Call for papers: Customer-centric Service Experience Design and Choreography in Innovative Online Services and Mobile Services

Call for papers: Customer-centric Service Experience Design and Choreography in Innovative Online Services and Mobile Services

A special issue of International Journal of Enterprise Network Management

The advent of services sciences has opened up new possibilities for service innovation. The emerging discipline of service science management, engineering, and design (SSMED) is outlined in practice (IBM, Fraunhofer etc.) and academia (UC Berkeley, MIT etc.) The value-adding economical activities for service sector include retail, finance, transportation, healthcare, education, entertainment, and government etc. Customer-centric service design and choreography facilitates service sector to better systematise service innovation.

Research on these questions that provide the advanced e-service and service mobility can change existing human lives by means of integrating work, life, and entertainment aspects. From the viewpoint of service marketing, the service sector with cutting-edge innovative online services and mobile services may promote the position and brand goodwill. Compared with the physical products and adherence to manufacturing specifications, the quality of service is adequately measured only by customer perceptions. Moving towards customer-centric experience choreography can be a significant objective of blueprinting service, designing service, and developing new service to improve customer perceptions. In other words, customer-centric experience choreography can leverage capabilities of service sector to systematise new service concepts in online services and mobile services that will extend business opportunities and research issues.

Customer-centric experience design and choreography involves contextual research to identify new areas for service innovations and opportunities, and the insights into the new service concepts are derived from successful implementations with a variety of service provision and service excellence. Meanwhile, customer-centric experience design and choreography is cross-disciplinary research that can take advantage of diverse thoughts and creativity including psychological, social, and economic perspectives in addition to information technologies and communication. Moreover, to demonstrate the practicality of customer-centric service and experience, innovative online services and mobile services are a rich domain in which new service concepts, service provision, service evaluation, and service marketing can provide good theoretical, empirical, and scientific formulations. Herewith, mobile services refer to the ubiquitous or ambient services that upgrade the service to reach an eminent level and assure customers’ satisfaction.

The goal of this special issue is to address concerns that involved customer-centric service experience design and choreography issues within the broad online services and mobile services scope in regard to services sciences. Due to the rapid growth in intelligence, collaboration, mobile technologies, so the above special issue will be a timely contribution to service sector entities, service users’ daily lives, and the society.

The special issue provides a global forum for presenting authoritative references, academically rigorous research and case studies in both theoretical development and applied research. The purpose of the special issue is to discuss the effective and timely development of state-of-the-art customer-centric service experience design and choreography to accelerate the popularity of these concepts to the entire society. Specifically, it intends to disseminate the researches and studies in the service science from customer-centric service experience design and choreography that directly address the issue of problem-solving toward the obstacles currently encountered in these services online and mobile services.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to:

• Customer-centric service experience design
• Customer-centric service experience choreography
• Customer-centric mobile service design and implementation
• Customer-centric service experience engineering
• New customer-centric service experience development
• Customer-centric service concept design
• Customer-centric service concept implementation
• Customer-centric service experience vision and blueprint as well as strategy
• Service management in online services and mobile services
• Customer-centric online services and mobile service system implementation and test
• Customer-centric service experience assessment and quality
• Verification and validation of customer-centric service systems
• Customer-centric Web service applications
• Customer-centric SOA applications (e.g., e-entertainment. e-learning, e-government, e-health)

Important Dates
Full paper deadline: 30 July 2009
Notification of acceptance and review results: 31 December 2009
Revised submission deadline: 31 January 2010
Final acceptance: 31 March, 2010

Call for papers: Marketing in Emerging Markets

Call for papers: Marketing in Emerging Markets

A special issue of International Journal of Business and Emerging Markets

Recently, there have been increasingly louder calls for more research in emerging markets, in order to both advance the discipline of marketing and ensure its managerial relevance. Indeed, emerging markets are fundamentally different from the industrialised nations in which scientific research has traditionally been conducted, calling into question, therefore, marketing’s conceptual and theoretical foundations. The growing importance of emerging markets in the world economy suggests that understanding the practice of marketing in emerging markets is critical to an organisation’s success.

The focus of this special issue, therefore, is on marketing in emerging markets. More specifically, it aims to explore both the scientific discipline and practice of marketing, in the context of emerging markets. The guest editors welcome:
conceptual, theoretical, critical, and managerial submissions;
both quantitative and qualitative methods; and
all research approaches, including experiments, empirical work, cases, and interpretive studies.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to:

• Consumer research tools and techniques in emerging markets
• Buyer behaviour in emerging markets
• Distribution channel innovations in emerging markets
• Communication and promotional strategies in emerging markets
• Consumer education and consumer rights in emerging markets
• Social marketing and ethical dilemmas in emerging markets
• Counterfeiting and intellectual property rights
• New product development in emerging markets
• Internet marketing in emerging markets

Important Dates
Submission: 26 June, 2009
Notification: 25 September, 2009
First Revision: 27 November, 2009
Final Revision: 29 January, 2010

Special issue: Third International Workshop ‘Dependability Aspects on Data Warehousing and Mining Applications’ DAWAM 2008

International Journal of Business Intelligence and Data Mining 3(3) 2008

The DAWAM workshop was held in Barcelona, Spain, 4–7 March 2008 as part of the Third International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security (ARES 2008 – The International Dependability Conference)

• Privacy-enhancing methods for e-health applications: how to prevent statistical analyses and attacks
• How to implement multidimensional security into OLAP tools
• An evaluation of business solutions in manufacturing enterprises
• On the requirements of new software development

Special issue: Sustainable management of water resources in transboundary river basins: risk assessment and modelling

International Journal of Risk Assessment and Management 10(4) 2008

• Risk-based integrated management of transboundary water resources: a general framework
• Incorporating uncertainty into adaptive, transboundary water challenges: a conceptual design for the Okavango River basin
• Risk management of transboundary water resources: sustainable water management of the River Jordan basin area
• Risk management of transboundary water resources using the green supply chain approach
• Using risk management to increase the flexibility of transboundary water conflict resolutions
• A model for risk minimisation on water resource usage failure

Special issue: Knowledge-Intensive Business Services (KIBS)

International Journal of Services Technology and Management 10(2/3/4) 2008

• Knowledge-Intensive Business Services (KIBS) as drivers of multilevel knowledge dynamics
• Client-oriented multicompetence: the core asset in KIBS
• The internal differentiation of the KIBS sector: empirical evidence from cluster analysis
• Managing and organising technical and scientific service firms: a taxonomy and an empirical study
• Intermediating between the international and local levels: business consultancy and advertising firms and their clients in Finland
• Are KIBS more than intermediate inputs? An examination into their R&D diffuser role in Europe
• Spatial agglomeration, technology and outsourcing of knowledge-intensive business services: empirical insights from Italy
• Start-ups and innovation in the Vienna ICT sector: how important is the local cluster?
• A comparison of the effects of traditional production factors and sources of innovation on KIBS' performance: an empirical study of Taiwanese IC design firms
• KIBS startups in the Stuttgart region: a surprisingly below-average rate?
• KIBS, perceptions and innovation patterns
• Tracking knowledge angels: a research proposal

Special issue: Design, control and maintenance of sheet metal forming processes

International Journal of Materials and Product Technology 32(4) 2008

• On the inferences from the analyses of strain distributions in drawn sheet metal products
• Influence of media on process stability in sheet metal hydroforming
• Single point incremental forming
• Simulation of cage roll forming process of ERW pipes
• Study on the influence of mandrel type on copper tube rotary draw bending
• Versatile microforming press
• Plastic instability in complex strain paths and finite element simulation for localised necking prediction in sheet metal forming technology
• Architecture for a neural expert system for condition-based maintenance of blanking
• A method for force reduction in heavy duty bending
• Intelligent control scheme of divided blank holder for square-cup deep-drawing process

Call for papers: Integrated Manufacturing and Service Systems

Call for papers: Integrated Manufacturing and Service Systems

A special issue of International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering

Integrated manufacturing and service systems refer to the network of manufacturers, suppliers, retailers, distributors and other service providers who are organised to enable information flow critical to the movement of materials and/or services through the supply chain, and effective coordination of activities to address various stages of the product life cycle.

Increasingly, products are being offered as a service that must be provided over certain duration, at a pre-specified quality, price and level. Typical examples of such services include leasing of photo-copying machines, and service arrangements between airlines and engine manufacturers. Manufacturers provide such products as part of a service package, where they are responsible for maintaining the product during its contracted period.

The delivery of a service, and not just a product, requires that the supply chain behind it be designed and operated to deliver products initially, maintain them, accept returns, refurbish and deliver again the same service over and over again. The refurbished products also need to be taken out of the supply chain once they reach the end-of-life and/or are replaced by newer generations.

