28 May 2021

Special issue published: "Managing Business Innovation and Strategy in the Digital Age"

International Journal of Business and Globalisation 28(1/2) 2021

  • Impact of organisational innovation on non-financial organisational performance: an exploratory study of higher education institutions in Oman
  • Social network, prior working experience, start-up experience and access to support: the case of the Malaysian start-up industry
  • Social media and open innovation: implication for innovation performance among SMEs in Malaysia
  • Role of customer experience in developing co-creation strategy and business model innovation: study on Indonesia telecommunication firms in facing Industry 4.0
  • Do productivity incentives really equate to the increased work performance of employees?
  • The causal effects of leading macroeconomic indicators on stock return: evidence from 13 selected Asia Pacific countries
  • Bank mergers and acquisitions in emerging markets: evidence from the Middle East and the North Africa region
  • Directors' remuneration, expropriation and firm performance in Malaysia: evidence from non-executive directors' service duration within the remuneration committee
  • Supervisory board and Indonesia's company internationalisation
  • Development growth of beach resorts: practitioners' perspective
  • The impact of educational tourism on economic growth: a panel data analysis
  • The effect of capacity building and service quality on SME's engagement to improve economic creativity in Subang Regency, Indonesia
  • Issues and challenges in rebranding of Malaysian street markets

Research pick: Corporate social responsibility and COVID-19 - "Impact of lockdown and CSR activities undertaken by the corporates during COVID-19 in India"

Researchers at Jaipur National University have examined how companies have been affected by COVID-19 lockdown in terms of their programs of corporate social responsibility. Manish Kumar Dwivedi and Vineet Kumar writing in the International Journal of Indian Culture and Business Management looked at this issue from the psychological, social, cultural, and economic perspectives.

They report that in the wake of the enormous hardships being faced by people in India, many companies have taken their CSR very seriously in response. They have, they explain provided financial assistance in the Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM CARES Fund). They have also contributed in different ways to fighting the virus. “CSR activities include engaging in the manufacturing and distribution of masks, sanitisers, and personal protective equipment (PPE), providing meals to the downtrodden and making arrangements for quarantine centres,” the team writes.

At the time of writing, there have been almost 170 million cases of COVID-19, the novel disease caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2. It has led to the deaths of approximately 3.5 million people. There are many emergent strains of the virus and one of those, a double mutation variant known as “lineage B.1.617”, is wreaking havoc on the population of India and has spread to many other parts of the world. Given the nature of this pandemic, the pressure is on governments to enlist the help of corporate entities in combating the disease and releasing us from the grip of this pandemic.

For their part, governments must rise to the challenge too and invest in and strengthen public healthcare. The researchers add that India, specifically, could do well to learn the lessons of how to respond to this pandemic, and perhaps future pandemics, by the approaches taken by Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, and China. This is critical given that social distancing and lockdown measures that are plausible in some richer less densely populated parts of the world are not viable in many parts of India, for instance.

Dwivedi, M.K. and Kumar, V. (2021) ‘Impact of lockdown and CSR activities undertaken by the corporates during COVID-19 in India’, Int. J. Indian Culture and Business Management, Vol. 22, No. 4, pp.558–589.

27 May 2021

Special issue published: "Green Innovation and International Business in Emerging Economies"

International Journal of Technology Management 85(2/3/4) 2021

  • Exploring the influence of resource management between green innovation strategy and sustainable competitive advantage: the differences between emerging and traditional industries
  • Pricing and green innovation decision of green supply chain enterprises
  • An empirical study between OHSAS 18001 certification and innovation efficiency in green management: the moderating role of pay disparity and ownership
  • A comparative study of service trade competitiveness for green innovation development using the WWYZ model - based on China and the 26 countries along 'the Belt and Road'
  • Environmental regulation, subsidy and underperforming firms' R&D expenditure: evidence from Chinese listed companies
  • The effect of green economic growth on the foreign investment behaviour of heterogeneous enterprises
  • Social intrapreneurship: the foundation of CSR practices
  • The impact of institutional innovation on internal control: evidence from Chinese state-owned enterprises
  • Does government behaviour or enterprise investment improve regional innovation performance? - evidence from China
  • An empirical study on Chinese enterprise effectuation, market ambidexterity and entrepreneurial performance
  • Constructing a green financial innovation system with the PPP environmental protection industry fund
  • Cultural industries in emerging economies under the background of economic globalisation and information networks

Research pick: Sustaining Sub-Saharan Africa - "Financing for Sub-Saharan African sustainable development: from billions to trillions to action"

Sub-Saharan Africa is developing rapidly with its rich resources although still lags behind those developing regions that are hard on the heels of the developed nations. New research published in the International Journal of Sustainable Development considers how this development might be sustainable and how it might be financed to be so. Samuel Orekoya and Peter Oluleke of the University of Ibadan in Nigeria suggest that trillions rather than billions are needed.

The researchers have investigated the impacts of private, public, and multilateral financial opportunities that could be used to drive sustainable development in Sub-Saharan Africa. They have correlated this with the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, life expectancy, human capital development, and fertility rate with data from 1971 to 2018. The fundamental conclusion is that no single source of financing, whether from the private, public or multilateral sectors is sufficient for the sustainable development of Sub-Saharan Africa. They suggest that government needs to play an active role in encouraging the requisite financial backing of sustainable development but without distorting the economic landscape.

As such, the team recommends that new stable macroeconomic policies should be aimed at creating “a conducive environment for financial sector development”. They add that multilateral development by banks and bilateral donors could also be used to strengthen access to private sources of finance by improving the business and investment climate.

“Development is sustainable if it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,” the team writes. They point out that inequality jeopardizes the well-being of those in certain areas and in certain social groups while allowing others to benefit greatly. For truly sustainable development to occur in Sub-Saharan Africa, social justice must be integrated into the model to close the social, educational, and economic gaps between different groups and to allow improving equality to persist across the generations.

Orekoya, S. and Oluleke, P. (2020) ‘Financing for Sub-Saharan African sustainable development: from billions to trillions to action’, Int. J. Sustainable Development, Vol. 23, Nos. 3/4, pp.288–308.

26 May 2021

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:
  • Study on mechanical properties of fabricated hybrid natural fibre polymeric composites
  • Reconfigurable half-precision floating-point real/complex fused multiply and add unit
  • Design and analysis of majority logic-based multipliers in perpendicular nanomagnetic logic
  • Experimental characterisation and modelling of polyethylene terephthalate preform for injection stretch blow moulding
  • Finite element analysis to study the shearing mechanism in punch-less electromagnetic perforation of aluminium tubes

Special issue published: "Economics, Accounting and Management Research in Japan"

International Journal of Economics and Accounting 10(2) 2021

  • Do managers mimic rivals' forecast revisions? Evidence from Japan
  • Predisposed opportunities: incentives for earnings forecasts revision by management under the Japanese 'Timely Disclosure Rules'
  • Overconfident CEOs, decentralisation, and tax aggressiveness: evidence from Japan
  • Relationships among earnings quality, bank monitoring, and cost of bank loans: evidence from Japan
  • Long-term comparability of accounting information in Japan
  • The application of deep learning to predict corporate growth

Free open access article available: "Demonstrating interoperability between unmanned ground systems and command and control systems"

The following paper, "Demonstrating interoperability between unmanned ground systems and command and control systems" (International Journal of Intelligent Defence Support Systems 6(2) 2021), is freely available for download as an open access article.

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

Research pick: Automating ringworm diagnosis - "Human skin ringworm detection using wavelet and curvelet transforms: a comparative study"

Ringworm, known more correctly as dermatophytosis, is a skin infection caused by any of forty or so different types of microbial fungus. It causes inflammation and itchiness, making the skin scaly and forming a circular rash, and sometimes causing hair loss and blistering. Typical infection is by Trichophyton, Microsporum, and Epidermophyton species and is associated with skin contact with other people. Excessive sweating, obesity, and poor immune function are important risk factors.

Dermatophytosis is usually diagnosed based on symptoms and the appearance of the ring rash followed by biopsy of a scraping of skin cells from the infected area. However, it can manifest itself in different ways and so a definitive and perhaps even automated approach would be a boon for medical professionals particularly in areas where the infection is common. Treatment commonly requires the use of oral antifungal drugs, such as terbinafine, fluconazole, or itraconazole. It can also be treated with a “dip therapy” approach.

