Research pick: Bag of words test for Alzheimer’s disease - "Automatic selection of lexical features for detecting Alzheimer’s disease using bag-of-words model and genetic algorithm"

A positive diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) can only be made definitively post mortem. However, there are many symptoms that become apparent as the disease progresses and specialists can usually be quite certain of a diagnosis. However, as with many diseases, the later the diagnosis, the less successful medical interventions will generally be. New research published in the International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, offers an approach to earlier diagnosis of AD.

Gang Lyu of the Changshu Institute of Technology, in Suzhou, Jiangsu, and Aimei Dong of Qilu University of Technology, in Jinan, Shandong, China, explain that neuropsychological testing of patients suspected of having AD has many advantages, primarily in that it is a non-invasive and low-cost approach. However, there is a need for the manual selection of features and this makes the approach unpopular. An automated approach to extracting and selecting features from text would be more conducive to an acceptable way to provide evidence of the condition to the expert clinician.

The team has now developed an algorithm that utilizes the “bag-of-words model” of natural language processing technology. This can extract all the vocabulary features from text and then a genetic algorithm selects the lexical features automatically. They have now tested their approach on the DementiaBank database and obtained almost 80 percent diagnostic accuracy, which compares favourably to manual feature-based methods.

“The new approach also has the ability to process data quickly and automatically, which can greatly help clinicians improve their work,” the team concludes.

Lyu, G. and Dong, A. (2019) ‘Automatic selection of lexical features for detecting Alzheimer’s disease using bag-of-words model and genetic algorithm’, Int. J. Computer Applications in Technology, Vol. 61, No. 4, pp.306–311.

Inderscience journals to invite expanded papers from International Conference on Emerging Trends in Information Technology and Engineering (ic-ETITE'20) for potential publication

Extended versions of papers presented at the International Conference on Emerging Trends in Information Technology and Engineering (ic-ETITE'20) (24-25 February 2020, VIT Vellore, India) will be invited for review and potential publication by the following journals:

• Int. J. of Forensic Software Engineering
• Int. J. of Hybrid Intelligence
• Int. J. of Information Technology, Communications and Convergence

Research pick: A clear view through fog of city surveillance - "Smart city video surveillance using fog computing"

CCTV – closed-circuit television – is widely used to carry out surveillance in a wide range of environments from military installations to shopping centres. Modern video surveillance, with recording and playback facilities, multiple cameras, and other infrastructure are quite unwieldy and rely on expensive computer servers that can process and store video.

Research carried out in India, where video surveillance is becoming increasingly important as the incidence of anti-social behaviour in cities rises, seeks to reduce the demands on computing infrastructure by employing, not cloud computing, but fog computing. P. Prakash and Dhinesh Kumar of the Amrita School of Engineering, in Coimbatore, Raghavi Suresh of Jain University in Bangalore, explain how they have modelled and simulated just such a system using an application known as iFogSim. Fog computing, their model suggests, is more efficient and more secure than a cloud computing approach to computing infrastructure for urban video surveillance.

The team explains that smart video surveillance systems must store video sequences and metadata associated with a place and the events that occur in that place. While cloud computing offers the remote and putatively distributed tools for such a task, fog computing, which is an extension of cloud computing, makes this still more efficient. The cloud computing paradigm offers agility, resource pooling and sharing. The fog paradigm utilizes resources on the edge of the system rather than reverting to a centralized cloud cluster. This means that delay, or latency, issues often associated with the cloud environment, are avoided by having some of the processing and storage handled at the edges of the architecture closer to the end-users, in other words.

Prakash, P., Suresh, R. and Kumar PN, D. (2019) ‘Smart city video surveillance using fog computing’, Int. J. Enterprise Network Management, Vol. 10, Nos. 3/4, pp.389–399.

Research pick: Cooking the books, at home - "Could financial trouble be avoided by cooking at home? An analysis of checking account records"

It seems obvious in retrospect, but researchers in the USA have pinned down the finances to show that families in debt that cook for themselves at home rather than regularly buying fast-food or dining in restaurants could, if they wished to, pay back their short-term, “payday” loans much quicker and perhaps pull themselves out of a cycle of borrowing that often spirals out of control for many people.

Writing in the International Journal of Services, Economics and Management, the team points out that the pricing of fast food and the social implications of the payday loan industry have been investigated individually, but the new study looks at the implications of regular fast food consumption and the cycle of debt. Franziska Willenbuecher of the Center for Public Partnerships and Research, Achievement and Assessment Institute, at the University of Kansas, in Lawrence, together with Marc Anthony Fusaro of the School of Business at Emporia State University, also in Kansas, found no direct statistical correlation between food spending and loan amounts, perhaps suggesting that people do not borrow to buy fast food. However, they did find that households could have saved on average more than 36% of the average debt had they not bought fast food nor eaten restaurant meals for about a month.

The team also showed from their data that almost one in four households could have saved close to a third or more while almost 1 in ten could have saved 70% or more of their loan amount if they had cooked at home.

“The findings of this research demonstrate that fast food, and food spending in general, are part of a larger spending pattern that could best be addressed through financial literacy curricula and public policy in the area of payday loans,” the team writes. The ultimate goal of the research is to determine what leads people to borrow and how the amounts can be reduced if not eliminated. The study represents the first step in revealing the reasons that lower-income households turn to payday loans.

Willenbuecher, F. and Fusaro, M.A. (2019) ‘Could financial trouble be avoided by cooking at home? An analysis of checking account records’, Int. J. Services, Economics and Management, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp.195–207.

