31 July 2020

Research pick: Self-healing concrete - "Effect of calcium lactate and Bacillus subtilis bacteria on properties of concrete and self-healing of cracks"

The almost ubiquitous construction material we know as concrete has high compressive strength but low tensile strength. In order to overcome this problem, reinforced concrete was developed. Unfortunately, reinforced concrete more readily succumbs to corrosion particularly from water ingress so there is a need to develop ways to improve the formulation of reinforced concrete and perhaps to develop additives that allow the self-healing of cracks and fissures that grow so that a structure might be saved from complete deterioration.

Writing in the International Journal of Structural Engineering, a team from the National Institute of Technology, in Raipur, India, explain that there are two major causes of deterioration: carbonation-induced corrosion and chloride-induced corrosion. “Through the random distribution of pore spaces in concrete, aggressive substances, such as carbon dioxide, chloride, moisture, and oxygen may penetrate the structure,” the team explains. This, in turn, can break down the protective layer around reinforcing steel bars within the structure leading to their corrosion and ultimate failure.

In terms of the chemistry of the initial corrosion process involving carbonation. The initial alkalinity arising from the hydration process of cement protects the concrete formed from corrosion. However, carbon dioxide ingress leads to reactions with calcium compounds in the concrete which generates calcium carbonate and lowers the alkalinity making the material more acidic, unstable, and thus susceptible to degradation.

Other researchers have already shown that adding Bacillus subtilis bacteria to the cement formulation can have a protective effect. The team has now shown that calcium lactate can boost the benefits of the microbes by reducing the carbonation rate. It also improves the compressive strength of the concrete. Moreover, the living bacteria can refill and repair microscopic cracks within the structure to a degree allowing concrete to self-heal. This was observed in the laboratory by the team using scanning electron microscopy.

Vijay, K. and Murmu, M. (2020) ‘Effect of calcium lactate and Bacillus subtilis bacteria on properties of concrete and self-healing of cracks’, Int. J. Structural Engineering, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp.217–231.

30 July 2020

Research pick: Stay-at-home workers - "Telecommuting potential analysis"

Working from home has become part of the so-called “new normal” for many people during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, there has been a move underway towards increased telecommuting for many years. Writing in the Global Business and Economics Review a research team from Portugal has set out to explore the potential of telecommuting in terms of productivity and quality of life gains, cost savings for workers and employers, and perhaps even environmental improvements through reduced transport pollution.

Commuting generates enormous economic, social, and environmental costs, although it has been the conventional approach to “going out to work” since the industrial revolution if not before. There are some benefits, of course, but largely these are often outweighed by infrastructure and transport requirements and ultimately increased use of energy and resources and an increase in pollution and carbon emissions. However, with a big shift to online services and the increased use of information technology in this so-called digital age many traditional jobs can readily be performed from the home at least some of the time if not the whole of the working week. Obviously, some jobs, such as construction and manual factory work, farming, and healthcare can rarely be reduced to the working from home paradigm.

Deveani Babu, Nelson Ramalho, and Pedro Falcao of the University Institute of Lisbon suggest that increasing the level of telecommuting across various sectors is entirely feasible. Moreover, given the global pandemic that emerged since the time of their review, it is likely that we will garner more evidence for the personal and societal benefits of this form of working. Our unwitting experiment caused by the pandemic might also offer insights into previously unknown problems with telecommuting too.

Babu, D., Ramalho, N. and Falcao, P.F. (2020) ‘Telecommuting potential analysis’, Global Business and Economics Review, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp.100–124.

29 July 2020

New Editor for International Journal of Nuclear Law

Associate Prof. Jakub Handrlica from Charles University in the Czech Republic has been appointed to take over editorship of the International Journal of Nuclear Law.

Research pick: Lyre, lyre – there’s an app for that! - "On digitising the Greek music tradition: simulation of the Cretan lyre for mobile devices"

Forget Captain Corelli’s stringed instrument and Zorba the Greek’s theme tune, a team writing in the International Journal of Arts and Technology is investigating whether it might be possible to digitize the Greek music tradition by simulating the Cretan lyre for a mobile device application.

Dimitrios Margounakis, Georgios Tsotakos, and Andreas Floros of the School of Science and Technology, at the Hellenic Open University, Greece and the Ionian University, Corfu, point out that playing the Cretan lyre involves an intriguing technique using a bow and the development of a simulation has not been undertaken previously.

“Contemporary multi-touch-based mobile smart phones have a range of sensory input capabilities, making realistic simulation of musical instruments feasible,” the team writes.

They suggest that their app has a recreational and educational aspect as well as a conservation perspective in terms of musical culture. Users employ the same gestures as a real-life player would make to produce the notes and tones of the instrument in a mobile device.

The team adds that their app has embedded within it instructional information allowing even a novice to reconstruct well-known traditional melodies quickly. Moreover, the timbre of the lyre can be overlaid with the sound of the lute to create an even more interesting overall sound. Additionally, many players in Crete use a bow that has bells on, sounds that might also be incorporated into the app, the team reports. So, while the music may not have all of the accoutrements of some simulated instruments apps it will soon have the bells if not the whistles.

Margounakis, D., Tsotakos, G. and Floros, A. (2020) ‘On digitising the Greek music tradition: simulation of the Cretan lyre for mobile devices’, Int. J. Arts and Technology, Vol. 12, No. 2, pp.103–117.

 

28 July 2020

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Vehicle Systems Modelling and Testing

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Vehicle Systems Modelling and Testing are now available here for free:
  • A design methodology for space frame through parametric study of torsional stiffness
  • Performance test and analysis of key components of pure electric vehicles
  • E-bikes for steep roads: mid drive and hub drive motor efficiency comparison
  • Integrated vehicle dynamic controls using active rear wheel steering and four wheel braking
  • Analytical modelling of twist beam axles

Research pick: The thermodynamics of Covid-19 - "Energetic and exergetic costs of COVID-19 infection on the body of a patient"

When you catch a virus it will hijack your metabolic processes for its own replication. The virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) which is at the heart of the current global pandemic of the associated disease Covid-19 is no exception. It hooks into the body’s cellular processes leaching energy and exergy (energy that does work) so that it can duplicate its genetic code and build the proteins it needs to create copies of itself. Obviously, such an energy drain gives rise to some of the symptoms while others are caused by the body’s immune response that attempts to stop the virus in its tracks.

Writing in the International Journal of Exergy, a research team from Turkey explains how this novel coronavirus first reported in late 2019, causes a cluster of symptoms not commonly seen in other viral infections: severe pneumonia, pulmonary inflammation, and fibrosis. These symptoms reduce gas exchange between the air sacs, the alveoli, within the lungs, and the blood capillaries that carry oxygen away from the lungs and around the body. As such, patients experience diminished oxygenation of their blood haemoglobin. This then has an effect on metabolic rate.

If metabolic rate falls by one third, then in thermodynamic terms the fall in exergetic and energetic magnitude associated with the damage can be 0.46 and 0.45 Watt per kilogram of body weight, respectively. If the decline is a two-thirds decrease, the exergetic and energetic magnitude of the damage can be 0.92 and 0.90 W/kg, the team reports. Those are the figures for an 18-year old patient. For a putatively more vulnerable 70-year old, they would need to generate almost a fifth as much energy or exergy to compensate for the damage caused by the metabolic decline. This, partly explains why it is harder for older patients to cope with this virus and why they suffer worse symptoms. Additionally, if they have other underlying health conditions such as diabetes or lung disease, then the burden is even greater.

