Call for papers: Automated Biometric Technology and its Applications

Call for papers: Automated Biometric Technology and its Applications

A special issue of International Journal of Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications

Automated biometric technology has attracted significant attention from both academia and industry. Biometric features can be retinas, irises, fingerprints, hand geometries, signatures, audio, faces, palm prints, ears, gait, DNA, etc. Choice of biometric features depends on factors such as accuracy, robustness, sensor size and cost. Numerous theoretical and implementation advances have made automatic biometric authentication not only technically feasible, but also economically practical. Automated biometric systems have been widely used in many applications such as surveillance, digital libraries, forensic work, law enforcement, human computer intelligent interaction, and banking. For applications requiring higher levels of security, biometrics can be integrated with other authentication means such as smart cards and passwords.

This special issue is aimed at introducing novel pattern recognition techniques applied to biometric authentication and identification, state-of-the-art methods for biometric sensing, and social impacts of biometric technology. Researchers are invited to submit their original papers to this special issue. Papers of both theoretical and practical application nature are welcome. Authoritative reviews of the state of the art and directions for future research in the field are also welcome.

The scope of the issue covers, but is not limited to:

• Face tracking and recognition
• Face expression recognition
• 3D face recognition
• Speaker recognition
• Palm print analysis
• Iris recognition
• Gait analysis
• Fingerprint classification
• DNA classification for biometric applications
• Multi-modal biometric techniques
• Biometric sensors
• Biometric systems
• Biometric application case studies
• Social impacts of biometric technology
  

Important Dates
Full paper submission due: 31 May, 2008
First round review completed: 31 August, 2008
Final notification: 30 September, 2008
Final manuscripts due: 31 October, 2008

Call for papers: Tangible and Embedded Interaction

Call for papers: Tangible and Embedded Interaction

A special issue of International Journal of Arts and Technology

With technological advances, computing has progressively moved beyond the desktop into new physical and social contexts. As physical artifacts gain new computational behaviours, they become reprogrammable, customisable, repurposable, and interoperable in rich ecologies and diverse contexts. They also become more complex, and require intense design effort in order to be functional, usable, and enjoyable. Designing such systems requires interdisciplinary thinking. Their creation must not only encompass software, electronics, and mechanics, but also the system's physical form and behaviour, its social and physical milieu, aesthetics, and beyond.

The new conference series “Tangible and Embedded Interaction” (TEI), which first took place in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 2007, and 2008 in Bonn, Germany, demonstrates the international interest and the many dimensions of the work in this area. It has had a multidisciplinary audience with artists, designers, technology builders, ethnographers and HCI specialists, even touching upon robotics and interactive buildings.

We invite short (statements / works in progress / design sketches: 1000 words, plus figures, max. 2 pages) and long submissions on tangible and embedded interaction. Work addressing related HCI issues, design, use contexts, tools and technologies, and interactive art are all welcome. We particularly welcome interdisciplinary submissions across these themes.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• Case studies and evaluations of deployments
• Analysis of key challenges, proposals of research agenda
• Relation of tangible and embedded interaction to other paradigms
• Programming tools, toolkits, software architectures
• Novel interactive uses of sensors+actuators, electronics+mechatronics
• Design guidelines, methods, and processes
• Novel application areas, innovative solutions/systems
• Theoretical foundations, frameworks, and concepts
• Philosophical, ethical and social implications
• Interactive theatre and cinema
• Interfaces specific to particular cultures
• Usability and enjoyment, aesthetics
• Advantages and weaknesses of these kinds of systems
• Learning from the role of physicality in everyday environments
• Embodied interaction, movement, and choreography of interaction
• Role of physicality for human perception, cognition and experience
• Teaching tangible/embedded interaction design, and best practices
  

Submissions can either contain new original work, or be revised versions of previously published papers. Revised versions need to contain at least 30% new content, providing (e.g.) more details or extensions with follow-up research. Authors should provide access to an online version of the previously published version (to ease work for reviewers) and explicate how the new version differs. Each submission should be written in a way that is accessible to the multidisciplinary audience of the journal.

Important Dates
Abstract (optional): 2 April, 2008
Paper submission: 21 April, 2008
Acceptance notification: 11 June, 2008
Camra ready papers due: 9 July, 2008

Call for papers: Complex Network Systems: Methods, Theories, and Applications

Call for papers: Complex Network Systems: Methods, Theories, and Applications

A special issue of International Journal of Systems, Control and Communications

This special issue focuses on the highly multidisciplinary researches into the methods, theories and applications of complex network systems. The past decade has witnessed significant progress in the field of complex networks, including the deeper theoretical understanding, as well as the successful applications, of various large-scale complex networking systems. The special issue aims at promoting the latest research on complex networks, to serve as a representative collection and frontier exchange of this fast developing field.

Topics including but not limited to:

• Evolving complex network models and design algorithms
• New features and theoretic analyses of complex network systems
• Synchronisation and control of complex dynamical networks
• Emergent behaviours and patterns on complex networks
• Complex networks and biological systems
• Complex networks and communication systems
• Complex networks and computer software systems
• Complex networks and social economic systems
• Complex dynamic networks and multi-agent systems

Important Date
Deadlines for submission: 31 May, 2008

Special issue: Risk management in financial services

International Journal of Financial Services Management 3(1) 2008

• Risk management in the UK insurance industry: the changing state of practice
• Accounting for credit risk: are the rules setting the right incentives?
• The value of risk reporting: a critical analysis of value-at-risk disclosures in the banking sector
• Restoring reputation and repairing legitimacy: a case study of impression management in response to a major risk event at Allied Irish Banks plc
• Credibility of managerial forecast disclosure in market and regulated settings

Special issue: Diamond and diamond-coated tools for machining precision surfaces

International Journal of Surface Science and Engineering 1(4) 2007

• Direct production of nitrogen-doped diamond microtools
• Study on shaping spherical Poly Crystalline Diamond tool by Micro-electro-Discharge Machining and micro-grinding with the tool
• Polishing of diamond composite cutting tools
• High-efficiency machining of single-crystal germanium using large-radius diamond tools
• CVD diamond coating: a technology for tools of future
• Tribological and mechanical properties of DLC film obtained on metal surface by an enhanced and low-cost pulsed-DC discharge
• Fluorinated DLC for tribological applications
• Nano precision on-machine profiling of curved diamond cutting tools using a white-light interferometer

Newly announced journal: International Journal of Information and Decision Sciences

International Journal of Information and Decision Sciences - to begin publication in 2009 - will provide an international forum for practitioners and researchers, both for-profit and nonprofit organisations, along with information technology professionals, software developers, and vendors, to exchange, share and present useful and innovative ideas and work relating to decision making. It will emphasise the presentation and distribution of ground-breaking and original theories and concepts which can shape future directions of research. These, when applied, can enable policy makers, government officials, business managers, and different decision makers to spread over various advanced techniques and new applications of information technology. It also supports discussions on how information systems can promote decision making, and also in turn, how the advances brought about by these decision making practices can affect the growth in, and future application of, information technology. All models (normative, descriptive, cognitive, and prescriptive) are encouraged.

Newly announced journal: International Journal of Financial Markets and Derivatives

International Journal of Financial Markets and Derivatives - to begin publication in 2009 - will address the advancement of contemporary research in the field of financial markets and derivatives. It is an internationally competitive, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to serve as the primary outlet for theoretical and empirical research in all areas of international markets and derivatives.

Newly announced journal: International Journal of Quality and Innovation

International Journal of Quality and Innovation - to begin publication in 2009 - will serve as a platform to encourage the creation of knowledge and the exchange of information on the issues of quality and innovation that businesses face, with a particular interest in how quality and innovation may be integrated into a coherent and powerful strategic package, and the dilemmas and tensions faced in pursuing quality and innovation concurrently.

Issues of quality and innovation involve complex and intricate challenges for leadership and management, such as organisational change, culture, processes and technologies. Moreover, the challenges faced may differ from industry to industry and from country to country. Therefore, the challenges will have to take into account the specific nature of the industry in question, the professional and customer profile, the historical background of the country or region, local habits and practices, ethics and even religious beliefs. The journal will reflect this complexity.

Call for papers: Strategic e-Procurement Management

Call for papers: Strategic e-Procurement Management

A special issue of International Journal of Procurement Management

As the traditional purchasing activity declines in efficacy, e-procurement grows in intensity. However, with procurement professionals now realising that new e-procurement processes need to be contextualised, many organisations operate multiple e-procurement solutions. An overall e-procurement strategy should incorporate the alignment of various processes and solutions, as organisations pursue different digitisation migration paths and confront different issues at each distinct stage. Advances in e-business technology have opened up new possibilities for how companies can create value.