Special issue published: "Creativity Management and Engineering"

International Journal of Manufacturing Technology and Management 33(5) 2019

• The fuzzy front end of manufacturing technology development
• Creating and sharing knowledge during the unfolding of innovation streams: a social network perspective
• Modelling and analysis of supply chain risks in leather industry
• Advantageous and disadvantageous inequality fairness concerns: the impact on the single-vendor single-buyer production-inventory system

Additional paper

• A review on droplet deposition manufacturing - a rapid prototyping technique

Special issue published: "Information Processing and Control Technologies"

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology 61(4) 2019

• Rapid freshness prediction of crab based on a portable electronic nose system
• Low-frequency structure-borne noise refinement based on rigid-flexible coupling model of powertrain mounting system
• Analysis of an approach to reducing drops of secondary user on primary user emulation attack
• Broad learning system for human activity recognition using sensor data
• An adaptive multi-threshold segmentation algorithm for complex images under unstable imaging environment
• Multiple cell tracking by generalised labelled multi-Bernoulli filter
• Multi-threading parallel reinforcement learning
• A new topology and power control of grid-connected photovoltaic array
• A model for target acquisition and edge detection under complex scenes
• Development of shipbuilding safety information monitoring and management system
• Automatic selection of lexical features for detecting Alzheimer's disease using bag-of-words model and genetic algorithm
• An operation sequence-based temporal multilayer networks model for production process in flexible manufacturing systems
• Crowd counting via scale-adaptive convolutional neural network in extremely dense crowd images
• Design of a new type of float flowmeter and remote monitoring system based on ARM microcontroller
• Research on robot location based on an improved method of map feature matching

New Editor for International Journal of Multivariate Data Analysis

Associate Prof. Pietro Amenta from the University of Sannio in Italy has been appointed to take over editorship of the International Journal of Multivariate Data Analysis.

New Editors for International Journal of Technoentrepreneurship

Prof. Hermenegildo Gil Gómez from Universidad Politécnica de Valencia in Spain has been appointed as the new Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Technoentrepreneurship. He will be joined by a new Executive Editor, Prof. Domingo Enrique Ribeiro-Soriano of Universitat de València.

Research pick: What’s GOOSE for the good - "GOOSE: goal oriented orchestration for smart environments"

The idea of ubiquitous computing has been with us for decades, but with the advent of endless mobile devices, the internet of things, and other such technology, we are on the verge of living in a world of smart environments that can enhance and make more efficient many aspects of our working lives as well as our social and family lives.

Researchers from Italy, writing in the aptly titled International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing, explain that for ubiquitous computing to work well for everyone its design and implementation have to take into account the needs and wants of different types of user. “Connecting objects to the internet and making them accessible from remote is not sufficient to make an environment ‘smart’ since such ecosystems should also be able to enable context-sensitive actions along with management of the interaction between objects and users,” they explain.

As such, the team is now proposing GOOSE – goal-oriented orchestration for smart environments. This platform, the team from the University of Catania and Tim Jol Wave explains, aims to interpret the goals of users, whether technologically expert or novices, as expressed in natural language in order to generate, select, and safely enforce a set of plans to be executed to fulfill those goals as well as focusing taking into account the bigger picture in the smart environment. In other words, “The architecture defined in this paper enables cooperative interactions between objects in a smart space in order to achieve goals expressed by users,” the team writes. Critically, the platform is as far as is possible independent in its structure of any particular technology, hardware, or software.

Catania, V., La Delfa, G.C., Monteleone, S., Patti, D., Ventura, D. and La Torre, G. (2019) ‘GOOSE: goal oriented orchestration for smart environments’, Int. J. Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing, Vol. 32, No. 3, pp.159–170.

Research pick: Predicting pollution with internet of things

Recent research suggests that heart attacks, cerebral stroke, and asthma attacks all rise with increasing air pollution in our cities, and of course the wider problems for the environment and human, animal, and plant life are becoming better understood with each study. Now, science published in the International Journal of Computational Intelligence Studies suggests that big data from Internet of Things devices might be useful in predicting air pollution incidents. Knowing in advance when problems might arise could offer some hope of ameliorating the detrimental effects or at the very least providing vulnerable people with advance warning of potential threats to their health.

The study, written by Safae Sossi Alaoui, Brahim Aksasse, and Yousef Farhaoui of the Department of Computer Science at Moulay Ismail University in Errachidia, Morocco, offers hope of predicting rising levels of some of the most serious polluting compounds that are ubiquitous in the environment but fluctuate wildly depending on human activity, namely nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and ozone.

There are millions, if not billions of connected devices that we might put under the umbrella term of the Internet of Things, IoT, these include the ever-present smart phone, roadside pollution monitors, embedded sensors, actuators, and even wearable devices that can all collect and exchange different types of data.

The team has worked with a US pollution dataset and used Spark technology on the Databricks platform to build an accurate model that can make good predictions about air quality. This could be used to help improve our understanding of the negative effects of air pollution on our lives and perhaps help focus efforts to prevent, control, and reduce pollution in a more timely manner than ever before.

Sossi Alaoui, S., Aksasse, B. and Farhaoui, Y. (2019) ‘Air pollution prediction through internet of things technology and big data analytics’, Int. J. Computational Intelligence Studies, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp.177–191.

International Journal of Economic Policy in Emerging Economies to invite expanded papers from XIV International Conference "Russian Regions in the Focus of Changes" for potential publication

Extended versions of papers presented at the XIV International Conference "Russian Regions in the Focus of Changes" (14-16 November 2019, Ekaterinburg, Russia) will be invited for review and potential publication by the International Journal of Economic Policy in Emerging Economies.

International Journal of Internet of Things and Cyber-Assurance to invite expanded papers from International Virtual Conference on Artificial Intelligence for IoT 2019 for potential publication

Extended versions of papers presented at the International Virtual Conference on Artificial Intelligence for IoT 2019 (AIIoT-2019) (4 December 2019, VIT, Tamil Nadu, India) will be invited for review and potential publication by the International Journal of Internet of Things and Cyber-Assurance.

Research pick: Is the internet addicting? - "Measuring internet addiction in Europe-based knowledge societies: a case study of France"

The emergence of new technology always brings with it concerns about the effects it might have on users in terms of physical and mental health. The Internet, and specifically social media, is no different. One worry is that the endless novelty and pressure to engage with social media whether photo, video, or textual updates, is leading to some people using these tools throughout the day and even the night to the detriment of what one might refer to as normal “offline” life.

New research published in the International Journal of Business Information Systems, has focused on how internet addiction might be measured. Habib Ullah Khan of Qatar University in Doha, Qatar, has worked with Helmi Hammami of the Rennes School of Business, in France, to look at the behaviour of internet users in France. The study shows that what might be referred to as internet addiction has some correlation with the users’ age but the picture is rather vague.