Design and operation of such integrated supply chains requires the development of methodologies and frameworks to support delivery of integrated products and services. Some of the interesting issues that such integrated supply chains throw up include:

1. Pricing of services that are offered,
2. Design and operation of service networks to support these services,
3. Management of product and spare parts inventory, considering the product life cycles, and
4. Design of products for refurbishability.

Competitive pricing of services would help the development of such models; service networks, on the other hand, need to be designed to support both the forward and reverse flow of components and end-products. Inventory management in these integrated supply chains has its own challenges, dealing as it does not only with new products/components but also refurbished ones. Finally, product life cycles have a great impact on the operation of these integrated supply chains, as does the design for refurbishability.

The effort towards integrated supply chains is also driven by increasing environmental concerns, as well as the economic opportunities inherent in the reuse (of components) and refurbishment of products. Going forward, such imperatives would take a more central stage in the design and operation of supply chains, creating new avenues for researchers and practitioners in the field.

Papers in this special issue will consider, but are not limited to, the following issues in integrated manufacturing and service systems:

• Modeling and design of supply networks that facilitate both forward and reverse flow of products and services
• Modeling tools to support the analysis and development of strategies in design and manufacturing for disassembly, recycling and refurbishment
• Consideration of product life-cycles in design and operation of supply chains
• Inventory management in supply chains that support both products and services
• Co-ordination mechanisms and techniques, protocols as well as tools for improving co-ordination between distributed members of supply chains
• Life cycle analysis of different value chains to minimize the use of materials and waste
• Development of appropriate performance measures for new manufacturing paradigms

Important Dates
Abstracts and proposals (max 1500 words) by: 21 March, 2009
Final drafts of accepted papers by: 31 July 2009

Special issue: EKC and sustainable development

International Journal of Global Environmental Issues 9(1/2) 2009

• Environment, human development and economic growth: a contemporary analysis of Indian states
• An empirical analysis of the environmental Kuznets curve for water pollution in India
• World emissions and economic growth: application of non-parametric methods
• EKC: static or dynamic?
• Applying Kuznets theory to the analysis of relation between the economic development and greenhouse gas emission
• Climate change and human insecurity
• Post-(sustainable) development?
• Pattern of distribution of global CO2 emission by countries
• Environment and economic growth: a convergence approach
• Technological progres

Additional Papers

• Cosmic Heat Emission concept to 'stop' global warming
• Estimates of CO2 emissions reduction and potential power generation from biogas at Mare Chicose landfill
• Diminishable/removable sources of greenhouse gases

Special issue: Emotion, gender and aesthetics

International Journal of Work Organisation and Emotion 2(4) 2008

Papers from the 5th International Gender, Work and Organization Conference held at Keele University, UK, 27-29 June 2007.

• Staging value and older women workers: when 'something more' is too much
• Beyond emotion: interactive service work and the skills of women
• Aesthetics and emotion in an organisational ethnography

Additional Paper

• An application of Cognitive Emotional Agent Architecture to model Emotional Intelligence

Special issue: Creative drivers of economic growth

International Journal of Foresight and Innovation Policy 5(1/2/3) 2009

Part A: Creativity

• The geography of creative people in Germany
• Creativity in rural development: an Australian response to Florida (or a view from the fringe)
• The implications of creative industries for regional outcomes
• Strategic Performance Management and creative industry

Part B: Entrepreneurship

• New orientations in ethnic entrepreneurship: motivation, goals and strategies of new generation ethnic entrepreneurs
• Innovative and creative entrepreneurship in Spain
• Growth of Information Technology industries in urban and rural areas
• Is culture a territorial resource in the knowledge economy?

Part C: Innovation Policy

• The relationship between universities of professional education and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises
• Creating balanced partnerships for regional innovation and entrepreneurship: lessons from Australia's Community Banks®
• Artisanality and culture in innovative regional agri-food development: lessons from the Tasmanian artisanal food industry
• Planning for creativity and innovation in a global city: Sydney's Information Technology clusters in the context of the 2005 metropolitan strategy

First issue: International Journal of Adaptive and Innovative Systems

International Journal of Adaptive and Innovative Systems promotes intelligent system development and management, bringing together technologies, people and processes. It provides cross learning between various business, economics and logistical, as well as scientific and technological, disciplines comprising energy and resource industries, environmental and ecological systems, computer and automation sciences, risk and engineering management, human and material organisations.
There is a free download of the papers from this first issue.

First issue: International Journal of Leisure and Tourism Marketing

International Journal of Leisure and Tourism Marketing publishes high-quality conceptual and empirical papers that advance knowledge in the areas of leisure, recreation and tourism research, highlighting marketing issues and considering the influences of globalisation and growing competition.
There is a free download of the papers from this first issue.

First issue: International Journal of Knowledge Engineering and Soft Data Paradigms

International Journal of Knowledge Engineering and Soft Data Paradigms reports the most recent research results in the areas of knowledge engineering and soft data analysis, offering significant attributes such as learning, autonomy and self-organisation.

There is a free download of the papers from this first issue

First issue: International Journal of Shipping and Transport Logistics

International Journal of Shipping and Transport Logistics publishes papers on all methodological aspects in the field of shipping and transport logistics, particularly those that require empirical or mathematical analysis with managerial implications.

There is a free download of the papers from this first issue.

Special issue: e-Participation systems and services in converging regions

International Journal of Electronic Governance 1(4) 2008

• Assessment of the outcomes of e-government for good governance: a case of the Land Management Information System in Mozambique
• Engaging youth through deliberative e-participation: a case study
• Taking stock: local e-democracy in Europe and the USA
• Challenges and barriers in implementing e-participation tools. One year of experience from implementing Gov2demoss in 64 municipalities in Spain
• E-participation and its practice in Czech regional government

Special issue: Recent advances in applications of adaptive and robust control techniques

International Journal of Advanced Mechatronic Systems 1(2) 2008

• Thermal MIMO model and decoupling PID control
• A fuzzy optimal controller for the mechatronic system with non-smooth non-linearities
• Frequency estimation with an LMI-based adaptive update law
• Development of meal assistance orthosis for disabled persons using EOG signal and dish image
• A robust adaptive H∞ control for robotic manipulators with input torque uncertainties
• Adaptive active suspension controller achieving the best ride comfort at any specified location on vehicles with parameter uncertainties
• Torque balancing control in ignition event based scale for multi-cylinder SI engines
• A new neural networks based adaptive model predictive control for unknown multiple variable non-linear systems

Special issue: Global value chains and innovation networks: prospects for industrial upgrading in developing countries. Part 2

International Journal of Technological Learning, Innovation and Development 1(4) 2008

• Global value chains in the least developed countries of the world: threats and opportunities for local producers
• The global leather value chain: the industries, the main actors and prospects for upgrading in LDCs
• Innovation and internationalisation in the white goods GVC: the case of Arcelik
• Global values chains and networks in dialogue with consumption and social movements
• Innovation offshoring and Asia's electronics industry – the new dynamics of global networks

Call for papers: Algebraic and Combinatorial Coding Theory: in Honour of the Retirement of Vera Pless

Call for papers: Algebraic and Combinatorial Coding Theory: in Honour of the Retirement of Vera Pless

A special issue of International Journal of Information and Coding Theory

This special issue will focus on algebraic or combinatorial aspects of coding theory, in honour of Vera Pless’ retirement.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Linear codes
• Boolean functions
• Cyclic codes
• Self-dual codes
• Combinatorial matrices
• Codes over rings
• Connections with designs, groups, lattices, distance regular graphs and finite geometries

Important Dates
Deadline for submissions of manuscript: 1 June, 2009
Final selection of papers to be published: 1 October, 2009

Call for papers: Nanotoxicity

Call for papers: Nanotoxicity

A special issue of International Journal of Biomedical Nanoscience and Nanotechnology

With the advent of nanotechnology, the prospects of manufactured nanomaterials in many applications have progressed rapidly. Despite the bright outlook for nanotechnology there is increasing concern that intentional or unintentional human exposure to some types of nanoparticles may lead to significant adverse health effects. The question about the size effects of nanoparticles are important, since the potential for exposure to them will increase as the quantity and types of nanoparticles used in the society grow.

As the outcome of all these debates and concerns, nanotoxicology as a branch in toxicology research has emerged with the aim to investigate possible harmful effects of exposure to nanomaterials. The aim of this special issue is to discuss the application of nanoparticles and how to determine the potential toxicological properties of nanoparticles.