Several themes of research concerning the assessment and the benefits of e-procurement have advanced the academic literature. Constant change has meant that the traditional procurement function is now being asked to generate more value. It can no longer be merely considered just as a function with a defined set of operational tasks. To date, however, many organisations have not recognised the full scope of strategic performance benefits that e-procurement makes possible. Indeed, organisations’ narrow focus on cost reduction is obscuring the bigger picture, i.e. that the e-procurement activity will continue to rise up the corporate ladder.

A successful e-procurement implementation project can become a positive enabler of capability in that it allows processes to be conducted better, faster, differently, more efficiently, in parallel or allows completely new processes to be implemented. Yet, some practitioners are now questioning whether the benefits of e-procurement have been oversold and are looking to re-invent their e-procurement processes. Moreover, the various change management problems that impede successful implementation, illustrate potential avenues for researchers and practitioners.

Articles in this special issue will consider, but are not limited to, some of the recent developments in e-procurement practice such as:

• Strategic procurement
• Collaborative e-procurement
• E-procurement performance measurement
• Relationship between e-procurement expectation and real life experiences
• Public sector e-procurement
• Military e-procurement
• Service sector e-procurement
  

These areas are just indicative and this special issue would welcome papers that contribute to both the theory and practice of e-procurement.

Important Dates
Abstracts and proposals (max1500 words) by: 29 February, 2008
Final drafts of accepted papers by: 31 July 2008

Special issue: Knowledge dynamics on semantic web and social networks

International Journal of Intelligent Information and Database Systems 1(3/4) 2007

• Implicit user credibility extraction for reputation rating mechanism in B2C e-commerce
• Enterprise integration framework and semantic metadata in financial industry
• Centrality measurement on semantically multiplex social networks: divide-and-conquer approach
• On utilising social networks to discover representatives of human communities

Regular Papers

• Intelligent decision support feedback using Multi-Agent System in a defence maintenance environment
• Mapping XML Schema to Entity Relationship and Extended Entity Relationship Models
• Real-time control of decentralised autonomous flexible manufacturing systems by using memory and oblivion
• Privacy-preserving support vector machine classification
• A hybrid object based model combining probability and fuzzy set theories

Special issue: Exergy analyses and applications

International Journal of Exergy 5(2) 2008

Selected papers from the Second International Green Energy Conference held in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada from 25-29 June 2006

• Finite volume computations of convective exergy losses in microfluidic devices
• The entropy matrix generated exergy model for a Photovoltaic heat exchanger under critical operating conditions
• Exergy analysis of advanced transcritical CO2 air conditioning cycles
• Exergy analysis and performance evaluation of CNG to LNG converting process
• Evaluation of a process simulator for modelling and analysis of Rankine cycle steam power plants
• Exergetic performance investigation of a turbocharged stationary diesel engine
• Exergy analysis of SI engines
• Energy and exergy analyses in a thermal process of a production line for a cement factory and applications
• Energy and exergy analyses of a steam reforming process for hydrogen production

Call for papers: High Performance Processes and Systems in the Automotive Industry

Call for papers: High Performance Processes and Systems in the Automotive Industry

A special issue of International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management

The automotive industry is in the midst of profound change due to a fierce and growing competition, shifts in consumer demands, high labour costs, among others. In order to combat the challenges of the 21st century, automotive manufacturers have been forced to implement high performance systems. Research clearly indicates that the high performing organisations of the future will bear little resemblance to the structures, processes, and systems of the 20th century. Those who master what creates high performance in organisations will have a competitive edge. Companies like Harley Davidson and Celestica are examples of leading companies who have purposefully designed themselves for high performance. In these organisations, there is a clear operating philosophy that clarifies the underlying beliefs, values, and principles that drive the behaviour of the organisation. The tasks, structures, information requirements, decision making, people selection training issues, support systems and processes, and reward systems are designed for high performance, recognising they are all interdependent, and all impact results.

The purpose of the special issue is to provide a forum for the dissemination of current and future activities pertaining to the role, application, and impact of high performance in the automotive sector. The focus of the issue is to highlight state-of-the-art research and applications in the field of product innovation management, new product development, intelligent customer requirements and relations, risk management, decision support, resources management, supply chain management, change management, product lifecycle analysis and engineering, etc. and their impact on high performance in the automotive sector. Specifically, we seek to explore the role of high performance in the automotive sector. What are the current trends to achieving high performance? How effective are current high performance processes and systems and the transfer mechanisms among partners? What are the drivers of high performance modeling and simulation and what are the critical success factors? What new approaches and skills are required for high performance managers? What are the barriers to effective high performance organisations and how might these be overcome?

This special issue aims to provide a forum for addressing these questions. Two types of papers are solicited:

• Theoretical research papers that provide original work on current trends and issues in high performance processes and systems.
• Applied research papers that deal with the design, implementation and evaluation of high performance processes and systems in the automotive sector.

Papers to be included in this special issue should be focused on one or more of the following subjects (although the list is indicative rather than exhaustive):

• The road to high performance through after sales
• High performance service
• High performance supply chains
• High performance work teams
• Innovative approaches to leading and managing human capital to drive high performance
• Transforming procurement for high performance
• Driving high performance through outsourcing
• High performance enabled through technology, e.g. RFID
• Transforming CRM to achieve high performance
• New approaches to product development
• Using lean six sigma to drive business results to achieve high performance
• Enterprise reporting and corporate performance management
• Advances in alternative fuel technologies
• Focusing on sustainability to achieve high performance

The special issue welcomes both empirical and theoretical contributions related to the proposed topics Case studies, surveys and papers based on empirical data are preferred; a rigorous research methodology is required, as well as a review of existing literature and adequate reference to bibliographical sources.

Important Dates
Deadline for (extended) abstract submission: 30 June 2008
Response by guest editor: 31 July 2008
Deadline for full paper submission: 30 September 2008

Call for papers: Decision Support in Medicine

Call for papers: Decision Support in Medicine

A special issue of International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology

The process from innovation to routine clinical use is long and complex. Many computerised decision support systems fail to reach the clinical environment for a number of reasons. Some systems for example may be highly theoretical with little relevance to the real world. Others may have been technology-driven. The question of evaluation often arises when looking into new technology. Randomised-controlled trials (RCT) help to a great extent in the evaluation process. However, RCTs are not always feasible or cost-effective.

The focus of this special issue is to review the state-of-the-art of the various stages in the development of DSS in medicine and implications to clinical users and healthcare providers.

Original contributions on novel, robust, user and environment constraints aware, interoperable and effective solutions to existing problems within the aforementioned context are invited. Authors are requested to submit manuscripts including, but not limited to, the following topics:

• Image and data analysis to aid diagnosis and prognosis
• Signal processing
• Pattern recognition analysis
• Design and development of computerised DSS
• Evaluation methods prior to clinical use
• Clinical trials and randomised-controlled trials
• Deployment methods of DSS including the use of the Internet
• Ethical issues related to the use of DSS in clinical practice
• Cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit analysis of DSS

Important dates
One page proposal deadline: 7 March, 2008
Full paper submission deadline: 30 May, 2008
Review results and notification: 3 July, 2008
Submission of revised papers: 29 August, 2008
Final acceptance of papers: 26 September, 2008

Call for papers: Advances in Micro and Nanomanufacturing Processes

Call for papers: Advances in Micro and Nanomanufacturing Processes

A special issue of International Journal of Nanomanufacturing

In the past ten years, significant strides have been made in the development of micro and nanomanufacturing techniques. Advances in micro and nanofabrication in recent years include developments in atomic force manipulation, soft lithography, self assembly processes, sintering, micromachining, microcasting, molding processes, hot embossing, injection molding, printing, stamping, imprint rolling, etching, plasma etching, ion milling, PVD and CVD deposition of micro and nanostructures, to name but a few.

Therefore, the goal of this special issue is to publish the current state-of-the-art in micro and nanomanufacturing and to provide a forum for developing next generation micro and nanomanufacturing processes.

The subject coverage of this special issue includes, but is not limited to, topics that address:

• Fundamental research and developments on micro and nanomanufacturing;
• Applied research and developments on micro and nanomanufacturing processes;
• Applications of fundamental and applied research in micro and nano engineering industries;
• Emerging fields of micro and nanomanufacturing.
  

Research that spans several fields is particularly welcome.