It is difficult, after all, to determine whether frequent and/or prolonged use represents addiction as a healthcare worker might perceive it in the context of addiction to drugs of abuse, for instance. Moreover, the present study seems to conflict with the standard perspectives and concepts in several ways and the team suggests that there might now be a need to re-evaluate theories of addiction in the context of so-called internet addiction in order to better understand how and why such a problem might arise and to see how to differentiate more clearly between regular and frequent use of these tools and what might be perceived as problematic dependency.

Khan, H.U. and Hammami, H. (2019) ‘Measuring internet addiction in Europe-based knowledge societies: a case study of France’, Int. J. Business Information Systems, Vol. 32, No. 2, pp.199–218.

Special issue published: "Big Data Innovation for Sustainable Intelligent Computing"

International Journal of Enterprise Network Management 10(3/4) 2019

• Convergence of partial differential equation using fuzzy linear parabolic derivatives
• A document similarity approach using grammatical linkages with graph databases
• A customer-based supply chain network design
• Proficient smart trash can management using internet of things and SDN architecture approach
• Decision tree classification - N tier solution for preventing SQL injection attack on websites
• P-tree oriented association rule mining of multiple data sources
• Development of manufacturing - distribution plan considering quality cost
• Chicken swarm optimisation based clustering of biomedical documents and health records to improve telemedicine applications
• Inclusive strategic techno-economic framework to incorporate essential aspects of web mining for the perspective of business success
• Effective transmission of critical parameters in heterogeneous wireless body area sensor networks
• Extreme learning machine and K-means clustering for the improvement of link prediction in social networks using analytic hierarchy process
• Smart city video surveillance using fog computing

Free open access article available: "Bilateral multi-issue negotiation of execution contexts by proactive document agents"

The following paper, "Bilateral multi-issue negotiation of execution contexts by proactive document agents" (International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing 32(3) 2019), is freely available for download as an open access article.

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

Special issue published: "Honour-Based Hate Violence in Online Communities"

International Journal of Web Based Communities 15(4) 2019

• A study of friend recommendations for gaming communities
• Honour, hate and violence in social media: insights from India
• The effect of e-retailers' innovations on shoppers' impulsiveness and addiction in web-based communities: the case of Amazon's Prime Now
• In search of disruptive ideas: outlier detection techniques in crowdsourcing innovation platforms
• Knowledge sharing in Asia Pacific via virtual community platform: a systematic review

Research pick: Engaging Facebook users - "User engagement in social media – empirical results from Facebook"

If social media technology is to evolve and improve its utility still further, then we need theory building and a better understanding of user engagement behaviour. These are fundamental to developing future approaches and effective organisational deployment, according to a paper published in the International Journal of Information Technology and Management.

Rupak Rauniar of the Department of Operations and Supply Chain Management at the University of Houston-Downtown, Texas, and colleagues Ronald Salazar of the University of Houston-Victoria, also in Texas, Greg Rawski and Donald Hudson of the University of Evansville, Indiana, USA, have undertaken a study of almost 400 users of one of the most familiar online social media systems, Facebook. They used the theory of reasoned action to study empirically predictors of intention to engage on the site.

“Our results suggest that perceived value, social presence, interactivity, and trustworthiness are positively related to the user’s attitude towards social media,” the team writes. “The research model shows promise for use by managers and organisations to predict and understand the usage of social media in a target population.”

The team points out that earlier studies looking at engagement involved conventional data processing of end-user computing environments and general e-commerce sites. The present study goes beyond such approaches and points the way forward for those hoping to extend engagement among users of social media sites and mobile applications, apps. The next step will be to carry out a similar study with other systems such as Twitter and Youtube to determine in what ways the conclusions from the present research might be generalized.

“As scientific research in the area of social media is still rare, we encourage practitioners and researchers to seek out new research questions in developing future theories in the area of social media,” the team concludes.

Rauniar, R., Rawski, G., Salazar, R.J. and Hudson, D. (2019) ‘User engagement in social media – empirical results from Facebook’, Int. J. Information Technology and Management, Vol. 18, No. 4, pp.362–388.

Research pick: Your next favourite movie - "On the application of Bayesian credibility theory in movie rankings"

Can statistical and probability mathematics invented in the eighteenth century help fans choose their next favourite movie? A new study published in the International Journal Operational Research suggests that it might be so.

Palash Ranjan Das of the Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of Calcutta, in West Bengal, and Gopal Govindasamy of the Madras School of Economics, in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, explain how they have coupled movie choice with Bayesian credibility theory. Credibility theory is a branch of actuarial science devoted to quantify how unique a particular outcome will be when compared to an outcome deemed as typical. Thomas Bayes for whom the Bayes Theorem is named was an English statistician and philosopher who formulated a new approach to understanding chance and probability in the middle of the eighteenth century long before the arrival moving pictures and many decades before the notion of computer software that might assess the chances of a given movie suggestion being one a viewer might enjoy.

Bayesian credibility theory was initially developed to assess risk. However, the team in this current work has used it to rate and rank movies available from an online movie database based on user votes.

Das, P.R. and Govindasamy, G. (2019) ‘On the application of Bayesian credibility theory in movie rankings’, Int. J. Operational Research, Vol. 36, No. 2, pp.254–269.

Research pick: Asymmetrical profits - "IJRM-asymmetrical"

Digital technology and in particular the advent of online social media and the smartphone have facilitated the widespread use of consumer-to-consumer commerce and services. Online platforms such as eBay and Taobao allow individuals to access buying and selling marketplaces that simply did not exist for previous generations. Surprisingly, the sharing and servicing of accommodation and transport through the likes of Airbnb and Uber has also opened up a whole new world to the individual that was the commercial preserve of companies and corporations.

Writing in the International Journal of Revenue Management, Jagan Jacob of the Simon Business School, at the University of Rochester, in Rochester New York, USA suggests that this consumer-to-consumer provision and uptake of goods and services is just as asymmetrical as it ever was in terms of people on one side of the equation being the consumers and the other side the providers. This is perhaps intrinsic to any buying and selling scenario or any provision of services, whether a bed for the night or transport from A to B. As such, there are “challenges”.

