Research pick: Radio astronomy on a budget - "Multi-location anywhere astronomy paradigm"

When money is tight, an astronomer’s eye may well alight on a local disused satellite TV station as a possible option to be co-opted as part of a radio telescope array. However, there are rather a limited number of such installations around.

Now, researchers from Nigeria, South Africa, and Namibia writing in the International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing, discuss the possibility of instead utilising active satellite TV technology equipment.

They point out a collaborative effort to improve astronomy would have the benefit of broadening access to free-to-air satellite TV for the public and would be a boon to astronomers and TV watchers in the developing world alike. Given that many users are already moving away from satellite TV to streaming-based entertainment there could well be spare capacity in those still-active satellite TV earth stations.

The new approach is discussed by A.A. Periola of the Department of Electrical, Electronics and Computer Engineering at Bells University of Technology, in Nigeria, L.A. Akinyemi of the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and S. Sesham of the Department of Electronics and Computer Engineering at the University of Namibia.

Periola, A.A., Akinyemi, L.A. and Sesham, S. (2020) ‘Multi-location anywhere astronomy paradigm’, Int. J. Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing, Vol. 35, No. 1, pp.1–16.

Research pick: Virtual doctors - "Physicians social capital aids their medical decisions when they virtually share knowledge"

One might imagine that the virtualisation of many areas of life, especially in the present pandemic climate would have led to a boost to in efficiency of knowledge sharing and thus an improvement in many areas of human endeavour. This may ultimately prove to be true. In a study published in the International Journal of Knowledge Management Studies, researchers have found that the benefits of how knowledge sharing might benefit physicians in terms of improving their diagnoses and reducing medical errors are not yet widely understood by physicians.

Anjum Razzaque of Ahlia University in Manama, Bahrain and Tillal Eldabi of the University of Surrey, UK, explain how a physician’s social capital may remedy this situation by promoting the benefits to the individual, to other physicians, and to their patients.

The team asserts that this is the first study of its kind, holistically assessing the role of social capital theory, knowledge sharing, and decision making of physicians who are members of a virtual community. Ultimately, physicians need to trust the virtual community and the concept of knowledge sharing. For such a virtualised environment to work they perhaps also need to understand each other’s social capital and to have confidence in that too.

Razzaque, A. and Eldabi, T. (2020) ‘Physicians social capital aids their medical decisions when they virtually share knowledge’, Int. J. Knowledge Management Studies, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp.229–257.

Free sample articles newly available from Journal for Global Business Advancement

The following sample articles from the Journal for Global Business Advancement are now available here for free:

• Adoption of One Belt and One Road initiative by Oman: lessons from the East
• Twitter analysis of founders of top 25 Indian startups
• The impact of product diversification and capital structure on firm performance: evidence from Vietnamese manufacturing enterprises
• External barriers facing internationalising sharing economy companies: a study of European and American sharecoms
• What are the outcomes of emerging markets mergers and acquisitions? Evidence from Turkey
• Establishing a highly competitive university: a strategic management perspective

Research pick: Reducing windpower’s bad vibes - "Vibration control of wind turbines: recent advances and emerging trends"

Windpower has come to the fore as a major source of renewable energy, with “turbine farms” springing up across the land and across the oceans. Of course, any new technology has its problems and its detractors, but technological problems might be addressed in a way that other concerns might not. Writing in the International Journal of Sustainable Materials and Structural Systems, engineers from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, discuss one of those technological challenges – vibration control.

Breiffni Fitzgerald and Biswajit Basu explain that demand for windpower and so turbines is soaring. But, any new installation must also have efficiency and longevity so that the payback in terms of manufacturing, installation materials and energy is short. The problem of vibration can lead to reduced efficiency and premature failure, both of which can counteract the benefits of installing any wind turbine in the first place and extend payback time and increase waste and losses.

The team has reviewed theoretical and experimental work in this area and focused on passive, semi-active, and active control schemes. They also discuss the development of bespoke auxiliary damping systems and the state-of-the-art in turbine control algorithms that can utilise the extant hardware that controls turbine pitch, generator torque, and yaw control. Passive physical dampening can reduce vibration by up to 50 percent in some of the latest systems, the team writes. By contrast, newer active tendons and other hardware have been shown in some instances to reduce vibration by up to 65 percent.

They point out that those parts of the industry surveyed in their literature review have not been quick to adopt more active and algorithmically controlled vibration control. If adopted soon, such technology might boost those vibration control percentages still further leading to more efficient turbines that have a longer lifespan in the future.

Fitzgerald, B. and Basu, B. (2020) ‘Vibration control of wind turbines: recent advances and emerging trends’, Int. J. Sustainable Materials and Structural Systems, Vol. 4, Nos. 2/3/4, pp.347–372.

International Journal of Services and Standards to invite expanded papers from its 2021 Qingdao conference for potential publication

Extended versions of papers presented at the International Journal of Services and Standards Conference 2021 - Qingdao (Conference Theme: "A Cultural Perspective of Technology-enhanced Judgment and Decision-making"; 2-3 August 2021, Qingdao University, Qingdao, China) will be invited for review and potential publication by the International Journal of Services and Standards.