Important Dates
Deadline for submission of manuscripts: 31 December 2008
Communication of peer reviews to authors: 28 February 2009
Deadline for revised manuscripts: 31 March 2009

Special issue: New methodologies for the risk analysis of enterprises

International Journal of Business Performance Management 10 (2/3) 2008

• New contents and perspectives in the risk analysis of enterprises
• Risk insolvency predictive model maximum expected utility
• Synthetic indicator model of dynamism
• An analysis of the key-variables of default risk using complex systems
• A database for the analysis of experiments on enterprise insolvency risks: the case of DB COMPLEX
• A rating model simulation for risk analysis

Special issue: Organisational blogs

International Journal of Information Technology and Management 7(2) 2008

• Organisation and employee congruence: a framework for assessing the success of organisational blogs
• Corporate-level blogs of the Fortune 500 companies: an empirical investigation of content and design
• A cross cultural study of corporate blogs in the USA and Korea
• CEO blogs: credibility issues
• Investigating the influence of employee blogging on IT workers' organisational citizenship behaviour
• Ethical aspects of web log data mining
• Current usage of organisational blogs in the public sector
• Sharing knowledge with conversational technologies: web logs versus discussion boards

Special issue: Safety of VVERs

International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Technology 3(3) 2007

• Neutron fluence attenuation through VVERs and mock-ups of reactor pressure vessels
• Leak tightness testing system for nuclear fuel assemblies in wet conditions of interim spent fuel storage
• Evaluation of fuel rod cladding failure during a loss-of-coolant accident
• Experimental facilities for VVER thermal hydraulic research and code validation (COVERS)
• Application of Mossbauer and positron annihilation spectroscopies for monitoring of WWER RPV steel degradation
• Burn-up credit methodology validation in Bulgaria
• Experimental investigation of the late phase of spent fuel pool accidents
• Safety analysis of a VVER-440 spent fuel storage pool
• Dynamic behaviour of fuel cost component in total electricity cost of nuclear power plants with WWER-type power units

Special issue: New developments in dental nanomaterials, implants and devices

International Journal of Nano and Biomaterials 1(2) 2007

• Modelling on the mechanical properties of nanocomposite hydroxyapatite/PMMA/carbon nanotube coatings
• Effect of nanofillers in adhesive and aesthetic properties of dental resin-composites
• Nanoindentation of orthodontic archwires: variation of elastic modulus and hardness within a stainless steel wire
• Incorporation of montmorillonite nanoclay to acrylic bone cement: effect on mechanical properties and morphology
• Properties of CNT reinforced: PMMA nanocomposites and PMMA treated in NH3-gaseous atmospheric dielectric barrier discharge
• Dental drilling in severe and demanding environments
• Diamond coated molybdenum dental tools for machining orthodontic bridgework materials

Call for papers: Power Converters: Modeling, Simulation, Analysis, Topologies, Control Technologies, Secondary Issues and Applications

Call for papers: Power Converters: Modeling, Simulation, Analysis, Topologies, Control Technologies, Secondary Issues and Applications

A special issue of International Journal of Power Electronics

This Special Issue deals with modelling, simulation, analysis, control technologies, real time implementations, verifications, topologies, secondary issues and applications of power converters.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Resonant converters
• DC-DC converters
• Chaos and control in power converters
• EMI/EMC issues in power converters
• Application of AI and learning control in power converters
• Novel converter topologies
• Modelling, analysis and simulation of power electronic converters and controls
• Control technology applied to power converters
• Switch-mode power supplies and UPS/telecommunications power supplies
• Device drivers and power integrated circuits (PIC)
• Active filtering and unity power factor correction circuits
• Power factor correctors in converter systems
• Snubbers - design methodologies and impact
• Fundamentals of the matrix converter technology and other AC-AC converters
• Vienna rectifiers

Important Dates
Paper due: 31 March, 2008
Acceptance notification: 15 May, 2008
Final paper version due: 15 June, 2008

Call for papers: WiMAX Integration in NGN

Call for papers: WiMAX Integration in NGN

A special issue of International Journal of Autonomous and Adaptive Communications Systems

Recently, IEEE 802.16, also known as WiMAX, and its extensions (i.e., 802.16a, 802.16d, 802.16e, 802.16g) have been proposed for broadband wireless access and a solution for last mile access. A Next Generation Network (NGN) is an advanced, packet-based network that exploits multiple broadband, QoS-enabled transport technologies to provide telecommunication services. With WiMAX, NGN can provide wide-area and broadband services to NGN subscribers. Thus, integration of WiMAX in NGN is becoming an emerging research area and should be carefully examined and studied.

This special issue is intended to foster state-of-the-art research in the area of NGN and are expected to focus on all aspects of NGN and to present novel results and solutions to solve various problems and challenges foreseen in future NGNs. The special issue will additionally select high quality papers from the Mobility 2008 Conference, Taiwan, September, 2008.

The special issue will cover the following topical areas but are not limited to them:

• Modulation, coding, power-efficient signalling of WiMAX in NGN
• Equalization, channel estimation, synchronization of WiMAX in NGN
• Radio and digital processing of WiMAX in NGN
• Channel measurement and modelling of WiMAX in NGN
• Radio resource allocation, cross-layer design of WiMAX in NGN
• Mobility management of WiMAX in NGN
• Security of WiMAX in NGN
• Network architecture infrastructure integration of WiMAX in NGN
• Network/radio planning, spectrum, regulations of WiMAX in NGN
• Deployment, field trials, new services of WiMAX in NGN
• Multimedia systems and software integration of WiMAX in NGN

Important Dates
Deadline for Submission: 1 January, 2009
First Reviews: 1 April, 2009
Revised Paper Deadline: 15 May, 2009
2nd Notification of acceptance: 1 July, 2009
Final Manuscripts: 1 August, 2009

Call for papers: Advances and Challenges in Global Software Development

Call for papers: Advances and Challenges in Global Software Development

A special issue of International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology

Global software development (GSD) is the new business paradigm that organisations are adopting to meet their business challenges and derive competitive advantage. Global software development efforts have increased in recent years, and such development seems to become a business requirement for various reasons, including cost, availability of resources, and the need to locate development closer to customers, speeding time-to-market, obtaining extra knowledge, and increasing operational efficiency. Increased globalisation of software development creates software engineering challenges due to the impact of time zones, diversity of culture, communication, or distance. However, there is still much to know about global software development before the discipline becomes mature. This special issue aims to assess the gap between the state of the art and the state of the practice.

Suggested topics that this special issue will endeavour to address include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Empirical evaluations of effectiveness of global software projects
• SE methodologies and processes for global software development
• Infrastructure required for global software development
• Effectiveness of agile methods in global software development
• Methods and tools for global software development: requirements engineering, architecture, design, coding, verification, testing and maintenance
• Quality, process and configuration management for global software development
• Management of risks such as organisational and cultural differences
• Methods and practices for effective project performance in a distributed environment
• Task allocation in global software development
• Organisational and business views
• Strategic issues in distributed development
• Knowledge transfer, knowledge management strategies and informal sharing in global software development
• Cognitive issues in global software development
• Communication and collaboration in globally distributed teams
• Impact of cultural and geographical differences on global software development
• Collaboration technologies such as multimedia, presence awareness, and web technologies
• Socialisation process required to manage global software development
• Managing offshore collaboration and global software outsourcing

Important Dates
Deadline for submission of manuscripts: 15 May 2008
Notification of peer review to authors: 15 July 2008
Deadline for submitting revised manuscripts: 15 August 2008

Call for papers: Computer Applications in Knowledge-Based Systems

Call for papers: Computer Applications in Knowledge-Based Systems

A special issue of International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology

Knowledge-based systems provide intelligent assistance in solving any problem. They can be used not only as systems within engineering, but also within management, marketing, internet, communication, networking, psychology, education, etc.

The research and development of these systems which exploit knowledge in the target domain is at the forefront of modern research.

This special issue is intended to present applications of knowledge-based systems. Submitted papers are expected to postulate diverse problems, models and solutions for these applications.

This special issue welcomes both academic and practical contributions in all aspects of knowledge-based systems. Relevant topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Knowledge-based systems
• Knowledge-based engineering
• Knowledge discovery and data mining
• Intelligent agents and multi-agent systems
• Machine learning
• Text mining and applications
• Speech processing and synthesis
• Signal processing
• Business intelligence systems
• Intelligence systems for e-business
• Information agents on the internet
• Genetic algorithms
• Evolutionary computing
• Hybrid intelligent systems
• Knowledge acquisition
• Communication assistance with knowledge
• Natural language processing
• Information retrieval/NLP application
• Information extraction/summarisation
• Cross-language information retrieval

Important Dates
Submission of full paper before: 15 April 2008
Notification of acceptance before: 15 June 2008
Submission of final and revised manuscripts: 15 August 2008

Call for papers: Road Map for IT Education in East Africa

Call for papers: Road Map for IT Education in East Africa

A special issue of International Journal of Web Based Communities

Many international development visions explicitly emphasize the importance of modern information and communication technologies for development. The same visions frequently state that sustainability is essential for development. In the field of IT/ICT, education is one of the cornerstones of sustainability. IT education has the potential to reduce a country's dependence on foreign IT experts, to foster a widespread adoption of ICTs for varying societal functions, and to empower people to produce suitable applications that meet each society's unique set of needs.

