Call for Papers: Smart Materials and Structures in Automotive Applications

A special issue of International Journal of Vehicle Design

Smart materials exhibit highly functional and changeable properties. They are usually embedded in practical engineering systems as sensors and actuators. They have the ability to change shape, stiffness, position, damping, fluid flow rate and other characteristics in response to changes in applied temperature, electric field and magnetic field. Currently smart materials include piezoelectric ceramics, shape memory alloys, magnetostrictive materials, optical fibres, electrorheological fluids, magnetorheological fluids, conducting polymers and so on.

By incorporating their intrinsic sensing and actuating capabilities into structural elements of vehicles, smart materials have found great promise in automotive applications. For example, General Motors have developed a shape memory alloy-activated louver system to control airflow into engines; conducting polymer-based sensors have been used to develop smart automotive seats; magnetorheological fluids have been employed to develop semi-active suspension systems to improve glide and handling. Driving comfort and safety are important issues in vehicle applications.

Automotive applications tend to require the high volume manufacture of devices at low cost with high performance and high reliability, even in harsh environments. To replace conventional systems or introduce new capabilities into automobiles, systems based on smart materials and structures technology need to add functionality, performance and adaptability without decreasing reliability, while marginally increasing cost and weight.

However, to advantageously exploit the capabilities of smart material-based sensors and actuators in vehicle technology requires multidisciplinary approaches to design and optimisation, where improved controllability, maintainability and extendibility are key goals. These issues are expected to be well-addressed by concurrent investigations.

We welcome papers that can demonstrate the innovative application of smart materials in automotive engineering. Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

• Smart material process and mechanism studies for automotive applications
• Advanced vehicle control and multidisciplinary modelling to support the design of novel smart materials-based automotive components and/or systems
• New designs and analyses of smart materials-based automotive components and/or systems for improving automotive performance, for example in reliability, safety, robustness and extendibility
• Position/vibration/shock control of vehicles with smart materials-based components to improve driving comfort, handling stability and crashworthiness
• Field testing and evaluation of practical automotive application systems featuring smart materials

Important Dates
Manuscript submission deadline: 15 January 2012 (revised date)

Call for Papers: Advanced Software Engineering and Its Applications

A special issue of International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology

This special issue introduces state-of-the-art innovative and advanced tools and techniques for developing and maintaining large-scale software systems. Recent progress, ideas, problems and solutions relating to the multifaceted aspects of software engineering and its application will be discussed, providing developers with a guide for choosing which tools and methodologies would be most appropriate for solving large-scale software problems.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the Advanced Software Engineering and Its Applications (ASEA 2010) conference (13-15 December 2010, Jeju Island, Korea), but we also strongly encourage researchers who did not participate in the conference to submit papers to this special issue.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to the following areas, in which excellent surveying works are also welcome:

• Component-based software engineering
• Software requirements engineering
• Software architecture and design
• Information engineering
• Visual and multimedia computing
• Economic and financial systems
• Software security
• Modelling with UML
• Reverse engineering and reengineering
• Use cases, scenarios
• Middleware design techniques
• Software economics and cost modelling
• Programming languages
• Software tools and development environments
• Software policy and ethics
• Theory, formal methods and tools
• Design patterns and frameworks
• Software safety and reliability
• Web engineering and web-based applications
• Software process models
• Information management systems
• Software testing and analysis
• Software components and reuse
• Case studies
• Object-oriented techniques
• Project management and maintenance
• Embedded and real-time software
• Empirical software engineering and metrics
• Aspect-orientation and feature interaction
• Software development methodology
• Software process improvement
• Project management
• Quality models
• Cost estimation
• Numerical (statistics) analysis development of algorithms

Important Dates
Submission deadline: 31 March, 2012
Notification of acceptance: 31 May, 2012
Final Version Due: 31 July, 2012

Special issue: System modelling and advanced control – Part II

International Journal of Advanced Mechatronic Systems 3(2) 2011

Papers from the 2010 International Conference on Modelling, Identification and Control (ICMIC‘10), held in Okayama, Japan, 17-19 July 2010.