Having such information in hand will not only assists in our understanding of the progression and prognosis of this novel disease but may well point to improving how we treat it to save patients from severe morbidity or even mortality.

Yilmaz, B., Ercan, S., Akduman, S. and Özilgen, M. (2020) ‘Energetic and exergetic costs of COVID-19 infection on the body of a patient’, Int. J. Exergy, Vol. 32, No. 3, pp.314–327.

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Migration and Border Studies

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Migration and Border Studies are now available here for free:
  • Whose needs count in situations of forced displacement? Revaluing older people and addressing their exclusion from research and humanitarian programmes
  • Contestations of the heart: Mexican migrant women and transnational loving from rural Ontario
  • Seasonal agricultural workers and the habitus of mobile precarity
  • Confronting myths: agricultural citizenship and temporary foreign worker programs
  • Borders for profit: transnational social exclusion and the production of the NAFTA border
  • Pushing the US-Mexico border south: United States' immigration policing throughout the Americas
  • Underground Railroads and coyote conductors: brokering clandestine passages, then and now
  • 'Come out and live on your land again': sovereignty, borders and the Unist'ot'en camp

27 July 2020

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Critical Computer-Based Systems

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Critical Computer-Based Systems are now available here for free:
  • AltaRica 3.0 in ten modelling patterns
  • Survey on international standards and best practices for patch management of complex industrial control systems: the critical infrastructure of particle accelerators case study
  • Formal methods in dynamic software updating: a survey
  • A methodology for assuring the safety and security of critical infrastructure based on STPA and Event-B
  • Fully encrypted high-speed microprocessor architecture: the secret computer in simulation
  • A versatile approach for ranking and modelling of non-functional requirements


Special issue published: "Freedom, Technology, Surveillance: Paradoxes in the Making"

  • The crafting of a paradox: Schengen inside and out
  • The civil paradox: Swedish arms production and export and the role of emerging security technologies
  • The power elite of security research in Europe: from competitiveness and external stability to dataveillance and societal security
  • The socio-genesis of a guild of 'digital technologies' justifying transnational interoperable databases in the name of security and border purposes: a reframing of the field of security professionals?
  • The interoperability controversy or how to fail successfully: lessons from Europe
  • Freedom, technology and surveillance: everyday paradoxes on the EU-Morocco border
  • Engaging migrant careworkers: examining cases of exploitation by recruitment agencies in Quebec, Canada

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Applied Systemic Studies

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Applied Systemic Studies are now available here for free:
  • The need for systemic analysis and design methodology of medical equipments
  • Audio encryption - a chaos-based data byte scrambling technique
  • A theory of interactional systems: semantic connections and relational contextics
  • A novel method combining fuzzy SVM and sampling for imbalanced classification

24 July 2020

New Editor for International Journal of Technology Marketing

Dr. Peter Bican from Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg in Spain has been appointed to take over editorship of the International Journal of Technology Marketing. The previous Editor in Chief, Prof. Philipp A. Rauschnabel of Universität der Bundeswehr München, Germany, will remain with the journal on its Editorial Board.

Research pick: Coronavirus and carbon emissions - "Covid 19 impact on atmospheric CO 2 concentration"

The emergence of a novel coronavirus towards the end of 2019 that has led to the major ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has already taken its toll on people’s lives, healthcare systems, and the commercial world.

Anecdotal evidence early in the “lockdowns” imposed by many governments seemed to suggest that pollution levels fell as road and air traffic density fell considerably and people began working from home across the world’s major cities. Consumption of certain products also fell off although initial demand for essentials was high as people panicked and stocked up on food and other supplies. However, as lockdowns are eased, there is now an increased use of plastics for disposable personal protection and in shops, homes, and the workplace, and for packaging to help reduce the spread of the virus.

In the face of such a pandemic, it is as if climate change and pollution have been figuratively put on the back burner as serious concerns for humanity. However, Alberto Boretti of the College of Engineering at the Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University, in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia, writing in the International Journal of Global Warming, has looked at carbon dioxide levels during the shutdown. Indeed, emissions have fallen considerably as airlines have been grounded, factories shut down, businesses closed, and citizens confined in their homes.

He suggests our current reduced activity over the last few months at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic could give us novel data to demonstrate exactly how anthropogenic are carbon emissions. In 2014, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) expressed how it is 95% certain that humans are the main cause of current global warming. But, there are denialists and detractors. The data shows there has not been a fall in carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere since lockdown, natural drivers as the temperature rises and seasonal variation seem to obscure any effect on such a short timescale. The process of global warming itself is known to increase carbon dioxide emissions from natural sources.

“While we cannot legislate for natural changes, it seems appropriate to better identify every environmental and societal threats to availability of water, food, energy, plus health and ecosystems conservation; then optimise mitigation and adaptation strategies according to the relative risks of the various threats,” the team writes.

Boretti, A. (2020) ‘Covid 19 impact on atmospheric CO 2 concentration’, Int. J. Global Warming, Vol. 21, No. 3, pp.317–323.

23 July 2020

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Technological Learning, Innovation and Development

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Technological Learning, Innovation and Development are now available here for free:
  • Technological learning in inter-firm collaborations: a review and research agenda
  • How much of Raymond Vernon's product cycle thesis is still relevant today: evidence from the integrated circuits industry
  • Export competitiveness and industrial development: a study of an apparel value chain in a small island developing state
  • Are African micro- and small enterprises misunderstood? Unpacking the relationship between work organisation, capability development and innovation

Research pick: Testing times - "Automatic generation of questions from DBpedia"

Writing quiz-type tests in education can be time-consuming and given the nature of education and home learning during the current coronavirus pandemic, teachers and carers alike need more efficient and straightforward ways to produce quizzes to evaluate learning in their student charges.

New work published in the International Journal of Control Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning suggests that quiz questions could be generated automatically from DBpedia. DBpedia is a project that extracts structured content from Wikipedia and makes it available on the World Wide Web. Users can semantically query relationships and properties of Wikipedia resources, including links to other related datasets.

Oscar Rodríguez Rocha, Catherine Faron Zucker, Alain Giboin, and Aurelie Lagarrigue of the Universite Cote d’Azur, in France, explain that test questions must be generated in compliance with the knowledge and skills necessary to master a specific subject and be appropriate for the school year being tested and in accord with official educational standards. They have now demonstrated how pertinent information can be pulled from a structured database that fits these criteria. Question-generating methods can then be applied automatically to the knowledge scraped in this way to produce the questions and answers for a school quiz.

The educator can curate the information and questions manually to ensure they are wholly appropriate to the students. The automated part of the system can reduce the educator burden considerably freeing up time for less mundane work with the students while at the same time providing an invaluable and validated assessment tool.

Rodríguez Rocha, O., Zucker, C.F., Giboin, A. and Lagarrigue, A. (2020) ‘Automatic generation of questions from DBpedia’, Int. J. Continuing Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning, Vol. 30, No. 3, pp.276–294.