The role of ICTs differs between countries, regions, and social groups. ICTs play different roles in developing countries and in industrialized countries. Between societies there are varying needs, expectations, and hopes concerning technology, as well as fears, concerns, and barriers concerning technology. Even the professional profile of an ICT expert differs between countries, regions, and societies. Hence, IT/ICT education must respond to local needs and to local circumstances.

This special issue focuses on the special characteristics of East Africa that may make a difference in IT education, such as environment, culture, climate, and society.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to:

• Theoretical and practical concerns in IT education in the developing world
• Ethical and societal issues
• Culturally sensitive dimensions of IT education
• IT education research
• Theoretical and practical aspects of IT education programs in East Africa
• The professional identity and necessary skills of an IT professional in developing countries
• Contextualization: whether, why, where, when, what, and how to contextualize IT education in the developing world, as well as negative and positive impacts of contextualization on the level of syllabi, content, pedagogy, learning outcomes, professionalization, etc.

We welcome theoretical and practical articles that elucidate unique aspects of IT education in East African countries.

Potential contributors to the special issue who wish to inquire if the topic of their submission is within the scope of the special issue may contact the editors by email at ijwbcsi@tumaini.ac.tz. Please provide a paragraph describing the topic and potential title in any inquiries.

Important Dates
Submission deadline for proposal and abstract of article: 31 March, 2008
Editors' response to the proposals and suggestions on their modification: 30 April, 2008
Deadline for first full drafts of the article, sent for peer-reviews: 30 June 2008
Peer reviews back to authors (accept/reject/accept conditionally): 31 July, 2008
Deadline for revised and corrected articles; editors' response to authors: 31 August, 2008
Final versions to the editors: 30 September, 2008

Special issue: Nanotoxicity

International Journal of Nanotechnology 5(1) 2008

• Insights into the health effects of nanoparticles: why numbers matter
• An in vitro investigation of the differential cytotoxic responses of human and rat lung epithelial cell lines using TiO2 nanoparticles
• Human epithelial cell processing of carbon and gold nanoparticles
• Differential binding of serum proteins to nanoparticles
• Medical nanotechnology using genetic material and the need for precaution in design and risk assessments
• Proactively designing nanomaterials to enhance performance and minimise hazard
• A risk management framework for the regulation of nanomaterials

Special issue: Relevance of unbundling for competition in electricity markets: implementation, experience, and requirements for the future

International Journal of Global Energy Issues 29(1/2) 2008

• Electricity market reform and 'reform of the reforms'
• The relevance of cross-border transmission capacities for competition in the continental European electricity market
• The old and the new reform of Chile's power industry
• The second reform of the Brazilian electric sector
• The emergence of Australia's electricity market
• Electricity market deregulation and energy security: a study of the UK and Singapore electricity markets
• Unbundling ownership and control: international experience of independent system operators
• Investment and quality incentives under price cap regimes
• Assessing the benefits of a provision of system services by distributed generation
• On methodology for modelling wind power impact on power systems
• An analysis of spatial pricing and renewable generation in the British electricity system
• Renewable policy in a competitive environment: key issues

Call for papers: Users and Uses of Electronic Governance

Call for papers: Users and Uses of Electronic Governance

A special issue of International Journal of Electronic Governance

The potential benefits of e-government and e-democracy, from improved public service delivery to new opportunities for citizenship participation, all presuppose the role, competence and engagement of citizens as users. E-governance technologies and practices are designed with different uses in mind, and the user may be imagined and cast in numerous ways: as active citizens, consumers, workers, members of particular social groups, and so on. Beyond the question of Internet access and ‘the digital divide’, any beneficial effects of e-governance are contingent on the motivations and prior expectations of users, and their experience and actual use of e-governance technologies. User’s experiences are likely to be shaped by their perceptions of e-governance, including, inter alia, confidence in government, other political actors, and in the technology itself.

Much research on e-government and e-democracy focuses on the supply side. Research would benefit from placing analytical attention on the users and concrete uses of e-governance technologies. In this special issue, we welcome original unpublished papers on how to conceptualize ‘the user’ in studies of e-governance, and research on users’ expectations and motivations, competencies and know-how, and actual experience and use of e-governance. Contributions may refer to a range of ‘types’ of e-governance, at any scale and institutional level (international, national, regional or local). Research papers may be either qualitative or quantitative in approach, and come from any disciplinary or inter-disciplinary perspective.

Contributions to the special issue may address, but are not exclusively limited to, any of the following topics concerning the ‘users and uses of electronic governance’:

• The prior assumptions that developers and designers of e-governance technologies have about users and uses, and how e-governance configures and privileges particular forms of use
• The motivations, prior expectations and perceptions of the users of e-governance
• Users' actual experiences of e-governance systems, including, for instance, questions of usability and accessibility, and any unintended forms and consequences of use
• The role of e-governance technologies and practices in the everyday life of citizens
• Uses and perceptions of e-governance across different social groups and cultural contexts
• Influence of (user or text-based) interactivity on the user

Important Dates
Deadline for paper submission: 30 June, 2008
Notification of acceptance/rejection: 15 September, 2008
Final (camera-ready) papers submission: 20 October, 2008

Newly announced journal: International Journal of Shipping and Transport Logistics

International Journal of Shipping and Transport Logistics - to begin publication in 2009 - will publish papers on all methodological aspects in the field of shipping and transport logistics, particularly those that require empirical or mathematical analysis with managerial implications. It is dedicated to publishing original, high-quality and methodologically rigorous research papers that address significant management issues pertinent to shipping and transport logistics.

First issue: International Journal of Nano and Biomaterials

The first issue of International Journal of Nano and Biomaterials has just been published.

The journal - endorsed and supported by the Society of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology - provides a vehicle to help academics, researchers, industrial companies, trade associations, and policy makers in the fields of medicine, biology, manufacturing technology, materials science, engineering, biotechnology, nanotechnology, nanoelectronics and business to disseminate information and learn from each others’ work.

A free download of the papers from this first issue is available.

First issue: International Journal of Services, Economics and Management

The first issue of International Journal of Services, Economics and Management has just been published.

It covers empirical and theoretical work on services economics and management and seeks to provide a bridge between those conducting research on service economics and management and those working in the service sectors.

A free download of the papers from this first issue is available.

Special issue: Problems exhibiting boundary and interior layers

International Journal of Computing Science and Mathematics 1(2/3/4) 2007

Papers are based on the research results presented at the Boundary and Interior Layers (BAIL) 2006 conference, held in Göttingen in July 2006.

• Turbulent boundary layers: reality and myth
• Near-wall grid adaptation for turbulent flows
• On the implementation of the κ-ε turbulence model in incompressible flow solvers based on a finite element discretisation
• Error estimation and adjoint based refinement for an adjoint consistent DG discretisation of the compressible Euler equations
• Discontinuous Galerkin methods on hp-anisotropic meshes I: a priori error analysis
• On the performance of SOLD methods for convection–diffusion problems with interior layers
• Layer-adapted meshes and FEM for time-dependent singularly perturbed reaction-diffusion problems
• Almost optimal order approximate inverse based preconditioners for 3-d convection dominated problems on tensor-grids
• JMass conservation of finite element methods for coupled flow-transport problems
• Global Interactive Boundary Layer (GIBL) for a channel
• A numerical method for a singular perturbation problem arising in the modelling of plasma sheaths
• On turbulent marginal boundary layer separation: how the half-power law supersedes the logarithmic law of the wall
• Boundary and interior layers in turbulent thermal convection in cylindrical containers
• A posteriori adaptive mesh technique with a priori error estimates for singularly perturbed semilinear parabolic convection-diffusion equations
• Convection-diffusion-reaction problems, SDFEM/SUPG and a priori meshes
• DNS of thin shear instability by ninth-order multioperators-based schemes
• Variational Multiscale Methods for incompressible flows
• A characteristic method for porous medium flow

Special issue: Environmental management in the Latin American and Caribbean Region

International Journal of Environment and Pollution 31(3/4) 2007

• Effect of non-point source runoff and urban sewage on Yaque del Norte River in Dominican Republic
• Environmental infrastructure and socio-economic indicators in San Pedro Sula, Honduras
• Human health risk assessment of lead in drinking water: a case study from Port-au-Prince, Haiti
• Lead, copper, cobalt and nickel removal from water solutions by dynamic ionic exchange in LECA zeolite beds
• Innovative fracture-resistant construction material from C&D waste aggregate, fly ash and recycled plastics
• Improvements on a system for soil erosion control of slopes using scrap tyres
• Raising awareness on materials recycling using undergraduate engineering research
• Understanding environmental pollution concepts: a case study using school students in Argentina and Puerto Rico
• Environmental awareness through integration of research and education: a case study from two elementary public schools in Puerto Rico
• Investigation of a direct melting dehydrated sewage sludge pilot plant
• Assessment of material deterioration in Bulgaria owing to air pollution
• Agricultural runoff contaminant discharge in Dianchi Valley agricultural district, China
• Searching for a sustainable arsenic mitigation strategy in Bangladesh: experience from two upazilas
• Evaluation of street sweeping and washing to reduce ambient PM10

Call for papers: Classify the Classifiers: Investigating the Optimum Classification Technique Per Case in Bioinformatics

Call for papers: Classify the Classifiers: Investigating the Optimum Classification Technique Per Case in Bioinformatics

A special issue of International Journal of Computational Intelligence in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology

The rapid field of bioinformatics applications raises questions about the optimum selection of classification methods per case. This special issue asks, Are there default choices for classifiers given the case of bioinformatics analysis? Under what circumstances are the selection of proper classifier or family of classifiers justified?