Special issue published: "Organisational Stakeholder Fairness and Equitable Treatment"

Journal for Global Business Advancement 13(1) 2020

• Assessing the implementation of serialisation in pharmaceutical industry in Greece: a qualitative approach
• Examining the role of internal communication and employee engagement in Cyprus-based medium-sized organisations in times of challenging strategic changes
• Website words matter: an analysis of business schools' online brand personalities
• A model of duopolistic patent contest with private provisions of industry collective goods
• Barriers to change implementation process by public and private organisations in Saudi Arabia
• Employee retention during Cooperative banks' mergers and acquisitions

Research pick: What are words worth to business schools? - "Website words matter: an analysis of business schools"

Business schools at public universities signalled competence with their websites while private universities demonstrated excitement and sincerity, according to a new content analysis by researchers in the USA discussed in the Journal of Global Business Advancement.

Blake Frank, Sri Beldona, and Scott Wysong of the University of Dallas, in Irving, Texas, USA, have investigated how a business school website informs putative students about what might be referred to as the school’s brand personality. They used an analytical approach that extracted words from website content from business school websites and showed how a dictionary-based approach to identifying brand personality is a successful approach. As well as the difference between private and public business schools, the team also found that those establishments with higher enrolment numbers also portrayed themselves as more competent, while those with a smaller rollcall described themselves as being more sincere.

The team explains why their findings are important:

“Business schools today must continually fight for market share. With lower barriers to entry, there has been a burgeoning of online programs around the world,” they explain, they quote fellow researchers in adding that “Increasing competition between universities heightens the need for institutions to understand, manage, and leverage a strong brand position.”

They suggest that for a business school to simply list the requirements of its courses, application deadlines, and other functional information is no longer sufficient. “Prospective students want to know why they should choose a particular business school or program over the others they are considering,” they add. “Business schools have to make a strong case.”

They conclude that business schools need to look closely at the words they use on their websites and must ensure that the content meshes with the brand personality they hope to communicate that they might encourage the prospective students they hope to enrol from around the world.

Frank, B., Beldona, S. and Wysong, S. (2020) ‘Website words matter: an analysis of business schools’ online brand personalities’, J. Global Business Advancement, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp.53–69.

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

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Computational Systems Engineering are now available here for free:

• Performance analysis and evaluation of software defined networking distributed controllers in datacentre networks
• Image style transfer using convolutional neural networks based on transfer learning
• A survey on word embedding techniques and semantic similarity for paraphrase identification
• Hybrid converter for electric vehicle battery charging with power quality features
• SVM classification of brain images from MRI scans using morphological transformation and GLCM texture features
• Pipel: exploiting resource reorganisation to optimise performance of pipeline-structured applications in the cloud

Research pick: Deep space mine - "Resources in space and asteroid mining: where we are and which challenges should be expected"

Many resources essential to the technology on which we depend are dwindling or are increasingly inaccessible to certain nations for geopolitical reasons. A case in point is that several of the rare metallic elements that are needed to construct the components of modern electronic devices such as smartphones and tablet PCs, fuel cells, rechargeable batteries, photovoltaic systems, and other technology are by definition low in abundance.

Moreover, such elements are often critical in the design of such devices and there are no synthetic alternatives as there might be if one were to substitute for other natural materials such as wood, where organic polymers might do the job just as well, if not better.

With this in mind, research published in the International Journal of Technology Management discusses the issue of whether we might undertake mining operations on an asteroid that comes into the Earth’s purview.

José Antonio Peña-Ramos of the Universidad Autónoma de Chile and the Universidad de Granada, Spain, and Fernando Rafael Ramírez-de Luis of the Universidad Pablo de Olavide, in Seville, Spain, ask whether the “scramble for space is a realistic possibility in the short-term or whether it is another dystopian exaggeration doomed to oblivion".

They look at the current state-of-the-art technology that would be needed to putatively mine an asteroid and point out that it is far too immature to be at all viable. They discuss whether there is adequate regulation in this notional industry, and of course, there isn’t, with some states suggesting it should be a unilateral decision and others looking for international rules and regulations. There are also many who might be involved and large amounts of money to be made and so the stakes will inevitably be high and given our track record when it comes to land grabs and goldrushes, space mining may well lead to serious conflict between the corporations and inevitably the nation states involved in such endeavours.

Peña-Ramos, J.A. and Ramírez-de Luis, F.R. (2020) ‘Resources in space and asteroid mining: where we are and which challenges should be expected’, Int. J. Technology Management, Vol. 82, Nos. 3/4, pp.197–205.