See also International Journal of Advanced Mechatronic Systems 3(1) 2011

• Effect of physical constraints on the AGC dynamic behaviour in an interconnected power system
• WAM-signal-based decentralised fuzzy control for large power systems with unavailable states
• Robust H∞ reliable control of uncertain stochastic switched non-linear systems
• An exterior-point approach to the robust D-stability control with output feedback
• Modelling and multivariable robust controller for a power plant
• Multi-objective dynamic state and output feedback controllers for MIMO system using evolutionary algorithm and eigenstructure assignment
• Impulsive synchronisation for a class of non-linear coupled reaction-diffusion systems
• Application of matching pursuits of power quality disturbance classification

Special issue: Rapid manufacturing in medical applications

International Journal of Rapid Manufacturing 2(1/2) 2011

• Weighted principal component approach for improving surface finish of ABS plastic parts built through fused deposition modelling process
• Additive manufacturing mechanical property assessment and part candidate screening
• A hybrid classifier for mammogram mass classification using various new geometric shape and margin features
• Design for manufacturing of custom-made femoral stem using CT data and rapid prototyping technology
• Building good quality prototypes for forensic face reproduction from low quality laser scanned files
• Application of rapid prototyping technology in dentistry

Special issue: Collaborative technologies and applications

International Journal of Collaborative Enterprise 2(1) 2011

• Collaborative technologies and applications
• Best collaboration practices in supply chain of technical wholesale items
• An approach of multi disciplinary collaboration in conceptual automotive development
• Collaborative systems and internal marketing communications in knowledge transfer
• On the exploitation of relationships in online communities of practice
• E-learning system in epidemiology: a Bayesian network approach
• ERP and TOC collaboration: the whole is greater than the sum of the parts

Call for Papers: Low Carbon Asia

A special issue of International Journal of Global Energy Issues

Recently the notion of the low carbon society has been receiving global attention. Particularly in Asia, rapid economic growth has resulted in a high energy consumption society. In this context the mechanisms for the development of a low carbon society are widely focused on.

This special issue aims at introducing a wide scope of research related to the energy- and environment-related aspects of developing a low carbon society. Target sectors for developing a low carbon society include residential, civil, industrial, transportation and waste management sectors.

We invite the submission of original theoretical and empirical research papers on the development of a low carbon Asia that either focus on particular Asian countries or on Asia as a whole.

We aim to publish the latest advancements in the highly interdisciplinary field of research and development for a low carbon Asia, which has applications in the fields of economics, engineering, sociology, architectonics, energy and environmental policies.

From this viewpoint, the issue hopes to promote micro and macro analyses of energy efficiency, the understanding of energy consumption, and energy-saving activities.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Energy modelling
• Energy economic analyses
• Social research on environmental activities
• Ecological economic analyses of energy systems for sustainability
• Low carbon transportation planning
• Residential energy saving
• Policies on energy efficiency
• Comparative empirical analyses on low carbon cities and countries

Important Dates
Submission deadline (early submissions encouraged): 1 October, 2011
First round reviews: 15 November, 2011

Call for Papers: Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity

A special issue of International Journal of Risk Assessment and Management

This special issue will present recent progress, ideas, problems and solutions relating to the multifaceted aspects of disaster recovery and business continuity. It is intended for academics, practitioners, scientists and engineers who are involved in the areas of business, economics, scientific and technological disciplines, energy industries, environmental and ecological systems, safety, public health and medical services, as well as those working in software services, reliability and safety.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the 2011 International Conference on Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity (8-10 December 2011, Jeju Grand Hotel, Jeju Island, Korea), but we also strongly encourage researchers who cannot participate in the conference to submit papers for this issue.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to the following. Excellent surveying works in these areas are also welcome.

• Disaster recovery or business continuity for critical infrastructure
• Disaster recovery or business continuity for critical information infrastructure
• Guides or standards related to disaster recovery/business continuity
• Practices related to disaster recovery/business continuity
• Case studies and lessons learned
• Coordination in crisis situations of international proportions
• Crisis management, management systems
• Decision-making processes in rapidly emerging crises
• Energy, environment and sustainable development
• Environmental protection, climate change
• Environmental management and monitoring
• GIS in emergency management
• Health emergencies and response
• Humanitarian crises
• Information and communication technologies
• Operative forces and their organisations
• Psychological and social approaches in crisis situations
• Risk assessment, management, professional practice
• Technologies and equipment for environmental assessment and protection
• Terrorism and security
• The role of the press and mass media in crisis situations
• Training and education

Important Dates
Submission deadline: 31 March, 2012
Notification of acceptance: 31 May, 2012
Final version due: 31 July, 2012

Call for Papers: Social Media Support for Intelligent Service and Interaction

A special issue of International Journal of Knowledge and Web Intelligence

This special issue focuses on social media and related research areas for the intelligent support of human activities. Our current environment provides various kinds of social networking systems, and it has become clear that their roles and effects are too complex and diverse in terms of information sharing, knowledge exchange, virtual communication/discussion and so on for effective evaluation.