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to:
** Investigation and ranking of classifiers based on, but not limited to, computational intelligence methods from fields such as:

• Machine learning
• Expert systems
• Artificial neural networks
• Fuzzy logic and systems
• Feature selection
• Dimension reduction
• Pattern classification and recognition
• Possibility theory
• Bayes network and hidden markov models
• Genetic and [hybrid] evolutionary algorithms
• Support vector machines
• Relative vector machine
• Data mining and knowledge discoveries
• Quantum-inspired evolutionary algorithms
• Fusion of systems
• Swarm intelligence and hybrid computational intelligence
• Affinity propagation
• Game theory

** Application and performance evaluation of the classifiers implemented in various cases of bioinformatics research, such as:

• Gene expression
• Microarrays, motif and pattern discovery
• DNA assembly, clustering, and mapping
• Gene identification and annotation
• Biomedical image processing
• Molecular evolution and phylogeny
• Taxonomy, sequence analysis and alignment
• Ecological modelling
• Mathematical immunology modelling and discovery
• Regulatory network and pathway analysis
• Functional and structural genomics
• Cellular metabolism and inter-cellular signalling
• Genome- and proteome-scale modelling
• Analysis of protein interaction with other cellular constituents
• Protein structure and interaction prediction
• Comparative and quantitative proteomics
• Post-translational modification analysis
• Structural proteomics

Papers should be written to allow readers not familiar with the field of Bioinformatics to understand its problems and challenges.


Important Dates
Submission Deadline: 31 March, 2008
Acceptance Notification: 1 May, 2008
Final Manuscript due: 1 June, 2008

Call for papers: Computers and Information Technology in Manufacturing

Call for papers: Computers and Information Technology in Manufacturing

A special issue of International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology

As the demands for computer technologies to support the globalised manufacturing industry rapidly increase, the research in these areas, especially for integrated information technology targeting various manufacturing issues, has expanded. The development of modern computer technology has ignited innovation in information technology to achieve greater manufacturing integration and automation.

The goal of this special issue is to publish new ideas and the most recent developments in computer information technology for manufacturing. Selected papers from the International Conference on Product Design and Manufacturing Systems, 2007 (PDMS2007) will be published. One of the main focuses of the conference is to provide the opportunity for scholars from all over the world to discuss their recent research advances in the area of computer information technology in manufacturing. However, the special issue is not limited to papers selected from the conference. It will accept submitted general papers on the topic, through the same general peer review processes.

The scope of the issue covers, but is not limited to:

• Enterprise information management (EIM)
• Product life-cycle management (PLM)
• Computer-aided product development (CAD/CAE/CAPP/CAM/PDM)
• Internet-aided design, manufacturing and commerce
• Virtual environments and systems
• Signal processing
• Diagnostics and monitoring
• Intelligent algorithms/techniques
  

Important Dates
Deadline for submission of manuscripts: 29 February 2008
Communication of peer reviews to authors: 31 May 2008
Deadline for revised manuscripts: 30 June 2008

Call for papers: Security, Trust, and Privacy in DTN and Vehicular Communications

Call for papers: Security, Trust, and Privacy in DTN and Vehicular Communications

A special issue of International Journal of Autonomous and Adaptive Communications Systems

Recent years have witnessed the rapid development and wide-spread application of wireless communication technologies, which have significantly enhanced access to Internet services and provide various means for ubiquitous computing that enables high-speed and high-quality information exchange between mobile/portable devices located anywhere in the globe. Among the various application scenarios enabled by these technologies, DTN (Delay-Tolerant Networks) and VANETs (Vehicular Ad-hoc NETworks) represent the most promising and popular ones, as they are characterized by autonomous and adaptive communications.

DTN concerns partial sub-networks, aiming at providing network connections between devices and areas that are not well-served by current networking technology. The nodes in DTN carry the packets while they are moving, and then forward the packets once a wireless connection is available between them. Vehicular communications allow the real-time information exchange between vehicles and infrastructures, with the objective of enhancing road safety and optimizing road traffic. VANETs are primarily enabled by inter-vehicular (or Car-to-Car, C2C) communications and vehicle-roadside communications (or Car-to-Infrastructure, C2I).

Despite their tremendous potential and far-reaching impacts on the revolution of human life, both DTNs and VANETs suffer from security and privacy issues which dramatically limit their applications. First of all, they have similar vulnerabilities to other wireless networks, which allow attackers to manipulate and inject messages, breaching system availability, confidentiality and integrity. Besides the traditional prevention techniques, trust management may serve as another security basis for nodes cooperation and information dissemination. Furthermore, the unique characteristics of DTNs and VANETs such as uncertain mobility and unpredictable latency, make security for those networks even more challenging. In particular, due to the frequent disconnections between nodes in DTNs, distributed certificate authorities rather than centralized ones are more desirable (while the frequent distribution of a large amount of certificates should be avoided due to high round-trip time), and the user credentials/keys should be updated periodically instead of relying on revocation messages. Moreover, due to the sporadic connectivity and long delay of message transmissions in DTNs, secure message management is needed to eliminate expired messages and avoid information leakage.

In VANETs, the high-speed mobility and the large number of network entities call for time-efficient and cost-saving authorization and authentication models, as well as fast attacker detection, revocation and trace back schemes. In addition, both DTN and VANETs suffer from the privacy-invasive issue, which naturally arises in the environment where the mobile equipments are bounded to the moving users. A suite of privacy-preserving techniques are required to provide the fine level protection of the critical information and user profiles, e.g., a set of equipments related to a particular user in DTNs, personal information (and the liability in case of authority investigation) related to drivers and passengers in VANETs.

This special issue is devoted to the most state-of-the-art proposals and cutting-edge research achievements on security and privacy issues in both DTN and VANETs.

We solicit papers that report original and unpublished work on topics including, but not limited to, the following:

• Anonymity, authentication and key management
• Attacker trace back
• Denial of service and Sybil attacks
• Identity theft and phishing in VANETs
• Location privacy and user privacy
• Intrusion detection, misbehaviour detection and response
• Privacy preserving
• Revocation of compromised nodes
• Security models/architectures and threat models
• Secure communications protocols
• Secure positioning
• Secure billing in VANETs
• Surveillance and monitoring
• Tamper proof device
• Trust management
• Vulnerability/attacker modeling and analysis

Important Dates
Manuscripts due: 1 June, 2008
Notification to authors: 1 October, 2008
Revised papers due: 1 November, 2008

Call for papers: Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Regional Development in Developing Countries

Call for papers: Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Regional Development in Developing Countries

A special issue of International Journal of Innovation and Regional Development

Developing countries do not have the competitive advantage in the marketplace with their cheap products/services and cheap labour force. They cannot compete with mass production from China, India and other faster-developing countries. Although the competition comes from the other side of the world, they offer to the European and USA market goods and services below the local production costs. The customer-sensitive market needs quality, customised products, years of service and support, innovative products. Therefore, new pillars have to be adopted by developing countries in order to establish their products and to gain recognition on a global scale and, even, to survive the pressure from globalisation.

These pillars are:

• Entrepreneurship as a process of identifying opportunities and putting useful ideas into practice
• Innovation as a driver of national, regional and global economy
• Regional development and the possibilities and barriers for closer cooperation between developing economies.
  

The aim of this issue is to address the importance of policy making and awareness raising in the fields of entrepreneurship, innovation and regional development, concerning developing countries, especially those in South East Europe.