Special issue published: "Smart Structures, Structural Control and Health Monitoring – A Special Issue in Honour of Professor Fabio Casciati and Professor Lucia Faravelli"

International Journal of Sustainable Materials and Structural Systems 4(2/3/4) 2020

• State-of-the-art: shape memory alloys for monumental consolidation and base isolation
• Intrinsic differences between thinner and thicker wires in NiTi SMA
• Optimal thickness of a spherical shell subjected to double-sided corrosion
• Experimental study of structural change detection using data-driven reduced-order models
• Application of vibration-based damage detection algorithms to experimental data from multi-storey steel structures
• Design of a new wireless data acquisition system for civil structural monitoring
• Condition assessment of a supertall structure by an improved Hilbert-Huang transform and empirical mode decomposition method
• Structural health monitoring of in-service tunnels
• Automatic detection and damage quantification of multiple cracks on concrete surface from video
• Ground-penetrating radar investigation for the restoration of Al-Azhar historical minarets
• Identification of indicators, metrics and level of service for the resilience of transport critical infrastructure
• Vibration control of wind turbines: recent advances and emerging trends

Research pick: Blockchain Pet Adoptions - "Adoption of pets in distributed network using blockchain technology"

The blockchain concept underpins digital currencies, such as BitCoin. It acts as a distributed register that holds all transactions of the currency in an encrypted and immutable table. The technology is not limited to cryptocurrencies though, there are many other applications that might benefit from such as secure information system. Writing in the  International Journal of Blockchains and Cryptocurrencies, a team from India explain how a blockchain might be used in pet adoption.

The team from the Computer Science and Engineering Department at Vidyavardhaka College of Engineering, in Mysuru, explain that a blockchain can store transaction details associated with a given pet, its previous owners and the people adopting the animal. In addition, other details can be retrieved by using a hash value including the financial transaction that will have facilitated the adoption process, as it were.

The team concludes that their approach is far more secure than centralised systems and precludes “spoofing” whereby a malicious third party might intervene in a transaction and either remove funds from an account illegally or perhaps even still the pet to be adopted.

Gururaj, H.L., Manoj, A.A., Kumar, A.A., Nagarajath, S.M. and Ravi Kumar, V. (2020) ‘Adoption of pets in distributed network using blockchain technology’, Int. J. Blockchains and Cryptocurrencies, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp.107–120.

Research pick: Detecting epilepsy with entropy - "Epileptic seizure detection in EEG using improved entropy"

Epilepsy is a chronic neurological disorder wherein abnormal firing of neurons in the brain leads to seizures. It can abruptly disrupt the health and life of those people it affects. Its diagnosis can limit certain aspects of everyday life particularly if not fully treated. People with the condition, for instance, are often precluded from driving or operating hazardous machinery to reduce the risk of injury and harm should they have a seizure while doing so. Seizures are commonly associated with loss of consciousness and severe muscle spasms.

A new, non-invasive, approach to epilepsy detection is reported in the International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology that uses a fuzzy entropy algorithm to examine electroencephalograms (EEG). This algorithm abstracts all of the features of the EEG trace, these features are then fed to an artificial neural network trained on known epilepsy EEG traces. The system can very effectively differentiate between brain patterns in the patient during periods of seizure and normal periods.

Gini, A.T.P. and Queen, M.P.F. (2020) ‘Epileptic seizure detection in EEG using improved entropy’, Int. J. Biomedical Engineering and Technology, Vol. 33, No. 4, pp.325–345.

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Modelling, Identification and Control

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Modelling, Identification and Control are now available here for free:

• Improving the performance of medical robotic system using H∞ loop shaping robust controller
• Hybrid ANFIS-ant colony based optimisation for quadrotor trajectory tracking control
• A novel sliding mode composite control design for fast time performance of quadrotor UAV
• Backstepping controller design with a quadratic error for a double inverted pendulum
• Fractal, chaos and neural networks in path generation of mobile robot

Additional papers

• Neumann boundary geometric control of a fractional diffusion process
• Kalman filtering linear quadratic regulator for artificial pancreas in type-I diabetes patient

Free open access article available: "Blockchain-based federated identity and auditing"

 The following paper, "Blockchain-based federated identity and auditing" (International Journal of Blockchains and Cryptocurrencies 1(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: Keep taking the tablets - "Understanding technology transition: a cross-cultural study on the transition from PCs to tablet computers"

New research published in the International Journal of Technology Management, shows how people make the technology transition from one type of device to another following a period of using both classes of device in parallel. For example, many users have a personal computer as well as a tablet computer, but at some point a lot of those people will abandon the PC in favour of the more portable and agile tablet, foregoing some of the benefits of a PC that may well have become legacy features once they are fully embedded in the tablet realm.

Rahul Thakurta of the Xavier University Bhubaneswar and Anamitra Basu Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) both in Bhubaneswar, India,  and Nils Urbach of the University of Bayreuth, Germany, have looked at the motivation for technology transition in their two countries.

The team has observed a behavioural phenomenon as analysed using social psychology where many users have made a complete transition at least for private, as opposed to business use, of a tablet over PC or laptop. Of course, there are hybrid devices, such as touchscreen laptops that can be separated into screen and base so that the screen becomes a standalone tablet without a physical keyboard for ease of portability in some circumstances.

“Our model was able to explain roughly 58% variance in desire towards transition in Germany, and about 50% variance in desire towards transition in India, which are considered significant. These results establish the importance of the different antecedents in understanding technology transition at an individual level,” the team writes.

Thakurta, R., Urbach, N. and Basu, A. (2020) ‘Understanding technology transition: a cross-cultural study on the transition from PCs to tablet computers’, Int. J. Technology Management, Vol. 82, Nos. 3/4, pp.276–321.