Subjects may include, but are not limited to:

• Cytotoxic responses to nanoparticles
• Health issues relating to nanoparticles
• Exposure to nanoparticles and nanotechnology
• Regulation of nanotechnology
• Nanoparticles and oxidative stress
• Nanoparticles-membrane interactions

Important Dates
Deadline for submission of manuscripts: 30 April 2009
Communication of peer reviews to authors: 31 July 2009
Deadline for revised manuscripts: 30 Sept 2009

Call for papers: Nanotechnology-based Biosensors

Call for papers: Nanotechnology-based Biosensors

A special issue of International Journal of Biomedical Nanoscience and Nanotechnology

Biosensors are playing an increasingly important role in diagnosing disease, monitoring biological and chemical processes, and elucidating important biological and physical mechanisms. Nanotechnology has advanced our ability to develop biosensors that interrogate, interact with, and examine biological targets at the molecular scale.

The aim of this issue will be to illustrate the role of nanotechnology in biosensor development, and to focus on the specific ways in which nanotechnology has enhanced sensor-target interactions, selectivity and sensitivity, mechanisms of signal transduction, and biorecognition. A strong emphasis should be placed on cutting-edge research on nanotechnology-based biosensor systems. Of particular interest are biosensors that utilise nanomaterials or nanoscale technologies that enhance sensor performance or provide new mechanisms for detection.

Subject Coverage

• Nanoparticle/nanomaterial based biosensors
• Nanoscale semiconductor/transistor based biosensors
• Nanoscale probes
• Nanomechanical detection of biological events/processes
• Sensitivity and selectivity enhancement through the use of nanomaterials/nanoscale technologies

Important Dates
Deadline for submission of manuscripts: 31 March 2009
Communication of peer reviews to authors: 30 June 2009
Deadline for revised manuscripts: 31 Aug 2009

Special issue: A consumer stance at search engine marketing

International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising 5(1/2) 2009

• Postmodern paradigms and brand management in the 'search' economy
• Antecedents and implications of search engine use as prepurchase information tools
• Search engine loyalty: considering the commitment-loyalty link from a hedonic versus utilitarian perspective
• Investigating customer click through behaviour with integrated sponsored and nonsponsored results
• Advertisers' perceptions of search engine marketing
• Developing an effective and affordable search engine marketing strategy for nonprofits

Special issue: Human-robot teaming

International Journal of Intelligent Defence Support Systems 1(2) 2008

• A coupled reaction-diffusion field model for perception-action cycle with applications to robot navigation
• Cooperative Target Observation of UAVs using Simulated Annealing
• On the complexity of system designs
• Artificial cognition for autonomous planar vehicles: modelling collision avoidance and collective manoeuvre

Special issue: Global value chains and innovation networks: prospects for industrial upgrading in developing countries. Part 3

International Journal of Technological Learning, Innovation and Development 2(1/2) 2009

• Globalisation of the automotive industry: main features and trends
• The North American automotive value chain: Canada's role and prospects
• Innovation capabilities in the Brazilian automobile industry: a study of vehicle assemblers' technological strategies and policy recommendations
• The past, present and future of China's automotive industry: a value chain perspective
• Auto-component industry in Asia: structure, trade patterns and potential for further upgrading

Call for papers: Open-Source Innovation for New Business Models

Call for papers: Open-Source Innovation for New Business Models

A special issue of International Journal of Information and Decision Sciences

In the Web 2.0 era, online communities, social networks, user generated content, and open-source collaboration have become prevalent. From the traditional organisation's perspective, open-source communities are socio-technical systems of volunteers with a variety reasons of motivation for participation such as the intrinsic satisfaction of seeing their work shared, attention gained, etc. Even though many open-source communities are for voluntary and social networking purposes, open-source innovation represents a revolutionary process of horizontalising R&D efforts for value creation.

While these communities are becoming important sources of new knowledge and innovation, it is a challenge to create business value out of such innovation because the participants are novices, collaborating without any meaningful organisational structure. Thus, it is important for both academicians and practitioners to explore innovative approaches to exploiting the value of collaborative open-source communities for developing new business models and value creation.

The focus of this Special Issue will be on the use of open-source innovation to foster knowledge creation and sharing, capture opportunities for developing new products and services, redesign the value chain for efficiency improvement, reinvent the concept of customer value, and expand the customer base. New business models that bring benefits to both participants and the organisation are the real core value of open-source innovation. Thus, the primary interest of the Special Issue would be to identify strategic contingencies and critical success factors (CSFs) that influence effective open-source innovation for business model development. We welcome conceptual and empirical papers, as well as interesting case studies that are within the scope of this issue.

Recommended topic areas to consider for inclusion in this special issue include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Open-source community collaboration: types, efficiency and effectiveness, motivation, etc.
• Open-source innovation for value chain improvement
• Open-source innovation for new product/service development and convergence opportunities
• Knowledge management in open-source communities
• Web 2.0 and open-source community
• Open-source innovation and intellectual property issues
• Security and privacy issues in open-source innovation
• Open-source innovation for new customer value creation
• Open-source innovation for blue ocean strategy
• Collaboration, motivation, and reward in open-source innovation
• Power, social capital, psychological capital, and trust in open-source collaboration
• Comparative analysis of open-source innovation in diverse cultures and markets
• Open-source innovation for e-business, m-business, and e-government
• Community behaviour factors (herd vs. hive) in innovation
• Measurement issues: members' contributions/satisfaction, individual and organisational productivity/performance, community success/failure, etc.

Important Dates
Submission of full paper: 1 April, 2009
Feedback from referees: 1 August, 2009
Submission due date of revised paper: 1 November, 2009
Notification of acceptance: 10 January, 2010
Submission of final revised paper: 1 February, 2010

Special issue: Computer applications in knowledge-based systems

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology 33(2/3) 2008

• Optimal allocation problem: performance evaluation of communication networks using GA
• Handling imbalanced data sets with a modification of Decorate algorithm
• An efficient method of intention understanding and learning for the ambiguous expressions of sentence end
• Intelligent monitoring and diagnosis of manufacturing process using an integrated approach of neural network ensemble and genetic algorithm
• Design expert system tool with hybrid knowledge representation and reasoning
• Reverse-query diffusion over unstructured overlay network for content delivery
• Discovering auditing criteria for the going-concern disclaimer
• Intelligently reconfigurable manufacturing control system based on knowledge function block
• Technology extraction from time series data reflecting expert operator skills and knowledge
• A development method of UML documents from requirement specifications using NLP
• marService: multiattribute utility recommendation for e-markets
• Multilingual and multicultural message presentations to enhance communication capabilities of people with special needs
• Accuracy improvement for a voice recognition using field association knowledge
• A method of reduction e-mails using replacement and repression
• Automatic acquisition for sensibility knowledge using co-occurrence relation
• A method for extracting knowledge from medical texts including numerical representation
• Outlier detection and evaluation by network flow
• A fuzzy intelligent design retrieving system for customer requirements

Special issue: Digital interactive media in entertainment and arts

International Journal of Arts and Technology 2(1) 2008

Extended papers from DIMEA 2007: Second International Conference on Digital Interactive Media in Entertainment and Arts held in Perth, Australia, 19-21 September 2007.

• On the beauty of interactive art
• New teaching and learning experience with mixed reality technologies
• Digital television, Personal Video Recorders and Media, Automation, Data and Entertainment convergence in the home
• Gesture recognition in virtual reality

Additional Paper

• Making artworks and performance based on augmented reality

Special issue: Multimedia and ubiquitous engineering

International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing 4(1) 2009

Includes extended papers from the 2007 International Conference on Multimedia and Ubiquitous Engineering (MUE 2007) held in Seoul, Korea, 26-28 April 2007.

• Energy-efficient relaxed rekeying policies for distributed key management in sensor networks
• Illumination identification by using image colour data and robot's location and orientation data
• Towards a service-oriented Middleware Enabling Context Awareness for Smart Environment
• Buyer-seller watermarking protocols with off-line trusted third parties
• Visual-based embedding systems with targeted secret disclosures and applications
• A seamless handover scheme in IPv6-based mobile networks

Special issue: Telemedicine and e-health

International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology 2(1) 2009

• Wireless monitoring of cardiac activity: a critical review
• Internet-enabled exercises and prosthesis for home-based cognitive rehabilitation
• Optimal displacement of a mobile telemedicine unit in an urban disaster scenario
• Teleconsultation in remote care stations: cost-minimisation analysis of the Guianese experiment

Call for papers: Being a Small Entrepreneur in a Globalised Economy. Traditional and Innovative Firms Competing in an Open World

Call for papers: Being a Small Entrepreneur in a Globalised Economy. Traditional and Innovative Firms Competing in an Open World

A special issue of International Journal of Globalisation and Small Business

Nowadays, the economic landscape seems to be deeply influenced by globalisation, whose fast development is dramatically affecting business competition and entrepreneurship around the world. Relevant strategic and organisational changes seem to be required both for traditional entrepreneurs and new ones, especially as far as the dynamic relationships among organisations are concerned. Futhermore, an increasing quality standard in the production of goods and services is challenged by ever-changing customer preferences.