The online systems do, of course, allow transactions to take place between users who are usually complete strangers in the wider context. There is, therefore, a pressing need for users and providers to somehow validate themselves but without the unwarranted sharing of personal and private information. Jacob’s paper suggests that a matching mechanism can maximise platform profit when users are heterogeneous with some more likely to be “more good” than others. However, there is a scenario whereby platform profit rises when it allows users with a higher probability of being “bad” to join too. This presumably cannot be to the benefit of the average good user or provider.

Jacob, J. (2019) ‘IJRM-asymmetrical’, Int. J. Revenue Management, Vol. 11, Nos. 1/2, pp.89–125.

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Revenue Management

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Revenue Management are now available here for free:

• Pricing of excess inventory on Groupon
• A call for exploratory data analysis in revenue management forecasting: a case study of a small and independent hotel in The Netherlands
• A reservation model for a single firm serving a market with strategic consumers
• The fiscal provisions on existing legal frameworks governing the oil sector in the Republic of South Sudan

Special issue published: "Advanced Intelligence Paradigms in Machine Vision, Image Processing and Pattern Analysis"

International Journal of Advanced Intelligence Paradigms 14(1/2) 2019

• Priority-based trimmed median filter for removal of high density salt and pepper noise
• An efficient approach for handling degradation in character recognition
• Pattern analysis and texture classification using finite state automata scheme
• A novel method for super resolution image reconstruction
• GLCM-based detection and classification of microaneurysm in diabetic retinopathy fundus images
• Face recognition using combined binary particle swarm optimisation and hidden layer of artificial neural network
• Iris recognition system based on a new combined feature extraction method
• Enhanced method of using contourlet transform for medical image compression
• Video-based assistive aid for blind people using object recognition in dissimilar frames
• Brachiopods classification based on fusion of contour and region based descriptors
• Identification of human activity pattern in controlled web environment: an adaptive framework

Research pick: Detecting malicious web pages - "Malicious web pages detection using feature selection techniques and machine learning"

There is a lot of malware on the internet, unwitting computer users might be enticed to visit web pages serving such malicious content and as such there is a pressing need to develop security systems that can quickly detect such malicious websites and protect users from having their personal and private data scraped, their logins and bank details assimilated, or their computer or mobile device hijacked for the nefarious purposes of third party criminals.

A new paper from Dharmaraj Patil and Jayantrao Patil the Department of Computer Engineering, at the R.C. Patel Institute of Technology, in Shirpur, Maharashtra, India, outlines a new approach to malicious web site detection based on feature selection methods and machine learning. The pair discusses details in the International Journal of High Performance Computing and Networking.

Their approach uses three modules: feature selection, training, and classification. To test the approach, the team used six feature selection methods and eight supervised machine learning classifiers and carried out experiments on the balanced binary dataset. With feature selection methods, they were able to detect malicious web content with an accuracy of between 94 and 99 percent and even above. The error rate was just 0.19 to 5.55%. They compared their results with eighteen well-known antivirus programs that also detect malicious web pages and found that the approach performed better than all of them.

Patil, D.R. and Patil, J.B. (2019) ‘Malicious web pages detection using feature selection techniques and machine learning’, Int. J. High Performance Computing and Networking, Vol. 14, No. 4, pp.473–488.

Special issue published: "Creating and Delivering Value in a Contemporary World"

International Journal of Business and Globalisation 23(3) 2019

• Volatility spillovers between European financial markets: evidence since the Brexit
• Frequency of retail services, membership fees and real store shopping experience: analysing consumer preferences
• The role of content analysis in the brand-consumer relationship: a systemic view
• Is the sharing economy socially responsible? Case study examination about sharing economy companies with the help of stakeholder theory

Additional papers

• Unemployment in Africa and entrepreneurial education: a critical assessment of entrepreneurship education programs in Sierra Leone
• Impact of operating efficiency on firm value - a case of Indian banking sector and information technology sector
• Manifestation of worldview in a metaphor
• Predicting whistleblowing intentions through organisational commitment - insights from the Indian real estate sector

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Planning and Scheduling

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Planning and Scheduling are now available here for free:

• Spreadsheet-based computations for the flowshop problem with synchronous transfers
• Stochastic travelling salesperson and shortest route models with safety time
• Lot streaming in the presence of learning
• Harvest scheduling to reduce waste in agri-fresh produce supply chains: an artificial immune system-based solution approach
• Using predetermined partial solutions for solving a heterogeneous truck fleet distribution model

Special issue published: "Developments in Additive Manufacturing"

International Journal of Materials and Product Technology 59(3) 2019

• Investigations on the melt flow behaviour of aluminium filled ABS polymer composite for the extrusion-based additive manufacturing process
• Synthesis, Analysis and 3D Printing of Flapping Mechanisms
• Development of light weight multi-rotor UAV structures through synergistic application of design analysis and fused deposition modelling
• Decision making methodology for the selection of 3D printer under fuzzy environment
• Mechanical capabilities of semi-rigid thermoplastics ABS and PLA from 3D printing
• The insertion of low-cost additive manufacturing into engineering teaching: a case in central Mexico

Research pick: Chilled electricity - "Aqua-ammonia-based thermally activated combined power and cooling system"

It should be possible to generate electricity and refrigerate simultaneously using low-grade waste heat from industry, according to research published in Progress in Industrial Ecology – An International Journal. The key is a system based on an ammonia-water mixture.

Mechanical engineer Kolar Deepak of Vardhaman College of Engineering, in Hyderabad, India, has proposed a system that exploits thermodynamic phenomena encapsulated in the Kalina cycle to generate power and cool a system at the same time using evaporation and condensation of an ammonia-water working fluid. The system does mechanical work, which can drive a dynamo type device to generate electricity, while the refrigeration effect is produced by the working fluid from the turbine exit.

Deepak’s computations suggest a thermal efficiency of almost 20 percent at an operating temperature of 135 degrees Celsius, which is the sort of temperature for “waste” heat streams from industrial plants and gas turbine exhaust, as well as municipal incinerators, or renewable energy sources, including geothermal brine.

Deepak, K. (2019) ‘Aqua-ammonia-based thermally activated combined power and cooling system’, Progress in Industrial Ecology – An International Journal, Vol. 13, No. 4, pp.332–341.

