

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Powertrains are now available here for free:
  • Upgrading conventional cars to solar hybrid vehicles
  • A hardware-in-the-loop test rig for development of electric vehicle battery identification and state estimation algorithms
  • A study into different cell-level cooling strategies for cylindrical lithium-ion cells in automotive applications
  • A study of transient over-fuelling during heavy knock in an optical spark ignition engine
  • Microgeometrical tooth profile modification influencing efficiency of planetary hub gears
  • Design optimisation for an additively manufactured automotive component
  • Design of experiments to generate a fuel cell electro-thermal performance map and optimise transitional pathways
  • Structural analysis and topology optimisation of an aftercooler cover for weight reduction in off-highway engine application
  • Effect of radial turbo-expander design on off-highway vehicle organic Rankine cycle system efficiency
  • Predictive control of commercial e-vehicle using a priori route information
  • A numerical study of intake valve jet flapping in a gasoline direct injection engine
  • Dynamic modelling of the turbocharged gasoline direct injection air-path using mean value and linear parameter varying models
  • Analysis and design exploration of single stage compound stepped planetary gear transmissions

Research pick: Efficiency boost for robot submarines - "An improved energy-aware and self-adaptive deployment method for autonomous underwater vehicles"

Researchers in China have designed an improved energy-aware and self-adaptive deployment method for autonomous underwater vehicles. The team of Chunlai Peng and Tao Wang of the Guangdong University of Technology, in Guangzhou, provide details in the International Journal of Modelling, Identification and Control.

The researchers explain that autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are essential mobile robots that can travel underwater and perform tasks that are considered to hazardous for people to carry out for various reasons. There are, however, problems that face the operators of AUVs, specifically the fact that control algorithms are not necessarily optimized for distance nor energy consumption.

The team’s approach to enabling energy awareness, as well as self-adaptive deployment, has now been tested with ten AUVs. Their work demonstrates that they can reduce energy consumption with their algorithm in the test AUVs by almost a third. This could be a real boon for marine environment monitoring, military missions, search missions after the loss of a craft at sea, and perhaps even after a tsunami, earthquake or other geological catastrophes.

The team concludes their paper with a nod to the future direction of their research. “Future work will study an energy-supplying problem during the ocean rescue that generating trajectories for AUVs to rendezvous with energy-carrying robots, such as mobile charging stations, i.e., a rendezvous problem for AUVs and mobile charging stations,” they explain.

Peng, C. and Wang, T. (2019) ‘An improved energy-aware and self-adaptive deployment method for autonomous underwater vehicles‘, Int. J. Modelling, Identification and Control, Vol. 31, No. 2, pp.182-192.

7 March 2019

International Journal of Computational Science and Engineering to invite expanded papers from IEEE conferences for potential publication

Extended versions of papers presented at the following conferences will be invited for review and potential publication by the International Journal of Computational Science and Engineering:

Special issue published: "Advances in Applied Mathematics"

International Journal of Computer Aided Engineering and Technology 11(2) 2019

  • Prediction of solar pond performance parameters using artificial neural network
  • Implementation of optimal scheduling model for power flow system
  • Robust optimal sub-band wavelet cepstral coefficient method for speech recognition
  • Logistic regression model as classifier for early detection of gestational diabetes mellitus
  • Information hiding using LSB replacement technique and adaptive image fusion
  • An efficient Hosoya index algorithm and its application
Additional papers
  • SysML model-driven approach to verify blocks compatibility
  • Design optimisation of cutting parameters for a class of radially-compliant spindles via virtual prototyping tools
  • Optimisation of speed control for switched reluctance motor using matrix converter
  • On simple adaptive control of plants not satisfying almost strict passivity and positivity conditions: an introduction to parallel feedforward configuration

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Microstructure and Materials Properties

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Microstructure and Materials Properties are now available here for free:
  • Technologies advancing scan and single-shot induction hardening capabilities
  • Induction clamping of high-revolution tools by rotation in a system of unmovable permanent magnets
  • ELTA 7.0 program for induction heat treatment of gears
  • Milliseconds pulse induction hardening
  • Three-criteria numerical optimisation as a base for designing induction mass heating
  • Optimal design of inductor addressed to a tailored heating forging process
  • Numerical modelling of industrial scale high frequency welding of cladded pipes
  • Modelling and optimisation of electromagnetically coupled solid manufacturing processes
  • Computer simulation of single frequency induction surface hardening of gear wheels: analysis of selected problems

Research pick: Automated disease detection in maize - "Ethiopian maize diseases recognition and classification using support vector machine"

Maize is perhaps the single, most-important cereal crop in the world. It is consumed by millions of people and is a staple for a large proportion of the global population. It is also used for animal feed and its total production far outstrips rice and wheat. It is also converted into other edible products such as corn syrup and corn starch as well as useful, but inedible products, like bioethanol.