In the light of this framework, management scholars are currently deeply committed to exploring and exploiting SMEs’ experiences in the international markets, in order to improve knowledge on this topic.

We invite contributions to this special issue, aiming to explore the dynamics of SMEs’ entrepreneurship in the globalised economy. In this regard, the goal is to collect a number of valuable papers analysing the various aspects of SMEs’ strategic organisational and technological innovations (e.g.: corporate governance, global/local networks, internationalisation, supply chain management, product or process innovation, corporate social responsibility, etc.).

Both theoretical and research papers are welcomed. Topics that can be considered for publication include, but are not limited to:

• Globalisation and SMEs' strategic and organisational changes
• Globalisation and SMEs' technological innovation
• Globalisation and SMEs' corporate governance
• Globalisation and SMEs' human resource management
• Globalisation and SMEs' service management
• Globalisation and SMEs' knowledge management
• Globalisation and SMEs' global or local networks
• Globalisation, sustainable development and SMEs
• Globalisation, corporate social responsibility and SMEs
• Globalisation, IAS/IFRS and SMEs' accountability
• Globalisation and SMEs' corporate restructuring
• Globalisation and SMEs' supply chain management
• Globalisation and SMEs' marketing management
• Globalisation and SMEs' internationalisation

Important Dates
Submission of extended abstracts (max. 500 words): 31 December 2008
Notification of acceptance of abstracts: 2 February, 2009
Submission of full papers following acceptance of abstracts: 18 April, 2009
Notification of acceptance, refusal or revision of full papers: 23 May, 2009
Submission of accepted and revisited final papers: 11 July, 2009

Call for papers: Technology-Based Entrepreneurship in Europe

Call for papers: Technology-Based Entrepreneurship in Europe

A special issue of International Journal of Technoentrepreneurship

Europe is a region of diverse countries, cultures and technologies. Due to this diversity, it is interesting to examine how technology-based entrepreneurship exists in Europe and what kind of innovations and knowledge developments are occurring in the European context. As technology-based entrepreneurship involves the creation of new ventures based on technological innovations, it is useful to examine what types of technology-based entrepreneurial ideas exist in Europe.

Examples of possible topics that can be addressed in this special journal issue include, but are not limited to:

• Environmental effects of technology firms in Europe
• Globalisation of European innovations in the technology sector
• Alliances, clusters and networks in European technology-based innovations
• Regional agglomeration of technology-based firms in Europe
• Strategy in technology-based firms in Europe
• European biotechnology
• European policy in technology-based firms
• Research and development in European technology intensive sectors

Important Date
Deadline: 30 April, 2009

Call for papers: New Technology and Culture Creative Industry Development

Call for papers: New Technology and Culture Creative Industry Development

A special issue of International Journal of Chinese Culture and Management

The 21st century is the era of digital network technology; any traditional form is considered to be out of date without digital network technology. It will change the traditional culture field by providing totally new perspectives and methods. This change, which takes place from form to content, from surface to essence, will inevitably lead cultural industries to entirely new areas. Any culture industry relying on digital and network technology is the main force of the era’s new economy. By means of advanced technology, major cultural scientific and technological achievement can be industrialised rapidly, bringing economies of scale. High-tech is the driver behind the rise of cultural industries by upgrading the means of production. In developed countries, the cultural products which take a variety of high-tech as the carrier not only create new concepts of life, but also stimulate new demands for culture.

2008 is the year that a variety of technological innovations were accelerated to develop and further integrate with cultural creativity. The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games is a contemporary example of the successful practice of creative culture based on high-tech. In order to discuss on the development of creative industries which takes cultural values as the soul, science and technology as the support, modern communication means as the symbol, software, cartoon and digital entertainment enterprises as the core of creative industries, this study takes new technologies and the development of culture creative industries as the subject. It aims at exploring their development strategies, combining them with high-tech, creating culture creative brands, building policy and a market environment for creative industry development, supporting their cluster development, establishing technology, capital, talent service platforms for their development, speeding up the digitalisation of creative means, the networking of transmission, the marketisation of productions, and the socialisation of services to promote them.

Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Digital technology and network technology
• Innovation and management of culture industries
• Branding, marketing and strategic management
• Internationalisation
• Industry chain
• Human resource development and management
• Industrialisation, marketisation of culture production
• Capital markets
• Intellectual property
• Digital media industry
• Culture management mechanisms
• Government polices
• Case studies

Important Date
Deadline for Submissions: March 1, 2009

Call for papers: Reform and Opening 30 Years: Theories and Practices of China’s Economic Development

Call for papers: Reform and Opening 30 Years: Theories and Practices of China’s Economic Development

A special issue of International Journal of Chinese Culture and Management

According to Chinese President Hu Jintao, the decision of reform and opening is the key to the fate of contemporary China, and is also the common choice of 1.3 billion Chinese people. China has chosen the correct path of reform and opening since the late 1970s, achieving rapid development over almost 30 years, and has made great achievements in terms of various careers. In 2008, the reform and opening policy of China has entered its 30th year. In retrospect, China has been made gigantic achievements in various fields such as politics, economics, people's livelihoods, culture, sports, military, diplomacy etc., over the past 30 years.

In these 30 years, on the one hand, China has made great strides, (for instance, China’s annual economic growth rate is currently 9.8%, the annual growth rate of world is 3%; China’s economic aggregate ranked 10th in the world before reform and opening, but now it is the fourth), therefore, finding out and summarising the experiences and laws is necessary for getting the correct theoretical achievements so as to guide the practices, deepen reform and continually promote economic development. On the other hand, the shortcomings should not be evaded, and many issues still need to be resolved (e. g. the reform of the property rights regime, the layout and adjustment of state-owned economy and the joint-stock of state-own enterprises, the regulation of capital market, the social security system and the rule of law).

This special issue deals with issues revolving around the 30-year historical process of reform and opening of China's economic development. The scope embraces main achievements and basic experience, theoretical innovations and policy changes, strategic evolution of economic and cultural development, practice and reflection, future development prospects, etc.

Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Survey of China's economic development
• Commodity economy theory
• Market economic theory
• Economic system
• Economic growth and scientific development
• Relationships among reform, development and stability
• Open-door to the outside world
• Capital market
• Regime of property rights
• Social security system
• Innovation management
• International relations
• Culture development and management
• Case studies

Important Date
Deadline for Submissions: March 1, 2009

Call for papers: China’s Cultural Development and Management: Strategic Objectives and Achievable Paths

Call for papers: China’s Cultural Development and Management: Strategic Objectives and Achievable Paths

A special issue of International Journal of Chinese Culture and Management

With the advent of the era of the global knowledge-based economy and China's entry into the WTO, the culture and information industries will become two of the new rising industries of the 21st century in China. As early as the October 2000, the concept of the cultural industry was used for the first time in an official document of the Central adopted by the Fifth Plenary Session of the Fifteenth Party Central Committee on "National Economic and Social Development: 10th Five-Year Plan", putting forward the tasks and requirements in terms of improving the policies of the cultural industry, enhancing the establishment and management of a cultural market, and pushing ahead with cultural industry development. The report of the Sixteenth National Party Congress of China clearly presents the necessity and urgency of China’s culture industry development, and claims that the development of a cultural industry is an important way to enrich social culture, meet spiritual and cultural need of people under the condition of a socialist market economy, and should improve cultural industrial policy, support China’s cultural industry development and enhance overall competitiveness of China cultural industry.

The Seventh National Party Congress of China raises cultural development to a new level. Chinese President Hu Jintao mentions in the report of the Seventh National Party Congress that the great development and great prosperity of China’s culture should be promoted to put the culture construction in a very important position from the overall situation and strategic perspective. Culture has become an important resource of national cohesion and creativity, and an important factor of comprehensive national competitiveness.

China is a country which is rich in cultural resources. China has huge potential in the development of cultural industry. Although the China’s cultural industry has developed rapidly in recent years, there is still a wide gap between China and the developed countries. The current hot topic of China’s cultural development and management is strategic objectives and achievable paths. It is worth studying and exploring how to build a cultural system, how to build a public cultural service system - including a cultural facilities system, institution security system, financial support system - how to promote the development of cultural industry - including the policies of the cultural industry, development mechanisms, structural optimisation, investment and financial policies - how to protect cultural heritage, how to enlarge international cultural exchange, etc.