Papers should address research questions in the field, including but not limited to the following topics:

• Governmental and regional policies on entrepreneurship, innovation and R&D
• Clustering and networking
• Entrepreneurship education
• Family businesses and entrepreneurship
• University-industry collaboration
• Innovation policy in small and medium enterprises
• ICT and Regional competitiveness
• Knowledge management and technology transfer
• Regional innovation strategies
• Regional competitiveness and development
• Business process modelling
• The benefit of knowledge zone, business centres and incubators in the region
• Business incubation
• Best practices in the region, esp. Macedonia (start-up companies)
• Financing innovation, R&D, SMEs
  

Important Dates
Manuscript Due: 8 May 2008
Acceptance notification: 23 June 2008
Final manuscript due: 17 September 2008

Inderscience reaches 300 titles

The addition of the International Journal of Strategic Business Alliances brings to 300 the total number of titles either published or under development by Inderscience Publishers. This significant milestone has been reached with our 30th anniversary in sight (in 2009), and represents a major achievement for the strategy being pursued by the Inderscience Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Mohammed Dorgham. The initial establishment of major titles, in cooperation with centres of excellence, was followed by spin-off titles building on the success of these initial titles. Once the general subject areas were defined, journals were then started to address different aspects of these subjects. The number and scope of these journals has grown dramatically in the last half-a-dozen years, in tandem with increases in issue numbers for many of the established titles. With other new titles in the pipeline, this has indeed been an excellent start to the New Year.

Newly announced journal: International Journal of Strategic Business Alliances

International Journal of Strategic Business Alliances - to begin publication in 2009 - will consider inter-firm partnerships as an alternative and effective strategic option for gaining and sustaining competitive advantage. It will focus on inter-firm collaboration in a variety of forms in various industries in both national and international environments to promote understanding of patterns and strategies of such ventures in the competitive global marketplace. Thus the journal will provide a platform for generation, critiques, and discussion of knowledge on the formation and implementations of strategic alliances between firms.

Newly announced journal: International Journal of Power Electronics

International Journal of Power Electronics - to begin publication in 2009 - is a refereed international journal which will present to the international scientific community important results of work in this field, whether in the form of modelling, simulation, analysis, fundamental research, development, application, design or real-time implementation. The scope is broad, encompassing all aspects of power electronics.

Special issue: Advances in autonomous vehicle technologies for urban environment

International Journal of Vehicle Autonomous Systems 6(1/2) 2008

• Towards urban driverless vehicles
• Learning to drive the human way: a step towards intelligent vehicles
• Efficient GPU-based construction of occupancy grids using several laser range-finders
• Autonomous navigation in urban areas using GIS-managed information
• A high-fidelity co-simulation platform for motion and control research for vehicle platooning
• Dynamic models and parameter identification of a heavy-duty autonomous vehicle
• Vehicle recognition and tracking using a generic multisensor and multialgorithm fusion approach
• An efficient formulation of the Bayesian occupation filter for target tracking in dynamic environments
• Simultaneously firing sonar ring based high-speed navigation for non-holonomic mobile robots in unstructured environment
• Position estimation for intelligent vehicles using an unscented Kalman filter

Special issue: Impact of foresight studies on national innovation capability

International Journal of Foresight and Innovation Policy 3(4) 2007

• Regional open innovation system as a platform for SMEs: a survey
• A case of comparative analysis on methods and outcomes of national foresight processes
• A Latvian experience addressing issues of the foresight innovation
• Using scenarios in innovation processes
• The demand for dialogue: studying the influence of organisers in public foresight
• Integrated foresight for the healthcare sector in Turkey
• Foresight and applied research for SMEs – the case of a German Foundation
• Pitfalls in and success factors of corporate foresight projects

Special issue: Large-scale wireless sensor networks: challenges and applications

International Journal of Sensor Networks 3(1) 2008

• Message-efficient in-network location management in a multisink wireless sensor network
• Reliable data transport and congestion control in wireless sensor networks
• Efficient available energy monitoring in wireless sensor networks
• Performance implications of periodic key exchanges and packet integrity overhead in an 802.15.4 beacon enabled cluster
• Minimising the effect of WiFi interference in 802.15.4 wireless sensor networks
• MOCUS: moving object counting using ultrasonic sensor networks
• A fault-tolerant routing protocol in wireless sensor networks

Special issue: The Seventh World Congress on the Management of Electronic Business

International Journal of Electronic Business 5(6) 2007
The 7th World Congress was held in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada from 13-15 July 2006.

• Consumers' allocation of cognitive resources in web-based search: an exploratory study
• Online shopping bots for electronic commerce: the comparison of functionality and performance
• Online Dispute Resolution services for electronic markets: a user centric research agenda
• Building government portals that work: guiding principles from Community Informatics
• iPrice: a collaborative pricing system for e-service bundle delivery
• Seller strategies on eBay: Does size matter?

Special issue: Information technology and telecommunications services – knowledge, technology and organisational changes

International Journal of Knowledge Management Studies 2(1) 2008

• Service productivity gains through information and communication technology applications: a service marketing approach
• The digital divide in the internet usage within enlarged European Union: a multivariate comparative analysis
• E-procurement of telecom services for the public sector
• Identifying and measuring the success factors of mobile business services
• Towards an optimised design of private complex services
• How can an ICT tool strengthen network capabilities? Evidence from the role of knowledge codification in the KMP experience
• Knowledge-based alliances as a driver of mobile telecommunications convergence: an historical and technical overview
• Managing supplier relations with balanced scorecard
• Users' perception of mobile payment
• Determining website content for small businesses: assisting the planning of owner/managers

Special issue: Integrated vehicle control: sensing, estimation and driver modelling

International Journal of Vehicle Autonomous Systems 5(3/4) 2007

• Lateral vehicle-dynamic observers: simulations and experiments
• An analytical driver model for arbitrary path following at varying vehicle speed
• Characterisation of driving skill level using driving simulator tests
• Cascaded observers to improve lateral vehicle state and tyre parameter estimates
• Parametric identification of vehicle handling using an extended Kalman filter
• Design of a sliding mode fuzzy observer for uncertain Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy model: application to automatic steering of vehicles
• The multi-agent driving assistance system
• Moment robust fuzzy observer-based control for improving driving stability
• Sliding mode observers to replace vehicles expensive sensors and to preview driving critical situations

Special issue: Achievements in materials and manufacturing engineering

International Journal of Computational Materials Science and Surface Engineering 1(3) 2007

• Scanning errors identification using touch trigger probe head
• New lance and method of powder injection into liquid alloys
• Operational control in the steel wire production
• Characteristics of anodic layer on Ti6Al4V ELI alloy after bending
• A study on characteristics of alternate supply of shielding gas in GTA welding using finite element analysis
• Physicochemical properties of fixation plates used in pectus excavatum treatment
• Application of neural networks for selection of steel grade with required hardenability
• Limiting upsetting conditions in a three-slide forging press

Special issue: Assessment of information quality

International Journal of Information Quality 1(3) 2007

• Managing data quality in inter-organisational data networks
• A Bayesian network to represent a data quality model
• Component comparison based information quality assurance
• Perception of students on performance of dual-mode education: Information Quality perspective
• RQAM: a recordkeeping quality assessment model proposal

Special issue: Second International Workshop on Dependability Aspects on Data Warehousing and Mining Applications, DAWAM 2007

International Journal of Business Intelligence and Data Mining 2(4) 2007

The DAWAM 2007 workshop was organised at the Vienna University of Technology, Austria, in conjunction with the Second International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security (ARES 2007) from 10 to 13 April, 2007.

• Extended RBAC-based design and implementation for a secure data warehouse
• Distribution-based methods of preserving data privacy in Distributed Spatial Data Warehouse
• Understanding the structure of terrorist networks
• Application of association rules mining to Named Entity Recognition and co-reference resolution for the Indonesian language
• Knowledge worker intranet behaviour and usability
• A novel Supervised Instance Selection algorithm
• Knowledge actionability: satisfying technical and business interestingness

Special issue: Empirical approaches in design information and knowledge

Journal of Design Research 6(3) 2007

• Empirical research on information and knowledge management in designing: where are we and where do we go from here?
• An observational study of multi-disciplinary co-design – application to an electromechanical device
• An empirical study of engineering knowledge dynamics in a design situation
• Empirical research in engineering practice
• Competencies required to undertake empirical engineering design research

Special issue: Building reliability into products during the product development process

International Journal of Product Development 5(1/2) 2008

• Perspectives and challenges for product reliability assurance in the product development process
• Reliability specification in new product development
• Design-for-six-sigma for multiple response systems
• Reliability-based design optimisation of vehicle drivetrain dynamic performance
• A single-loop method for reliability-based design optimisation
• Risk-averse reliability optimisation in electronic product design with component and non-component failures
• Effecting product reliability and life cycle costs with early design phase product architecture decisions
• Application of fuzzy methodology to build process reliability: a practical case
• Functional guarantees: a new service paradigm
• Development of a low-cost smart-card-based secure and reliable information exchange system with tamper-proofing features
• Design development through an integrated approach: a case study of battery-operated passenger cart
• Product quality pointers for small lots production: a new driver for Quality Management Systems

Special issue: Advanced evolutionary computational techniques for design, manufacturing, logistics and supply chain problems

International Journal of Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications 4(1/2) 2008