Now, writing in the International Journal of Computational Vision and Robotics, a team from India has turned to a computer vision diagnostic for dermatophytosis. The team “trains” an algorithm in the computer software Matlab to recognise the characteristics of known photographs taken of an area of a patient’s skin suffering dermatophytosis. The software can then recognise the presence of the infection in images from as yet undiagnosed cases with up to 87 percent accuracy, the team says.

Such an automated system with this level of accuracy would allow screening of suspect cases ahead of presentation to a clinician and so reduce the workload in rural areas, for instance, where contact with animals and the fungal spores is common, but a suspected infection may be presented by patients where another skin condition is present. The economic benefits of an approach based on photographing the skin and requiring no specialist hardware that also precludes to some degree the need for detailed personal examination in the first instance and costly biopsy will be of significant benefit to such communities.

Saha, M., Naskar, M.K. and Chatterji, B.N. (2021) ‘Human skin ringworm detection using wavelet and curvelet transforms: a comparative study’, Int. J. Computational Vision and Robotics, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp.245–263

25 May 2021

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Sustainable Development

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Sustainable Development are now available here for free:
  • Zero waste governance: a Scottish case study
  • Natural resources exploitation and social sustainability: an ex-ante regional policy simulation using EU-SILC data
  • Weedy rice and the sustainability of alternative establishment methods
  • The role of governments in sustainable consumption: the perception of Brazilian experts
  • The willingness to pay for urban parks' amenities: the economic value of 'Bois Sainte Anastasie' in Yaoundé, Cameroon
  • Bike-sharing acceptance through the lens of the theory of routine mode choice decisions
  • COVID-19 and sustainable development

Special issue published: "Managing Knowledge And Technology in Learning Organisations Challenges for Competitive Advantage"

International Journal of Learning and Change 13(3) 2021

  • Analysis of academic stakeholders' satisfaction on green campus implementation in Telkom University using importance performance analysis approach
  • Implementation of great leadership style to leverage employees' performance in PT Telkom Akses Indonesia
  • Paradoxes of customer satisfaction in telecommunication industry in Goa, India
  • Analysis of personality model using the big five theory to enhance academic motivation of Garut University students
  • How might the socio-moral climate buffer the job insecurity stressor? A multilevel study in Spain and Austria
  • The role of knowledge management practices on innovation performance in a public telecommunication company

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Electric and Hybrid Vehicles

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Electric and Hybrid Vehicles are now available here for free:
  • PMSM control for electric vehicle based on fuzzy PI
  • Dynamic modelling and parametric optimisation of vibro-acoustic responses for power-split hybrid transmission
  • Augmentation of charging infrastructure for electric vehicles growth in India
  • A novel diagnostic technique to detect the failure mode operating states of an air-breathing fuel cell used in fuel cell vehicles
  • Analysis and optimisation of electromagnetic interference in motor drive system
  • Tracked vehicle physics-based energy modelling and series hybrid system optimisation for the Bradley fighting vehicle

Research pick: Portuguese business lessons in COVID-19 - "Exploring the role of organisational innovation in the time of COVID-19"

The COVID-19 pandemic has wrought much grief the world over. It has led to many deaths, hospitalizations and ongoing illness in the form of long-covid. It has also changed normal life and work for millions of people in unimaginable ways. New research published in the International Journal of the Business Environment, has looked at the role of organisational innovation during the pandemic.

André Rocha of the Polytechnic Higher Institute of Gaya and Fernando Almeida of the University of Porto, Portugal, point out that as with many other nations many companies had to temporarily close and lay off workers. In parallel with lockdowns and similar limits on normal life, many companies have innovated organizationally in response to the pandemic, with a view to meeting the old and new needs of people during this crisis.

The team has carried out a case study of seven companies in Portugal to see how they have each risen to the challenge presented by the pandemic. They have found that both internal and external innovation stand out and that there have been very diverse approaches to innovation. Moreover, many of the innovations have been in procedures rather than structural innovations, which have had much less influence.

“The structural measures typically proposed by governments for crisis management are no longer feasible because of the need to seek immediate response tools that incorporate simplicity and practicality dimensions,” the team writes. They add that the various measures implemented by Portugal and many other countries to combat COVID-19, such as closing schools, social distancing and limiting people’s movements, the closure of museums, monuments, and national palaces as well as hospitality and entertainment have had a profound effect on Portuguese society, and societies the world over.

The case studies show how organizational innovation rather than structural changes offer an alternative response to the pandemic and have been demonstrably successful for those companies implementing such change. The lessons the case studies offer might be applied in other nations to good effect.

Rocha, A. and Almeida, F. (2021) ‘Exploring the role of organisational innovation in the time of COVID-19’, Int. J. Business Environment, Vol. 12, No. 2, pp.170–185.

Special issue published: "Materials Processing and Characterisation"

International Journal of Materials and Product Technology 62(1/2/3) 2021

  • Prediction of corrosion properties of LENSTM deposited cobalt, chromium and molybdenum alloy using artificial neural networks
  • Material selection and parametric modelling of laminated composite beam for piezoelectric energy harvesting
  • Effect of graphene coating on the microstructure and mechanical properties of tungsten inert gas surface melted AISI-316L steel
  • Preparation of graphene reinforced aluminium composites: investigation of microstructural, electrical conductivity and microhardness behaviour
  • Synthesis of Ni/Ti thin film by magnetron sputtering to study the effect of annealing time on microstructure and mechanical properties
  • Assessment of open hole flexural strength and progressive damage mechanism of CFRP composite as a function of stacking sequence
  • Mechanical properties of Cissus quadrangularis stem fibre reinforced isophthalic polyester composites
  • Effect of low-temperature isothermal holding on microstructure and mechanical properties of hot rolled high carbon Nb microalloyed steel plate
  • Numerical and experimental investigation on the shapes of the sonotrode during ultrasonic welding
  • Batch and column investigation of copper(II) removal from aqueous media onto biochar prepared from Limonia acidissima shell
  • Failure analysis of a broken SA564 stainless steel pump shaft
  • Analytical, numerical and experimental analysis of double collar collet chuck holder by combined extrusion and forging processes
  • Micro-magnetic characterisation of ground AISI D2 tool steel using hysteresis loop technique
  • Use of sintered fly ash aggregate in pervious concrete

24 May 2021

Special issue published: "Emerging Characteristics and Patterns of Behaviour in the Digital Services Industry in China"

International Journal of Services Technology and Management 27(3) 2021

  • New weather indices for China: based on DCC-GARCH and GRU models
  • What drives consumer website stickiness intention? The role of website service quality and website involvement
  • Using unlabeled data mining to detect customer perceptions of undefined commodity problems
  • The calendar effect of price-reduction auction of online agricultural products

International Journal of Sustainable Agricultural Management and Informatics indexed by Clarivate Analytics' Emerging Sources Citation Index

Inderscience is pleased to announce that the International Journal of Sustainable Agricultural Management and Informatics has been indexed by Clarivate Analytics' Emerging Sources Citation Index.

Prof. Basil Manos, Editor in Chief of the journal, says, "Getting IJSAMI into the Emerging Sources Citations Index is the outcome of our persistent and methodical efforts to ensure the highest quality of papers, to use competent reviewers, and to have fast email exchanges with our authors and reviewers. I am very pleased and excited with this acknowledgment of our work, and I remain committed to providing the international scientific community with a journal of the highest quality."