This special issue brings together academics, practitioners, researchers, and aims to deliver a reference edition for all those interested in strategic objectives and achievable paths of China’s cultural development to foster conditions conducive to promote China’s cultural development and management.

Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Culture management and mechanisms
• Cultural industry chain and extension strategy
• Cultural industry clusters and zones
• Human resource management and training
• Construction of rural culture
• Digital technology and web technology
• Branding, marketing and strategic management
• Cultural tourism and creativity
• Intellectual property, trademark registration
• Internationalisation of China's cultural industry
• Protection of cultural heritage
• Government policies
• Case study

Important Date
Deadline for Submissions: March 1, 2009

Call for papers: Learning Theories and Practices: the Perspective of Individual, Organisation, Region and Society

Call for papers: Learning Theories and Practices: the Perspective of Individual, Organisation, Region and Society

A special issue of International Journal of Learning and Intellectual Capital

The learning organisation has become a popular concept since it was described by Peter Senge in 1990. Learning organisations should train staff to be learning individuals. The issues which need to be explored include how to be a learning individual, how to learn consciously, and how to overcome the obstacles to self-motivated learning and career learning.

OECD (2001) claims that the theory of the learning region not only emphasises individual learning, but also stresses organisational learning. The most effective innovations arise from organisational internal environments in which learning is via intensive inter-organisational information exchange, while at the same time there exist steady and high mutual trust relationships among a variety of organisations. The successful communication networks among organisations are based on the efficient information exchange and sufficient social interaction; therefore, the organisation must be developed into learning organisation. The establishment of regional learning mechanisms and systems is the critical point in global competition, learning regions provide a series of related infrastructures which are propitious in the diffusion of knowledge, ideas and learning, and then further become major learning and innovation bases.

A learning society is a theoretical description for the development character of modern society, and learning is becoming the urgent need for individuals, organisations and society in the information society. Learning society demands the socialisation and generalisation of learning behaviour, including learning citizens, learning organisations, the learning city, learning governments. It is worth for us to explore how to create the learning society, strengthening national information networks, improving the technological conditions for knowledge diffusion, creating a cultural atmosphere for encouraging learning and promoting innovation, and cultivating the concepts and mechanisms for appreciating knowledge and talents.

The goal of the special issue is to publish the most recent results in learning theories and practices. Researchers and practitioners working in this area are expected to take this opportunity to discuss and express their views on the current trends, challenges, and applications in terms of learning individual, learning organisation, learning region and learning society.

Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• The earning individual, learning organisation, learning region, learning society
• Social networks
• Effective learning
• Competence building
• Performance measures
• Learning tools
• Collective learning
• E-learning
• Intellectual capital (human capital, relational capital, social capital and organisational capital)
• Learning environment establishment
• Knowledge management, knowledge spillover, knowledge diffusion
• Government policies
• Case studies and other related topics

Important Date
Deadline for Submissions: March 1, 2009

Call for papers: Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs): Growth and Innovation

Call for papers: Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs): Growth and Innovation

A special issue of International Journal of Learning and Intellectual Capital

With economic globalisation having gradually developed in depth, science and technology has become the leading force for economic and social development, turning into the driving force to support and lead the development of the economy and the progress of human civilization. Impelled by science and technology, human beings are experiencing transformation from the industrial society to the knowledge society, with science and technology continuing to create new economic growth points, playing an increasingly important role in terms of solving a series of important issues for the sustainable development of mankind. Facing the current overall development trends of science and technology, many developed countries and newly industrialised countries have made similar strategic choices, setting scientific and technological innovation as a national strategy, keeping on investing in science and technology, and deploying and developing strategic technology and industry, to achieve continuous improvement in the competitiveness of the country.

The development of the world economy of past 30 years shows that SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises), especially technology-based SMEs, are the important force in technology innovation systems, the most active and most efficient part of national innovation systems, and the source of technological innovation and the direct carrier of the technological achievement transfer. According to statistical data, about 60% of the major innovations are originated from SMEs in the 20th century, especially from technology-based SMEs, more than 80% of American new technologies are turned into industrial productions by SMEs. Practice has proved that some international well-known large companies, such as Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Dell, etc., grow from small enterprises. Therefore, SMEs’ innovation activities should be paid great attention, and strong policies should be implemented to support the innovation and development of SMEs.

In the face of fierce competition, a critical issue has become how SMEs are able to withstand pressures from a large number of multinational enterprises and large domestic enterprises, and win more space for growth and development, an issue that entrepreneurs pay close attention to. The important support for continued growth of SMEs is continued innovation, particularly technological innovation. Therefore, the estimation of growth type, characteristics and paths are of special significance for SMEs to achieve sustained growth by way of technological innovation.

We invite contributions to this special issue that aims to discuss on SMEs’ growth and innovation, including intellectual capital management, improvement of enterprise capabilities, industry-academia cooperation, strategic management, establishment of growth and development environment, financial policies, government governance, case studies, etc.

Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Survey of SMEs' growth
• Intellectual capital management, organisational learning, knowledge management
• Human resource training and management
• Environment establishment for SMEs' growth and development
• Informatisation of SMEs
• Venture capital
• Strategic management
• Industry-academia cooperation
• Core technology and competence management
• Science and technology intermediary service
• Intellectual property protection
• Corporate culture
• Globalisation of SMEs
• Entrepreneurial ability
• Government governance
• Support of policies
• Case studies

Important Date
Deadline for Submissions: March 1, 2009

Call for papers: Innovative City and Regional Innovation System

Call for papers: Innovative City and Regional Innovation System

A special issue of International Journal of Learning and Intellectual Capital

The regional development of society and the economy are closely related with innovative capacities. Choosing a suitable development model can give full play to regional advantages, integrate scientific and technological resources, and continually improve regional innovative capacities. It is an important issue that finds the rules and experiences of establishing and developing innovative city based on economic theory, innovative theory and intellectual capital management theory, puts forward the framework of establishing innovative city according to the unique characteristics of urban development, researches on structural and systemic characteristics of the “innovative city”, including innovative investment systems, innovative service systems, essential security systems, innovative management systems, innovative policy systems. Moreover, the design principles of the innovative city’s goal system and evaluation system of achievement should be studied.

Regional Innovation Systems (RIS) is an emerging concept, and is a new field of world economy and geography. Many scholars pay much attention to the theoretical study of RIS, and score certain achievements in terms of the basic concept, content, formation mechanism and function of RIS. RIS focuses on a specific region, and its cross-organisational knowledge innovation mainly gets through the share of common tacit knowledge and social capital links, the knowledge transfer factor of RIS is geographical and cultural adjacency and knowledge spillover. Study of RIS can help with the establishment of the innovative city.

Government governance plays a critical role in the establishment of RIS and the innovative city. The emphasis and model of government governance still need further exploration. Meanwhile, other issues that need further study are the mechanisms of innovation, business and creativity, information technology and Internet platform, infrastructure environment construction and investment, improvement of the education system and personnel training policies for social needs of the innovative society, development countermeasures and suggestions of knowledge-intensive service industries, improvement of living environment and establishment of livable city.

In this special issue, we invite authors to submit papers addressing topics on the factors, mechanisms and modelling of the innovative city, RIS, government governance and policies, innovation environment, regional innovative capacities and competitiveness, etc. We strongly encourage results that focus on regional innovation theories and applications.

Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Survey of the innovative city
• RIS
• Intellectual capital management, knowledge management
• Knowledge spillover, technology diffusion
• Learning region
• Regional innovative capacities, regional competitiveness
• Knowledge-intensive service industries
• Government governance and policies
• Innovation environment and infrastructure
• Livable city
• Self-renovation capabilities
• Innovative city's goal system and achievement evaluation system
• Human resource training and management
• Education innovation
• Industry-academia cooperation
• City culture
• Case studies

Important Date
Deadline for Submissions: March 1, 2009

Special issue: Advances of automotive NVH technology in China and South-East Asia

International Journal of Vehicle Noise and Vibration 4(3) 2008

• Elastic sound absorption theory of fibrous material
• Investigation on axial vibration of high-speed vehicle engine crankshaft based on Rayleigh differential method
• Acoustic optimisation design for suspension characteristics based on the method of dynamic subsystem modification
• Prediction of noise from track systems
• Vibrations and instability of front-end accessory drive belt system

Special issue: e-Participation challenges and opportunities

International Journal of Electronic Business 6(6) 2008

• A survey of e-participation research projects in the European Union
• Designing the e-participation artefact
• ACM: a new index to measure the digital divide
• A participatory architecture for taxation and budgeting
• Alternative frames of participation: the east-timor newsgroup
• An empirical study of e-participation in Social Movement Organisations

Special issue: Virtual design of industrial systems with manufacturing and assembling errors

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology 33(1) 2008

• Analysis of product quality with consideration of influence of manufacturing errors in discrete-part machining systems
• Statistical variation analysis of multi-station compliant assemblies based on sensitivity matrix
• Manual tool representation and positioning based on geometric reasoning in IVAE
• Dimensional and geometrical tolerance synthesis based on constrained optimisation: an industrial case
• Numerical simulation of a model of vibrations with joint clearance
• Enhanced 3D object snap for CAD modelling on large stereo displays
• Virtual manufacturing of gears with chip formation
• Modelling manufacturing errors in machining of thermoplastics

Special issue: Solid waste management: Part Two

International Journal of Environment and Waste Management 2(6) 2008

• Column studies aiming at identification of suitable filter materials for pollutant removal from landfill leachate
• The landfill leachate evapotranspiration in soil–plant system with reed Phragmites australis
• Recovery of nickel from spent catalyst by single- and multi-stage leaching process
• Pyrolysis properties of municipal sewage sludge with ZnCl2 activation under the N2 atmosphere
• Characterisation of humic acid maturation by fluorescence spectroscopy and thermal analysis during composting of olive mill waste
• Compost production from Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) employing bioinoculants
• Does substrate quality affect earthworm growth and reproduction patterns in vermicomposting systems? A study using three popular composting earthworms
• Biodegradation of water hyacinth, sugarcane bagasse and rice husk through vermicomposting
• Evaluating the concentrations of partitioned heavy metals in fly ash from a medium-sized (32 MW) municipal district heating plant with respect to the new Finnish limit values
• Incorporation of petroleum waste in clay ceramics and its characterisation
• Pneumatic powder injection technique as a tool for waste utilisation
• Land application of Water Treatment Residuals: effect on wheat yield and the availability of phosphorus and aluminium

Special Issue: Air pollution

International Journal of Environment and Pollution 36(1/2/3) 2008

• Variability of PM10 concentrations dependent on meteorological conditions
• Two impact related air quality indices as tools to assess the daily and long-term air pollution
• Statistical analysis of urban air-pollution data in the Athens basin area, Greece
• Modelling photochemical air pollutant formation in Hungary using an adaptive grid technique
• Connection between urban heat island and sky view factor approximated by a software tool on a 3D urban database
• Comparison of objective air-mass types and the Peczely weather types and their ability to classify levels of air pollutants in Szeged, Hungary
• Frequency distribution of particulate matter (PM10) in urban environments
• Modelling long-term averages of local ambient air pollution in Oslo, Norway: evaluation of nitrogen dioxide, PM10 and PM2.5
• Statistical characteristics of ozone and PM10 levels in a medium-sized Mediterranean city
• Synergetic use of TERRA/MODIS imagery and meteorological data for studying aerosol dust events in Cyprus
• A neural network implemented microcontroller system for quantitative classification of hazardous organic gases in the ambient air
• Elemental composition of airborne aerosols at a traffic site and a suburban site in Hong Kong
• Effect of the soil wetness state on the stomatal ozone fluxes over Hungary
• Relation of earth probe TOMS/AI data and ground level measured atmospheric aerosols over Marmara region
• Applied comprehensive NO2 and particulate matter dispersion modelling for Switzerland
• The selective catalytic reduction of NO with propane over Ni loaded on H-USY in the presence of excess oxygen
• Characterisation of ambient benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and m-, p- and o-xylene in an urban traffic area in Bangkok, Thailand
• Evaluation of SO2 dry deposition over a cassava plantation in Rayong, Thailand
• Plume dispersion in the wake of a rectangular model building
• Sources of particulate matter: emission profile of biomass burning
• The impact of landfills on the air quality of towns: a simple heuristic model for the city of Palermo
• Air quality indexing
• Daily variation of traffic emissions in Athens, Greece

Call for papers: Grid Computing

Call for papers: Grid Computing

A special issue of International Journal of Communication Networks and Distributed Systems

Service-oriented computing is a popular design methodology for large scale business computing systems. Grid computing enables the sharing of distributed computing and data resources such as processing, networking and storage capacity to create a cohesive resource environment for executing distributed applications in service-oriented computing. Grid computing also represents a more business-oriented orchestration of pretty homogeneous and powerful distributed computing resources to optimise the execution of time consuming process. Grid computing has received a significant and sustained research interest in terms of designing and deploying large scale and high performance computational in e-science and businesses.

This special issue aims to foster state-of-the-art research in the area of grid computing and is expected to focus on all aspects of grid technologies and to present novel results and solutions to solve various problems and challenges in grid platforms. The special issue will additionally select high quality papers from the First International workshop on Grid Computing (GridCom-2009) to be held in Morocco, May 2009

Authors are solicited to contribute to this special issue by submitting articles that illustrate research results, projects, survey works and industrial experiences that describe significant advances in the areas which include, but are not limited to:

• Applications, including e-science and e-business applications
• Architectures and fabrics
• Distributed and large-scale data access and management
• Core grid infrastructure
• Peer to peer protocols in grid computing
• Network support for grid computing
• Monitoring, management and organization tools
• Networking and security
• Performance measurement and modelling
• Metadata, ontology, and provenance
• Middleware and toolkits for grid computing
• Computing and programming models
• Programming tools and environments
• Distributed problem solving
• Creation and management of virtual enterprises and organiSations
• Information services
• Resource management, scheduling, and runtime environments
• Scientific, industrial and social implications
• QoS and SLA negotiation
• Grid economy and business models
• Autonomic and utility computing on global grids
• Cluster and grid integration issues
• Web services, semantic grid and web 2.0
• Grid related applications

Important Dates
Deadline for Submission: 10 June, 2009
Acceptance notification: 25 July 2009
Camera ready papers due: 10 September, 2009

Special issue: Environmental applications of nonthermal plasma technology

International Journal of Environment and Waste Management 2(4/5) 2008

• Decolourisation of dye solution using an electrical discharge with TiO2 suspension
• Influence of streamer-to-glow transition mode on the NO removal by an inductive energy storage type pulse power generator
• Nonthermal plasma reactors and plasma chemistry
• Suppression of particle deposition onto downstream wall in an AC Electrostatic Precipitator with neutralisation
• Characteristics of rotating arc for CF4 removal
• Robust corona-electrostatic separation method for solid waste recycling
• Hybrid gas-liquid electrical discharge for degradation of organic pollutants in aqueous solution
• Characteristics of atomic oxygen produced by a pulsed streamer corona discharge
• Non-Thermal Plasma degradation of wastewater in presence of titanium oxide by gliding arc discharge
• Mechanisms for formation of organic and inorganic by-products and their control in nonthermal plasma chemical processing of VOCs
• Confined plasma gliding arc discharges

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Call for papers: Innovation Management and Competence Leverage

Call for papers: Innovation Management and Competence Leverage

A special issue of International Journal of Learning and Intellectual Capital

For a long time, technology innovation, rather than other elements of innovation, has been seen as the primary force of economic development and competence leverage for enterprises. The suggestion that the knowledge-based economy, its wide distribution and fast growth will have much influence on business innovation model has not been seriously studied until the beginning of this century. Furthermore, with the rapid development of IT technology, huge changes in market demand and customisation, which call for corresponding innovation in business models, will emerge.

Drawing on the further development of innovation democratisation, total innovation and open innovation, this special issue will explore the implications of innovation management and competence leverage research. It aims to deliver a reference edition for all those interested in innovation management and competence leverage and we invite contributions from academics, practitioners and researchers.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Total innovation management and competence
• Open innovation and networking
• Indigenous innovation capability
• Building innovative countries/firms
• Managing innovation and competence in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs)
• Core technology and competence
• Entrepreneurship, competence, and innovation
• Innovation learning and dynamic capability
• Strategic path for competence leverage
• Innovation networking and capacity building
• Learning mechanisms in firm innovation process

Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 15 March, 2009

Call for papers: Corporate Volunteering: Conceptual Embedment, Empirical Research, and Future Perspectives

Call for papers: Corporate Volunteering: Conceptual Embedment, Empirical Research, and Future Perspectives

A special issue of International Journal of Business Environment

The objective of this special issue is to provide a scientific platform where researchers from multiple disciplines concerned with the issue of Corporate Volunteering (CV) may meet and exchange theoretical viewpoints as well as elaborated empirical conclusions for the current and future development of CV.