• Simulating the generic job shop as a multi-agent system
• Hybrid heuristic algorithms for single machine total weighted tardiness scheduling problems
• Mining manufacturing data using genetic algorithm-based feature set decomposition
• Minimum-zone form tolerance evaluation using particle swarm optimisation
• A modified tabu search strategy for multiple-response grinding process optimisation
• Allocation of work to the stations of an assembly line with buffers between stations and three general learning patterns
• Hybrid Karhunen-Loeve/neural modelling for a class of distributed parameter systems
• Techno-economic analysis of hybrid layered manufacturing
• A new solution of solidification problems in continuous casting based on meshless method
• Optimal layout and work allocation in batch assembly under learning effect

Call for papers: Soil Remediation Processes and Management

Call for papers: Soil Remediation Processes and Management

A special issue of International Journal of Environment and Waste Management

Soil contamination is a common problem in the developed and developing countries alike. A great number of industrial activities produce waste that reaches soils through spills, leaks, tank and pipeline ruptures, and other disposal pathways. In addition, an increasing number of abandoned industrial sites have emerged as a result of weak environmental regulations throughout the decades. It is recognised that this trend can impose negative societal effects, and therefore redevelopment of these industrial and urban sites is essential. However, reuse of such sites requires remediation. Through remediation, prime land in established locations can be reused, thereby lowering the pressure on greenfields. Since remediation followed by redevelopment prevents degradation of the environment, human health, and natural resources, it is a topic of enormous public interest.

It has been widely recognised for some time that the established conventional remediation technologies like “containment,” “dig and dump,” or “pump and treat”, cannot in all cases be regarded as sustainable in the sense of cost-efficiency, contamination reduction, or environmental balance. For these reasons, comprehensive research efforts have been undertaken in the past decade to develop and refine innovative remediation technologies, which are sustainable, environmentally friendly, and cost-efficient. However, despite all these efforts, very few technologies have received recognition, while in practice, conventional technologies still prevail. One reason for this limited acceptance of innovative technologies seems to be the fact that the conventional technologies still prove to be relatively cheap, quick, and capable of removing residual liabilities. In addition, the innovative technologies have been slow to evolve as viable alternatives primarily due to scattered information regarding their application, implementation and performance.

The purpose of this special issue is to make the practices, applications and management of the emerging technologies of soil decontamination from different geographical regions readily available to engineers, regulating agencies and contractors for implementation.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to:

• In situ soil remediation
• Biological remediation
• Chemical soil remediation
• Electrokinetic remediation
• Electroacoustic remediation
• Innovative soil remediation technologies
• Sustainable soil remediation
• Petroleum (PAH) contaminated soils
• Volatile organic contamination
• Heavy metal contamination
• Bench scale evaluation
• Pilot scale studies
• Filed application
• Waste disposal management
• Contaminated site management

Important Dates
Deadline for paper submission: 30 June, 2008
First turn of papers review: 30 August, 2008
Second turn of papers review: 15 September, 2008
Final papers submission: 30 September, 2008

Call for papers: Risks in Environment

Call for papers: Risks in Environment

A special issue of International Journal of Environment and Pollution

The focus of this special issue is on bringing together researchers and practitioners from the areas of risk management and environment. The technical objective is to exchange ideas and techniques from the two areas as well as to establish a framework for the development of methodologies that integrate risk management tool into environment issues. Authors are encouraged to submit both theoretical and applied articles addressing the theme of the special issue.

A conference, the First International Conference on Risk Management and Engineering Management, is to be organized in April 2008 by the RiskChina Research Center at the University of Toronto. Submission to the Special Issue is, however, not restricted to conference participants.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Environment risk management
• Environment risk management and financial risk management
• Solutions provided to technical or engineering problems
• Risk decision making in environment and pollution
• Risk assessment in environment problems
• Ecological efficiency
• Evaluation and management of environmental risk and safety
• Environment and sustainable development
• Environmental risk education and training
• Review and assessment of risk policies in environment issues

Important Dates
Deadline for submission of manuscripts: 1 September 2008
Approximate date for final submission of accepted manuscripts: 1 December 2008

Call for papers: Social-Economic Engineering and Environment Issues

Call for papers: Social-Economic Engineering and Environment Issues

A special issue of International Journal of Global Environmental Issues

The focus of this special issue is on bringing together researchers and practitioners from the areas of social-economic engineering and environment. The technical objective is to exchange ideas and techniques from the two areas as well as to develop economic, social engineering and social science methodologies to resolving environment issues. Authors are encouraged to submit both theoretical and applied articles addressing the theme of the special issue.

A conference, the First International Conference on Risk Management and Engineering Management, is to be organized in April 2008 by the RiskChina Research Center at the University of Toronto. Submission to the Special Issue is, however, not restricted to conference participants.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Complex Environmental, Energy and Economy (EEE) models for global policy
• Environment risk management
• Risk decision making in environment
• Disaster management
• Ecological and environmental efficiency
• Emergency management
• Uncertainty modeling and analysis in environment
• Other issues related to using economic, social engineering and social science approaches to resolving global environment issues

Important Dates
Deadline for submission of manuscripts: 1 October 2008
Approximate date for final submission of accepted manuscripts: 30 December 2008

Special issue: The relevance of unbundling for competition in electricity markets: implementation, experience, and requirements for the future

International Journal of Global Energy Issues 29(1/2) 2008

• Electricity market reform and 'reform of the reforms'
• The relevance of cross-border transmission capacities for competition in the continental European electricity market
• The old and the new reform of Chile's power industry
• The second reform of the Brazilian electric sector
• The emergence of Australia's electricity market
• Electricity market deregulation and energy security: a study of the UK and Singapore electricity markets
• Unbundling ownership and control: international experience of independent system operators
• Investment and quality incentives under price cap regimes
• Assessing the benefits of a provision of system services by distributed generation
• On methodology for modelling wind power impact on power systems
• An analysis of spatial pricing and renewable generation in the British electricity system
• Renewable policy in a competitive environment: key issues

Call for papers: Advanced Theory and Technologies for Design, Manufacturing and Materials

Call for papers: Advanced Theory and Technologies for Design, Manufacturing and Materials

A special issue of International Journal of Materials and Product Technology

The purpose of this special issue is to publish recent research outputs on product engineering employing advanced design theory, manufacturing technologies and materials technologies. By advanced concepts, we mean non-conventional techniques. In last few decades, both academic literature and practice have put growing emphasis on the importance of advanced design, manufacturing and materials as a key factor in establishing durable competitive advantages in product engineering. The objective of the special issue is to provide a means for the publication and interchange of information, on an international basis, on all aspects of advanced theory and technologies for design, manufacturing and materials.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Design theory and method in product engineering
• Manufacturing technologies in product engineering
• Numerical methods, experiments and measurements in product engineering
• MEMS, nanotechnology, micro-packaging technology and materials
• Advanced design theory, manufacturing technologies and materials for structural integrity
• Physical mechanisms, chemical mechanisms and materials in product engineering
• Civil and construction engineering structural integrity and materials
• Product development

Important Date
Deadline for submission: 30 May 2008

Special issue: Water research: an Australian perspective

International Journal of Water 3(4) 2007

Papers from Environment – Working Together, the 10th Environmental Research Event (ERE) held in Sydney, Australia, 10–13 December 2006.

• An alternative approach to modelling stormwater runoff from small urban catchments
• Optimisation of analytical method for estrogen in surface water and primary risk assessment in South Creek
• Health effects of disinfection by-products in Australian drinking waters
• Metal speciation in sediment in West Lake (Ho Tay), Hanoi, Vietnam
• Membrane bioreactor technology for decentralised wastewater treatment and reuse
• System dynamics and auto-calibration framework for NSM model: Murrumbidgee River
• Sustaining public open spaces through water recycling for irrigation: developing decision support tools and framework
• Selective recovery of heavy metals from hot-dip galvanising effluent streams by membrane-based solvent extraction
• Precision application of water for peri-urban horticulture

Additional Paper

• Inadequacy of positivistic research to explain complexity of water management

Newly announced journal: International Journal of Sustainable Economy

A sustainable economy is one characterised by development decisions, policies and practices that accelerate the need to do more with less by making better use of resources, increase investment, promote stability and competition, develop skills and reward work and respect the cultural experiences of societies. Sustainable development requires us to take a long term view of the economy, rather than adopting short term fixes. A sustainable economy includes economic stability and competitiveness, employment and education, a healthy environment and sound environmental practices. Areas related to sustainable economy are, in particular, sustainable economic growth, an innovative and knowledge-based economy, income security and employment stability, as well as a clean and healthy economy. International Journal of Sustainable Economy - to begin publication in 2009 - aims to address the exposed sustainability issues in the field of economic theory and analysis.