22 July 2020

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Higher Education and Sustainability

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Higher Education and Sustainability are now available here for free:
  • University access and 'comparative disadvantage' in Nigeria: a reflection on the criticality of equity for sustainable development
  • A tracer study on employability of business and economics graduates at Bahir Dar University
  • A know your student analysis: a case study on the students of a higher education institute in India
  • Role of the success of cloud computing in MOOC in online education environment
  • Prior knowledge and academic performance in first year accounting course

Special issue published: "The Unplanned Side Effects in Web-Based Communities"

  • Characterising social structural and linguistic behaviours of subgroup interactions: a case of online health communities for postpartum depression on Facebook
  • Structural equation modelling for influencing virtual community networks
  • Digital games get viral on social media: a social network analysis of Pokémon Go on Twitter
  • Influencing the influencers: the case of retailers' social shopping platforms
  • Youth internet consumption in Ecuador: indicators of the national digital generation

Research pick: Having a laugh - "Laughter signature: a novel biometric trait for person identification"

The popular view of biometric security often invokes fingerprint readers, iris or retinal scans, and voice-activated systems. However, any unique human characteristic whether the shape of one’s ears, the whole face, the pattern of blood vessels in the back of the hand, walking pattern, heart rhythm or even how one types at a keyboard, might be used to provide a secure signature of login. Some traits are easier to analyse than others and some, such as fingerprints, can be spoofed.

Research published in the International Journal of Biometrics has taken an amusing trait to demonstrate how the way a person laughs might be used in biometrics.

Comfort Oluwaseyi Folorunso, Olumuyiwa Sunday Asaolu, and Oluwatoyin Popoola of the Systems Engineering Department at the University of Lagos in Akoka, Lagos, Nigeria, points out that people can recognise other people by the unique nature of their laughter, perhaps in an even more obvious way than their voice. Moreover, while many people are adept at impersonating the voices of other people, mimicking someone’s laugh is far more difficult. The team has now used statistical analyses of the various audible frequencies present in a person’s laugh to create a digital signature for each unique laugh.

Tests on the approach show their prototype recognition algorithm to be 90 percent accurate, which compares very favourably with the 65% accuracy of a conventional Gaussian model. However, combining their algorithm with the Gaussian approach can boost accuracy overall by more than 5 percent.

“Laughter has thus been shown to be a viable biometric feature for person identification which can be embedded into artificial intelligence systems in diverse applications,” the team concludes.

Folorunso, C.O., Asaolu, O.S. and Popoola, O.P. (2020) ‘Laughter signature: a novel biometric trait for person identification’, Int. J. Biometrics, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp.283–300.

21 July 2020

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Electronic Healthcare

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Electronic Healthcare are now available here for free:
  • Connecting digital pharma and e-healthcare value networks through product-service design: a conceptual model
  • The moderating effect of information technology on the relationship between self-efficacy and self-management for patients with type (2) diabetes in Jordan
  • Impact of perceived HIS users' performance on job satisfaction: moderating effect of perceived HIS quality
  • Understanding EHRs continuance intention to use from the perspectives of UTAUT: practice environment moderating effect and top management support as predictor variables
  • eHealth in India: a model for healthcare accessibility at the 'bottom of the pyramid'

Research pick: Detecting lung cancer sooner rather than later - "An exhaustive study on the lung cancer risk models"

A review of forty research papers that discuss lung cancer detection technologies highlights the gaps in the various approaches to the diagnosis of this potentially lethal disease and reveals how research might be targeted to improve detection and thus prognosis. Writing in the International Journal of Bioinformatics Research and Applications, Malayil Shanid and A. Anitha of the Information & Communication Engineering department at Noorul Islam Centre for Higher Education, in Kanyakumari District, Tamil Nadu, India explain the context of their review and its implications.

Lung cancer is one of the biggest killers of the modern age. Cancer is the second leading cause of death globally and is responsible for an estimated 10 million or so deaths annually, which amounts to 1 in 6 deaths. Of that approximately 10 million cancer deaths, about 1 in 5 is due to lung cancer. As with most cancers, early detection can greatly improve the prognosis of the disease, assuming appropriate treatment is available and undertaken. It also allows less invasive treatments to be employed, particularly reducing the level of surgery required, for instance.

Image processing coupled with machine learning has led to many improvements in the identification of malignant tissue in scan images for a wide range of diseases including lung cancer. The various techniques commonly look to distinguish between benign and malignant lesions seen in the scan. Computerised tomography is the tool of choice for detecting pulmonary nodules that might sit in either camp. A benign nodule can be treated relatively easily in contrast to a malignant one, which may develop rapidly and metastasize if not treated quickly.

Shanid, M. and Anitha, A. (2020) ‘An exhaustive study on the lung cancer risk models’, Int. J. Bioinformatics Research and Applications, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp.151–172.

Special issue published: "Paradigm Shift? The Automotive Industry in Transition to Electric Vehicles"

  • Strategic flexibility in shifting to electrification: a real options reasoning perspective on Toyota and Nissan
  • Who will control the electric vehicle market?
  • The deployment of fuel cell electric vehicles in Japan: revolution or transition?
  • Between closure and Industry 4.0: strategies of Japanese automotive manufacturers in Central and Eastern Europe in reaction to labour market changes
  • Robot adoption and FDI driven transformation in the automotive industry

20 July 2020

Special issue published: "Knowledge Management Technologies in Education"

  • Satisfaction ranking of employers towards graduates from higher education institutions: an application of hybrid multiple criteria decision-making approach
  • An exploratory study of discrimination toward contract and private faculty teaching in engineering colleges of the border area of Gurdaspur, India
  • Multi-agent approach for collaborative authoring and indexing of pedagogical materials
  • Automatic generation of questions from DBpedia
  • Conceptual clustering of university graduate students' trajectories using formal concept analysis: a case study in Lebanon
Additional papers
  • Study on interactive teaching laboratory based on virtual reality
  • Modelling of factors of e-learning: an ISM approach
  • A comparative study based on OBE for different batches of MCA students

17 July 2020

Special issue published: "Knowledge Management Technologies in Education"

  • Satisfaction ranking of employers towards graduates from higher education institutions: an application of hybrid multiple criteria decision-making approach
  • An exploratory study of discrimination toward contract and private faculty teaching in engineering colleges of the border area of Gurdaspur, India
  • Multi-agent approach for collaborative authoring and indexing of pedagogical materials
  • Automatic generation of questions from DBpedia
  • Conceptual clustering of university graduate students' trajectories using formal concept analysis: a case study in Lebanon
  • Study on interactive teaching laboratory based on virtual reality
  • A comparative study based on OBE for different batches of MCA students

Research pick: How do you solve a problem like Pereira? - "Pereira problem solving"

How do you solve problems in the face of adversity? The question is perhaps oxymoronic or tautological given that a problem equates to adversity. So, we might as well ask how do you solve problems?

Leandro Ferreira Pereira of the Business Research Unit (BRU-IUL) at ISCTE and José Pedro Santos of Winning Scientific Management in Portugal, explain that one of the current challenges in organisations relates strongly to decision-making in adverse, uncertain, and complex environments. There are many formal approaches to problem solving that managers might use: the fishbone diagram, root cause analysis and five whys, for instance.

Pereira and Santos point out that most of them have significant limitations in how they assess a problem and its causes. As such the team has developed and tested “Pereira problem solving” and compared it with ad hoc approaches used in various organizations. The Pereira approach has a more mathematical stance in problem solving. The team explains that the study was preliminary in nature and utilized convenient samples to test the model. Future work will be broader and compare different business sectors, including energy, telecommunications, banking, and retail.

Pereira, L.F. and Santos, J.P. (2020) ‘Pereira problem solving’, Int. J. Learning and Change, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp.274–283.