The changing role of the corporation as a ‘good citizen’ and its interaction with the wider society is a broadly discussed issue in the current discourse of ‘business and society’. Furthermore, the strategic use of philanthropic engagement is increasingly recognised as a means of expressing the uniqueness of a firm’s responsible behaviour towards its stakeholders (e.g. community, NPO, employees).

Thus CV, as a part of corporate philanthropy, offers great potential for strategic management, such as community development, enhancement of employee motivation and commitment, as well as reputational gains with regard to future employees and clients. However, open questions remain regarding its proliferation and implementation in practice (e.g. its cultural antecedents, its strategic vs. philanthropic implementation, cooperation processes between the corporation and the community).

In accordance with the observation that CV appears to be a promising strategic management tool, academic interest in the concept is gaining momentum: of the roughly 10,000 publications (date of origin between 1990 and 2008) found using the search engine Google Scholar, almost three quarters (72%) stem from the time span between 2001 and 2008.

However, CV literature suffers from two major deficits which impede the development of a comprehensive picture of the subject:
Most contributions assume the international growth of CV practices to be motivated by the expected benefits for diverse stakeholder groups such as society, employees, and employers. Yet, sound empirical evaluations of these benefits are scarce - if not inexistent.
Researchers publishing on CV stem from numerous disciplines and are rarely interconnected with each other, whereas multidisciplinarity is desirable and in the CV context essential to cover the broadness of the subject; the lack of a cross-linked community hinders progress in adequately tackling the depth of the topic, making continuing scientific discourse and sustained progress in our knowledge ever more difficult.

This special issue offers the opportunity to merge complementary approaches to CV and may present a first step on the way to establish an interlinked, multidisciplinary scientific community dealing with CV. To that end, theoretical works and literature reviews are invited which help to conceptually connect CV with related topics, such as corporate social responsibility, corporate citizenship, or corporate community involvement as well as with sociological and psychological volunteering research. With regard to empirical research, we encourage researchers to contribute their sophisticated and quality standard setting qualitative and quantitative studies.

We explicitly ask interested authors to take the international perspective concerning CV – sociological as well as psychological intercultural theories provide us with means to adequately deal with important cultural differences in CV that have been described in the past. Well-grounded recommendations for implementation in every day business practice are welcomed.

Examples of topics appropriate for submission to the CV issue include, but are not limited to:

• Status quo in the Corporate Volunteering practice
• International comparisons in nature and extent of CV approaches
• The strategic and organizational implementation and/or development of CV (e.g. decision processes, internal and external communication, and organisational integration)
• High standard empirical evaluation studies challenging the often-hypothesised benefits of CV for a) employees, b) employers, c) non-profit-organizations, and / or d) society. Empirically derived future prospects on the nature and extent of CV practices
• Differences and commonalities between CV and private volunteering as well as informal volunteer behaviour at the workplace, such as organisational citizenship behaviour
• Differences and commonalities between CV and other forms of philanthropic engagement (sponsorship, corporate giving, and/or fundraising)
• Leadership and CV
• Critical reflections of CV out of theoretical perspectives (e.g. a stakeholder perspective)
• CV as a process of deliberation between the corporation and their partner organizations, mostly NPO (e.g. coordinating and goal setting processes)

Important Dates
Abstract submission deadline: 1 February, 2009
Manuscript submission deadline: 1 July, 2009
Final paper submission deadline: 1 November, 2009

Special issue: The servitisation of processes, architectures and technologies

International Journal of Services Sciences 1(3/4) 2008

Papers from the Decision Technologies and Service Science Track of the 40th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-40) held in Waikoloa, Hawaii, 3-6 January 2007.

• Business application design and enterprise service design: a comparison
• Value-at-risk in service-oriented systems: a framework for managing a vendor's portfolio uncertainties
• Evaluating the benefits of service-oriented computing for risk/return management
• Evaluating the applicability of socially-oriented perspectives to the IT service level agreement negotiation process: a theory-driven exploratory study
• Semi-automated management of web service contracts
• iDesign: intelligent design for service innovation underlying symbiosis
• Legacy to web migration: service-oriented software reengineering methodology

Special issue: Management and marketing of ice hockey

International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing 5(1/2) 2009

• Still on their honeymoon: a five year case study of an American Hockey League team and the reasons for their continued success
• Do fans care about hot dogs? A satisfaction analysis of French ice hockey spectators
• The aftermath of the latest labour conflict in the National Hockey League: the impact on brand equity
• Perceptions of constraints to NHL spectatorship
• Analysing motives of minor league hockey fans: the introduction of violence as a spectator motive
• Symbolic isomorphism and legitimacy: New Zealand's Ice Blacks and Ice Fernz
• The Puck Stops here: a brief report on National Hockey League fans' reactions to the 2004-2005 lockout
• A comparison of motivational factors affecting attendance between avid and casual fans at minor hockey games
• Differences in motives and points of attachment by season ticket status: a case study of ACHA
• Agenda-setting in minor league hockey: a strategic justification and practical guide
• If brand equity matters, where is the brand strategy? A look at Canadian hockey teams in the NHL
• Where did National Hockey League fans go during the 2004-2005 lockout? An analysis of economic competition between leagues
• The impact of team identification on ice hockey brand associations
• Literature review on brand equity in professional team sport: a German perspective on ice hockey
• The marketing of a NHL hockey team

Special issue: Service science - meeting the challenges of the accelerated economy globalisation

International Journal of Services Operations and Informatics 4(1) 2009

Further papers from the 2007 IEEE/INFORMS International Conference on Service Operations and Logistics, and Informatics (SOLI) held in Philadelphia, USA, 27-29 August 2007. (Others in 3(3/4) 2008)

• Online advertisement campaign optimisation
• Improving customer experience through accurate demand forecasting
• A comparative study of VMI replenishment policies – toward rule-based decision making based on Monte Carlo simulations
• Continuum-based model for analysing efficiency of supply chain interfaces
• Curated consumption infrastructure prototyping and its evaluation for video sharing archive based on persistent usage scenario association technology
• Performance modelling of service businesses

Special issue: Selected papers from the Asia-Pacific Conference in Knowledge Management, Hong Kong

International Journal of Learning and Intellectual Capital 6(1/2) 2009
The 3rd Asia-Pacific Conference on Knowledge Management was held in Hong Kong from 11-13 December 2006.

• Co-creation with the customer: a strategy for organisation learning and innovation
• The knowledge resource development model: the transition from theory to practice
• Knowledge, wisdom and intellectual leadership: a question of the future and knowledge-based sustainability
• Mapping and auditing organisational knowledge assets using the interactive STOCKS methodology
• The system approach to knowledge creation, sharing and utilisation in managerial competency models
• The design and implementation of the balanced scorecards in a manufacturing firm: a case study
• The microcosmic evaluation model of enterprises' IC based on the DuPont system
• The moderating effect of co-workers' reactions on social ties and knowledge sharing in work teams
• Developing knowledge capital in an integrated enterprise risk management system: framework and structured gap analysis for public sector organisations

Special issue: Procurement strategies: past-present and the future

International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management 5(1/2) 2008

• What is the buzz about the cross-functional role of purchasing in a sustainable supply chain environment?
• Benders-based winner determination algorithm for volume discount procurement auctions
• Understanding and defining long-term business objectives and strategies of potential parties in complex environments: a case study
• Strategic supplier selection: some emerging issues and challenges
• Impact of avian influenza in the Indian poultry industry: a supply chain risk perspective
• Eco-procurement strategies for environmentally conscious manufacturers
• Cooperation models for supply chain management
• Optimising a logistics system with multiple procurements and warehousing using endosymbiotic evolutionary algorithm
• E-collaborative commerce for small- and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises
• A conceptual and analytical framework for management of integrated knowledge based logistics providers

Special issue: International entrepreneurship

International Journal of Business and Globalisation 3(1) 2009
Papers from the 5th Interdisciplinary European Conference on Entrepreneurship Research (IECER) held in Montpellier, France, 28 February-2 March 2007.

• Collective entrepreneurship and collective strategies: the case of tourism in France
• The impact of entrepreneurs' cultural capital on early performance of new ventures: a comparison between Austria and Slovenia
• A comparative study of cultural influences on intentions to found a new venture in Germany and Poland
• An integrated model of entrepreneurial intentions
• Entrepreneurial strategies of small Romanian-Italian joint ventures
• Ethnic enclaves or middleman minority? Regional patterns of ethnic minority entrepreneurship in Britain

Special issue on: Performance measurement in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Part 2

International Journal of Globalisation and Small Business 3(1) 2008

• How does subcontracting matter for SME performance? An empirical examination in the Indian context
• The performance of micro firms in Kosova: size, age and educational implications
• A systems model for performance appraisal in small manufacturing industries
• Performance improvement through statistical process control: a longitudinal study
• The challenges for small software firms in industry globalisation
• International entrepreneurship: research priorities for the future

Special issue: Environmental technology: a good prospect for better environmental management

International Journal of Environmental Technology and Management 10(1) 2009

Includes papers from 10th Environmental Research Event (ERE) held in Sydney, Australia, 10–13 December 2006.