Special issue: Contribution of management sciences to sustainable development

International Journal of Environmental Technology and Management 8(1) 2008

• Developing a dynamic systems model for the sustainable development of the Canadian oil sands industry
• TUPROD, an assistant Tool for the dUrable PROduct Design
• Key aspects of product attraction: a focus on eco-friendliness
• Steps towards sustainable urban development in the city of Narva, Estonia – supporting e-Governance processes through the e-Community tool – a web-based communication and management platform
• Development and implementation of environmental strategies for steel industry
• A complexity view of organisational reputation
• An ultimate contribution of sustainable development to management sciences

Special issue: Process modelling and simulation for product design and realisation

International Journal of Simulation and Process Modelling 3(4) 2007

• A DSM-based project-scheduling system for collaborative product development
• Integrating pre-purchase affect in product concept development
• Person-centred simulation of product development processes
• The development of a fabric retrieval system: using a similarity modelling approach
• A systematic method for mapping customer requirements to quality characteristics in product lifecycle
• Simulation-based optimisation for material dispatching in Vendor-Managed Inventory systems
• Computer-supported collaborative supply chain modelling and simulation: a knowledge-centric approach

Tables of contents (ToCs) by RSS

Inderscience has introduced the facility to receive tables of contents of individual journals in a browser or a newsreader like Bloglines or Google Reader using RSS technology. Contents are available for the latest issue of all published titles - currently 189 journals, with many others in various stages of preparation. Previously a feed was available only for all new articles, but now users can choose just the journals of interest. This RSS delivery is an alternative to the tables of contents by email alerting service. Links are available to the full text of articles for subscribers - other users can pay for individual articles.

From a journal homepage users should click on the orange RSS icon or the Latest TOC link - or copy the underlying URL - and follow appropriate procedures to add to their list of RSS feeds.

Call for papers: Survivable Sensor Networks

Call for papers: Survivable Sensor Networks

A special issue of International Journal of Sensor Networks

Sensor networks are appealing to diverse services due to the distributed (redundant) nature of sensors. Redundancy has profound effects on the survivability of tasks at hand and is especially important to applications attempting to overcome the problem of single points of failure. Redundancy, however, increases the chance for component failure, increases the complexity of communication protocol, and renders system operation more complex in that the application program at hand must be perceived as it were running on a single system. With these in mind, the lack of embedded survivability requirements is a growing concern, as more critical services take advantage of advances in sensor technologies.

On the other hand, research studies in various fields of survivability, such as reliability, security, and fault tolerance, often develop different sets of terminologies and approaches with limited cross fertilisation among those properties, although the core problems across the fields are often similar. For instance, with respect to distributed agreement and data aggregation, the list of research articles in fault tolerance or security field is numerous, but there is very limited research in applying the results and maturity of one field to another. Additionally, many research studies apply inappropriate and/or complex cryptographic approaches, impose unrealistic assumptions, and tend to employ single or simplistic failure modes, rather than exploiting the benefits of hybrid fault models.

Accordingly, the main theme of this special issue on sensor networks is on cross-fertilisation of different survivability areas and pragmatic solutions. Of special interests are contributions that address: recovery, masking of fault and intrusion impacts, and co-existence of faults (hybrid fault models) with various severities for higher performance and survivability.

In the context of this theme, original unpublished manuscripts are solicited. General topics of interest include but are not limited to:

• Distributed algorithms for collaborative tasks
• Coordination and synchronisation
• Performance analysis of existing solutions
• Task allocation and scheduling
• Network intrusion tolerance
• Detection and self-organisation
• Routing algorithms
• Case studies of real world applications
• Hybrid fault modelling
• Unification of fault modeling of survivability properties
• Evaluation and validation of survivability
• Realisation and deployment of robust large-scale sensor networks
• Design for survivability

Important Dates
Manuscripts submission: 30 June, 2008
Notification of acceptance/rejection: 31 October, 2008
Submission of final manuscript: 31 December, 2008

Special issue: Mergers and acquisitions, financial systems restructuring and corporate ownership control issues. Part 1.

International Journal of Financial Services Management 2(4) 2007

• Bank acquisitions and shareholder returns
• Determinants of merger activity: evidence from India
• Predicting Greek mergers and acquisitions: a new approach
• Mergers and acquisitions in the Malaysian banking industry: technical and scale efficiency effects
• Impact of mergers and acquisitions on stock returns of tramp shipping firms
• Identifying synergies ahead of mergers and acquisitions

Special issue: Risk and accounting

International Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Performance Evaluation 4(3) 2007

• Disclosure patterns in derivatives reporting by UK firms: implications for corporate governance
• The usefulness of derivative-related disclosure: evidence from major Australian banks
• Risk reporting of Japanese companies and its association with corporate characteristics
• Accounting for risky liabilities: evidence from UK pension plans
• Using option theory and fundamentals to assess the default risk of listed firms

Special issue: Intermodal passenger air transportation

World Review of Intermodal Transportation Research 1(3) 2007

• Air–rail intermodality from airlines' perspective
• Inter-Island modal competition: the case of Gran Canaria-Tenerife
• Air/rail passenger intermodality concepts in Germany
• Characteristics and competitive implications of air–rail links in Germany
• The intermodal networks: a survey on intermodalism

Additional Papers

• Electric vehicle: a futuristic approach to reduce pollution (A case study of Delhi)
• Measuring intermodalism at European port cities: an employment-based study

Special issue: Programming multiagent systems

International Journal of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering 1(3/4) 2007

• IOM/T: interaction-oriented model by textual notation
• An Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) view on AOSE
• Agent-oriented software engineering: a model-driven approach
• Developing organised multiagent systems using the MOISE+ model: programming issues at the system and agent levels
• West2East: exploiting WEb Service Technologies to Engineer Agent-based SofTware
• A formal semantics for Gaia liveness rules and expressions
• Prioritisation mechanisms to support incremental development of agent systems
• Report from the Eighth Agent-Oriented Software Engineering Workshop, AAMAS 2007

Newly announced journal: International Journal of Cultural Management

International Journal of Cultural Management - to begin publication in 2008 - adopts a wide definition of culture and cultural management, to include the performing arts (music, theatre, dance), heritage (built and man made), media, and the cultural industries. It is concerned with the management, marketing, economic organisation of the cultural sector and with the behaviour of producers, consumers and governments in that sector. The journal will encourage cooperation and dissemination of information related to cultural management, culture and all its manifestations. It will serve one of the most rapidly expanding sectors in the economy and so will invite and attract original pieces of work from various disciplines to facilitate discussion regarding the contribution of culture in the society.

Call for papers: Information Processing and Decision Making in Distributed Control Systems

Call for papers: Information Processing and Decision Making in Distributed Control Systems

A special issue of International Journal of Systems, Control and Communications

This special issue focuses on the highly interdisciplinary research in the theory and application of distributed control and communication systems. The increasing use of heterogeneous channels such as the internet or dedicated bus lines, particularly in the context of distributed systems, challenges conventional assumptions of perfect communication and instantaneous observation, and calls for the development of systematic optimal control design tools for distributed control systems. This special issue aims at presenting research from various disciplines in a coherent context, which can serve as a guide for research in information processing and decision making over communication networks and uncertain information channels.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to:

• Optimal and robust control under decentralised information structures
• Design algorithms and principles for distributed control systems, including design with partial information
• Distributed consensus, agreement, and optimisation
• Stochastic dynamic games and teams
• Distributed sensing over noisy channels
• Distributed control under rate and distortion constraints
• Multi-terminal information theory: source and channel coding
• Graphical models in distributed control
• Distributed estimation and diagnosis

Important Date
Submission Deadline: 30 April 2008

Call for papers: Software Agents in e-Business: Concepts, Development and Applications

Call for papers: Software Agents in e-Business: Concepts, Development and Applications

A special issue of International Journal of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering

The main achievements of software agent technology include frameworks and platforms based on standardised languages and architectures for agent systems development. Implemented software agents are claimed to have attractive features such as adaptivity, intelligence, autonomy and mobility.

Modern e-business systems pose difficult problems concerning cost reduction, profitability and efficiency improvement, interoperability and decision-making, thus making them a fertile and rich real-world environment for the application and experimentation of software agents. Difficult research challenges involve the adaptation of relevant software agent technologies, development methodologies and tools to meet the tight requirements of modern e-business.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to:
**Software agent engineering, including

• models
• methodologies
• architectures
• frameworks
• application protocols

**Software agent evaluation and testing, benchmarking and performances
**Software agent applications in relevant areas of modern e-business, including but not limited to

• trading
• e-commerce
• negotiation and contracting
• business process management
• marketing management
• resource management

Important Dates
Manuscript due: 31 March, 2008
First Notification: 1 June, 2008
Second Notification: 1 September, 2008
Final manuscript due: 30 October, 2008