16 July 2020

Special issue published: "Risk Mitigation and Management Strategies of Multinational Enterprises"

  • Sourcing arrangement of internal audit services: does it matter to the external auditors?
  • Assessment of market competition and financial stability of Takaful market in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia
  • Limitation factors of whistleblowing practices among public sector internal auditors in Malaysia: in-depth interview study
  • Risk management practices of transportation companies: practitioners' perspective
  • Interpersonal trust, opportunism and business performance: an empirical evidence of gem dealers in Sri Lanka
  • Attitude of construction workers toward labour safety
  • Agroforestry as a model of sustainable land use of small-scale private forest: a case study in Sumedang, West Java, Indonesia
  • Consumer adoption of mobile payments: a distinctive analysis between China and Malaysia
  • Why medical tourists must go to Malaysia!
  • Preventing major accidents - changing business as usual
  • How would business school students respond if they suspect the boss at work of white-collar crime?

Journal for International Business and Entrepreneurship Development to invite expanded papers from International Conference on Digitalisation as Vehicle for Innovation, Organizational Growth and Effectiveness (ICOBMIT-2020) for potential publication

Extended versions of papers presented at the International Conference on Digitalisation as Vehicle for Innovation, Organizational Growth and Effectiveness (ICOBMIT-2020) (19-20 December 2020, Prestige Institute of Management, Gwalior, (M.P), India) will be invited for review and potential publication by the Journal for International Business and Entrepreneurship Development.

Special issue published: "Strengthening Vocational Education Systems for the Disruptive Innovation Era"

  • Relevance of student productive skills competencies based on construction services needs
  • Education indicator evaluation of UI Green Metric of campus sustainability of Faculty of Engineering Universitas Negeri Semarang
  • Character learning model in hotel practice learning based on Minahasa local wisdom for students of Tourism Department
  • Standard competency gaps of vocational teachers
  • Implementation of welat inovasi (innovated welat) (Latino): as an entrepreneurial readiness for Beauty Education Study Program students
Additional papers
  • Determinants of students' entrepreneurial intention - a comparative study in Poland and Hong Kong
  • Determinants of university research and development outcomes - a study from faculty's perspectives
  • Influencing innovativeness of enterprises by selected HRM practices
  • Online newspapers in teaching reading in the English classroom at high school

Research pick: What’s that smell? - "A review on the use of air dispersion models for odour assessment"

Unpleasant odours are…well…unpleasant. Sometimes we have to endure the stench but legislation is beginning to recognise that people have a right to not be exposed when they are avoidable. This might apply in the context of the environment local to an industrial plant, water and sewage treatment works, refuse sites and other areas, including the workplace, shopping centres, and places of entertainment.

Maurizio Onofrio, Roberta Spataro, and Serena Botta of the Department of Environment, Land and Infrastructure Engineering (DIATI) at the Politecnico di Torino in Turin, Italy, have looked at the impact of odour in the International Journal of Environment and Pollution. The team points out that the type of odourant, human perception and sensitivity, as well as air dispersal, all affect how the issue of unpleasant odours might be addressed.

The team has specifically examined air dispersion models applied to odour impact assessment. They analysed 69 case studies published over the last decade or so and applied Gaussian modelling to examine and validate the experimental data. Their results show that the models are reliable but can be affected by critical issues, such as particular climate conditions, duration of averaging times and position of important receptors. However, if these factors are known and correctly managed, the models can be extremely useful.

Onofrio, M., Spataro, R. and Botta, S. (2020) ‘A review on the use of air dispersion models for odour assessment’, Int. J. Environment and Pollution, Vol. 67, No. 1, pp.1–21.

15 July 2020

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Materials and Product Technology

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Materials and Product Technology are now available here for free:
  • Influence of powder particles shape and size on the sintered austenitic stainless steel
  • A continuous straightening formulation based on minimum curvature variation
  • Experimental evaluation of magnetic abrasive finishing process with diamond abrasive
  • Deformation and fracture characteristics of complex Al-Si alloy during high speed forging under different processing conditions
  • Optimisation of friction stir processing parameters to fabricate AA6063/SiC surface composites using Taguchi technique
  • A predictive modelling of nanocomposite coating microhardness based on extremely randomised trees

Special issue published: "Sustainable Development and International Business"

  • Enshrined education rights: a three state comparison
  • The career women of Kabul and their struggle for an empowered identity
  • Sustainable development: perspectives from Canadian jurisprudence on First Nations' Aboriginal rights and title
  • Community development model for poverty eradication of indigenous people in Malaysia
  • Stakeholders' role in delivering sustainable supply chains in the construction sector

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

Research pick: Workers engage with the Internet of Things - "Study of enhancing employee engagement at workplace by adopting internet of things"

The concept of an Internet of Things, connected devices, sensors, controllers, and other equipment is rapidly evolving. It has certainly moved on apace since the early whimsical hyperbole surrounding an internet-connected coffee machine or the smart refrigerator. Indeed, the IoT is now pervading almost every business sector. Work published in the International Journal of Business and Systems Research has looked at how employees might become more engaged in IoT technology in the workplace.

Sumi Jha of the National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), in Mumbai and Preeti Khanna of the School of Business Management at SVKM’s NMIMS, also in Mumbai, India, write that “Employee engagement is pivotal to successful commercial and business performance, where engaged employees are the ‘backbone of good working environments where people are industrious, ethical and accountable’.”

The team has carried out an analysis of human resource management practices and IoT interventions in the context of employee engagement. They also show that in practice, organisations need to continuously realign work practices with IoT to improve employee engagement to the benefit of the various so-called stakeholders associated with that workplace and the business. However, the team’s research also suggests that improving IoT engagement and human resource practices may not be sufficient. “The current model indicates the entire roadmap needs to be redesigned to deal with perceptions from the management as well as the user’s perspective,” the team writes. The point out that the misuse of IoT in the workplace is an important issue that must be addressed.

“It is important to train employees in effective utilisation of IoT and reduce the need for constant monitoring,” the team concludes, “This will enhance employees’ faith in the system and so improve engagement further.”

Jha, S. and Khanna, P. (2020) ‘Study of enhancing employee engagement at workplace by adopting internet of things’, Int. J. Business and Systems Research, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp.341–361.

14 July 2020

Special issue published: "Parallel Computing Methodologies for E-Medicine"

  • Intelligent model for diabetic retinopathy diagnosis: a hybridised approach
  • An exhaustive study on the lung cancer risk models
  • Diagnosis of abdominal mass in ultrasound images using linear collaborative discriminant regression classification
  • An empirical study of the big data classification methodologies

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Business Competition and Growth

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Business Competition and Growth are now available here for free:
  • Non-performing assets and profitability of Indian banks: an econometric study
  • Epistemological perspectives in business research: an analytical review
  • Towards improving the planning and scheduling of construction projects in the UAE: a review of the human factor
  • Development of implementation strategies for offsite construction techniques in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
  • Value maximisation strategies for high-tech firms: managing growth across borders

Special issue published: "Advanced Powertrain Technologies for New Energy Vehicles: Modelling, Control and Optimisation"

  • Flash boiling hollow-cone fuel spray from a piezoelectric fuel injector under low ambient pressure
  • A comparative study of integral order and fractional order models for estimating state-of-charge of lithium-ion battery
  • Model-based electric traction drive resolver fault diagnosis for electrified vehicles
  • Optimal design of discrete-time fractional-order PID controller for idle speed control of an IC engine
  • Modelling and estimation of combustion variability for fast light-off of diesel aftertreatment
  • Life cycle assessment study for different options of sustainable mobility, including vehicle conversion
  • ANFIS-based hysteresis comparators with intelligent dual observer and speed controller of a direct torque control

Research pick: Simplifying smart security - "Home security alarm system for middle-aged people living alone"

Home security for people who have reached middle age and older is an important concern in China, according to the authors of new research published in the International Journal of Embedded Systems.