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Lifecycle Performance Engineering

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Lifecycle Performance Engineering are now available here for free:

• A parametric study of bridge load effect under stochastic vehicular load
• Fractal signal processing method of acoustic emission monitoring for seismic damage of concrete columns
• Multi-scale finite element model validation method of cable-stayed bridge based on the support vector regression
• An efficient method for Bayesian system identification based on Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation
• Operational modal analysis and Bayesian model updating of a standing seam metal roofing system

Research pick: Coffeeshop compatibility - "Effect of staff appearance on customer satisfaction and revisit intention"

A study of customers of coffee shops in the Republic of Korea suggests that they would willingly revisit the same outlet if the staff have an attractive and well-dressed appearance. Whereas they often feel less satisfied by their experience if the staff are not and a second visit to the same establishment is then unlikely, according to research published in the International Journal of Services, Economics and Management.

In the hospitality industry, staff interactions with consumers are crucial to operations and influence consumer satisfaction revisit intention. Now, Byoungho Lee and Jinkyung Choi of Woosong University, in Daejeon, South Korea, surveyed coffee shop customers with respect to perceptions and attitudes. Whereas there have been numerous studies of attractiveness and customer service in other settings, coffee shops per se have not been a focus of many studies. The team’s findings could help coffee shop owners or managers improve consumer satisfaction by influencing perceived attitudes toward the appearance of staff and their clothes or uniform.

The team emphasizes that the attractiveness to customers of service personnel in this environment may not be solely about facial attractiveness, but their personal grooming, overall demeanour, and attitude as well as how smartly dressed they are and how well-kempt their uniform. The findings perhaps offer a new definition of attractiveness in terms of staff appearance and uniforms in cafes and restaurants and could help guide management to improve the customer experience by their guiding service staff.

Lee, B. and Choi, J. (2020) ‘Effect of staff appearance on customer satisfaction and revisit intention’, Int. J. Services, Economics and Management, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp.119–136.

Research pick: Encrypting images chaotically - "Artificial neural network based image encryption technique"

An artificial neural network approach to image encryption offers many advantages over conventional encryption methods suggests a review published in the International Journal of Services Operations and Informatics. Shaimaa Abbas Fahdel Al-Abaidy of the University of Baghdad in Iraq explains that exploiting what is colloquially known as the “butterfly effect” in chaos theory can be even more effective.

Mobile computing and communications devices are almost ubiquitous now. We rely heavily on mobile phones, tablets, laptops, smartwatches, fitness trackers, smart TVs, and other such devices. They almost all rely on being constantly connected with the internet either through a cellphone network or via Wi-Fi for their many different functions. However, the transfer of data to and from such devices can often be vulnerable to third-party intrusion.

There are some instances where this is not particularly problematic, but there are other cases, such as sharing personal images where the sender and recipient, a student and educator, patient and doctor, employee and executive, may not wish other people to have access to those images. This is where encryption becomes a critical part of the communication.

There are many different approaches to encryption some are very secure but have high overheads, particularly when the files being encrypted are themselves relatively large, such as is the case with high-resolution photographs, for instance. Encryption needs to be smoother, faster, and preclude overpowering the encrypting and decrypting device as well as not adding to the data transfer costs in terms of the connecting network capacity.

The new approach discussed by Al-Abaidy offers protection against the integrity of the encrypted and decrypted image file and protection against common attacks such as a cipher attack, plaintext attack, and brute force attack.

Al-Abaidy, S.A.F. (2020) ‘Artificial neural network based image encryption technique’, Int. J. Services Operations and Informatics, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp.181–189.

Research pick: Solid state life extension - "Extending the lifetime of NAND flash-based SSD through compacted write"

Solid-state storage on mobile devices and computers is becoming de rigeur, it offers much shorter read and write times for data than conventional magnetic storage devices with spinning disks and other moving parts, it uses far less power, and it is silent in operation. But, those advantages come at a cost in that all the rapid reading and writing of data can wear out the device much faster than a conventional hard disk. There are techniques for reducing the wear based in software and settings, but ultimately lifespan is rather limited and there is an urgent need to developed solid-state storage that has greater longevity.

Research published in the International Journal of Embedded Systems offers a new approach to reducing the number of read-writes that occur when data is stored on one particular type of solid-state media, the solid-state disk (SSD). These are commonly used to replace magnetic hard disks in personal computers and laptops offering faster bootup and quicker access to data files.

Hai-Tao Wu and Tian-Ming Yang of Huanghuai University in Henan, China, Ping Huang of Temple University, Philadelphia, USA, and Wen-Kuang Chou of Providence University, Taichung, Taiwan, explain that the problem of SSD electronic wear and tear is due to the legacy of traditional file systems on mechanical drives which involvs a lot of partial page rights.

The team has traced the write activity in an SSD and found that partial page writes are most common for the heads and tails of large write requests. This, the team suggests, means that it might be possible to reduce the number of writes made by compressing two partial page writes from the same large write request into a single page before the data are written into flash. This would reduce significantly the number of accesses to each bit of memory and so prolong the lifespan of the device.

The team adds that their novel approach to prolonging the life of an SSD not only reduces erase number but write latency, and read latency by up to 69%, 47%, and 50%, respectively.

Wu, H-T., Yang, T-M., Huang, P. and Chou, W-K. (2020) ‘Extending the lifetime of NAND flash-based SSD through compacted write’, Int. J. Embedded Systems, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp.129–135.