Social media including social communication systems and environments are not only dependent on a particular network between specific participants, but are also often more widely available. All activities may be mutually interactive either directly or indirectly through the World Wide Web. Social media plays important roles in promoting our communication effectively, and is a typical communication method which has replaced many traditional social information transfer functions.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• Foundations of social media mechanisms
• Interoperability of social media
• Knowledge management in social media
• New frameworks in social media
• New applications in social media
• Web infrastructure for social media
• Analysis and evaluation of social media
• Social media services
• Human interaction through social media
• Data/text mining from social media

Important Dates
Submission of papers: 1 October, 2011
Notification of acceptance: 21 November, 2011
Re-submission of papers: 20 December, 2011

Call for Papers: Advanced Developments in Tyre Modelling, Analysis and Dynamics

A special issue of International Journal of Vehicle Design

The advancement of tyre technology in the areas of tyre analysis, design and development is becoming increasingly complex because of various new challenges in the areas of fuel efficiency and active safety system integration for modern vehicles. These challenges open up new opportunities for synergy in the areas of tyre simulation, application, testing and production.

This special issue will focus on articles related to advanced developments in tyre modelling, analysis and dynamics. Advances in computational methods offer excellent opportunities for cost reduction and prediction of vehicle response over a much larger range of hypothetical scenarios than can ever be examined through experimental testing. In addition, the development of advanced testing methods which add more depth to the level of analysis on today’s tyres will greatly increase our understanding of the dynamics involved in tyres used on vehicles today.

This collection of state-of-the-art research in topics related to tyres and their influence on vehicle design and performance is intended to be an open forum on some of the most up-to-date tyre research being explored for the vehicles of today and tomorrow.

Suitable topics include but are not limited:

• Advanced tyre design and development
• The interaction of tyre and vehicle dynamics
• Tyre mechanics and their influence on vehicle design and performance
• Advanced developments in tyre noise, vibration and harshness (NVH)
• Development of analytical/empirical/semi-empirical tyre models for vehicle dynamics simulation
• Tyres and their interaction with anti-lock braking systems (ABS) and electronic stability control (ESC)
• Development of latest techniques for tyre modelling
• Latest developments in tyre testing and characterisation
• Recent tyre testing methodology developments
• Applications of tyre models to heavy truck vehicle simulation
• Tyres and their interaction with various chassis systems (suspension, braking or steering)
• Advances in on-road and off-road tyre modelling
• Advanced tyre characterisation and identification methods for on-road and off-road applications
• Futuristic concepts in tyre design for next generation vehicles
• Improvements in the computer-aided design of tyres
• Tyre model validation and standardisation

Important Dates
Manuscript submission deadline: 30 November, 2011
Reviewers' reports and decisions: 31 January, 2012
Revised manuscript submission: 15 March, 2012

Call for Papers: Pervasive Computing: New Advances and Challenges

A special issue of International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing

Pervasive computing has been investigated for many years with various research outcomes delivered and published. However, with the emerging evolution of computing infrastructures such as cloud computing and social computing, new challenges require innovative solutions such as pervasive computational intelligence, nature-inspired soft computing, social-oriented agent technology and cyber-physical integrated ubiquitous intelligence.

This special issue aims to address a variety of new challenges and advanced technologies. It solicits high-quality theoretical as well as practical works on a broad range of issues important to pervasive computing.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the 9th International Conference on Pervasive Intelligence and Computing (PICom2011) to be held on 12-14 December 2011 in Sydney, Australia, but we also strongly encourage researchers who cannot participate in the conference to submit papers.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• Pervasive knowledge computing
• Autonomous systems
• Pervasive soft computing
• Pervasive social computing
• Cloud service provisioning
• Energy management in pervasive devices
• Pervasive wearable computers, RFIDs, sensor technology
• Pervasive smart home networks
• Pervasive services such as EaaS, SaaS, IaaS, PaaS
• Pervasive innovative HCI design
• Pervasive e-market, e-health and commerce
• Pervasive and ubiquitous data mining
• Software agents for pervasive computing
• Semantic technologies for pervasive computing
• Context and situation awareness for pervasive computing
• Activity recognition