New Editor for International Journal of Reasoning-based Intelligent Systems

Prof. Jair Minoro Abe from Paulista University in Brazil has been appointed to take over editorship of the International Journal of Reasoning-based Intelligent Systems.

Research pick: Plugging the brain drain - "The education policy challenge to the brain drain problem"

In a world of growing educational and professional mobility, there is an urgent need, from an individual nation’s perspective to reduce the potentially harmful effects of what is commonly referred to as the “brain drain”. The brain drain refers to the loss of one’s intellectuals and talented students and workers to another nation where they may benefit their adopted state, often never to return home to their place of birth.

Writing in the International Journal of Education Economics and Development, Akira Shimada of the Faculty of Economics at Nagasaki University, Japan, discusses the policy challenges facing education in attempting to plug the brain drain. His findings suggest that among the developed nations, subsidizing salary can often reduce the loss of talent to foreign shores. But, this is generally not an option for cash-strapped establishments in a developing nation where the disparity between available home salary and the remuneration potential of working in a developed nation is enormous.

One possible way to reduce the brain drain from developing nations and so retain the very talent that might allow the country to thrive is not to attempt to offer better working salaries but to improve education and the subsidizing thereof. Rewarding students for staying in their home nation to work could be implemented effectively whereas attempting to tax those who flow with the brain drain is largely untenable.

“I found that education subsidies are an effective way for a developed country to reduce brain drain for any degree of human capital transferability although they are not effective for a developing country for a certain degree of human capital transferability,” Shimada concludes.

Shimada, A. (2019) ‘The education policy challenge to the brain drain problem’, Int. J. Education Economics and Development, Vol. 10, No. 4, pp.335–355.

Special issue published: "International Economic Law in Times of Popular Distrust: Challenges and Responses"

International Journal of Public Law and Policy 6(3) 2019

• Conceptualising the complexity-reducing role of societal trust in transnational economic regulation - towards an interdisciplinary research methodology
• Effective, justifiable, necessary: the panel's assessment of Australia's tobacco plain packaging measures
• Mind the compliance gap: managing trustworthy partnerships for sustainable development in the European Union's free trade agreements
• Patent boxes and the erosion of trust in trade and in governance

International Journal of Entertainment Technology and Management to invite expanded papers from ICSIMAT Conference for potential publication

Extended versions of papers presented at the ICSIMAT Conference (26-30 September 2020, Kefallonia–Ionian Islands, Greece) will be invited for review and potential publication by the International Journal of Entertainment Technology and Management.

Special issue published: "Advances in Renewable Energy"

International Journal of Renewable Energy Technology 10(4) 2019

• Investigation of the efficiency of a solar dryer with thermal storage by rock salt and by pebble bed
• The effect on the efficiency of the photovoltaic panel used for the charging of mobile phones of the solar radiation in Elazig, Turkey
• Improving photovoltaic panel performance using a flipping technique - analysis and feasibility study
• The impacts of the geographical location on the performance of PV system - Skikda in Algeria and Atbara in Sudan: case study
• Development of a 2D numerical transient model to study geothermal coaxial borehole field heat exchangers

Research pick: "Parallel PageRank algorithm quicker to spot spam"

Nilay Khare and Hema Dubey of the Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, in Bhopal, India, discuss how Google’s “PageRank” system can be used to detect spam web pages. That is pages created for nefarious purposes that attempt to gain a higher position in the search engine results pages (SERPs) through the false representation of their value and relevance to the person carrying out a search.

PageRank was developed by Google’s founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin back in 1996 at Stanford University, building on the foundations of other ranking algorithms that had been developed through the 1970s and onwards. PageRank works by counting the number and quality of links to a page to determine a rough estimate of how important the website is. The underlying assumption is that more important websites are likely to receive more links from other websites.

Of course, the notion of “quality”, good or bad, is rather ephemeral and so over the years since the rise of Google, there is an ongoing struggle between webmasters who would wish their sites to be high up in the SERPs and so more visible and Google which endeavours to preclude spammy tactics that might game its system and allow webmasters of lower quality sites to achieve unwarranted high status in the ranks.

Khare and Dubey have developed an efficient and faster parallel PageRank algorithm that can harness the power of a computer’s graphics processing units (GPUs). Their results show a speed enhancement in calculating PageRank and so finding spam pages of up to 1.7 times that of the conventional parallel PageRank algorithm. The team even suggests in its conclusion that their approach is “immune” to spammy websites.

Khare, N. and Dubey, H. (2019) ‘Fast parallel PageRank technique for detecting spam web pages’, Int. J. Data Mining, Modelling and Management, Vol. 11, No. 4, pp.350–365

Special issue published: "Cloud Computing, Big Data and Data Science"

International Journal of Internet Technology and Secured Transactions 9(4) 2019

• A scalable fine-grained analytic model for container cloud data centres
• Deadline-credit aware heuristic for dynamic resource provisioning in virtualised cloud environment
• Financial default payment predictions using a hybrid of simulated annealing heuristics and extreme gradient boosting machines
• Agile polymorphic software-defined fog computing platform for mobile wireless controllers and sensors
• Outlier detection techniques for big data streams: focus on cyber security
• Improving cloud computing services indexing based on BCloud-tree with users preferences
• Autonomic resource management framework for virtualised environments
• An integrated approach for network traffic analysis using unsupervised clustering and supervised classification
• Response time-based resource allocation according to service level agreements in cloud computing

Special issue published: "Soft Operations Research Methods for Complex Systems"

International Journal of System of Systems Engineering 9(3) 2019

• Serious gaming: implications for resilience governance of critical infrastructure
• A complex structure representation of the US critical infrastructure protection program based on the Zachman framework
• Categorising and clustering knowledge in fuzzy cognitive maps
• Using rich pictures outside of soft systems methodology: a case study analysis
• Systemic analysis of a drug trafficking mess

Special issue published: "Migration and Diaspora Entrepreneurship: Tackling the Heterogeneity"

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management 23(6) 2019

• Transnational entrepreneurship: a systematic review of the literature
• Entrepreneurship and economic integration of immigrants: a critical review of literature
• The impact of institutions and cognition on context: a case study approach in international entrepreneurship
• Exploring the role of context in motivating entrepreneurial behaviours: the motivations of migrant entrepreneurs in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland
• The role of social media in the collaboration, interaction, co-creation and co-delivery of a social venture in an uncertain conflict environment
• Motivations and barriers to crowdlending as a tool for diasporic entrepreneurial finance

Research pick: Student retention intention - "Does social media website really matter in enhancing student’s retention intention? An application of Stimulus–Organism–Response framework"

Social media and student retention – Researchers in Egypt have investigated whether or not online social media can enhance student retention and reduce the dropout rate. Writing in the International Journal of Management in Education, Rania Mostafa of the Faculty of Commerce at Damanhour University, explains how she has used a Stimulus–Organism–Response framework to investigate.