21 May 2021

Special issue published: "Mechanical Systems and Robotics: Recent Developments and Novel Applications"

International Journal of Mechanisms and Robotic Systems 5(1/2) 2021

  • Applications of thick rigid flat-folding origami to practical objects
  • Computing the developable forms of planar and spherical four-bar linkages
  • Methods for mapping mechanisms to developable surfaces
  • A GPU homotopy path tracker and end game for mechanism synthesis
  • Exploring the synergies of dynamic fuel management and propulsion electrification
  • Non-cylindrical wrapping rods and compliant adapters for multi-mode twisting string actuation
  • Optimum design of 3R manipulator using hybrid PSOGSA algorithm
  • Simulation of repetitive mechanisms using modular kinematics
  • Haar wavelet collocation method for solving the system of linear Fredholm integral equations with constant coefficients

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Mechanisms and Robotic Systems

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Mechanisms and Robotic Systems are now available here for free:
  • Study of the dynamic interaction between planetary vehicles and planets soft soil
  • Analytical solution of a five-degree-of-freedom inverse kinematics problem for the handling mechanism of an agricultural robot
  • Modelling and design of tracked mobile climbing robots on non-planar surfaces
  • A review study on bio-inspired robotic fish

Special issue published: "Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy and Climate Change"

International Journal of Global Energy Issues 43(2/3) 2021

  • To the question about the origins of oil and oil exploration of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation
  • A review on solar flat plate collectors
  • Morphology and surface characteristics of bamboo activated carbon chemically activated under different immersion time
  • Green brand as a marketing instrument: principle, features and parameters
  • Determinants of shadow economy in transition countries: economic and environmental aspects
  • Factors affecting the electricity transmission and distribution losses: evidences from BRICS countries
  • Simultaneous adsorption of motorcycle emissions through bamboo-activated carbon
  • Managing the key factors of green energy start-ups
  • Role of R&D expenditure, CEO compensation and financial ratios for country's economic sustainability and innovative growth
  • Experiences in operating a 100 kW rooftop PV plant in an educational institution in India
  • Environmental determinants of energy-efficient transformation of national economies for sustainable development
  • Econometric evaluation of large weather events due to climate change: floods in Atlantic Canada
  • Socio-economic and cultural effects of disruptive industrial technologies for sustainable development

Research pick: Bad vibrations for motorbike couriers - "Assessment of ergonomic risk factors in occupational motorcycle riding: an experimental investigation"

The e-commerce sector has led to a massive increase in the number of motorcycle couriers criss-crossing our city streets every day delivering packages and food to countless destinations. A new experimental investigation into the ergonomics of riding a motorcycle has now been published in the International Journal of Human Factors and Ergonomics.

Mohd Parvez and Abid Ali Khan of the Aligarh Muslim University in Aligarh, India, explain how riders spend many hours each day in the saddle and this comes with risks to their health. Poor posture, uncomfortable motorbikes, and the nature of the journeys the riders make might all contribute to discomfort and lead to long-term muscle and joint and other problems.

The team had volunteers ride a motorbike for a given period of time at a specific speed and looked specifically at whole-body vibration (WBV), which is considered to be one of the major ergonomic risk factors for motorcyclists, as described in the ISO 2631-1 assessment. Their results showed that WBV commonly exceeded the upper safety limit by more than five times. The effect was even worse for riders who adopted a posture where they lean forward over the fuel tank rather than riding upright with a straight back. In the leaning position, there is greater activity in the muscles of the upper back than in the more erect riding posture, which would lead to greater fatigue for the rider.

The team suggests that there now need to be ergonomic interventions to reduce the problem of WBV for couriers and other motorcyclists who spend many hours each day on a motorbike. Riding with an erect posture reduces WBV and upper back fatigue but increases discomfort in the buttocks and lower back. Interventions would need to take this into account in order to reduce the risk of work-related musculoskeletal disorders associated with motorcycling, they suggest.

The researchers add that possible ergonomic interventions might including a redesign of motorbike seats and suspension within the seat. There might also be a need for protective equipment that could reduce WBV and the effects of posture on the rider. Additionally, new regulations aimed at monitoring and controlling a rider’s hours, journey lengths, and speed might also benefit riders in a similar manner to the way in which truck drivers are regulated for their health and safety and for the safety of other road users.

Parvez, M. and Khan, A.A. (2021) ‘Assessment of ergonomic risk factors in occupational motorcycle riding: an experimental investigation’, Int. J. Human Factors and Ergonomics, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp.1–21.

20 May 2021

Special issue published: "Progress in Exergy Analysis of Energy Systems"

International Journal of Exergy 35(1) 2021

  • Exergy analysis of novel integrated systems based on MHD generators
  • Study on combustion irreversibility in turbocharged spark-ignition engines
  • Exergy and environmental analysis of black liquor upgrading gasification in an integrated kraft pulp and ammonia production plant
  • Measurement of interior thermal environment of a passive solar house in an urban area in Japan and analysis of time-series variation of human body exergy balance
  • A thermodynamic explanation of the function of bifurcated structures in nature and in engineered artefacts
  • Electrified district heating networks: a thermo-economic optimisation based on exergy and energy analyses
  • Eco-credit system to incentivise the recycling of waste electric and electronic equipment based on a thermodynamic approach
  • Exergy analysis of a thermostatic heat pump drying system with adjustable bypass air ratios

International Journal of Hydromechatronics indexed by Clarivate Analytics' Emerging Sources Citation Index

Inderscience is pleased to announce that the International Journal of Hydromechatronics has been indexed by Clarivate Analytics' Emerging Sources Citation Index.

Prof. Yimin Shao, Editor in Chief of the journal, says, “I am very glad that IJHM has been included in the Emerging Sources Citations Index. It is a recognition of the academic achievements and editorial work of the journal. I would like to express our sincerest gratitude to all those who have contributed to this journal. We will continue to adhere to our publishing policy, and to publish high-quality papers to promote academic exchange and development within the fluid power and electromechanical control fields.”


Special issue published: "Consumer Behaviour and Trends in Sports Services"

International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing 20(5/6) 2020

  • Presenting a new mixed method for measuring service quality of health clubs
  • Supporting sacrifice or condemning belief: consumer reactions to Nike's advertising campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick
  • A scale for measuring member commitment and integration in fitness services
  • Tourist expenditure behaviour in the strategic leveraging of sport events portfolios
  • Professional sports fans' interests in hosting an international visitor at a game: evidence for 'sports hosts'
  • Mobile marketing influence on football fan behaviour: the case of FC Persepolis
  • Non-professional sport academies in Spain: the parents' perspective

Research pick: The bilingual boost - "A novel model of neurocognitive bilingual effect"

Students who speak two languages, rather than just one, scored 11 percent better in standardised tests, according to new research published in the International Journal of Innovation in Education. The team conducting the research have built a bilingualism enhanced cognitive competence index (BECCI) model of their results that can predict with more than 90 percent accuracy how well students might do based on their bilingualism.

Soyoun Choi of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Ellen Choi of the Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy in Melbourne, Florida, USA, suggest that there is much controversy in the fields of education and neurology regarding the effects of bilingualism on academic achievement. Some argue that while speaking two or more languages has many benefits a direct effect on cognitive abilities in areas other than speech itself may be marginal. Others argue the opposite suggesting that the neurological tools gained in learning a second language beyond one’s first sharpen the tools in other parts of the brain. One camp in the debate even argues that having a second language blunts some of those tools during the brain’s childhood developmental stages.

One in five people in the USA now speaks at least two languages the team writes and so it is important for us to try to approach a definitive answer regarding the cognitive boost a second language may or may not bring. This rings especially true given the wide spectrum of arguments seen in the debate.

The team has studied children with one or two languages across the age range 8 to 14 years old. They looked at the students’ grade point averages (GPA) and looked for a correlation with whether they were mono, or bilingual.

“Bilinguals showed a higher overall GPA by 0.19 grade points,” the team reports. “The standardised test scores of bilinguals were 11% higher than their monolingual counterparts.” They add that, “The bilingual cohort had both an average GPA and standardised test score higher than the monolinguals by a factor of approximately 1.06 times for GPA and 1.109 times for standardised test.” The team did, however, find that bilinguals had a lower score in reading tests than their monolingual contemporaries. However, this seemed to be only a temporary deficit, the team points out.

“Bilingualism is a gift to students,” they write. “This study proves that the positive benefits far outweigh the drawbacks.”

Choi, S. and Choi, E. (2021) ‘A novel model of neurocognitive bilingual effect’, Int. J. Innovation in Education, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp.47–66.