Important Dates
Deadline for submission: 31 March, 2012
Acceptance notification (1st round): 31 May, 2012
Revision submission: 31 July, 2012
Final notification of acceptance: 31 August, 2012

Call for Papers: Challenges for Energy and Waste Management in Island Countries

A special issue of International Journal of Global Environmental Issues

Most of the world’s island economies are highly dependent on fossil fuels for energy production and transportation, and most face a complex waste management problem. Agriculture and tourism are important sources of income for many islands, but their development is associated with high energy demands and increased waste generation.

New energy efficiency and renewable energy schemes together with creative waste management processes are required. New endogenous scenarios must be developed in order to protect the fragile environment of each island.

This special issue is an initiative of the School of Science and Technology and the School of Engineering of Universidad del Turabo, in their commitment to fostering new knowledge directed towards the improvement of economic, environmental and social welfare, which are the pillars of a sustainable development.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the 4th International Conference on the Environment (http://ciemades.org), but we also strongly encourage researchers who did not participate in the conference to submit papers.

Papers are sought on a wide spectrum of topics related to the sustainable management of energy and wastes. Basic and applied science research results, reviews, new technological approaches and case studies ware welcome.

Topics include but are not limited to:

• Environmental, energy and economic models for island countries
• Economic, engineering and social science approaches to solving islands' energy requirements and waste generation issues
• Endogenous energy sources of islands
• Renewable energy development and its impact upon islands
• Integration of renewable energy for thermoelectric cogeneration
• Technology assessment of ocean waves for electric energy production
• Solid waste generation and integrated management
• Energy generation potential of municipal solid wastes and biomass
• Policy-making and operation experiences in renewable energy and wastes
• Analysis of uncertainty and scenarios of environmental change issues in islands

Important Dates
Deadline for paper submission: 30 September, 2011
First round of paper reviews: 30 November, 2011
Second round of paper reviews: 31 January, 2012
Final paper submission: 31 March, 2012

Special issue: Incentives for semantic content creation

International Journal of Knowledge Engineering and Data Mining 1(4) 2011

• Feedback in social semantic applications
• Mining query-logs towards learning useful kick-off ontologies: an incentive to semantic web content creation
• Motivation mechanisms for participation in human-driven semantic content creation
• Semantic need: an approach for guiding users contributing metadata to the Semantic Web
• User-driven generation of semantic web content in Enterprise 2.0: a case study

Special issue: Strategic change management in high technology industry

International Journal of Strategic Change Management 3(1/2) 2011

• Chilean venture capital funds, government incentives and investment in technology ventures
• Strategic management of forest industry transformation
• Scenarios in technology and research policy: case portable fuel cells
• Learning enabled human resource practices in software organisations in India
• A knowledge management view to a strategic change in a high-tech company
• Strategic orientation in small-sized service retailers
• Improving technological capability of Beijing in the context of multinational R&D transfer
• An examination of Chinese own brand development model: a resource perspective

Additional Papers

• The role of storytelling in the formal mentoring program
• The discourse of management and the management of discourse

Special issue: Knowledge-based dynamics for local development

International Journal of Knowledge-Based Development 2(1) 2011

• Editorial: Knowledge-based dynamics for local development – a position paper
• Mapping knowledge territories for development policies
• Knowledge-based urban development of Multimedia Super Corridor, Malaysia: an overview
• Contribution of human capital to economic growth from the education policy point of view – empirical analysis for EU economies
• The value relevance of intellectual capital on the firm's market value: an empirical survey on the Italian listed firms
• The application of intellectual capital reports in local authorities: analysis and empirical evidence
• Role of 'green knowledge' in the environmental transformation of the supply chain: the case of Greek manufacturing

Special issue: Advances in wireless, mobile and P2P-based internet protocols, applications and architectures

International Journal of Internet Protocol Technology 6(1/2) 2011

• Fast mobility control protocols with sink location protection in wireless sensor networks
• Interface aware distributed multicast packet replication in ad hoc network using multicast monitoring mobile agent
• DCCP video streaming over multiple connections in the wireless internet
• Performance evaluation of routing protocols in vehicular ad hoc networks
• Trust-based clustering for multicast key distribution scheme in ad hoc network (TBCMKDS)
• Performance analysis of the CAC scheme CARETON under mixed cell environment in overlay networks
• A multipath routeless routing protocol with an efficient location update mechanism
• Vehicle assisted cross-layer handover scheme in NEMO-based VANETs (VANEMO)
• WSMXDiscoCast: a P2P approach for a better automation of the discovery mechanism for web service execution environment