Mostafa quotes earlier research that suggests that there is fierce competition among universities worldwide to differentiate themselves and to boost their standing in the educational “marketplace”. As such, there is pressure to retain students and reduce the number that drops out of a particular course. It is, she points out much more expensive to recruit a student than to retain one. Universities now use all “touch points” including social media to engage students and to enhance information sharing and self-expression which in turn can improve what the higher education establishment can offer students and so boost morale and reduce apathy and thus keep students on track.

Her results indicate that information quality, privacy and security, and virtual interactivity influence perceived value in the context of the establishment’s social media. However, student self-efficacy does not seem to moderate this perceive value. In other words, higher education establishments must ensure that their social media sites offer timely, accurate, relevant, and engaging information for their students and to evolve with student intentions.

Mostafa, R.B. (2019) ‘Does social media website really matter in enhancing student’s retention intention? An application of Stimulus–Organism–Response framework’, Int. J. Management in Education, Vol. 13, No. 4, pp.397–416.

Research pick: Keep it in the family - "The family firm as an arena for white-collar crime"

Family firms are as old as “Mom and Pop”. But, there can be problems within such organisations and, according to research published in the International Journal of Business Continuity and Risk Management, specific personal motives, organisational opportunities and deviant behaviour can lead to white-collar crime. Indeed, there are plenty of opportunities, the research suggests, for family members to defraud their own firm, and thus their fellow family members.

Petter Gottschalk and Cecilie Asting of the Department of Leadership and Organizational Behavior, at the BI Norwegian Business School, in Oslo, Norway, do not argue that white-collar crime is any more or less frequent in family firms than it is in “normal” companies. However, their evidence suggests that it can be easier for a family member within the organization to carry out subterfuge.

The pair offers several possible solutions to the problem of white-collar crime in the family firm. For instance, family members should not have voting rights and privileges that allow them to carry out actions without the usual checks and balances that would be in place in other types of company.

Moreover, there is also the obvious possibility of non-family members of the firm to defraud the business too, especially if remuneration and reward equity is lacking. The team suggests that non-family members of a family firm should expect fair pay and conditions and that they should be stimulated to identify with the business just as an employee of any other type of business might.

Gottschalk, P. and Asting, C. (2019) ‘The family firm as an arena for white-collar crime’, Int. J. Business Continuity and Risk Management, Vol. 9, No. 4, pp.283–297.

Special issue published: "Business and Economy in the Changing World"

International Journal of Economics and Business Research 18(3) 2019

• The influence of intellectual capital on earnings management through real activities manipulation in Indonesian manufacturing companies
• Attitudinal ambivalence towards green products: an empirical study in an emerging market
• TVET teachers' perceptions on competencies: an application of Malaysian human resource development practitioners competency model
• The roles of employee work well-being on innovative work behaviour mediated by organisational commitment
• Creating innovative work behaviour: the roles of self efficacy, leader competency, and friendly workplace
• Social media and financial institutions in the Indian context
• Exploration of the need analysis for technopreneurship scientific learning models in higher vocational education
• Digital transformation: a transformational performance-based conceptual model through co-creation strategy and business model innovation in the Industry 4.0 in Indonesia
• Role of freight and forwarding company in facilitating the export-import process in Kelantan Malaysia

Free open access article available: "An analysis of the semantic annotation task on the linked data cloud"

The following paper, "An analysis of the semantic annotation task on the linked data cloud" (International Journal of Metadata, Semantics and Ontologies 13(4) 2019) is freely available for download as an open access article.

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

Special issue published: "Novel Algorithms, Emergent Approaches and Applications for Distributed Computing"

International Journal of Grid and Utility Computing 10(6) 2019

• Cognitive workload management on globally interoperable network of clouds
• Towards autonomous creation of service chains on cloud markets
• Cache replication for information-centric networks through programmable networks
• Improving the MXFT scheduling algorithm for a cloud computing context
• Model-based deployment of secure multi-cloud applications

Additional papers

• Resource auto-scaling for SQL-like queries in the cloud based on parallel reinforcement learning
• Data analysis of CSI 800 industry index by using factor analysis model
• Don't lose the point, check it: Is your cloud application using the right strategy?
• A cloud-based approach to dynamically manage service contracts for local public transportation
• Towards to virtual infrastructure allocation on multiple IaaS providers with survivability and reliability requirements

International Journal of Nonlinear Dynamics and Control to invite expanded papers from Congreso Nacional de Control Automático for potential publication

Extended versions of papers presented at the Congreso Nacional de Control Automático (CNCA) (23-25 October 2019, Puebla, Mexico) will be invited for review and potential publication by the International Journal of Nonlinear Dynamics and Control.

Special issue published: "Big Data and Data Science in Educational Research"

International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning 29(4) 2019

• Design of multimedia engineering teaching system based on internet of things technology
• Modelling and analysis of innovative path of English teaching mode under the background of big data
• Analysis of optimisation method for online education data mining based on big data assessment technology
• Educational resource information sharing algorithm based on big data association mining and quasi-linear regression analysis
• Online course learning outcome evaluation method based on big data analysis
• Modelling and analysis of the influence of affective factors on students' learning efficiency improvement based on big data
• Extended query model for MOOC education resource metadata based on big data
• Research on optimisation of MOOC education model based on participatory visual teaching technology

Special issue published: "Sliding Mode Control and its Engineering Applications"

International Journal of Automation and Control 13(6) 2019

• A memristor-based system with hidden hyperchaotic attractors, its circuit design, synchronisation via integral sliding mode control and an application to voice encryption
• Adaptive terminal sliding mode control of high-order nonlinear systems
• Chaos control of a four-dimensional fundamental power system using pole placement-based proportional integral sliding mode control
• Hybrid Petri network super twisting sliding mode control of wind turbine for maximum power point tracking
• Super-twisting algorithm-based integral sliding mode control with composite nonlinear feedback control for magnetic levitation system

Additional papers

• Hybrid intelligent controller design for an unstable electromagnetic levitation system: a fuzzy interpolative controller approach
• Encoder-less field-oriented control of permanent magnet synchronous motor by using a full order adaptive state observer

Research pick: Driving into old age - "Ergonomic intervention in meeting the challenges of elderly drivers: identifying, prioritising and factorising the ergonomic attributes"

Worldwide the number of drivers over the age of 65 is increasing rapidly. As such, there is an urgency in the need to design vehicles that are ergonomically suited to this demographic to accommodate physical ailments and limitations that are usually not seen in younger people.