Guangyi Ma, Hui Xu, Xijie Zhou, and Wei Sun of the School of Automation at Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology explain how current systems are difficult to setup, costly, have high power consumption, and components that wear out rapidly. They have now designed an alternative that has low power dissipation, convenient operation, and high stability.

The team’s smart security device has standard master controllers to command a camera module, GSM/GPRS module, smoke sensors, flame sensors, and infrared sensors. They explain that the camera module captures live images of monitored areas, which can be transmitted to the user via the GSM module. ZigBee wireless technology is used instead of conventional Wi-Fi to keep power consumption down and reduce the risk of a security breach by a malicious third party.

“Compared with other security systems, the proposed program optimises the interface to make interaction operation easier for middle-aged and older users,” the team writes. Given that the population is “ageing”, there is an increased urgency for such systems that are easy to use and offer the requisite security for older people. This, the team suggests, is especially poignant for the younger generation who are the adult offspring of one-child families.

Ma, G., Xu, H, Zhou, X. and Sun, W. (2020) ‘Home security alarm system for middle-aged people living alone’, Int. J. Embedded Systems, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp.65–73.

International Journal of Green Economics to invite expanded papers from 15th Annual Green Economics Institute's Green Economics Conference for potential publication

Extended versions of papers presented at the 15th Annual Green Economics Institute's Green Economics Conference "Survival Solutions for the Crises: Climate, Economy and Biodiversity Loss" (24-26 July 2020, online on zoom platform) will be invited for review and potential publication by the International Journal of Green Economics.

13 July 2020

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Environment and Pollution

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Environment and Pollution are now available here for free:
  • Advanced algorithms for studying the impact of climate changes on ozone levels in the atmosphere
  • Assessment of fluoride hazard in groundwater of Palghat District, Kerala: a GIS approach
  • Applying WRF-CMAQ models for assessment of sulphur and nitrogen deposition in Bulgaria for the years 2016 and 2017
  • Global climate driven effects on urban air pollution simulations using very high spatial resolution
  • An approach for selection of solid waste disposal sites by rapid impact assessment matrix and environmental performance index analysis
  • The method of general heat treatment of waste water from metal manufacture based on photocatalysis
  • Analysis of regional climate model simulations for Central Europe as a potential tool to assess weather-related air quality conditions
  • Identification of dust transport patterns and sources by using MODIS: a technique developed to discriminate dust and clouds
  • On convergence of difference schemes for Dirichlet IBVP for two-dimensional quasilinear parabolic equations
  • Assaying SARIMA and generalised regularised regression for particulate matter PM10 modelling and forecasting
  • Current trends in nanotechnology for bioremediation
  • Urban areas parameterisation for CFD simulation and cities air quality analysis

10 July 2020

Free open access article available: "Platform-based sustainable business models: reducing food waste in food services"

The following paper, "Platform-based sustainable business models: reducing food waste in food services" (International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management
24(4/5) 2020), is freely available for download as an open access article.

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

Free open access article available: "Individual investors' satisfaction and loyalty in online securities trading using the technology acceptance model"

The following paper, "Individual investors' satisfaction and loyalty in online securities trading using the technology acceptance model" (International Journal of Management and Decision Making
 19(2) 2020), is freely available for download as an open access article.

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

Research pick: Reducing food waste - "Platform-based sustainable business models: reducing food waste in food services"

Might a platform-based business model be used in the food industry to reduce waste and improve sustainability? That’s the question a research team from Finland sets out to answer in the International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management.

Globally, one-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted, amounting to about 1.3 billion tonnes per year. Given that food waste also equates to wasted water, lost energy, and needless carbon emissions, and pollution. Indeed, the carbon footprint of food waste is about 4.4 million tones of carbon dioxide equivalent each year, which is almost as much as road transport emissions. We must find ways to drastically reduce this figure. Seemingly, it is consumers that contribute to the larger proportion of wasted food rather than it occurring on the side of production, transport, and retail. However, little information is available about food waste from restaurants, cafés, and canteens, and the catering and accommodation services, this alone could also be generating millions of tonnes of food waste.

Malla Mattila, Nina Mesiranta, and Anna Heikkinen of the Faculty of Management and Business at Tampere University explain how food waste is a growing challenge for companies in the food services sector hoping to improve their sustainability credentials. They have examined the research literature in the realm of business sustainability in the developed world and looked at sustainable business models and digital platforms, that might provide guidance for such companies. They specifically scrutinize two real-life business cases that provide digital services and show how they help food service companies to reduce their food waste. The benefits of sustainable business models are wrought in their scalability and attractiveness the team points out.

While the consumer side seems to be the bigger problem, supermarkets and other outlets generate vast tonnages of waste as products pass their “sell-by” dates. As such, there is a wide open niche for mobile device applications that connect consumers to products that are about to expire in a more effective way so that such stock might be purchased rather than it going to waste. However, applications at every step from farm and factory to retail to outlet or home could reduce waste, the research suggests.

Mattila, M., Mesiranta, N. and Heikkinen, A. (2020) ‘Platform-based sustainable business models: reducing food waste in food services’, Int. J. Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, Vol. 24, Nos. 4/5, pp.249–265.

9 July 2020

Special issue published: "Advancements in Mechatronics and Manufacturing Propelling Industry 4.0"

  • Interoperability of the future factory: an overview of concepts and research challenges
  • Robot-assisted painting system for bolt-nut pairs
  • An investigation of acceptance and e-readiness for the application of virtual reality and augmented reality technologies to maintenance training in the manufacturing industry
  • Preparing for Industry 4.0: digital business model innovation in the food and beverage industry
  • An industrial case study on discrete event modelling of value stream mapping for Industry 4.0

Special issue published: "Towards an Enriched, Linked, Open and Filtered Metadata Model"

  • The future of interlinked, interoperable and scalable metadata
  • Intermediary XML schemas: constraint, templating and interoperability in complex environments
  • Unique challenges facing Linked Data implementation for National Educational Television
  • Exploring the utility of metadata record graphs and network analysis for metadata quality evaluation and augmentation
  • From the web of bibliographic data to the web of bibliographic meaning: structuring, interlinking and validating ontologies on the semantic web
  • CMDIfication process for textbook resources
  • Citation content/context data as a source for research cooperation analysis
  • Extending the GLOBDEF framework with support for semantic enhancement of various data formats
  • Service traceability in SOA-based software systems: a traceability network add-in for BPAOntoSOA framework

Special issue published: "Biomedicine in Industry and Society"

  • Investigation of problems faced during capturing of gait signals
  • Improving the classifier accuracy with an integrated approach using medical data – a study
  • Wavelet packet transform-based medical image multiple watermarking with independent component analysis extraction
  • Novel feature extraction of EEG signal for accurate event detection
  • An amalgamated prediction model for breast cancer detection using fuzzy features
  • Optimised feature selection and entropy-based graph classification of gene expression data
  • EEG signal analysis and classification on P300 speller-based BCI performance in ALS patients
  • Novel multiphase contouring and force calculation algorithm for ROI detection and calculation of energy value in multiple scale and orientation for early detection of stages of breast cancer

Research pick: Avoiding malware on the move - "Android application security: detecting Android malware and evaluating anti-malware software"

Mobile devices are a fairly ubiquitous feature of our lives. Some would say that their huge and yet compact computing power has made life easier for millions of people by providing information, entertainment, and services at  a tap or a swipe. Of course, every technology has its abusers and our always-connected smartphones, tablets, and laptops are no different.