Research pick: Whatsapp for helpful social communities - "eHealth WhatsApp for social support: design lessons"

Dutch computer scientists have assessed the value of the Whatsapp mobile communication platform in the context of social support. The research seems rather pertinent in the midst of the global Covid-19 pandemic that has forced countless people to work entirely remotely, usually at home, to engage with their doctor and other healthcare workers via online applications, and to work with educators to teach their children at home too.

Whatsapp is a free, cross-platform messaging and Voice over IP (VoIP) service provided by one of the most well-known of the social media companies, Facebook. Whatsapp users can send each other text messages and voice messages without paying the usual charges that might be required of SMS and phone calls by utilizing a Wi-Fi or internet data connection on their phone. They can also make voice and video calls, share images, documents, and other files, and even their location with other users in end-to-end encrypted connections. Users can also build groups of collaborators, friends, and family to communicate and share among that community.

Writing in the International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations, Luuk Simons and Catholijn Jonker of Delft University of Technology in Netherlands and Wouter van den Heuvel of the Health Coach Program also in Delft, suggest that WhatsApp groups can be used as attractive social support systems augmenting existing electronic tools and personal coaching. Their exploratory study of a small number of young professionals revealed that they were all happy to engage with others using Whatsapp. Indeed, the app led to greater engagement than other social media tools.

The team demonstrated that the use of a Whatsapp group by these young professionals led to healthy behaviour and health advocacy and confirmed the potential of the system for peer coaching. The research did show that there is a need to educate potential users on how to form relevant communities more effectively. They offer several ideas in their paper on how Whatsapp use might be improved. For instance, it is perhaps essential in a coaching community environment that at least one of the members of the group is an expert in that realm to ensure the quality of advice and discussions, to catalyse group interactions, to prompt users to act as health advocates within the group and to ensure that help is always given to participants when they need it.

Simons, L.P.A., van den Heuvel, W.A.C. and Jonker, C.M. (2020) ‘eHealth WhatsApp for social support: design lessons’, Int. J. Networking and Virtual Organisations, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp.112–127.

Research pick: We’ll meet again, online - "Shall we ever meet; does it matter: unfreezing the constructs of virtual team effectiveness"

Virtual conferences and meetings have been around for many years but they have come to the fore and are a standard form of group communication now that we are in a “new normal” because of the Covid-19 global pandemic. A team from India, writing in the International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations, discusses the ways in which virtual teamwork can be made more effective.

Monica Kunte, Sonali Bhattacharya, and Netra Neelam of the Symbiosis International (Deemed) University, in Hinjawadi, India, point out that virtual teams have always offered a way to reduce costs by allowing people to meet online and so preclude the need for transport and accommodation. They have measured perceived effectiveness of participants by looking at goal orientation, interdependency, knowledge sharing, empowerment, and preparedness in a multidimensional second-order construct.

The team has tested and proven their model to offer a useful scale of virtual team effectiveness. As such it will allow organizers and participants to improve their virtual meetings. Factors such as team size, diversity, participant hierarchy and even the timing, length, and frequency of virtual meetings might be optimized using the scale. This should improve efficiency, ensure any agenda is satisfied as well as ensuring all participants are essential to the team at any given point and avoid wasting human resources.

Kunte, M., Bhattacharya, S. and Neelam, N. (2020) ‘Shall we ever meet; does it matter: unfreezing the constructs of virtual team effectiveness’, Int. J. Networking and Virtual Organisations, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp.128–148.

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Modelling, Identification and Control

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Modelling, Identification and Control are now available here for free:

• Self-adaptative multi-kernel algorithm for switched linear systems identification
• Monitoring the lack of grease condition of rolling bearing using acoustic emission
• Modelling and attitude control of novel multi-ducted-fan aerial vehicle in forward flight
• Optimal storage sizing of energy storage for peak shaving in presence of uncertainties in distributed energy management systems
• Attitude tracking control of rigid spacecraft with disturbance compensation
• Combining recursive projection and dynamic programming technique in multi UAVs formation anomaly detection
• A recursive discrete Kalman filter for the generation of reference signal to UPQC with unbalanced and distorted supply conditions
• Modelling and fault tolerance analysis of triplex redundancy servo valve
• Kinematic calibration for industrial robots using articulated arm coordinate machines
• A model-based implementation of an MPPT technique and a control system for a variable speed wind turbine PMSG

Special issue published: "Vehicular Networking and Communication Systems"

International Journal of Vehicle Information and Communication Systems 5(2) 2020

• Research on self-organising control method of urban intelligent traffic signal based on vehicle networking
• Modelling and analysis of urban vehicle traffic congestion characteristics based on vehicle-borne network theory
• Automatic recognition of vehicle image based on monocular vision and environmental perception
• Design of recognition and compensation system for vehicle communication signal based on vehicle networking
• Anti-jamming method for vehicle communication network based on internet of vehicles technology
• Binocular vision vehicle environment collision early warning method based on machine learning
• Design of intelligent traffic guidance display system based on internet of vehicles
• Research on abnormal monitoring of vehicle traffic network data based on support vector machine