19 May 2021

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Knowledge and Learning

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Knowledge and Learning are now available here for free:
  • Employees' risk taking capabilities and learning organisation: moderating role of organisational size
  • Critical success factors of knowledge management implementation in higher learning institutions
  • Knowledge transfer in non-profit organisations: a qualitative study
  • Perspective of social media as an organisational KM tool: contemporary literature review
  • Philosophical prospective of organisational learning

Special issue published: "Safety and Standards for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles"

International Journal of Vehicle Design 83(2/3/4) 2020

  • Action intention recognition of cars and bicycles in intersections
  • Driver distraction detection using machine learning algorithms: an experimental approach
  • Robust pedestrian detection for driver assistance systems using machine learning
  • Coordinated torque vectoring control and path-following of autonomous vehicles with sideslip angle estimation
  • Longitudinal motion control for vehicle platooning in mixed traffic based on virtual mass-spring-damper theory
  • Trajectory planning for autonomous vehicles based on improved Hybrid A*
  • Multi-mode collision avoidance closed-loop control system
  • Fuel economy benefit analysis of pass-at-green (PaG) V2I application on urban routes with STOP signs

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:
  • Bicultural managers leading multicultural teams: a conceptual case study
  • BuzzFeed publishing the unverified Steele dossier: a brief case study
  • Start-up with limited budget: pleasing customers with innovative idea's - a case study of HUMPL
  • Is there a relationship between environmental knowledge and pro-environmental behaviour? The case of a Greek island
  • Leading change for school improvement: a case study
  • The impact of backstory structure type on case study effectiveness

Research pick: Recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic - "How to pay for the coronavirus emergency: the fiscal challenge"

The global coronavirus pandemic represents the biggest fiscal challenge facing the UK government since World War II. That is the stark opening statement of a paper published in the International Journal of Public Law and Policy. The report by Jan Toporowski of SOAS University of London and Robert Calvert of the Jump Institute of Political Economy, Governance, Finance and Accountability at the University of Greenwich, suggests that our course through the pandemic in terms of our health response are determined by the behaviour of the disease itself, our economic recovery will be determined by the behaviour of the government.

The team suggests that the quickest recovery will be obtained by maintaining a high level of government borrowing serviced by taxes on wealth and profits to preclude massive debts accumulating at the household or company level. They point out that given the inequalities across the UK that have been exacerbated by the pandemic, such an approach might ultimately reverse some of those problems and prevent the worst outcomes afflicting those with low incomes and little wealth.

Throughout the pandemic, the challenge has been to ensure people have access to essentials such as food and also get the medical support they need when they become ill at the same time as attempting to reduce the spread of the disease itself through lockdown, isolation, and quarantine measures. Ideally, this must all be done while maintaining monetary and financial stability both during the crisis with a view to sustaining that stability after the crisis is over. This, of course, flies in the face of the emergency measures which were forced to shut down non-essential retail, entertainment, and other business activities temporarily leading to the compression of consumption. This compression then has the effect of loss of income for many workers, the self-employed, and smaller business.

All of the problems, the team suggests are being exacerbated by the gross inequality associated with high levels of poverty and deprivation caused principally by deregulation of the UK’s labour market and welfare “reforms” over recent years. Hence the fiscal recovery must be government led to smooth away these inequalities by putting much of the burden for recovery on those who can afford to pay for it rather than punishing the poor still further in the post-pandemic world. This smoothing of inequality must begin now, before the end of the crisis so that we do not have to rely on the altruistic inclinations of the wealthy.

“The support given to health service employees and key frontline workers and volunteers shows the widespread willingness to share the burden of the crisis,” the team writes. “It is only possible to bring people together to combat the epidemic – and secure a just recovery in its aftermath – if the effort demanded is seen to be fair.” They point out that if we give way to the urge to reduce public debt or abandon progressive taxation, this will slow our recovery substantially and make the economic divisions greater. “The society that survives the epidemic and grieves the human losses deserves better,” the team concludes.

Toporowski, J. and Calvert Jump, R. (2021) ‘How to pay for the coronavirus emergency: the fiscal challenge’, Int. J. Public Law and Policy, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp.1–13.

18 May 2021

Special issue published: "Smart Innovation in Engineering and Management Part 1"

International Journal of Forensic Engineering 4(4) 2020

  • A study of consumer buying behaviour towards E-pharmacies in Delhi NCR
  • A case study on combined economic emission and load dispatch using biogeography based optimisation technique
  • Study on swarm intelligence algorithms in different computing techniques for cyber security
  • Performance analysis of a wind farm on transmission network using DIgSILENT power factory
  • Tone detection for Indian classical polyphonic instrumental audio using DNN model
  • Digital marketing: changing consumer behaviour
  • Digital innovation: changing the face of business

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Public Law and Policy

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Public Law and Policy are now available here for free:
  • Experiences of the Ebola victims in the West African nations: a human rights imperative
  • A visible theme in the history of international law: international or global?
  • Immunity or exemption: what are the consequences for sovereign wealth funds with respect to sovereign immunity vis-à-vis tax exemptions?
  • Digital privacy in a media orientated world
  • Filling the legal vacuum in combatting maritime crimes: a law reform strategy for Malaysia

International Journal of Knowledge Management Studies indexed by Emerging Sources Citation Index

Inderscience Publishers are pleased to announce that the International Journal of Knowledge Management Studies has been indexed by the Clarivate Analytics' Emerging Sources Citation Index.

Prof. Jin Chen, Editor in Chief of the journal, says, "This is really good news. Being indexed in ESCI marks another major milestone for our journal. As the Editor in Chief, I would like to take this opportunity to express my great thanks to our authors, reviewers, global community of readers and editorial board members who have worked for IJKMS as volunteers for the past few years. We will continue to uphold the principle of high-quality publishing and provide more in-depth and wide-breadth coverage of cutting-edge research results for researchers and practitioners in the field of knowledge management."


Research pick: Building a Pandemic Convention - "The role of international law in controlling disease outbreaks"

How can international law be used to control the spread of emergent diseases that lead to mass outbreaks and global pandemics, such as the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 that has plunged the world into the COVID-19 pandemic? That question is addressed by research published in the International Journal of Public Law and Policy.

Rajat Banerjee of the School of Law and Justice at Adamas University in Kolkata, West Bengal and Abhinav Kumar of the School of Law at GD Goenka University in Haryana, India, explain that epidemics and pandemics destabilise existing global health infrastructure and present nation-states with an alarming set of circumstances in which they must attempt to protect their citizens and maintain, the rule of law, economic stability, and infrastructure.

The team suggests that international law may well have a role to play in providing legal safeguards that address many of the issues that arise when a new disease emerges. It can do so by punishing those at the nation-state and citizen level who are to blame if they are found to be directly and substantially responsible for such outbreaks, for instance. Such a deterrent could substantially lower the risk of a newly emerged pathogen emerging into the world arena if those who allow it to happen through negligence or ignorance know that they might be punished for their actions or inaction. An analysis of the current literature in the realm of international law leads the authors to the conclusion that a “one-size-fits-all” is needed for this legal approach at the international legal.

A Pandemic Convention is needed, the team writes. All nation-states would be obliged to adhere to its rules and laws so that the failures of nation-states and citizens we have seen in facing past disease outbreaks would not be repeated and we might prevent the next emergent pathogen from wreaking a global pandemic that might be even worse than the current coronavirus pandemic in which the world is currently entangled.

Banerjee, R. and Kumar, A. (2021) ‘The role of international law in controlling disease outbreaks’, Int. J. Public Law and Policy, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp.74–96.