Writing in the International Journal of Internet Technology and Secured Transactions, researchers from India discuss the security measures available for mobile devices that utilize Google’s Android operating system. They suggest that the more open nature of Android and its applications ecosystem can in some sense make it more vulnerable to malware than the rather more closed and cloistered operating system used by devices manufactured by Apple. Indeed, evidence suggests that 97 percent of malware targets Android rather than any other operating system on mobile devices.

The team has analysed hundreds of Android apps from the official store and unofficial download repositories. They used applied permission-based and behavioural footprinting methods to detect malware. Shockingly, they demonstrated that almost 13 percent of the apps on the official Play store had some kind of malware. This figure was more than double at 28 percent for third-party stores.

Much malware discussed in the context of conventional desktop computing is associated with criminal activity such as harvesting bank details and logins, duplicating and spreading the malware further afield, and creating zombie computers. Zombie PCs not only propagate the malware further but they are recruited into a bot-net and provide the controllers with the computing power to manipulate large numbers of PCs for carrying out denial of service attacks on large corporate or governmental networks with malicious or hacktivist intent.

The team found that almost all of the malware in Android apps was created to steal personal information from the infected device and send it to a remote server. Given that even legitimate applications do this endlessly, it is difficult to see where the line is being drawn. Nobody wants their personal and private information stolen whether by a small third-party app or a major corporate organization such as a search engine or social media company.

As such, the team has also assessed a number of the most prominent apps aimed at precluding infection with mobile viruses and malware. Unfortunately, even the best antimalware apps tested could detect a mere seven of twelve different classes of malware found on Android systems. The underlying reason is that new, zero-day malware, is emerging all the time.

“There remains a need for efficient anti-malware software that accurately detects and avoids malware families,” the team writes.

Rani, S. and Dhindsa, K.S. (2020) ‘Android application security: detecting Android malware and evaluating anti-malware software’, Int. J. Internet Technology and Secured Transactions, Vol. 10, No. 4, pp.491–506.

Footnote

It is worth noting that one of the biggest manufacturers of Android phones, Samsung, recommends that its users do not install third-party antimalware apps. They point out that apps on the Play store are screened before being allowed through and that the screening technology is improving all the time. –dB/

8 July 2020

Special issue published: "Innovative Digital Business Models as Levers of Organisational Sustainability" (includes open access article)

  • Applying the circular economy to a business model: an illustrative case study of a pioneering energy company
  • Platform-based sustainable business models: reducing food waste in food services [Open Access article]
  • Show it with feeling: performed emotions in critical sensemaking
  • Dare to defy the challenges of online business
  • University spin-off managers and the 'ideal' funding process
  • Delighted niche driven entrepreneurial odyssey: a case study of Maharaja Masala Udyog
  • Network characteristics and the adoption of organisational innovation in the food sector
  • Examining conditions for successful entrepreneurship in China's firms
  • Comparison of online customer ratings between the eco-labelled and non-eco-labelled hotels of Oslo
  • Practices for building innovation capabilities of local employees at German manufacturing subsidiaries in China
  • The influence of innovation stimulus, facilitating factors and support mechanisms on innovation performance in Brazilian small textile firms

Special issue published: "Business and Social Issues in Mobile Environment"

  • Effect of information quality and system quality in information system success model as an antecedent of mobile learning in education institutions: case study in Jordan
  • Consumer perception towards corporate social responsibility practices: a study of the Malaysian banking sector
  • Mobile advergame: analysis of flow, attitudes and competitor trait as the moderating variable
  • The inclination to public disclosure of financial forecasts by companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange in times of mobile life
  • The impact of telework on creativity of professional employees in Sri Lanka: componential and social cognitive theoretical views
Additional papers
  • A comprehensive framework for designing and evaluating vocabulary learning apps from multiple perspectives
  • Implementation of flipped classroom with personalised ubiquitous learning support system to promote the university student performance of information literacy

Research pick: Pull up to the bumper - "Wooing the consumer in a six-second commercial! Measuring the efficacy of bumper advertisements on YouTube"

Is six-seconds long enough for an advertisement to woo a potential customer? The corporate executives who place short, “bumper ads” on the video-based social media service, Youtube, think so. Now, research published in the International Journal of Electronic Marketing and Retailing, shows what kind of content in bumper ads is most engaging for Youtube users. Ultimately, the insights could help guide advertisers hoping to improve brand awareness and consumer attitude towards a product, and ultimately increase sales.

Youtube introduced this ad format in 2016. Bumper ads are there to boost an advertiser’s reach and allow them to deliver a short, but hopefully memorable message to their potential customers. Critically, although bumper ads are of an incredibly limited duration set by Youtube, they are also unskippable, so viewers hoping to watch user-generated content on the site are commonly forced to wait until the bumper ad runs before they can do so. Whether they choose to stare at the screen and absorb the ad is a moot point. Most users are unlikely to turn away knowing that an ad is going to be so short and will thus be exposed to the message within, as is the intention of the advertiser.

Jay P. Trivedi, Siddharth Deshmukh, and Amit Kishore of MICA in Gujarat, India, based their findings on data collected from almost 300 Youtube users analysed in detail with various statistical techniques.

“Video advertising is seeing an upswing in ad spends, and advertisers need to understand the strengths and limitations of each video ad format. This work is arguably the first academic research done to understand the type of content which can work for bumper ads,” the team writes. They suggest that it is particularly pertinent to Generation-Y consumers in the emerging market of India. Gen-Y is usually defined as the “millennial generation”, people who were born between the early 1980s and early2000s.

Fundamentally, the team found that bumper ads do not lead directly to sales, but if they are able to convey the core message and involve the consumer, then they may drive sales later. “Advertisers can draw from [our results] and plan to convey the message by increased frequency of bumper ads or by placing them across multiple video genres to involve viewers more.”

Trivedi, J.P., Deshmukh, S. and Kishore, A. (2020) ‘Wooing the consumer in a six-second commercial! Measuring the efficacy of bumper advertisements on YouTube’, Int. J. Electronic Marketing and Retailing, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp.307–322.

Special issue published: "Computer-Aided Intelligent Systems"

  • Optimised RBIDS: detection and avoidance of black hole attack through NTN communication in mobile ad hoc networks
  • A new parallel DSP hardware compatible algorithm for noise reduction and contrast enhancement in video sequence using Zynq-7020
  • HDFS-based parallel and scalable pattern mining using clouds for incremental data
  • Double-pulse stand-off explosive vapour detection system for flexible perilous materials
  • An efficient packet image transmission based on texture content for border side security using sensor networks
  • Hybrid data model of PACE and quadruple: an efficient data model for cloud computing
  • Enhancing performance of WSN by utilising secure QoS-based explicit routing
  • A semi-automated system for smart harvesting of tea leaves
  • Hybrid wind-solar system – an optimised approach for efficient power generation
  • PV control systems using iterated local search MPPT with an improved switched capacitor DC-DC converter
  • Artificial intelligent technology for safe driver assistance system
  • Proposed variants of charged system search algorithm for location area optimisation in mobile wireless communication networks
  • Hidden object detection for classification of threat
  • Deep learning-based techniques to enhance the precision of phrase-based statistical machine translation system for Indian languages
  • PID controller tuning using hybrid optimisation technique based on Box's evolutionary optimisation and teacher-learner-based-optimisation

7 July 2020

Special issue published: "Advanced Security Mechanisms for Future Internet"