• Can phytocapping technique reduce methane emission from municipal landfills?
• Analysing the hindrances to the reduction of manufacturing lead-time and their associated environmental pollution
• Real-time environmental monitoring of the Great Barrier Reef
• Effects of surface functional groups of activated carbon on adsorption of triclosan from aqueous solution
• Hydraulics stability of compost-based filtration media
• Environmental and productivity management: the business sustainability syndrome
• Environmental assessment of the cement and concrete life cycle in Greece
• Attitudes of farmers toward sludge use in the Gaza Strip
• CO2 benefit from the increasing percentage of diesel passenger cars in Switzerland

Special issue: Whither regulatory reform?

International Journal of Public Policy 4(1/2) 2009

• The long and the short of it: California's electricity crisis
• Natural gas regulation in transition: the effects of geopolitics and prerequisites for change in transition economies
• Pathways for redistribution: privatisation, regulation and incentives for pro-poor investment in the Argentine water sector
• Effects of electricity market regulations on the promotion of non-conventional energy sources in Colombia's power mix
• Competition policy and regulatory reform in Mexico
• The measurement of regulator independence in practice: Latin America and the Caribbean
• Trade policy and regulation: lessons from Poland's accession to the European Union
• The impact of public procurement on foreign trade: the case of Estonia

Special issue: Knowledge and technology management for sustainable development in Africa

International Journal of Technology Management 45(1/2) 2009

• Knowledge management as an enabler of change and innovation in Africa
• The knowledge economy: concept, global trends and strategic challenges for Africa in the quest for sustainable development
• Technology development and knowledge spillover in Africa: evidence using patent and citation data
• Building the African information society
• Building open access in Africa
• Universities and scientific research in the Maghreb states: power politics and innovation systems
• Enhancing innovation for sustainable growth and competitiveness in North African countries
• What drives innovation? Inferences from an industry-wide survey in Nigeria
• Reinforcing experiential learning with training culture as an innovative governance strategy in informal microfinance institutions
• Information, knowledge and technology management: national information technology policies for sustainable development
• Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and development information for professional women in Zambia
• Seed systems for African food security: linking molecular genetic analysis and cultivator knowledge in West Africa
• Inconsistency of food security information in Sudan

Special issue: Internationalising law – a continuing narrative

International Journal of Private Law 2(1) 2009

• Uniformity of laws: a reality or just a myth?
• Law and society in Brazil: the prevailing perceptions of law in Brazilian society
• Commentary on the 2008 Arbitration Law of the Dubai International Finance Centre
• Software protection in China: a clip of the post-TRIPS expansionism of intellectual property
• Liability for insider trading: learning lessons from Australia
• The protection of environmentally displaced persons and their right to a healthy and sustainable environment
• Updating the regulation of Chinese advertising: improving consumer protection to meet the needs of a growing China

Special issue: Intelligent manufacturing technology

International Journal of Manufacturing Technology and Management 16(1/2) 2009

Papers from the Workshop on Intelligent Manufacturing and Logistics Systems (IML2005) held in Kitakyushu, Japan 2–4 August 2005.

• An integrated new product introduction performance measurement system: an example in notebook computer industry
• A parallel hybrid ant colony optimisation approach for job-shop scheduling problem
• Real-time buffer management method for DBR scheduling
• A random key-based genetic algorithm for AGV dispatching in FMS
• A hybrid approach of data mining and genetic algorithms for rehabilitation scheduling
• Modelling and scheduling preventative maintenance in semiconductor manufacturing industry with MAs
• Multiobjective hybrid genetic algorithm for quay crane scheduling in berth allocation planning
• Integrated scheduling using genetic algorithm with quasi-random sequences
• A new solution method for joint replenishment problem

Special issue: Corporate social responsibility, environmental management and business competitiveness

World Review of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable Development 5(1) 2009

• Dimensions of corporate social responsibility: a time for new discourse
• Towards a generally accepted CSR accounting framework: a literature mapping
• Leading sustainability
• The process of regenerating, repositioning and re-branding Oldham: challenges and prospects for the future
• Corporate environmental performance and market value of intangible assets
• Psychological effects of mergers and acquisition on employees: case study of some selected banks in Nigeria

Special issue: Micro/meso mechanical manufacturing (M4 Process)

International Journal of Abrasive Technology 2(1) 2009

• Mathematical modelling of surface roughness in ultrasonic machining of titanium using Buckingham-Π approach: a review
• Characteristics of the acoustic emission during horizontal single grit scratch tests: Part 1 characteristics and identification
• Characteristics of the acoustic emission during horizontal single grit scratch tests: Part 2 classification and grinding tests
• Study on a microlathe with visual feedback control
• Study on electrorheological fluid-assisted microultrasonic machining
• Characteristics of the hydroxyapatite film deposited on human enamel: deposition of a ceramic film by powder jet deposition technique
• Influence of process parameters on transverse profile of work surfaces ground by a single layer brazed cBN wheel

Special issue: Nanotechnology in Greece

International Journal of Nanotechnology 6(1/2) 2008

• Silicon optocouplers for biosensing
• Laterally ordered 2-D arrays of Si and Ge nanocrystals within SiO2 thin layers for application in non-volatile memories
• Metallic nanoparticles for application in electronic non-volatile memories
• Synthesis of metallic nanoparticles within pH-sensitive polymeric matrices
• Materials for lithography in the nanoscale
• 2D and 3D biotin patterning by ultrafast lasers
• Fabrication of one- and two-dimensional photonic crystals in phosphate glass substrates using ultraviolet laser holography and selective chemical etching
• Model spectroscopic study of cobalt phthalocyanine thin film interfaces with inorganic substrates
• InAs nanostructures on polar GaAs surfaces
• Multiple-scattering calculations for plasmonic nanostructures
• Tailoring the induced magnetism in carbon-based and non-traditional inorganic nanomaterials
• Properties, applications and functionalisation of carbon nanohorns
• Nano-textured polymer surfaces with controlled wetting and optical properties using plasma processing
• Nano-structural and surface characteristics of non-stoichiometric In2O3−x thin films

Special issue: Semantic web models and applications

International Journal of Web and Grid Services 4(3) 2008

Extended versions of papers from the Web/Grid Information and Services Discovery (WGISD-2008) workshop and the International Conference on Complex, Intelligent and Software Intensive Systems (CISIS-2008) both held in Barcelona, Spain, 4-7 March 2008.

• A semantic document management system for legal applications
• Design of a semantic person-oriented nurse call management system
• A proposal for an electromagnetic ontology framework
• An integrated system for data backup and supervision of activities (with management of the natural language) in e-learning contexts
• An ontology-based approach for providing multimedia personalised recommendations
• Remote service to solve the two-dimensional cutting stock problem: an application to the Canary Islands costume

Special issue: Algorithmic game theory

International Journal of Autonomous and Adaptive Communications Systems 1(4) 2008

• A graph-theoretic network security game
• Jamming games in fast-fading wireless channels
• Routing game in hybrid wireless mesh networks with selfish mesh clients
• Optimal forwarding for wireless ad hoc networks with game theory

Special issue: Human adaptive mechatronics

International Journal of Modelling, Identification and Control 4(4) 2008

• Robust practical output tracking by output compensator for a class of uncertain inherently non-linear systems
• Robust gradient iterative learning control: time and frequency domain conditions
• Estimating multiple sources in somatosensory area to SEF of finger stimulus using SVD and time-frequency analysis
• Extraction of fine blood vessels from an ultrasound image by adaptive local image processing
• Modelling soft tissue-mechatronic tool interactions during indentation
• Relationship between structure and information processing in Physarum polycephalum
• On tracking control of a pendulum-driven cart-pole underactuated system
• Attitude control system design and application on a helicopter experimental system
• 'Soft' actuation for dextrous hands – a 23 DOF anthropomorphic hand powered by pneumatic muscle actuators
• A biomechatronical transtibial prosthesis powered by pleated pneumatic artificial muscles
• Vision-based Cartesian space motion control for flexible robotic manipulators
• Online mapping with a mobile robot in dynamic and unknown environments