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Engineering Systems Modelling and Simulation

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Engineering Systems Modelling and Simulation are now available here for free:
  • Performance improvement of distributed system through load balancing and task scheduling using fuzzy logic
  • Experimental study and numerical analysis on the vertical bracket of the plate buckle
  • Radial rasis function for non-matching mesh interpolation in parallel solving FSI problem
  • Three-dimensional visual modelling of geological information of hydraulic engineering based on surface constraint reconstruction
  • Research on lifetime distribution and reliability of IGBT module based on accelerated life test and K-S test

17 May 2021

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:
  • A comparative approach to national innovative capacity in the long-run: Spain between Europe and Latin America
  • Response to disruptive innovation with hybrid products: transition of Oracle's business applications to cloud computing
  • Innovation competencies of individuals as a driving skill sets of future works and impact of their personality traits
  • The diffusion of nationwide ICT innovation and socio-economic context: case of the internet

Special issue published: "Sustainable Development and Social Innovation in Business"

International Journal of Technology Transfer and Commercialisation 18(1) 2021

  • Work stress and work life balance: a study of working professionals of the IT sector
  • Determinants of foreign institutional investments in India (2000-2017): a panel data approach
  • Modelling the effects of sustainability marketing on consumers' buying intentions: an application of SEM
  • Effects of extrinsic cues on customer attitude and satisfaction towards private labels
  • Mega projects effect on destination Ethiopia: using destination image dimensions as a mediator
  • Interaction between brand trust and customer brand engagement as a determinant of brand equity
  • Mobile shopping adoption by Indian consumers: an examination of extended technology acceptance model
  • Envisioning a mutually inclusive growth story: a case study of Microsign Products

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Nanoparticles

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Nanoparticles are now available here for free:
  • Simple tuning of modified Smith predictor for unstable FOPTD processes
  • Performance enhancement of double-gate tunnel FETs using dual-metal and graded-channel configuration
  • Development of a highway driving events identification and classification using smartphone
  • A simple method for study of effect of Kerr nonlinearity on effective core area, index of refraction and fractional modal power through the core of monomode graded index fibre
  • A comparative study on the effects of technology nodes and logic styles for low power high speed VLSI applications
  • A comparative analysis of the short-channel effects of double-gate, tri-gate and gate-all-around MOSFETs
  • Optoelectronic properties of multiple quantum barriers nano-scale avalanche photo diodes
  • Development of a visible light communication system for reducing flicker in low data rate requirement
  • Comparative performance analysis of FPGA-based MAC unit using non-conventional number system in TVL domain for signal processing algorithm
  • Hardware realisation of an intelligent medical image watermarking
  • Modulation of millimetre-wave and THz properties of IMPATT sources via external magnetic field
  • Systematic design strategy for DPL-based ternary logic circuit

14 May 2021

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

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Mining and Mineral Engineering are now available here for free:
  • Mechanical behaviour and failure characteristics of cemented paste backfill under lateral unloading condition
  • CFD simulations of DPM flow patterns generated by vehicles in underground mines for different air flow and exhaust pipe directions
  • Impact of hydraulic fracturing and borehole spacing on gas drainage along a coal seam
  • Effect of aggloflotation of coal slimes by use Flomin C9606 as a collector
  • Implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies in the mining industry - a case study

Free open access article available: "Learning from global suppliers: the diffusion of small wind in low- and middle-income countries"

The following paper, "Learning from global suppliers: the diffusion of small wind in low- and middle-income countries" (International Journal of Technological Learning, Innovation and Development 13(1) 2021), is freely available for download as an open access article.

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


Research pick: Detecting glaucoma early - "A novel hybrid approach to blaze out a new path for glaucoma detection, monitoring and sustainable results in fundus images"

Glaucoma is a group of eye diseases wherein increased pressure within the eye can, if left untreated, lead to damage to the optic nerve and vision loss. Its detection relies on measuring intraocular pressure, visual examination of the interior of the eye, and testing of the entire field of vision with specialist instrumentation.

Glaucoma develops slowly over time and causes no pain. However, as the pressure from the eye and its blood vessels insidiously damages the optic nerve, peripheral vision suffers initially and then central vision. If left untreated complete blindness ensues. Glaucoma is the most common cause of irreversible blindness with around 80 million people having the condition and more than 10 million of those going on to suffer complete vision loss.

The vast majority of those who have the worst possible outcome live in the developing world where the majority of sufferers will be wholly unaware of their condition until it is too late. Thus inexpensive and efficient approaches that reduce the workload on ophthalmologists would be a boon in those parts of the world.

New work published in the World Review of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development takes a novel approach to the detection of glaucoma. S. Ajitha and M.V. Judy of the Department of Computer Applications at Cochin University of Science and Technology, in Kerala, India, explain how glaucoma is a “gruesome thief” that might be routed out if detected early. The team has now developed an algorithmic detective that can identify characteristics of glaucoma present in images of a patient’s “fundus”. The fundus is the interior surface of the eyeball opposite the lens, which lies behind the cornea at the front of the eye.

The algorithm is trained with fundal images from patients known to have early-stage glaucoma. Subtle characteristics of early-stage glaucoma that would be invisible even to the trained ophthalmologist will be made obvious when the algorithm is presented with an image from a patient. The team has demonstrated sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy beyond that seen with other algorithmic approaches and suggests that the approach can offer 100 percent accuracy in automatically detecting glaucoma early and so allow the ophthalmologist to offer treatment before any damage is done to the optic nerves.

Ajitha, S. and Judy, M.V. (2021) ‘A novel hybrid approach to blaze out a new path for glaucoma detection, monitoring and sustainable results in fundus images’, World Review of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development, Vol. 17, Nos. 2/3, pp.220–235.

13 May 2021

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Innovation in Education

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Innovation in Education are now available here for free:
  • Developing happiness quotient among students to support their cognitive learning and academic performance
  • A design rationale to support data use in successful teacher practice: some considerations for educational technology design
  • Connections between participation in mini-companies and intrinsic motivation and effort at upper secondary school
  • Examining the relationships of factors influencing student mathematics achievement
  • Mining MySQL error logs to map student learning

Research pick: Human rights in the post-pandemic world - "The idea of a human rights-based economic recovery after COVID-19"

Can we embed human rights in our economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic? That is the hope discussed in a paper published in the International Journal of Public Law and Policy. Katharine Young of Boston College Law School in Newton, Massachusetts, USA, explains how COVID-19 pandemic has plunged the world into an unprecedented health and economic crisis and will require an unprecedented approach to recovery.

“As economists and policymakers turn to the task of recovery, protecting human rights remains intrinsically important, both morally and legally. It is also instrumental to the ends of public health and economic resilience,” Young writes. She argues that that the human rights to life, health, education, social security, housing, food, water and sanitation, are as essential as civil and political protections.

The COVID-19 pandemic has wrought inevitable indignities and material deprivations, the recovery should ensure that those deprivations are not simply propagated in the post-pandemic world. Economic and social rights must be respected in the aftermath of the pandemic. Moreover, our recovery must build on our history and understanding of past social and economic crises and go beyond those lessons to renew our commitment to ending inequality in all its forms.

“…a human rights approach does not offer a singular, uniform policy prescription,” Young adds. “Instead, it offers the parameters of accountability and participation that have been a known feature (or at a least goal) of the United Nations human rights regime since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

Young, K.G. (2020) ‘The idea of a human rights-based economic recovery after COVID-19’, Int. J. Public Law and Policy, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp.390–415.

12 May 2021

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Human Resources Development and Management

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Human Resources Development and Management are now available here for free:
  • Resources for development: the relationship of HRM practices and continuous learning culture with training success
  • New hires' job satisfaction time trajectory
  • Turnover intentions of employees of information technology outsourcing suppliers in Vietnam
  • Training and the competitiveness of the Québec multimedia-IT sector
  • Job satisfaction of returnees to Japan

Free open access article available: "Treaty framing and climate science: challenges in managing the risk of global warming"

The following paper, "Treaty framing and climate science: challenges in managing the risk of global warming" (International Journal of Global Environmental Issues 19(1/2/3) 2020), is freely available for download as an open access article.

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

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Agile Systems and Management

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Agile Systems and Management are now available here for free:
  • A maturity model for DevOps
  • A framework to promote social sustainability in industry 4.0
  • Multidisciplinary design automation – a conceptual framework for working with product model extensions
  • A proposal of integrated worker-monitoring system towards ergonomic manufacturing environment
  • Conceptual model for pair design and pair testing based on the characteristics of pair programming
  • Industry 4.0 in New Zealand dairy industry
  • Transdisciplinary systems engineering: implications, challenges and research agenda
  • Application of response surface methodology in evaluating the performance of conventional, wiper, cryogenically treated and coated (TiN, TiAlN and TiCN) carbide inserts in turning of AISI 52100 steel

Research pick: Rebalancing work and life - "Work stress and work life balance: a study of working professionals of the IT sector"

Juggling one’s job and one’s personal life, the so-called work-life balance, is high on the agenda for the modern worker especially as we begin to realise how imbalance can lead to mental health problems and even physical issues. New work published in the International Journal of Technology Transfer and Commercialisation, has looked at how improved work-life balance among company employees not only benefits them as individuals but also has a marked effect on productivity and thus profits.