Additional Papers

• A new high performance PBV-based approach for simultaneous packet classification and conflict detection
• U-plant: a RFID-based ubiquitous plant learning system for promoting self-regulation
• A cross-multilayer mechanism design for improving video quality of SVC coded video streams over mobile WiMAX networks

Special issue: Design education

Journal of Design Research 9(2) 2011

• Using design education to survive in the 'corporate world' of higher learning and research
• Some students are more different than others
• Education to practice: the development of responsibility in product designers
• Using furniture design to convey a rigorous design education process
• User-centred research methods in postgraduate teaching
• Get wet! Teaching innovation theories through experiential learning
• An exercise programme for cognitive elements of design creativity

Special issue: Ergonomic and industrial design of road vehicles

International Journal of Vehicle Design 55(2-4) 2011

• A method for simulating the car-entering movement for variably dimensioned vehicles
• User-centred design and evaluation of automotive seat adjustment controls
• Defining the ergonomic parameters of the driver's seat in a competition single-seater
• Simultaneous consideration of user acceptability and regulatory compliance in vehicle seat design
• Considering race and gender distributions of the target user population in the multivariate design of vehicle seating
• Driving skills, education and in-vehicle technology
• Towards personalisation of the driver environment: investigating responses to instrument cluster design
• An ergonomic case study on the interior customisation of Fast Response Cars (FRCs) based on vehicle adaptation
• Branding identity, development and application: a comparison of rail and road vehicle liveries
• Interior aesthetics: an experience-focused approach for the design of brand-specific automotive identity

Special issue: Communications, computers and signal processing

International Journal of Communication Networks and Distributed Systems 6(4) 2011

Extended papers from the 2009 IEEE Pacific Rim Conference on Computers, Communications, and Signal Processing, held in Victoria, BC, Canada, 23–26 August 2009.

• Network code assisted HARQ scheme in multi-user systems with cooperative relays
• A practical heterogeneous network optimisation algorithm based on reinforcement learning
• Single-port and multi-port collective communication operations on single and dual Cell BE processor systems
• An analytical evaluation method based on generalised random graphs for unstructured peer-to-peer content-sharing systems
• Probabilistic analysis of time reduction by eliminating barriers in parallel programmes

Regular Paper

• QoS protection optimisation for MPLS

Special issue: Systems of systems engineering in a naval application

International Journal of System of Systems Engineering 2(2/3) 2011

• The US Navy carrier strike group as a system of systems
• Using system of systems engineering to strengthen carrier strike group C4ISR readiness evaluation
• Overview of the systems of systems engineering methodology
• Systems principles: foundation for the SoSE methodology
• Systems principles in action: application in a navy SoS engineering analysis
• Perspective 1 of the SoSE methodology: framing the system under study
• Framing a system of systems in a navy system of systems engineering analysis
• Perspective 2 of the SoSE methodology: designing the unique methodology
• Lessons learned during implementation of the SoSE method in a navy SoS engineering analysis
• Systems of systems engineering: prospects and challenges for the emerging field

Call for Papers: Management of Culture and Cultural Change in Healthcare Organisations

A special issue of European Journal of Cross-Cultural Competence and Management

Organisational culture plays a vital role in influencing the performance of healthcare organisations. Various actions and symbols define and reinforce the cultural beliefs and values that are associated with organisational performance.

The cultures of highly effective organisations tend to promote employee emotional well-being, morale, productivity and commitment. Conversely, the cultures in other, less-effective organisations often engender just the opposite. Conceptual and empirical work is needed to understand how cultural phenomena influence quality and effectiveness in healthcare organisations, broadly defined.