Unfortunately, as with many vital crops, there are significant pests and diseases that can devastate the harvest or damage the product afterwards, during transportation and storage prior to consumption.
Writing in the International Journal of Computational Vision and Robotics, Enquhone Alehegn of the Bahir Dar University, in Ethiopia, has used a support vector machine and image processing to develop a recognition and classification system for maize diseases. Alehegn points out that Ethiopian maize is afflicted by some 72 diseases that attack different parts of the plants. Visual observation and chemical analysis are commonly used to identify a particular infection in the plants’ leaves. However, such approaches require experts, time, and often costly equipment and facilities. His new approach side-steps many of the problems of conventional disease detection and classification.

He explains that he used 640 images from a dataset of 800 to train the algorithm and the other 20% for testing. “Based on the experiment result using combined (texture, colour and morphology) features with support vector machine an average accuracy of 95.63% achieved.” It should be possible to improve accuracy by optimization of the image segmentation part of the analysis.

Alehegn, E. (2019) ‘Ethiopian maize diseases recognition and classification using support vector machine’, Int. J. Computational Vision and Robotics, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp.90–109.

6 March 2019

Special issue published: "Security, Privacy and Trust in Computing and Secured Transactions"

International Journal of Internet Technology and Secured Transactions 9(1/2) 2019

  • Dynamic high bandwidth nodes for routing in MANETs
  • A novel dyadic multiresolution wavelet image steganography using N-ary
  • Event detection in sports video based on audio-visual and support vector machine. Case-study: football
  • Risk-based availability modelling and reputation management on fault tolerant cloud computing systems
  • Cost-based constrained task scheduling in cloud environment
  • An efficient spectrum handoff decision making scheme for cognitive radio networks
  • Enhancing network lifetime through power-aware routing in MANET
  • Privacy preserving computation of scalar product and sign of scalar product
  • Secure communication process in IoT using media gate network transmit protocol with reliable data transport protocol
  • Performance analysis of cloud computing using series of queues with Erlang service
  • Spatial data storage and retrieval in cloud computing environments using attribute based encryption algorithm
  • Efficient authentication and key management scheme for wireless mesh networks
Additional paper
  • TAACS-FL: trust aware access control system using fuzzy logic for internet of things

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Enterprise Network Management

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Enterprise Network Management are now available here for free:
  • Cloud computing and engineering in the academics with its potentialities in iSchools: an eco friendly development
  • A meta-heuristic, moth inspired algorithm for combined economic and environmental power dispatch
  • Inventory parameters for a serial supply chain with lost sales through genetic algorithm approach
  • From a literature review to a conceptual framework for affordable quality healthcare service using internet of things (IOT) network
  • Design and analysis of compact T shape slotted patch antenna for 4G WiMAX applications

Special issue published: "Vehicle Transmissions"

International Journal of Powertrains 8(1) 2019

  • Vibration response from the planetary gear with flexible ring gear
  • Lubricated loaded tooth contact analysis for spur gear pair
  • Effect of tooth profile modification on the durability of planetary hub gears
  • Computerised symbolic planetary transmission modelling for automotive design
  • Improving strength for automotive plastic gears through directional fibre reinforcement

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Reasoning-based Intelligent Systems

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Reasoning-based Intelligent Systems are now available here for free:
  • Design of public bicycle scheduling model based on data mining algorithm
  • Social network analysis: friendship inferred by chosen courses, commuting time and student performance at university
  • A medical big data analysis algorithm based on access control system
  • Fuzzy self-learning control of glass tempering and annealing temperature based on the optimised genetic big data analysis algorithm
  • Personalised ranking online reviews based on user individual preferences
  • Bi-level optimisation model for greener transportation with intelligent transport system
  • The development and popularisation of network platform of college sports venues in intelligent manufacturing
  • An effective system layout planning method for railway logistics centre in the background of big data
  • An effective foggy image acquisition algorithm in multimedia big data era

Research pick: Luxuriating in aspiration - "Desire and likeliness to buy luxury products: mapping perceptions using multi-dimensional scaling"

Many people enjoy luxury and those that don’t have access to luxury goods and services often aspire to it. Writing in the International Journal of Indian Culture and Business Management, a team explain how in the “West” the notion of luxury, which has existed for millennia was perhaps considered sinful or wasteful but is now a way of life for many people and as mentioned an aspiration for others. With worldwide economic growth, globalization, and many other factors the notion of luxury and it accessibility to the nouveaux riches is now essentially independent of one’s location, provided one is sufficiently “riche”, nouveau or otherwise.