Poonam Kaushal Balaji of the Institute of Modern Management at the Sri Balaji Society in Pune, India, points out that a lot of stress in a person’s life is focused on their job. She has surveyed hundreds of IT workers in the three Indian cities of Chandigarh, Bangalore, and Pune with the aim of identifying workplace factors that cause stress and affect the elusive perfect work life balance in this profession. Statistical analysis of the results showed significant correlations between workplace stress factors and a detrimental effect on work-life balance.

Organisations compete for talented employees who perform well and are highly competent, but the converse is that this expectation comes with pressure on the employee to always be delivering on their promise and this can bring with it unwarranted stress for some. Pressure on time and targets means that along with the stress, pressure is applied that tips the work-life balance ever in favour of work rather than rest and relaxation. Kaushal goes so far as to describe workplace stress as the “exterminator of the work-life balance”.

She suggests that there is a pressing need to address this problem with new rules for employers and employees alike that can provide new balance and reduce the risk to mental and physical health in the high-pressure IT industry.

Kaushal, P. (2021) ‘Work stress and work life balance: a study of working professionals of the IT sector’, Int. J. Technology Transfer and Commercialisation, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp.4–15.

11 May 2021

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Global Environmental Issues

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Global Environmental Issues are now available here for free:
  • Spatial and temporal variations of water quality in Pallikaranai wetland, Chennai, India
  • Potential health risks of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons associated with sediment and seafood from a Ramsar site
  • Economic evaluation of massive restoration in Brazil: how to achieve the iNDC-Brazil target
  • Saving old cities: land use regression model for traffic emissions in the Historical Peninsula of Istanbul
  • Evaluation of sediment yield (Qs) in Bishezard watershed located southwest of Iran, using PSIAC and MPSIAC models

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Technology Transfer and Commercialisation

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Technology Transfer and Commercialisation are now available here for free:
  • Hindsight-insight-foresight: a strategic combination for enterprises in a VUCA world?
  • Taxonomy of VUCA in Indian start-ups: the future of entrepreneurship
  • Predictive modelling to illustrate factors influencing students at risk
  • Employability through networking: a way forward
  • A practical approach to critical thinking among EFL learners
  • Information technology adoption model in Indonesian creative industry clusters: toward strengthening competitive advantages
  • Difference in activities of four levels of gross license income in university TLOs

Special issue published: "Green Economy: Energy, Industry and Agricultural Aspects" (includes free open access article)

International Journal of Global Environmental Issues 19(1/2/3) 2020

  • Irrigated agriculture: a tool for green revolution in Ghana?
  • State support policy for renewable energy development in emerging economies: the case of Ukraine
  • Service learning as an educational outreach project for community's sustainable development and social responsibility support
  • The system of indicators for alternative energy development in the context of the green economy
  • World trends in bioethanol and biodiesel production in the context of sustainable energy development
  • Environmental and economic regulation of sustainable spatial agroforestry
  • Compensation mechanism for damage from ecosystem services deterioration: constitutive characteristic
  • Econometric analysis of the national economy sustainable development based on environmental Kuznets curve
  • Food security and green economy: impact of institutional drivers
  • The evaluation of economic, environmental and energy security: composite approach
  • From shadow economy to lower carbon intensity: theory and evidence
  • Greening economy vs. greening business: performance indicators, driving factors and trends
  • Human capital development as a factor in achieving sustainable development and enterprise competitiveness
  • A dynamic approach to the study of institutions in a green economy: macroeconomics, regions and industries
  • Persistent water pollutants: case of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid in the Czech Republic
  • Treaty framing and climate science: challenges in managing the risk of global warming [FREE OPEN ACCESS ARTICLE]

Research pick: Secret handwriting - "A handwriting document encryption scheme based on segmentation and chaotic logarithmic map"

Schoolchildren the world over know the way to write secret messages on paper using lemon juice or wax or other household substances. The invisible message is written with the appropriate material and is only revealed when the recipient “decodes” it using heat or some other way to develop the hidden substance.

A more sophisticated approach to secret messages is needed in the adult world, of course, and there are many different tools that allow sensitive documents to be encrypted beyond brute-force attack so that only the legitimate recipient can read them. Such technology works optimally with the digital output of word-processing and related software where the bits and bytes of the document can quickly and efficiently be scrambled using a password or key. The reverse process is then only available to the holder of the key.

However, there is a problem when it comes to handwritten documents. A scanned image of such a document is not composed of bytes representing the letters and words of the document, rather it is a map of all of the pixels making up the document. As such, a handwritten document might be encrypted by applying an appropriate tool for image encryption providing the scanned document is of sufficiently high resolution. Either way, there will be a lot of redundancy in the encrypted image file. This means greater processing power is needed for the initial encryption, the encrypted document file size will be larger than necessary, and the decryption process itself will use excessive processing power to retrieve the original document.

Such matters are perhaps of little consequence when considering a short segment of handwriting, but a handwritten report running to many pages would best be encrypted with a more efficient technology aimed specifically at the written word.

Writing in the International Journal of Information and Computer Security, a team from the Higher Colleges of Technology in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, have demonstrated such a technology in the form of a handwriting document encryption scheme based on segmentation and chaotic one-dimensional logarithmic map. The approach takes the scanned document and breaks it up the words digitally into their component parts, grapheme. The pixel locations of each part of the grapheme rather than the whole scanned area of the document are then scrambled with the encryption key. The team has offered proof of principle with standardized test documents and demonstrates how efficient their process is.

The team explains that there are 2 to the power of 180 (2180) possible encryption keys for their approach, which makes it immune to brute-force attacks with current computers. Moreover, their statistical analysis indicates superior permutation and substitution properties for their proposed encryption scheme compared with conventional image encryption schemes applied to the same test documents. The process is relatively slow but the team is now optimizing performance for real-world applications. One additional benefit is that the same technology might also be adapted to different alphabets and perhaps even character-based languages without compromising the performance and efficacy.

Abu-Amara, F. and Bensefia, A. (2021) ‘A handwriting document encryption scheme based on segmentation and chaotic logarithmic map’, Int. J. Information and Computer Security, Vol. 14, Nos. 3/4, pp.327–343.

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

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Supply Chain and Inventory Management are now available here for free:
  • Performance evaluation of vendor managed inventory variables in hospitals using ANOVA technique
  • Economic order quantity - a tool for inventory management - a case study
  • Product acquisition management in a high-end server remanufacturing environment
  • Development of Inventory model for inventory induced demand and time-dependent holding cost for deteriorating items under inflation
  • Measuring supply chain performance of tyre manufacturers in India: an empirical investigation

10 May 2021

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

The following sample articles from the International Journal of System of Systems Engineering are now available here for free:
  • A parallelistic approach toward ontology design to overcome system's nuance in decision governance
  • Developing a systematic methodology to build a systems dynamics model for assessment of non-technical risks in power plants
  • Mission planning and scheduling for Earth observation space system
  • On extending transitions logic in hybrid dynamic systems based on bond graph and Petri nets combination

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Diplomacy and Economy

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Diplomacy and Economy are now available here for free:
  • The handling of people smuggling involving foreign nationals as efforts to safeguard Indonesian territories
  • Economic diplomacy in small countries: a four-action plan for the Cayman Islands
  • What can be learned from Israel by the European Union in the field of innovation?
  • Evaluation of Save-ideas intellectual property protection concept
  • Improving competitiveness between EU rural regions through access to tertiary education and sources of innovation
  • Analysis of a Blockchain-based website using the technology acceptance model: the case of Save Ideas
  • Connecting and protecting knowledge from different disciplines into sensible toolbox approaches in medium-sized cities: the case of liminal city Cadasters

Special issue published: "Novel Approaches to the Management and Protection of Emerging Distributed Computing Systems"