Examples of questions that could be addressed include, but are not limited to:

• What changes have occurred in the values and assumptions of healthcare providers and organisations in Eastern Europe as their economic systems have evolved towards market-driven economies?
• How do healthcare organisations adapt to the cultural changes brought about by the enforcement of EU human resource management rules that contradict traditional organisational practices within their countries?
• To what extent can management develop interventions to reinforce a “safety culture” when that culture may clash with the current culture in today’s complex healthcare delivery systems?
• Can healthcare organisations develop a safety culture which has an atmosphere of mutual trust, in which members talk freely about safety problems without fear of blame or punishment, while operating under Red Rules, i.e. rules that cannot be broken without serious disciplinary action?
• Can healthcare organisations develop cultures within the overall context of the communities in which they are embedded while also reinforcing universal values such as patient safety, quality of care, efficient service delivery and equitable access to care?
• What effect does significant organisational change such as downsizing, institutional mergers or consolidations have on the culture and performance of healthcare organisations?

These questions are critical as European and other countries wrestle with budget shortfalls to fund essential public services yet hope to maintain adequate levels of care for their populations. This special issue welcomes papers which address these and other topics related to cross-cultural issues within healthcare organisations.

Important Date
Submission deadline: 31 March 2012 (revised date)

Call for Papers: Green e-Participation

A special issue of International Journal of Electronic Governance

This special issue aims to focus on attempts to apply theories and practices of e-participation to environmental policy-making and green development. This raises important methodological and theoretical challenges that we hope to explore through a collection of interdisciplinary papers.

While e-government refers to technologies that facilitate information and service delivery to citizens, e-participation refers to processes and technologies that enable communication among citizens and enhance their capacity to influence collective decision making, or to be engaged in collective action. Citizens can engage in e-deliberations, they can voice their public opinions, collect signatures via e-petitions and try to influence the outcome of decisions and rule-making at all levels of governance. E-voting, digital protests and e-petitions may support or oppose political decisions.

The use of blogs and new social media provide new opportunities to reform the ways that citizens communicate with governments. Networked communities can go beyond deliberation, voice and involvement in decision-making by actively participating in facets of governance such as community support, fund-raising, pledging, monitoring the implementation of policies or changing their own behaviour in ways that tangibly link individual acts with collective outcomes.

Recently, there has even been discussion of tapping into the structure of gaming communities to help resolve social problems. For example, in the World Without Oil game, eighteen hundred people from twelve countries were asked to re-imagine their lives in a world bereft of oil as an exercise in changing attitudes.

Environmental issues and policies, in particular, constitute a typical area where social media are used in some of the ways outlined above. Citizens’ rights to access environmental information have been strengthened through online disclosure. Green e-participation has improved the legitimacy of decision-making processes that have an impact on the environment. Pollution-monitoring sites have provided tools to inform citizens as well as help them take steps towards effective political action.

A number of features make green e-participation particularly interesting and important: the often strong public motivation in environmental matters; the fact that many environmental issues draw support across traditional political borders; the complex nature of environmental problems and solutions; the fact that environmental issues cover all levels of governance from local to global; the cross-jurisdictional and cross-departmental nature of most environmental issues; and the fact that environmental issues do not align well with traditional governance bodies.

The fluidity of informationally-rich forms of networked communities can potentially adapt more effectively and speedily to environmental challenges, whether these involve issues of local waste management; monitoring and reduction of pollutants; household energy conservation; or regional plans to combat climate change. An assumption to be tested in this special issue is that deliberative network technologies can more readily engage relevant stakeholders with the specific problem at hand.

The establishment of green networks of citizens, activists, researchers, business leaders and government decision makers is likely to have a profound impact on the nature of democracy and the forms of environmental governance. Numerous issues arise:

• What is special about the interface between e-participation and environmental governance?
• Can citizens monitor their representatives’ actions towards sustainable green development? Can e-participation tools make democracy more accountable and, at the same time, more effective?
• Does e-rulemaking, in particular, have the potential to level the playing field by opening up new avenues for the involvement of public interest groups for environmental issues?
• What are the barriers and opportunities to greater online citizen engagement in environmental policy-making and green e-participation? Can all citizens be equally represented via new digital media and online platforms? Can these tools also be used by NGOs, lobbyists and industries to influence the decision process?