The team has used multi-dimensional scaling used to map the aspiration to possess and willingness to purchase luxury products in the near future among Indian women, looking at the type of luxury products women desire and their ability and wont to buy them. The team adds how the luxury market is growing rapidly in India and although still in its infancy, it is already in double figures of billions of dollars.

“With evolved tastes, awareness and worldliness, Indian consumers are willing to pay a premium for a well-designed, quality product,” the team reports. Specifically, the team found that lifestyle products are the most appealing and include jewellery (as was always the case), designer clothes, luxury vehicles, exotic holidays, top-end mobile phones, laptops, and other gadgets.
The team suggests that their paper will be invaluable in marketing research and for marketers themselves looking to understand and exploit luxury brands.

Chacko, P.S., Ramanathan, H.N. and Prashar, S. (2019) ‘Desire and likeliness to buy luxury products: mapping perceptions using multi-dimensional scaling’, Int. J. Indian Culture and Business Management, Vol. 18, No. 2, pp.123–136.

5 March 2019

Special issue published: "Machining-Induced Surface Integrity of Difficult-to-Machine Materials"

International Journal of Machining and Machinability of Materials 21(1/2) 2019

  • Effects of milling methods and cooling strategies on tool wear, chip morphology and surface roughness in high speed end-milling of Inconel-718
  • Machining performance optimisation of MQL-assisted turning of Inconel-825 superalloy using GA for industrial applications
  • Multi-quality characteristics optimisation on WEDM for Ti-6Al-4V using Taguchi-grey relational theory
  • Surface roughness in ultrasonic-assisted and conventional milling of soda-lime glass
  • Evaluation of surface damage mechanisms and optimisation of cutting parameters in turning of N-155 iron-nickel-base superalloy
  • Experimental investigation and optimisation of ultrasonic machining parameters on zirconia composite

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Happiness and Development

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Happiness and Development are now available here for free:
  • Comparative determinants of quality of growth in developing countries
  • 'Show me the compassion!' Changing the organisational mind within construction industry
  • An empirical study of social support, stress and life satisfaction among engineering graduates: mediating role of perceived work/study life balance
  • Economic inequality can generate unhappiness that leads to violent crime in society

New Editor for International Journal of Intercultural Information Management

Associate Prof. John Dong from University of Groningen in the Netherlands has been appointed to take over editorship of the International Journal of Intercultural Information Management.

Research pick: Maximising influence in a network - "Influence maximisation in social networks"

Finding ways to maximize influence on social networks is a significant endeavour for a wide range of people including those involved in marketing, election campaigns, and outbreak detection, for instance. Technically in a network scenario, “Influence maximisation deals with the problem of finding a subset of nodes called seeds in the social network such that these nodes will eventually spread maximum influence in the network.”

Writing in the International Journal of Computational Science and Engineering researchers from India point out that this is one of a class of difficult-to-solve problems known as NP-hard problems. In their paper, they focus on providing an overview of the influence maximisation problem and cover three major aspects. First, they look at the different types of inputs required. Secondly, they investigate influence propagation models that map the spread of influence in a network. Finally, they look at approximation algorithms proposed for seed set selection.

The study provides new insights into how a marketing campaigner might trigger a viral response to a product launch through the very careful selection of key influencers whose word of mouth promotion would reach and affect the maximum number of people. Similarly, it could be used to spread a political message more rapidly than by traditional canvassing methods. But, from the scientific perspective, the very same tools and insights could help us to better understand how a few infected individuals might lead to the emergence of an epidemic.

“Scope for future work in the area of influence maximisation lies mainly in finding efficient solutions to the extensions of the basic influence maximisation problem, the team concludes and to finding ways to handle the vast and growing amounts of data that networks can generate in a short space of time.

Tejaswi, V., Bindu, P.V. and Thilagam, P.S. (2019) ‘Influence maximisation in social networks‘, Int. J. Computational Science and Engineering, Vol. 18, No. 2, pp.103-117.