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Modelling in Operations Management

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

• Proposing a new multi objective mathematical model for university course timetabling problem regarding optimisation of the quality of lecturers
• Developing a multi-commodity multi-period mathematical model based on the travelling salesman problem for solving bike sharing rebalancing problem
• Mathematical modelling of the vehicle hybrid locating-routing problem in three-tier supply chain
• Selection of a spouse for females using hybrid multi-criteria decision-making model in India
• Mobile-social media shopping: a partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach

Research pick: Cleaning up money laundering - "A novel dynamic approach to identifying suspicious customers in money transactions"

Money laundering is big business but wholly illegal big business. It has an enormously negative impact on local, national, and international economies as well as providing the financial means to fund other criminal activities such as people trafficking and drugs. By definition, money laundering is activity carried out to obscure the source of money that has been obtained illegally.

Writing in the International Journal of Business Intelligence and Data Mining, researchers from the Sultanate of Oman and Saudi Arabia describe a new dynamic approach to identifying suspicious financial transactions that might be part of the chain in a money-laundering scheme.

Abdul Khalique Shaikh of the Department of Information Systems at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman and Amril Nazir of the Department of Computer Science at Taif University, in Al-Hawiya, Saudi Arabia, explain that among the many millions, if not billions, of financial transactions carried out every day, a worrying proportion will be associated with money laundering. Identifying such illegal transactions is difficult especially as the criminals carrying out such transactions are well aware of the tools used by banks and financiers to spot suspicious money movements and as such can usually obfuscate the activity very efficiently.

The team has devised a way to profile individual users and to flag up activity that is genuinely suspicious without the false positives that might otherwise interfere with genuine banking and other financial transactions members of the public might carry out entirely legitimately.

“The approach works based on the dynamic behaviour of customer transactions that measures the customer’s own transaction history, profile features and identifies suspicious transactions,” the team writes. They have tested the approach against realistic data and validated the result with confirmed suspicious customers. The dynamic approach has an accuracy of well over 90 percent, which exceeds that seen with statistical models based on pre-defined rules, the team concludes.

Shaikh, A.K. and Nazir, A. (2020) ‘A novel dynamic approach to identifying suspicious customers in money transactions’, Int. J. Business Intelligence and Data Mining, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp.143–158.

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Financial Services Management

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

• Role of Islamic banking in financial inclusiveness in Pakistan: promise, performance and prospects
• Managing market innovation for competitive advantage: how external dynamics hold sway for financial services
• The impact of Sukuk financing on economic growth: the case of GCC countries
• Management of working capital - the Achilles heel of small and medium enterprises: the case of Greece
• Does capital structure matter? Reflection on capital structure irrelevance theory: Modigliani-Miller theorem (MM 1958)
• Factors affecting environmental performance: evidence from banking sector in Bangladesh
• Price discovery of one security traded in several markets around the world
• Performance evaluation of equity mutual funds using data envelopment analysis

New Editor for International Journal of Knowledge Science and Engineering

Associate Prof. Jianxin Li from Deakin University in Australia has been appointed to take over editorship of the International Journal of Knowledge Science and Engineering.

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Business Performance and Supply Chain Modelling

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Business Performance and Supply Chain Modelling are now available here for free:

• Evaluation of manufacturing unit location in Russia - European trade and logistics perspective
• Greening of humanitarian supply chain with focus on logistics
• Inventory policies for maximum fixed life-time product with quadratic demand under permissible delay in payments for a single supplier-two retailers
• Postponement and international transfer in global supply chains

Research pick: Guerrilla marketing - "From dancing on the street to dating online: evaluating guerrilla street marketing performance"

How do marketing professionals evaluate the success or otherwise of their guerilla marketing campaigns? That is the question addressed in the International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising.

Thérèse Roux of the Department of Marketing, Logistics and Sport Management at Tshwane University of Technology in Pretoria, South Africa and Marcel Saucet of the University of San Diego in California, USA, explain how consumers are exposed to a wide range of advertising and media every day with countless brands vying for attention. Many advertisers have, for several years, incorporated out-of-home media channels such as guerrilla street marketing to try and grab customer attention through surprising, bewildering, and otherwise novel campaigns.

There have been numerous high-profile examples of guerilla marketing in recent years: Japanese vehicle manufacturer Toyota launched its new RAV4 Hybrid car by creating a gigantic outdoor climbing wall in the in the middle of Times Square in New York City and allowed novice climbers to have a go. Swedish home furniture and fittings retailer Ikea opened a pop-up DIY restaurant in London where locals could prepare family dinners under the supervision of celebrity chefs. Commuters in Colombia were encouraged by sportswear and equipment company Reebok to join an exercise session in pop-up-gymnasiums within bus shelters.

The team has reviewed the research literature as well as interviewing marketing communications professionals from large internationally recognised agencies as well as smaller independent guerrilla marketing companies. “Professionals carefully and purposefully select appropriate environments and combine distinctive instruments to track cognitive, affective and behavioural responses,” the team writes. In that context, they have found that the effects of guerrilla street marketing are moving from performance at the street level to acquiring and quantifying online diffusion. They add that their work, which is among the first such investigation, will help improve our understanding of the practices of experienced professionals and identify practical techniques that can be used to evaluate contemporary street guerrilla marketing.