Research published in the International Journal of Vehicle Design, discusses the major ergonomic concerns of older drivers that might improve driving posture, improve attention, and decrease fatigue during driving. Ashish Dutta, A.K. Bhardwaj, and A.P.S. Rathore of the Malaviya National Institute of Technology, in Jaipur, India, have grouped ergonomic needs of older drivers into ten categories and then surveyed a number of such drivers. Three important factors emerged showing that concerns can be grouped into three areas: musculoskeletal factors, safety factors, and driver-vehicle interface factors.

Various vehicle features emerge as becoming increasingly useful, or even essential, to older drivers who want to continue to use their vehicles for as long as possible: automatic transmission that precludes the need for a clutch and gearstick, braking assistance, parking sensors and camera, voice-assistant navigation, antiglare mirrors and windows, intuitive and easy to read controls and gauges, easy ingress and egress, adjustable, heated, and massaging seats, remote-controlled doors and boot (trunk), augmented reality (heads-up) display technology. Many such features are already present as options in high-end vehicles and it is anticipated that such options will become ubiquitous as the market for older drivers matures. Of course, ever-present, is a future of self-driving vehicles that will preclude the need for many such features, but never the need for a comfortable seat.

Dutta, A., Bhardwaj, A.K. and Rathore, A.P.S. (2019) ‘Ergonomic intervention in meeting the challenges of elderly drivers: identifying, prioritising and factorising the ergonomic attributes’, Int. J. Vehicle Design, Vol. 79, Nos. 2/3, pp.168–189.

Special issue published: "Cyber Manufacturing – Emerging Frontiers in Sensing, Modelling and Control"

International Journal of Rapid Manufacturing 8(4) 2019

• Quality assurance in additive manufacturing of thermoplastic parts: predicting consolidation degree based on thermal profile
• Data-driven calibration for infrared camera in additive manufacturing
• Collaborative robot selection using analytical hierarchical process
• Krill herd-based optimal neural network for analysing safety and quality performance at construction site

Additional papers

• Experimental investigations on optimisation of parameters to produce W-TiC composites using powder metallurgy route
• Analysis of mechanical and micro structural property of aluminium metal matrix (LM25) composite hybrid with nano silicon carbide and nano alumina as reinforcement particles
• Effect of optimised cutting constraints by AlCrN/epoxy coated components on surface roughness in CNC milling

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Innovation and Regional Development

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Innovation and Regional Development are now available here for free:

• Do social conditions matter for emergence of innovative firms? The case of Kosovo
• An alternative approach towards the knowledge production function on a regional level - applications for the USA and Russia
• Behind the emergence of clusters: spinoffs and social ties. The case of an Italian industrial district
• Can universities play an active role in fostering entrepreneurship in emerging ecosystems? A case study of the University of São Paulo

Special issue published: "International Conference on Applied Economics (ICOAE) 2016"

International Journal of Computational Economics and Econometrics 9(4) 2019

• Reconsidering the relationship between foreign direct investment and growth
• Causality among CO2 emissions, energy consumption and economic growth in Italy
• The public sector wage premium puzzle
• Depth, tightness and resiliency as market liquidity dimensions: evidence from the Polish stock market

Research pick: The business of opera - "Sing it out loud! The entrepreneurship of SME opera enterprises in Scandinavia"

A case study of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the world of Scandinavian opera is discussed in the International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business. Staffan Albinsson of the Department of Economy and Society at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden contributes new knowledge on the entrepreneurial facets of opera production based on an in-depth study of a dozen SMEs.

The research was based on structured questioning of initiators, artistic directors and general managers, the entrepreneurs involved in the operatic SMEs. Albinsson’s analysis of the survey results shows that opera entrepreneurs follow the normal entrepreneurial processes in their endeavours. However, the work also shows that along the way there is huge variation in the choices made which influence the outcome in terms of mainly regarding the choice of repertoire and its subsequent staging. Albinsson reports.

Intriguingly, while some of those involved in operatic SMEs had had some formal tuition in entrepreneurship or project management, for the most part, the skills necessary to run such an SME were simply acquired on the job, through trial-and-error experience. He offers seven main conclusions from the study

1. Most of the entrepreneurs described both business- and self-centred ‘windows of opportunity’ for the initiation of their enterprises
2. All of them were mission- or purpose-driven
3. Objectives were commonly described as bringing opera to the people or in unusual and/or intimate settings
4. The entrepreneurs had divergent approaches to achieving their goals
5. When aspiration and result differed, the entrepreneurs saw “artistic innovation” as being important through the process regardless
6. The enterprises were all not-for-profit ventures, but economic success and growth allowed them all to put on even more ambitious and attractive performances
7. The opera entrepreneurs regardless of setting generally followed the patterns of conventional entrepreneurial business.

Albinsson, S. (2019) ‘Sing it out loud! The entrepreneurship of SME opera enterprises in Scandinavia’, Int. J. Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Vol. 37, No. 4, pp.449–471.