4 March 2019

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Machining and Machinability of Materials

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Machining and Machinability of Materials are now available here for free:
  • Mechanical properties and cutting performance of TiCN-based cermets fabricated by spark plasma sintering
  • Analysis of the influence of input parameters of EDM on material removal rate and surface roughness for machining stainless steel 304
  • Milling force-based machining parameter optimisation for titanium-alloy surface
  • Experimental investigation on micro drilling of Inconel 718 super alloy
  • Application of utility concept approach for multi-response optimisation of wire electrical discharge machining during profile cutting of Inconel-625
  • Investigations on the impact fracture of cemented carbide insert during heavy-duty cutting

Special section published: "Happiness and Well-Being in Africa"

International Journal of Happiness and Development 5(1) 2019

  • External flows and inclusive human development in Sub-Saharan Africa
  • Psychosocial factors and psychological well-being in Ilaje oil-producing community, Niger-Delta region of Ondo State, Nigeria
  • Perceptions of ethnic residents' satisfaction: a quest towards the sustainable development of public space in Nigeria
Regular papers

  • Happiness, economic growth and air pollution: an empirical investigation
  • Factors associated with happiness among college students: do academic self-efficacy and stress predict happiness?
  • An examination of happiness between race, gender and school classification: an echo boomer analysis

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Multicriteria Decision Making

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Multicriteria Decision Making are now available here for free:
  • Public interest evaluation in negotiated public-private partnership
  • Failure mode and effects analysis using a fuzzy-TOPSIS method: a case study of subsea control module
  • Influence of group members in multi-attribute utilities

New Editor for International Journal of Nuclear Governance, Economy and Ecology

Prof. Alexander Kryanev from the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute in Russia has been appointed to take over editorship of the International Journal of Nuclear Governance, Economy and Ecology.

3 March 2019

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Corporate Governance

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Corporate Governance are now available here for free:
  • Factors influencing adoption and disclosure of voluntary corporate governance practices by the Indian listed firms
  • Audit committee roles, responsibilities and characteristics in Ghana: the perception of 'agency stakeholders'
  • Ownership structure, hedging incentives and exchange rate exposure
  • Corporate governance and systemic risk of Tunisian banks
  • Impact of the presence of women on public sector and private corporations in Quebec: what may be learned from the multiple discourses of board members?

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Technology, Policy and Management

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Technology, Policy and Management are now available here for free:
  • The role of government in Porter's Diamond model: comparative cases of Singapore and Thailand
  • Qualitative content analysis of factors affecting the relationship of science development, technology development and economic growth
  • The benefits of information technology strategy and management for cloud-based CRM systems using the interactive qualitative analysis approach
  • The R&D innovation strategy for the efficiency improvement of the research equipment

International Journal of Rapid Manufacturing to invite expanded papers from 16th Conference on Rapid Design, Prototyping & Manufacturing (RDPM2019) for potential publication

Extended versions of papers presented at the 16th Conference on Rapid Design, Prototyping & Manufacturing (RDPM2019) (4-5 April 2019, Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK) will be invited for review and potential publication by the International Journal of Rapid Manufacturing.

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Computational Vision and Robotics

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Computational Vision and Robotics are now available here for free:
  • Road traffic sign recognition algorithm based on computer vision
  • Efficient holistic feature basis learning for pedestrian detection
  • Original strategy for avoiding over-smoothing in SFS problem resolution
  • Image compression-based multiple description transform coding using NSCT and OMP approximation
  • Car manufacturer and model recognition based on scale invariant feature transform
  • A novel incremental topological mapping using global visual features
  • A new method for three-dimensional magnetic resonance images denoising

2 March 2019

International Journal of Big Data Intelligence to invite expanded papers from Systems and Network Telemetry and Analytics (SNTA 2019) for potential publication

Extended versions of papers presented at Systems and Network Telemetry and Analytics (SNTA 2019) (24-28 June 24-28 2019, Phoenix, AZ, USA) will be invited for review and potential publication by the International Journal of Big Data Intelligence.

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Computational Intelligence Studies

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Computational Intelligence Studies are now available here for free:
  • Assessment of cloud computing adoption models in e-government environment
  • A novel fuzzy clustering based system for medical image segmentation
  • Design of a parity preserving reversible full adder/subtractor circuit
  • Combining multi-objective evolutionary algorithm with averaged one-dependence estimators for big data analytics

Special section published: "New Methodological and Practical Developments of the PROMETHEE Methods"