Savvy marketing agencies have already recognized that a guerilla marketing campaign on the street has the potential to “go viral” on social media and extend the reach way beyond those who see it live to the millions who might view videos and photos of such an event captured by the public or even those involved in the campaign. The team suggests that we are now seeing an evolution from asking a limited number of customers to be involved, figuratively speaking, in “dancing in the street” to providing a point of interest and engagement for global, online “socializing” that will hopefully boost brand reach and engagement, and on the bottom line, sales of the product or service being marketed.

Roux, T. and Saucet, M. (2020) ‘From dancing on the street to dating online: evaluating guerrilla street marketing performance’, Int. J. Internet Marketing and Advertising, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp.336–359.

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Technology

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Technology are now available here for free:

• Nuclear power plants in India: achieving clean and green energy
• A multi-group extended linear discontinuous method for fixed-source discrete ordinates problems in slab geometry
• Calculation for gamma ray buildup factor for aluminium, graphite and lead
• Fuel loading, criticality and control rod worth calculations of the Triga Mark III reactor using Serpent and MCNP
• Feasibility study for production of 99Mo and 99mTc by the neutron activation of 98Mo in the MNSR reactor
• Semi-empirical formula for photon energy absorption buildup factors of elements and compounds
• A preliminary comparative study between oxide and metallic fuelled ASTRID-like reactor under a B&B strategy

Special issue published: "Current Trends and Developments in International Financial Integration and Trade"

International Journal of Monetary Economics and Finance 13(3) 2020

• Profit-shifting through Panama Papers destinations: a case study for the Czech Republic
• Equity markets and investment patterns: the network perspective
• Cultural distance and Thailand's foreign direct investment attractiveness
• Transformation of labour relations in the context of global economic and social risks
• Static or adaptive? the month-of-the-year and intra-month effects in African stock markets
• Financial reporting quality: the case of Czech and German listed companies
• Do managements tell us the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Impact of textual sentiment in financial disclosure to future firm performance and market response in Thailand
• Can an integrated reporting system in Thai context create sustainable value to users?
• Achieving earnings target through real activities manipulation: lesson from stock exchange of Thailand
• Corporate governance and voluntary disclosures: a story about corporate transparency from Indonesia
• The effect of three types of agency problems on the firm performance: evidence from Indonesia
• Socio-economic, information and communication technology, and banking performance for financial inclusion index in Indonesia
• Media promotion, Islamic religiosity and Muslim community perception towards charitable giving of cash waqf
• Effects of innovation factors on SME performance: study on SMEs in food and beverages centers in Cimahi, Indonesia

Research pick: Hybrid measures to beat phish - "Phish webpage classification using hybrid algorithm of machine learning and statistical induction ratios"

A hybrid algorithm that used machine learning to feed off statistical induction ratios can spot malicious web pages known as phishing sites and so alert unwary users to the possibility that their data, privacy or security may be compromised before they access such sites Details are published in the International Journal of Data Mining, Modelling and Management.

Hiba Zuhair of Al-Nahrain University, in Baghdad, Iraq, and Ali Selamat of the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Johor, Malaysia, explain how there are some very powerful machine learning systems that can detect phishing sites. However, the criminal creators of such websites are rather wily and there are always novel page structures and coding that might be missed by such protection systems on the day when the new malware site is first launched and the early unwitting users get hooked. To preclude users falling for such zero-hour phishing sites there is an urgent need for an adaptive approach that can spot the problem even with novel sites.

As such, “Phishing induction must be boosted up with the extraction of new features, the selection of robust subsets of decisive features, the active learning of classifiers on a big webpage stream,” the team writes. Their two-pronged algorithmic defence provides a more holistic way to detect phishing sites. They have demonstrated efficacy against existing machines learning-based anti-phishing techniques. The team hopes that their analysis of earlier approaches and the method they suggest could provide a new “taxonomy” for the development of more effective still protection against this ubiquitous security problem in the digital realm.

Zuhair, H. and Selamat, A. (2020) ‘Phish webpage classification using hybrid algorithm of machine learning and statistical induction ratios’, Int. J. Data Mining, Modelling and Management, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp.255–276.

Special issue published: "Intelligent Computation Systems – Part II"

International Journal of Advanced Intelligence Paradigms 17(1/2) 2020

• Enhancement of enterprise resource planning system by analysing feasibility and critical factors
• Best-case, worst-case and mean integral-square-errors for reduction of continuous interval systems
• Residential load scheduling considering maximum demand using binary particle swarm optimisation
• Scalable information retrieval system in semantic web by query expansion and ontological-based LSA ranking similarity measurement
• Multi-objective multi-join query optimisation using modified grey wolf optimisation
• 2n factorial design of view of thermal images for detection correlation coefficient variants factors of object for environmental issues
• Speech-based automatic personality trait prediction analysis
• Factors influencing effectiveness of testing applications in cloud using regression testing: a statistical analysis
• Nature of life and survivability of women and men with breast cancer
• Multi-layer composites shielding for electromagnetic radiation protection
• Optimisation of training samples in recognition of overlapping speech and identification of speaker in a two speakers situation
• Image classification using higher-order statistics-based ICA for NOAA multispectral satellite image