International Journal of Grid and Utility Computing 12(2) 2021

  • Benchmarking management techniques for massive IIoT time series in a fog architecture
  • DIOXIN: runtime security policy enforcement of fog applications
  • Black-box load testing to support auto-scaling web applications in the cloud
  • LISA: a lean information service architecture for SLA management in multi-cloud environments
  • Evaluation of innovative solutions for e-mobility
  • Usage of DTNs for low-cost IoT application in smart cities: performance evaluation of spray and wait routing protocol and its enhanced versions
  • FOGSYS: a system for the implementation of StaaS service in a fog computing using embedded platforms
  • Crowdsensing campaigns management in smart cities
  • A knowledge and intelligent-based strategy for resource discovery on IaaS cloud systems
  • Dynamic quality of service for different flow types in SDN networks

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Swarm Intelligence

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Swarm Intelligence are now available here for free:
  • Optimising fracture in automotive tail cap by firefly algorithm
  • Multi objective ant colony algorithm for electrical wire routing
  • A self-tuning algorithm to approximate roots of systems of nonlinear equations based on the firefly algorithm
  • Accelerated grey wolf optimiser for continuous optimisation problems
  • Improving the cooperation of fuzzy simplified memory A* search and particle swarm optimisation for path planning

7 May 2021

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Project Organisation and Management

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Project Organisation and Management are now available here for free:
  • Leadership in project management: a scoping review
  • Emotional intelligence and success of project management: the mediating effect of interpersonal skills
  • Ethical challenges during construction project handovers
  • Critical factors for benefits realisation in collaborative university-industry R&D programs

Special issue published: "The Global Pandemics Preparing for the Great Depression"

International Journal of Public Law and Policy 6(4) 2020

  • Social protection floors as an investment in the future
  • EU economic governance and the COVID-19 crisis: between path-dependency and paradigmatic shift
  • 'Building back better': social justice in the green economy
  • How Covid-19 post-recovery plans can tackle poverty and address economic inequality in the USA
  • The idea of a human rights-based economic recovery after COVID-19

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

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Manufacturing Technology and Management are now available here for free:
  • Optimal design of flux for submerged arc weld properties based on RSM coupled with GRA and PCA
  • Investigation on turning parameters on machining time and vibration of carbon fibre reinforced laminates
  • Cellular layout formation by using weighted similarity-based modified flow matrix with process sequence data
  • Active acquisition system of LBS-based logistics freight source information
  • One size does not even fit one: supply chain strategies in the decline phase
  • Investigation of HFRC beams retrofitted using GFRP for enhancement in flexural capacity

6 May 2021

Special issue published: "Artificial Intelligence and Technology Diffusion – Multinational Marketing Management Strategies"

International Journal of Multinational Corporation Strategy 3(2) 2020

  • The role of multinational technology companies in facilitating emerging enabling technologies for industry transformation: the case of artificial intelligence in intelligent manufacturing in Taiwan
  • Media richness and adoption intention of voice assistants: a cross-cultural study
  • Factors influencing foreign consumers to adopt mobile payment extensions offered by multinational mobile messaging applications
Additional paper
  • Multinational enterprises' subsidiary initiative-taking: a model for implementing corporate social responsibility

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Information and Operations Management Education

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Information and Operations Management Education are now available here for free:
  • Decomposing bills of materials using the Gozinto-list-method
  • Benefits of self-selected projects from students' workplace as a pedagogical tool in graduate operations management classes
  • Information systems freshmen teaching: case experience from day one
  • Using transactional distances to explore student satisfaction with group collaboration in the flipped classroom
  • Teaching data envelopment analysis in production operations management through an undergraduate research project based on real-world data
  • Sales and operations planning spreadsheet homework

Free open access article available: "Is benzoyl peroxide detectable under physiological conditions in orthopaedic cement?"

The following paper, "Is benzoyl peroxide detectable under physiological conditions in orthopaedic cement?" (International Journal of Nano and Biomaterials 10(1) 2021), is freely available for download as an open access article.

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

Research pick: Blurred lines in face recognition - "Face spoofing detection using improved SegNet architecture with a blur estimation technique"

Face recognition has come on apace from a cliched trope of science fiction to a reality of the modern world with widespread use in photography databases, social media, and the security world. However, as with any tool, there are those who would abuse it for nefarious ends. New research published in the International Journal of Biometrics investigates one such aspect of face recognition where a third party might “spoof” the face of a legitimate user to gain access to systems and services to which they are not entitled and offers a suggestion as to how such spoofing might be detected.

Sandeep Kumar, Sukhwinder Singh, and Jagdish Kumar of the Punjab Engineering College in Chandigarh, India, explain how biometrics, including face recognition, has come to the forefront of security in all sorts of realms from the simple accessing of a person’s smartphone to securing sensitive premises. The key to precluding face recognition spoofing lies in the determination of whether the face being presented to the security camera or device is “live” or a static photograph or video rather than the actual person.

The team has turned to an improved SegNet-based architecture that can measure “blur” on the basis of local minimum and maximum left and right edges and calculate blur of horizontal and vertical edges. A flat image such as a photograph or video display presented to a security camera or device would be wholly in focus whereas “depth-of-field” comes into play. With a three-dimensional object, such as a real face, presented to the camera, the eyes would be sharply in focus assuming the camera focused on that part of the face, but the curved sides of the head would be slightly out of focus because they are not in the same plane relative to the camera lens as the eyes. Regardless, it is technically impossible for the whole of a three-dimensional object presented to a camera to be in focus, detecting the blur of parts of the object in front of or behind the focal plane is key to discerning whether a real face is in front of the camera or a flat image.

The team’s proof of principle offers up to 97 percent accuracy, which is an improvement on earlier algorithms when tested against standard benchmarks. Moreover, it can determine the “liveness” of a presented face within about one second. The researchers are now working on improving their system’s speculation abilities by looking at shading, another characteristic of a real face that is is obvious to a person looking at a face but difficult for a computer to detect via a camera.

Kumar, S., Singh, S. and Kumar, J. (2021) ‘Face spoofing detection using improved SegNet architecture with a blur estimation technique’, Int. J. Biometrics, Vol. 13, Nos. 2/3, pp.131–149.

5 May 2021

Special issue published: "Advances and Applications in Optimisation and Learning Algorithms"

International Journal of Data Analysis Techniques and Strategies 13(1/2) 2021

  • Efficient data clustering algorithm designed using a heuristic approach
  • Bayesian consensus clustering with LIME for security in big data
  • Semantic integration of traditional and heterogeneous data sources (UML, XML and RDB) in OWL2 triplestore
  • Sentiment classification of review data using sentence significance score optimisation
  • Evaluating information criteria in latent class analysis: application to identify classes of breast cancer dataset
  • Improving social media engagements on paid and non-paid advertisements: a data mining approach
  • Towards knowledge warehousing: application to smart housing
  • Road signs recognition: state-of-the-art and perspectives
  • Combining planning and learning for context aware service composition

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:
  • The influence of greening the suppliers on environmental and economic performance
  • Hybrid SEM-neural networks for predicting electronics logistics information system adoption in Thailand healthcare supply chain
  • Production and distribution scheduling optimisation in a three-stage integrated supply chain using genetic algorithm
  • Green supply chain management: learning from Indian chemical sector

Special issue published: "Science, Technology and Innovation for Sustainable Development"

World Review of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development 17(2/3) 2021

  • Performance analysis of a PCM integrated domestic solar water heater by numerical simulations
  • A review on performance, heat transfer and exergy analysis of solar flat plate collectors
  • One step low temperature synthesis of poly vinyl alcohol stabilised α-Ni (OH)2 nanoparticles - structural, morphological and optical studies
  • The review and investigation of sustainable 13-level multilevel inverter control strategies
  • Composites materials for sustainable space industry: a review of recent developments
  • Investigation on metallurgy and material strength enhancement of 20MnCr5 forged link chain in cement mill
  • Prediction of solids outlet moisture content in a continuous wall heated fluidised bed dryer for uniform and binary solid mixtures
  • A novel hybrid approach to blaze out a new path for glaucoma detection, monitoring and sustainable results in fundus images
  • Sustainable analysis of liver tumour detection using various segmentation techniques
  • Experimental studies on treatment of wastewater using Cladophora sp. and advanced oxidation
  • Structural and compositional evaluation of waste cooking oil-algal oil biodiesel using FTIR and GC-FID for improved fuel properties
  • A comprehensive literature survey for deep learning approaches to agricultural applications

Research pick: Using “ant colonies” to find fake news - "An ant colony optimisation-based framework for the detection of suspicious content and profile from text corpus"

Although it might be said that there has been malicious writing since our ancestors daubed cave walls with ochre symbols or the very first scribes notched letters into ancient stone tablets, fake news, spam, malicious and threatening words have come to the fore with the advent of our ubiquitous and always-connected digital devices. We might refer to this as “suspicious content”.