International Journal of Multicriteria Decision Making 8(1) 2019
  • New Methodological and Practical Developments of the PROMETHEE Methods
  • Proposal for an effective decision support system for the pre-selection of the type of concrete highway bridges
  • A PROMETHEE-based approach for designing the reuse of an abandoned railway in the Monferrato Region, Italy
  • An interpolation-based method for the time weighed vector elicitation in temporal PROMETHEE II applications
Regular papers
  • A joint maxmin-lexicographic maximisation approach in fuzzy goal programming using dominance possibility and necessity criteria
  • PROMETHEE-MP: a generalisation of PROMETHEE for multi-period evaluations under uncertainty

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Bioinformatics Research and Applications

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Bioinformatics Research and Applications are now available here for free:
  • Emerging trend of big data analytics in bioinformatics: a literature review
  • Effect of body mass index and chair height on the torque developed at the knee joint during back-to-sit and sit-to-stand movements
  • PFA-based feature selection for image steganalysis
  • Texture analysis of breast thermograms using neighbourhood grey tone difference matrix
  • Blood glucose regulation in diabetes mellitus patients: a review on mathematical plant model and control algorithms
  • A mathematical modelling on the effect of high intensity magnetic fields on pulsatile blood flow in human arteries
  • Enhanced decision tree algorithm using genetic algorithm for heart disease prediction
  • Machine intelligence in stroke prediction
  • Mathematical investigation of aetiology and pathogenesis of atherosclerosis in human arteries

1 March 2019

Special Issue on: "Advances and Challenges in Nature Inspired Optimisations"

International Journal of Computational Intelligence Studies 8(1/2) 2019

  • Nonlinear time series forecasting using a novel self-adaptive TLBO-MFLANN model
  • Impact of C-factor on PSO for solar PV-based BLDC motor drive control
  • Design of fractional order PID controller for heat flow system using hybrid particle swarm optimisation and gravitational search algorithm
  • Suitability and importance of deep learning feature space in the domain of text categorisation
  • Scalable keyword-based search and data manipulation on encrypted data
  • Robust estimation of IIR system's parameter using modified particle swarm optimisation algorithm
  • Improving bug report quality by predicting correct component in bug reports
  • The connectivity and the static-cost-effective analysis of a shifted completely connected network

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Trade and Global Markets

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Trade and Global Markets are now available here for free:
  • The effect of environmental performance and disclosure on financial performance
  • Perception of contractual risk allocation in the oil and gas contracts in Malaysia
  • The relationship between competitive advantage and the value relevance of accounting information
  • The critical factors of research and innovation creation in public universities in Thailand
  • The penetration of business excellence model approach and interconnection with corporate social responsibility in emerging country: a case study in the Czech Republic
  • Analysis of marketing strategies and competitive advantages of two producers special foods in Garut
  • Determinants of adoption of mobile banking: evidence from rural Karnataka in India
  • Constructed interpretation of tax compliance through the historicity, rationality, and actuality of Pancasila (cases in Indonesia)
  • Analysis of ESOP implementation determinants at companies in Indonesia
  • Determinants of momentum strategy and return in short time horizon: case in Indonesian stock market
  • Operating the impossible trinity before and after the global financial crisis 2007-2008: evidence in Vietnam
  • Influence of personality on impulsive buying behaviour among Indonesian young consumers
  • Corporate governance and social disclosure: a comparative study of listed hospitality industries in South East Asia
  • Identification of the connection between tourism demand and economic growth in ASEAN-3
  • Does export promotion policy benefit for ASEAN economic development?

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Abrasive Technology

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Abrasive Technology are now available here for free:
  • An analytical force and surface roughness model for cylindrical grinding of brittle materials
  • Study on hardening mechanism in GH and PSHG based on classical nucleation theory
  • Design of dimpled engineering surfaces for improving lubrication performance in rolling-sliding contacts
  • Experimental investigation of process parameters for conductive graphite abrasive mixed EDM of WC alloy
  • Experimental investigations on super-smooth polishing of strontium titanate based ceramics substrates

Special Issue on: "Computational Intelligence and Applications"

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology 59(2) 2019

  • A survey on computation offloading in the mobile cloud computing environment
  • Improved triple generative adversarial nets
  • Gas outburst prediction based on the intelligent D-S evidence theory
  • Indirect adaptive fuzzy control of non-linear systems using fuzzy supervisory term
  • An improved distributed storage model of remote sensing images based on the HDFS and pyramid structure
  • A Pareto optimal multi-objective optimisation for parallel dynamic programming algorithm applied in cognitive radio ad hoc networks
  • A hybridised feature selection approach in molecular classification using CSO and GA
  • A novel control for MDF continuous hot-pressing accurate tracking: adaptive fuzzy approach
  • Robustness of adaptive inverse control in solving internal and external disturbance uncertainties for a class of non-linear systems