  • A novel GAAC optimisation algorithm for multimodal fusion score decision making in secured biometric systems
  • Study of LDPC decoders with quadratic residue sequence for communication system
  • Static analysis method for detecting cross site scripting vulnerabilities
  • An energy efficient authentication scheme based on hierarchical IBDS and EIBDS in grid-based wireless sensor networks
  • Developing malevolent node-based protection system against jamming attack in agent assisted CRN
  • An efficient interior and exterior boundary detection-based two level iris segmentation
  • An improved co-designed AES-ECC cryptosystem for secure data transmission

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Intelligent Information and Database Systems

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Intelligent Information and Database Systems are now available here for free:
  • Study on the optimisation ability of natural selection mechanism
  • A novel particle swarms with mixed cooperative co-evolution for large scale global optimisation
  • A new quantum evolutionary algorithm using dynamic rotation angle catastrophe for knapsack problem
  • Outlier detection based on cluster outlier factor and mutual density
  • Applying distance sorting selection in differential evolution
  • Ant colony optimisation with local search for the bandwidth minimisation problem on graphs
  • Hybrid fireworks algorithm with differential evolution operator
  • Inventory routing optimisation using differential evolution with feasibility checking and local search
  • Solve the IRP problem with an improved discrete differential evolution algorithm
  • Object tracking using the particle filter optimised by the improved artificial fish swarm algorithm

Research pick: Securing the smart home - "SmartGuard: an IoT-based intrusion detection system for smart homes"

So…you’ve built your smart home, it’s got smart heating and lighting, all the latest smart communications and entertainment systems, and of course, smart power generation to make it smart and green. But, how do you keep it secure and stop forced digital or physical entry? Well, you need smart security too, of course.

Writing in the International Journal of Intelligent Information and Database Systems, a team from India discusses how the sensor-enabled internet of things (IoT) has improved many aspects of daily life and how the same tools and devices might be used to make us safer and more secure too.

Nishtha Kesswani of the Department of Computer Science at the Central University of Rajasthan, in BandarSindri, Ajmer and Basant Agarwal of the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, at the Indian Institute of Information Technology Kota (IIIT Kota), MNIT Campus, in Jaipur, describe their approach to digital security for the smart home.

“We present an intrusion detection system, SmartGuard that can be deployed in the smart home,” they write. “The system would be able to detect malicious behaviour within the [home] network as well as any malicious communications from outside.” Obviously, a hacker who can break into a smart home’s network would easily be able to override security features, such as lights and electronic locking systems.

“In order to reduce the overhead on the energy-constrained IoT devices, a cluster-based approach has been used,” the team explains. “The proposed approach will be a smart choice in today’s smart homes full of vulnerabilities,” the team concludes.

Kesswani, N. and Agarwal, B. (2020) ‘SmartGuard: an IoT-based intrusion detection system for smart homes’, Int. J. Intelligent Information and Database Systems, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp.61–71.

Special issue published: "Recent Developments in Environmental Sustainability"

  • Population ageing and energy consumption for sustainable development
  • Staircase evacuation for public multi-storey housing in Malaysia
  • Are environmentally responsible behaviours shaped by environmental facilitating conditions and antecedent of attitudes? The case of Perak in Malaysia
  • Applying low carbon landscapes at the Premier Polytechnic of Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah, Shah Alam, Malaysia
  • A comparative requirement of space design: green and open space analysis
  • Factors influencing the adoption of sustainability into university facilities management practices: a case study of universities in South Australia
  • Occupants' satisfaction towards interior design quality at inpatient units of public hospitals in Malaysia: a sustainable development framework

New Editor for International Journal of Reliability and Safety

Prof. Om Prakash Yadav from North Dakota University in the USA has been appointed to take over editorship of the International Journal of Reliability and Safety. The journal's founding editor, Prof. Zissimos Mourelatos of Oakland University, USA, will remain on the board as Executive Editor.

6 July 2020

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Mechatronics and Automation

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Mechatronics and Automation are now available here for free:
  • Methodology for manipulation of Karnaugh maps designing for pneumatic sequential logic circuits
  • Dynamic gait planning for walking assistance
  • Adaptive controllers for a piezoelectric actuator without and with discontinuity
  • A projection-based making-human-feel-safe human-robot cooperation system
  • Radiation effect on the performance of robot manipulator
  • Real-time path planning algorithm for autonomous vehicles in unknown environments

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Teaching and Case Studies

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Teaching and Case Studies are now available here for free:
  • Addicted to quality - an application of strategic organisational instrument to win the Transformation Event Award
  • Valuation perspectives of family-owned real-estate companies in Saudi Arabia
  • Leadership skills, styles, characteristics and behaviours of Mohammed Lalle
  • Evaluating the efficiency of two programming environments in shaping novices' attitudes, perceptions, beliefs and knowledge in programming: a comparison between Scratch and App Inventor
  • Economic growth and reduced carbon emissions: the impact of carbon pricing policies
  • How to develop cognitive skills through playing in pre-school contexts

3 July 2020

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Technoentrepreneurship

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Technoentrepreneurship are now available here for free:
  • Strategic use of corporate and scientific boards in the internationalisation of biotech firms
  • Technology entrepreneurship model development for teachers
  • Technological learning and innovation systems in developing countries: the example of Dubai
  • Knowledge integration within innovation process: a technopreneurial perspective
  • Challenges of consumer-based innovations and start-ups in ICT business

Special issue published: "Theory and Applications of Correspondence Analysis and Classification"

  • Comparison of hierarchical clustering methods for binary data from molecular markers
  • Assessment of the awareness of Cypriot accounting firms level concerning cyber risk: an exploratory analysis
  • Sequential dimension reduction and clustering of mixed-type data
  • A comparative evaluation of dissimilarity-based and model-based clustering in science education research: the case of children's mental models of the Earth
  • Implementation of an efficient FPGA architecture for capsule endoscopy processor core using hyper analytic wavelet-based image compression technique

Research pick: Freedom versus terrorism - "The urgency of media coverage arrangements regarding terrorism"

We all know terrorism when we see it or so we would hope, although it take many disparate forms. One aspect of the response is the media coverage of such happenings. Writing in the International Journal of Human Rights and Constitutional Studies, a team from Indonesia discusses the urgency of media coverage of terrorism.

Wenly Lolong and Adensi Timomor of the Department of Law at the Universitas Negeri Manado, suggest that the very nature of terrorism feeds on media coverage. However, while people have a right to be informed of what is happening locally and on a global scale, the team suggests that in Indonesia there is a need for regulation to avoid promoting the terrorist cause through discussion in the media.

The researchers suggest that media coverage perpetuates terrorism by providing a platform for the perpetrators to share their tragic world view through violence. The greater the media coverage, the more likely a new recruit to the cause might be found whether they act as a so-called “lone wolf” or become part of a large terrorist “organization”. Either way, new criminality is generated by the activity of the mass media, the team suggests.

In their research, they explore the reasons that the media covers terrorist activity in the first place and how this coverage might be regulated without impeding the public’s guarantee of the right to information and press freedom.

“The right of information must not be above the right to live safely and peacefully in the country,” the team concludes.

Lolong, W.R.J. and Timomor, A. (2020) ‘The urgency of media coverage arrangements regarding terrorism’, Int. J. Human Rights and Constitutional Studies, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp.138–148.