Special issue published: "Innovative Engineering Education for Smarter World"

International Journal of Mobile Learning and Organisation 13(4) 2019

• Primary school students' intrinsic motivation to plugged and unplugged approaches to develop computational thinking
• Students' characteristics in programming learning and the design of a mobile learning platform
• Designing instructional videos and classwork activities: teaching internet of things via flipped classroom
• An analysis of undergraduate level flipped courses based on the seven principles: a case study

Special issue published: "Inter-Organisational Networks: Towards Linking Individual, Organisational and Global Phenomena"

Global Business and Economics Review 21(6) 2019

• Development of European cluster initiatives: stakeholders' contribution and enrolment
• Network resources and competitive advantage in productive cooperation networks
• Multidyadic relationships: a multi-stage perspective
• Inter-organisational network structures and knowledge diffusion through innovation intermediaries
• Key performance indicators for enhancing the export potential of Indian carpet industry
• Causal relationship of economic factors with GDP growth of two emerging markets of South Asia: Bangladesh and India
• Production and retailing of self help group products

Special issue published: "Creating Knowledge and Wisdom Via Big Data Analytics"

International Journal of Management Practice 12(4) 2019

• Generation of trust using social networking sites: a comparative analysis of online apparel brands across social media platforms
• An empirical study of factors influencing consumers' attitude towards adoption of wallet apps
• Blended programs for working professionals: developing a path analysis-based structural model to achieve skill development outcomes
• Mapping the luxury purchase intentions of the counterfeit luxury buyers
• Frictions in transmission of interest rate cuts from central bank to commercial banks in India. An enquiry

Additional paper

• The moderating effect of electronic-HRM on training and employee performance relationship: a moderated model

Research pick: The blockchain concept - "A quick synopsis of blockchain technology"

Blockchain is the technology that underpins cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. Fundamentally, the blockchain is simply a ledger, a digital record of transactions associated with a digital currency, a Bitcoin, for instance. It is an open system that does not require a trusted third party as all transactions are logged in an immutable distributed public ledger that requires no central repository of data, it is entirely decentralized.

Veeramani Karthika and Suresh Jaganathan of the SSN College of Engineering, in Tamilnadu, India, discuss blockchain technology in the International Journal of Blockchains and Cryptocurrencies as well as its application in peer-to-peer (P2P) currencies, such as Bitcoin. A blockchain is list of records, known as blocks, that are linked and encrypted, once added a block cannot be changed or removed without destroying the blockchain. Each block carries a cryptographic “hash” of the previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data.

The researchers point out that the blockchain concept has now gone way beyond the cryptocurrency paradigm and is used in electronic health records, government, utilities trading, and even in the world of arts, culture, and education. This is perhaps to be expected given its invention a decade ago by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto.

Karthika, V. and Jaganathan, S. (2019) ‘A quick synopsis of blockchain technology’, Int. J. Blockchains and Cryptocurrencies, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp.54–66.

Special issue published: "Immigrant, Gender, and Succession Issues in Family Firms"

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business 38(1/2) 2019

• Mapping successors' expectations: decoding factors responsible for effective succession in Indian family businesses
• Entrepreneurial leadership and performance of female-owned small and medium-sized enterprises in Ghana
• Family business and succession in developing economies: the Nigerian perspective
• Owner motivation in small size family farms: insights from an exploratory study on the ornamental plant industry
• Coopetition of small- and medium-sized family enterprises: insights from an IT business network
• Performance implications of the interrelationship between risk-taking and family support for women-owned businesses: evidence from South Africa
• Women entrepreneurship enticed family prosperity - an empirical evaluation of performance of microenterprises under Kudumbashree mission in Kerala, India
• Entrepreneurs' early stage anticipation of business transfer and succession processes
• Family business learning and performance
• How do female entrepreneurs experience and cope with role conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa: case study from Ethiopia
• Effects of national culture on leadership succession planning in small-to-medium scale family enterprises
• The Chinese are taking over: Chinese small entrepreneurs in the Cayo District of Belize

Special issue published: "Shaping Business Opportunities in Emerging Markets Under Global and Local Uncertainties"

International Journal of Business and Globalisation 23(2) 2019

• Pricing negotiation in contract farming
• A survey on the responsive and proactive market orientation (2005-2015)
• Acculturation to global consumer culture and the ethnic identity of Indonesians in relation to South Korean culture
• Trust, business, and society in a post-conflict scenario - the case of managing workplace practices in Colombia
• Managing alliance configuration and dyadic learning performance in coopetition
• The entrepreneurial ecosystem to foster competitiveness among enterprises: a national level analysis

Additional paper

• Self-employment entrepreneurial motivation: the case of internal ethnic migrants in Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis

New Editor for International Journal of International Journal of Postharvest Technology and Innovation

Prof. Abul Quasem Al-Amin from Universiti Tenaga Nasional in Malaysia has been appointed to take over editorship of the International Journal of Postharvest Technology and Innovation.

Research pick: Using a Fitbit and music to counteract insomnia - "An innovative technical solution to avoid insomnia and noise-induced hearing loss"

Lots of people like to listen to music at bedtime. With the advent of the portable music player and in-ear headphones, this phenomenon has become widespread. Of course, music can help improve our state of mind and perhaps even help those who suffer from insomnia to get to sleep. The downside is that once you have fallen asleep the music will keep playing and this might have detrimental effects on how deeply you sleep afterwards and perhaps even cause issues in terms of damage to hearing.

Research published in the International Journal of Medical Engineering and Informatics offers a novel solution to defeating insomnia with music but without the risk to one’s hearing. Shriram Vasudevan, Ikram Shah, Sriharsha Patallapalli, S. Karthikeyan, S. Subhash Chandran, and U. Adithya Bharadwaj of Amrita University, Coimbatore, India are the team behind the new approach. Their wearable, Fitbit, based system allows one to nod off while listening to music but once one has actually fallen asleep the music is muted. This team says means there should be no disturbance of normal sleep patterns caused by the music continuing to play and no risk to hearing.

Fundamentally, their software monitors the data from the Fitbit and calculates when the person has most likely fallen to sleep so that the music can be muted without disturbing them. Of course, many sleepers set a timer on their music to switch it off within a few minutes or an hour or so, but that only has benefits if one has actually fallen asleep. The monitored approach means the music only stops once the user is fast asleep.

Vasudevan, S.K., Shah, I., Patallapalli, S., Karthikeyan, S., Chandran, S.S. and Bharadwaj, U.A. (2019) ‘An innovative technical solution to avoid insomnia and noise-induced hearing loss’, Int. J. Medical Engineering and Informatics, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp.252–264.