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

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

• Evaluating the strategic potential of AMT in Indian manufacturing industries
• Dealing with quality uncertainty in the supply chains of perishable agricultural produce: consideration of buyer-supplier geographical distance and the choice of procurement channel
• Beyond relational diversity: managing workplace diversity and team composition with Indian psycho-philosophy
• A new model of pairing for innovation in management higher education: implications for the management field
• Achieving waste-free manufacturing processes through an effective series link production system

Special issue published: "Big Data Analytics and Business Intelligence"

International Journal of Business Intelligence and Data Mining 17(2) 2020

• A novel dynamic approach to identifying suspicious customers in money transactions
• Fibonacci retracement pattern recognition for forecasting foreign exchange market
• ScrAnViz: a tool for analytics and visualisation of unstructured data
• Implementation of multi node Hadoop virtual cluster on open stack cloud environments
• Impact of clustering on quality of recommendation in cluster-based collaborative filtering: an empirical study
• Mining big data streams using business analytics tools: a bird's eye view on MOA and SAMOA
• Weighted neuro-fuzzy hybrid algorithm for channel equalisation in time varying channel
• Decision tree classifier for university single rate tuition fee system

Research pick: Breaking brand - "Social break up: why consumers hide and unlike brands on Facebook"

Back in the day, if you liked a brand, you bought and used its products, perhaps mentioning or even recommending to friends and family. Today, the ubiquity of social media means that consumers have so many additional, albeit online, ways in which to “interact” and “engage” with a brand beyond simply using the product. One might post photos of the brand in action on a personal blog, photo or video site, such as Instagram or Youtube, one might offer updates and critique on platforms like Twitter, and, of course, there is the possibility of endless opportunities for liking, following, and commenting with and about a brand on Facebook.

Now, researchers from Korea and the USA writing in the International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising, discuss why some consumers ultimately disengage with some brands they once showed allegiance to on Facebook. They discuss the notion of advertising avoidance and one’s shift in the consumer-brand relationship not only in the context of hiding content that is no longer wanted but also as a means of direct self-expression.

A former brand fan that friends and family knew “liked” a brand summarily “unliking” it may be seen as a change in attitude or personal identity. Of course, the rationale may be perceived information overload, attitude towards social media marketing in general, but there is a certain element that pushes the brand detachment as social-identity expression, the team suggests.

Kwon, E.S., Kim, E. and Chung, Y.J. (2020) ‘Social break up: why consumers hide and unlike brands on Facebook’, Int. J. Internet Marketing and Advertising, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp.299–317.

International Journal of Auditing Technology to invite expanded papers from XXIII Seminários em Administração for potential publication

Extended versions of papers presented at the XXIII Seminários em Administração (25 November 2020, Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil) will be invited for review and potential publication by the International Journal of Auditing Technology.

Research pick: Less work, more play - "The impacts of increasing leisure time on subjective health and life satisfaction"

In the current global situation many people have been forced to rethink what we previously referred to as a work-life balance. There was much pressure from good mental health advocates for us to opt for more leisure time if that were a possibility. Now, in the time of the global coronavirus pandemic, we can see new ways to look at leisure time with a perspective on life satisfaction. However, in research carried out before Covid-19, Yen-Lien Kuo and Tzu-Hsiu Huang of the Department of Economics at National Cheng Kung University in Tainan City, Taiwan, investigated the relationships between working hours and changes in time spent on leisure and sports activities, as well as perceived health status, and individual life satisfaction.

Fundamentally, they analysed data from the Taiwan Social Change Survey and were able to show that longer working hours almost inevitably led to significantly lower life satisfaction whereas more leisure time improved subjective health measures and enhanced life satisfaction markedly. There was a caveat in terms of health. In that those in full-time work tended to be healthier than those were not. However, there was still the potential to improve mental health by boosting life satisfaction when employees were able to have more leisure time at the expense of working hours.

For Taiwan in particular, it is as a nation third in the league tables for longest working hours among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. It had been suggested in much earlier work that people with long working hours and inadequate recovery time see various problems accumulate over time and become chronic reactions. Work and leisure time may have been upturned in recent months because of pandemic lockdown and other factors. However, part of the new-normal may well see an increased need to balance work and leisure without trying to cram more hours into the day by reducing working hours. We already know that many more people can work from home and avoid the daily commute. This research suggests that government-led initiatives, particularly in Taiwan could drive this forward to the benefit of employees and perhaps even for employers.

Kuo, Y-L. and Huang, T-H. (2020) ‘The impacts of increasing leisure time on subjective health and life satisfaction‘, Int. J. Happiness and Development, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp.26-40.

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

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

• Perceptions of ethnic residents' satisfaction: a quest towards the sustainable development of public space in Nigeria
• Psychosocial factors and psychological well-being in Ilaje oil-producing community, Niger-Delta region of Ondo State, Nigeria
• External flows and inclusive human development in Sub-Saharan Africa
• An examination of happiness between race, gender and school classification: an echo boomer analysis
• Factors associated with happiness among college students: do academic self-efficacy and stress predict happiness?
• Happiness, economic growth and air pollution: an empirical investigation