New work published in the International Journal of Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications, developed an optimisation framework for detecting suspicious content in a body of text. The algorithm is built on a biological paradigm – the behaviour of an ant colony.

The individual members of an ant colony carry out tasks and use pheromones to communicate with other members of the colony. They can solve rather complex problems together even though the individual ants lack the cognitive skills to do so. In computer science, the way in which individual ants behave, each acting as an agent in a problem “space”, can be modelled in an ant colony optimization algorithm (ACO). This probabilistic technique simulates the way in which the colony finds solutions to problems such as finding and transporting food via the shortest and safest route from food source to the colony’s food store and many other colony activities. Previously, vehicle and internet routing problems have been solved using ACO, but the same approach can be applied to finding solutions to other problems such as detecting patterns of words in a large text corpus, for instance.

Asha Kumari and Balkishan of the Department of Computer Science and Applications at Maharshi Dayanand University in Rohtak, India, have focused on mobile phone text message content (short messaging service, SMS) and updates on the well-known microblogging social media platform Twitter. Given the ubiquity of these services in everything from entertainment, internet banking, navigation, trading, and other services requiring short messages, it is important to have tools to hand to quickly and accurately detect suspicious content.

Kumari, A. and Balkishan (2021) ‘An ant colony optimisation-based framework for the detection of suspicious content and profile from text corpus’, Int. J. Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp.1–24.

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Nano and Biomaterials

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Nano and Biomaterials are now available here for free:
  • Investigation on microstructures and phases of Fe-Ga alloy films deposited by magnetron sputtering
  • Polysaccharide capped antibacterial silver nanoparticles synthesis using green chemistry
  • All optical four bit two's complement generator and single bit comparator using reflective semiconductor optical amplifier
  • Controlled hardware architecture for fractal image compression
  • Strain engineering in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs for performance enhancement
  • Role of stress/strain mapping and random dopant fluctuation in advanced CMOS process technology nodes
  • Extended nucleic acid memory as the future of data storage technology

Research pick: Where’s the app for that? - "Leveraging app features to improve mobile app retrieval"

There’s an app for that…but which one to choose?

The growth of software – colloquially known as apps, meaning applications – for mobile devices such as smart phones and tablet computers has been enormous. Well-known apps are easy to find or users learn of them through word-of-mouth. However, searching for a previously unknown app that perfectly fits one’s needs is not always straightforward.

Now, writing in the International Journal of Intelligent Information and Database Systems, a team from Algeria and France have developed a new approach to searching for apps that homes in on the functionality the user needs by mining not only the app’s description but also the reviews left by users. The team’s approach then scores the results offering the user the most relevant app to match their needs. The team describes their proof of principle as effective and able to perform better than the state-of-the-art retrieval models for app retrieval.

Messaoud Chaa of the University of Bejaia and the Research Center on Scientific and Technical Information, CERIST, colleague CERIST colleague Omar Nouali, Algeria and Patrice Bellot of Aix Marseille University, France, explain that there were around 30 billion app downloads in 2019 and this number is growing with growing smartphone and tablet adoption around the world. In the Google Play Store alone there are almost 3 million apps, while the Apple App Store carries more than 2 million. “An efficient app search system is essential”, the team writes and at the present time, there is no perfect tool for searching for the app you need that you don’t know exists.

The team’s approach using natural language processing (NLP) allows them to obtain a score for each app and its functions that can be searched by the prospective user and matched more precisely to their needs than a simple app name search might offer.

Chaa, M., Nouali, O. and Bellot, P. (2021) ‘Leveraging app features to improve mobile app retrieval’, Int. J. Intelligent Information and Database Systems, Vol. 14, No. 2, pp.177–197.

Research pick: Looking for a sign - "Real-time sign language recognition based on video stream"

A new video equivalent of optical character recognition (OCR) but for sign language is described by researchers from China in the International Journal of Systems, Control and Communications.

Kai Zhao, Daotong Wang, and Jianbo Su of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Kejun Zhang and Yu Zhai of the Shanghai Lingzhi High-Tech Corporation discuss a system that can recognise Chinese sign language in a video stream and convert the language in real-time into text. Such a system could be used to automate the generation of subtitles for people sharing the video stream who are not familiar with Chinese sign language. The system was built with a database of half a million video segments and uses a three-dimensional convolutional neural network to extract the relevant frames for conversion.

This is, the team writes, “a complete real-time sign language recognition system” for Chinese sign language. It is composed of a human interaction interface, a motion detection module, a hand and head detection module, and a video acquisition mechanism. The researchers have now demonstrated 92.6% recognition accuracy on a dataset containing 1,000 vocabularies. The system would not only be useful in adding captions to video of a signer but could be used in public areas such as hospitals, banks, and train stations where a person signing could talk to a member of staff who is a non-signer for instance.

The team adds that improvements to the accuracy of the system might be made by incorporating skin detection to extract greater subtleties from the movements of the person signing. Likewise, the addition of detection of the signers underlying skeleton would also add to the sophistication of the recognition system and so improve accuracy.

Zhao, K., Zhang, K., Zhai, Y., Wang, D. and Su, J. (2021) ‘Real-time sign language recognition based on video stream’, Int. J. Systems, Control and Communications, Vol. 12, No. 2, pp.158–174.

4 May 2021

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Data Analysis Techniques and Strategies

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Data Analysis Techniques and Strategies are now available here for free:
  • Hybrid fuzzy logic and gravitational search algorithm-based multiple filters for image restoration
  • Bayesian feature construction for the improvement of classification performance
  • A novel ensemble classifier by combining sampling and genetic algorithm to combat multiclass imbalanced problems
  • Dynamics of the network economy: a content analysis of the search engine trends and correlate results using word clusters

Special issue published: "Bio-Inspired Algorithms for Biometrics"

International Journal of Biometrics 13(2/3) 2021

  • Face spoofing detection using improved SegNet architecture with a blur estimation technique
  • Image recognition method for fault service action of tennis based on feature matching
  • A gait recognition method for a moving target image in sports based on a decision tree
  • Target tracking and recognition of a moving video image based on convolution feature selection
  • Feature extraction method of face image texture spectrum based on a deep learning algorithm
  • An analysis of Mandarin emotional tendency recognition based on expression spatiotemporal feature recognition
  • Research on emotion recognition method of weightlifters based on a non-negative matrix decomposition algorithm
  • The method of table tennis players' posture recognition based on a genetic algorithm
  • Improvement of a face recognition method for high jumper with a single sample based on Lucas-Kanade algorithm
  • Feature similarity measurement of cross-age face images based on a deep learning algorithm
  • Multi-view face pose recognition model construction based on a typical correlation analysis algorithm
  • Recognition algorithm of athletes' partially occluded face based on a deep learning algorithm
Additional papers
  • Multi-scale neighbourhood based-tree binary pattern: a new feature descriptor for face recognition
  • Proposition of new secure data communication technique based on Huffman coding, chaos and LSB

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Service and Computing Oriented Manufacturing

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Service and Computing Oriented Manufacturing are now available here for free:
  • A big data services platform framework towards cloud manufacturing system
  • Multi-objective machining parameter optimisation for residual stress based on quantum cat swarm
  • Smart factory and education: an integrated automation concept
  • Advanced planning and scheduling system with application in the tobacco industry
  • A protégé semantic modelling approach for combination correlation of manufacturing service
  • MIMO wireless power transfer based on magnetic beamforming