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Sustainable Aviation

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Sustainable Aviation are now available here for free:
  • The role of integration in achieving sustainable benefits from airline alliances
  • Cultural and political attitudes towards paying to support airport sustainability projects
  • Effect of different weightage of Enova® IC3100 silica aerogel on aluminium alloy composites in ISO2685 aviation standard fire-test
  • A simplistic flight model for exergy embodiment of composite materials towards nearly-zero exergy aviation
  • Robust planning the landing process of unmanned aerial vehicles

Research pick: Voting by blockchain – a stronger link - "Advocating for a blockchain voting system in the USA"

The term “blockchain” is familiar to anyone who has delved into so-called cryptocurrency. It represents an incorruptible digital ledger of transactions associated with a given digital coin in this technology. However, the notion of such a ledger might be useful in a whole range of human affairs, such as electoral and other voting systems. Work published in the International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning, suggests that a blockchain might be viable in the US voting system.

Khaled Zayed and Rebekah Placide of the International School of Management in Paris, France, explain that blockchain technology could be used to build “a secure, efficient, and smart voting system”. Used in conjunction with biometric technology, such a system would be far less open to abuse or electoral fraud of any kind. The US has four voting methods commonly used at the moment: optical scan paper ballot systems, direct recording electronic systems, ballot marking systems, and punch-card ballot. Each of those voting methods has its own pros and cons and is open to significant abuse as has been seen in at least one recent election. In essence, the team writes, “The current US voting system is antiquated and in desperate need of a technological and legal overhaul.”

In addition, the current voting machines are in a state of crisis. “They run the risk of malfunctioning, lost votes, shutdowns, and incorrect tallies,” the team adds. “The inability to maintain and purchase parts for these aging machines is of an even greater burden for election administrators in many jurisdictions.”

The team further explains how blockchain technology could fix the voting system in a single step, eradicating many of the problems associated with archaic systems and bringing to bear the benefits of the digital realm on an ancient system.

“Blockchain technology was developed to create security, trust, transparency, and efficiency in communications and business transactions,” the team says. “Blockchain allows a recording and transfer of data that can be audited and transmitted safely and more importantly it is resistant to outages. A list of records called blocks linked together using cryptography for secure communication. With blockchain technology, digital information can be distributed but not copied over.”

Such positive characteristics, when applied to a voting system, could be used for voter registration, identity verification, and electronic vote counting. This would ensure that only legitimate votes are counted and the creation of such a ledger of public votes would represent a step towards a fairer, entirely transparent, and fundamentally more democratic election system.

Zayed, K. and Placide, R. (2020) ‘Advocating for a blockchain voting system in the USA’, Int. J. Technology Enhanced Learning, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp.306–315.

2 July 2020

1 July 2020

Special issue published: "Computational Approaches in Biology and Medicine"

  • Comparative in-silico parmacokinetics and molecular docking study on gedunin isolated from Azadirachta indica, its modified derivatives and selected antifolate drugs as potential dihydrofolate reductase inhibitors of Plasmodium falciparum
  • Exploring the antineoplastic effect of phytochemicals from Ipomea sepiaria against matrix metallopeptidases: a pharmacoinformatics approach
  • Inter k-shell connectivity: a novel computational approach to identify drug targets
  • In-silico analysis of peptidoglycan hydrolases from Serratia marcescens and other Serratia species
  • PPI network analysis of diabetic retinopathy genes
  • A review on iris recognition system for person identification
  • In silico approach for the prediction of functional nsSNPs in WIF1 gene of WNT pathway

Special issue published: "Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: Issues, Trends and Challenges"

  • Linking sustainable development to startup ecosystem in India - a conceptual framework
  • Impact of digitisation on entrepreneurial ecosystems: an Indian perspective
  • Awareness, entrepreneurial event theory and theory of planned behaviour as antecedents of student entrepreneurial intentions: an Indian perspective
  • Psychological empowerment and entrepreneurship: insights from Indian corporate
  • A conceptual framework for entrepreneurial orientation: is philanthropy missing in family business?
  • Celebrity entrepreneurship and advertising effectiveness: an empirical test
  • Identification of factors for the success of the Sri Lankan independent inventors

Special issue published: "Theoretical Advances and Applications of Computational Intelligence"

  • Intelligent system for feature selection based on rough set and chaotic binary grey wolf optimisation
  • Time-sensitive clustering evolving textual data streams
  • An efficient binary whale optimisation algorithm with optimum path forest for feature selection
  • An implementation method for Arabic keyword tendency using decision tree
  • A multi-functional BCI system for exigency assistance and environment control based on ML and IoT
  • Arabian horse identification based on whale optimised multi-class support vector machine
  • Intelligent approach for large-scale data mining
  • Multi-dimensional data visualisation method based on convex-corrected Radviz
  • Smart grid resources allocation using smart genetic heuristic
  • A hybrid collaborative filtering recommendation algorithm for requirements elicitation
  • A new four-dimensional two-scroll hyperchaos dynamical system with no rest point, bifurcation analysis, multi-stability, circuit simulation and FPGA design
  • Inland river image dehazing algorithm based on water surface depth prior

Research pick: Phytochemicals to fight cancer - "Exploring the antineoplastic effect of phytochemicals from Ipomea sepiaria against matrix metallopeptidases: a pharmacoinformatics approach"

Phytochemicals from the plant Ipomea sepiaria may be useful in the fight against cancer according to a pharmacoinformatics study published in the International Journal of Computational Biology and Drug Design. The research undertook “in silico”, computer-based, studies of the various chemicals found in this species against a range of enzymes known as metallopeptidases. Inhibiting the activity of these enzymes found in cancer cells could impede the replication of those cancer cells and potentially halt tumour growth in its tracks.

Thousands of plants contain natural products, chemicals that have physiological activity. Indeed, around 40 percent of modern pharmaceuticals had their roots in botanical natural products. The convolvulus plant species, I. sepiaria, is well known as a component of Ayurvedic medicine in the form of Lakshmana used as a laxative. It is purported to act as an antidote to arsenic poisoning and also be an aphrodisiac, although solid randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials are not yet forthcoming for many of the claims around this plant’s medicinal properties.

S.S. Ariya and Baby Joseph of the Hindustan Institute of Technology and Science, in Chennai, India, and Jemmy Christy of the Sathyabama Institute of Technology and Science, also in Chennai, point out that cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide. As such, the development of anticancer and antineoplastic drugs is high on the pharmaceutical industry’s agenda. The team has now screened 247 phytochemicals identified in I. sepiaria against their enzyme computer model.

The screen showed that eight chemicals, tetradecanoic acid, nerolidol, ipomeanine, dibutyl phthalate, cis-caffeic acid, caffeic acid, moupinamide, and N-cis-feruloyltyramine were active against the target enzymes and so might be further explored as potential anticancer drugs. Moreover, these compounds performed better in the tests than four different drugs currently available in the cancer therapy arsenal. Of course, the next step is to take the “in silico” results to the laboratory testing, in vitro, stage and then to animal testing and finally human trials. The compounds are promising, but as ever with drug development, the path from discovery to market is long and tortuous.

It should be noted that while there may be physiological activity in the folklore remedy of Lakshmana, its use is no substitute for a medical consultation with an oncologist when cancer arises and the adherence to proven therapies for the best prognosis for the patient.

Ariya, S.S., Joseph, B. and Christy, J. (2020) ‘Exploring the antineoplastic effect of phytochemicals from Ipomea sepiaria against matrix metallopeptidases: a pharmacoinformatics approach’, Int. J. Computational Biology and Drug Design, Vol. 13, No. 3, pp.255–271.