The special issue invites research papers, case studies, experience and best practice reports on the following non-exhaustive list of topics:

• Online participation tools and deliberative processes, including e-petitions, e-campaigns, e-consultations and others, for environmental policies and green development
• Online strategy tools by NGOs, local administrations and governments for environmental policies and green participation
• Social media, Web 2.0 and emerging technologies and applications for green e-participation
• Theoretical approaches to global governance and inclusive policy-making via virtual spaces
• Success and failure stories, good and bad practices for green e-participation, addressing the barriers and opportunities for online citizen mobilisation on environmental issues

Important Dates
Deadline for paper submission: 31 October, 2011
Notification of review results: 30 December, 2011
Submission of revised manuscripts: 30 March, 2012

Call for Papers: Voting Advice Applications and the State of the Art: Theory, Practice and Comparative Insights

A special issue of International Journal of Electronic Governance

In recent years online voting tools, increasingly referred to as voting advice applications (VAAs), have been deployed in numerous European countries with the purported objective of aiding prospective voters in their electoral choice. These tools have been used during different types of electoral contests, such as national elections as well as in less salient elections such as supranational elections in the EU.

The increasing popularity of VAAs raises numerous questions about how these innovative online tools are designed and their general impact on the election process. This special issue seeks to critically evaluate the VAA phenomenon. It invites research papers, case studies, experience and best practice reports, in the form of interdisciplinary contributions or more specific papers dealing with some of the questions below.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, those that address the following questions:

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of using such tools? Could they increase participation? Can they improve the process of opinion formation?
• What is the impact of VAAs on elections? Do different party systems matter?
• What are the most pertinent methodological issues raised in the design of VAAs? How are results calculated? How are parties/candidates coded? How many answer categories are appropriate?
• How best to analyse the data generated by VAAs? What can we learn about the ideological profile of parties/candidates from the data collected by VAAs? How best to map the results generated by VAAs? How do we compare VAAs across different electoral events, or countries?

Important Dates
Deadline for paper submission: 31 January 2012 (revised date)
Notification of review results: 30 March, 2012
Submission of revised manuscripts: 30 June, 2012

Special issue: Intra- and cross-regional economic development dynamics: focus on regional/sectoral innovation systems

International Journal of Innovation and Regional Development 3(3/4) 2011

• Forms and role of cluster initiatives in fostering innovation in post-industrial regions: a comparative study of environmental technologies clusters in the British West Midlands and the Spanish Basque Country
• Building capabilities for innovation in SMEs: a cross-country comparison of technology extension policies and programmes
• Assessing innovative behaviour of firms: an attempt to reveal path dependency effects
• The regional dynamics of innovation: a comparative study of oil and gas industry development in Stavanger and Aberdeen
• The business enabling network – a tool for regional development
• A role of regional knowledge intermediary in sectoral innovation system
• A comparative study of four West Mediterranean regions: the role of technology interface structures
• Experiences and lessons learnt from an interregional growth project: the role of innovation and STPs
• Learning from past investment incidents in peripheral regions: semiconductors in Patras, Greece

Special issue: Nanomaterials for solar energy harvesting

International Journal of Nanoparticles 4(2/3) 2011

• Photogenerated charge carriers in semiconductor nanomaterials for solar energy conversion
• Nanostructured heterogeneous photocatalysts for H2 production using solar energy
• Nanostructured niobate photocatalysts
• Self-assembly of one-dimensional nanomaterials for cost-effective photovoltaics
• One-dimensional coaxial nanowire solar cell
• Nanomaterials for third generation photovoltaics
• Effect of TiO2/WO3/C photoanode composition on the photocurrent of all-solid photoelectrochemical cells
• Nanostructural control of ZnO photoelectrodes for enhancing solar energy conversion efficiency in dye-sensitised solar cells
• Nanostructured ZnO for photoelectrochemical splitting of water to produce hydrogen: swift heavy ion irradiation vis-a-vis dye-sensitisation
• A review in visible-light-driven BiVO4 photocatalysts
• Texturing of crystalline Si thin film solar cells via nanostructure to boost efficiency

Special issue: Management of technology in healthcare organisations

International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management 12(3/4) 2011

Papers in honour of Professor Koos Krabbendam upon his retirement from the University of Twente in the Netherlands.

• Linking medical technology and quality of healthcare delivery: an exploratory study of a stage model
• Changes in the hospital care following European Working Time Directive with special reference to the craft specialties
• Ethical and legal issues of privacy and patient rights in the application of information healthcare delivery systems
• Scope and role of strategic technology management in Austrian hospitals: a decade later
• Health services innovation: evaluating process changes to improve patient flow
• The role of operations management in improving emergency department outflow
• Organisational innovations in Catalan hospitals: the case of telemedicine
• A sub rosa world: Medicare and the cost of new technology

Additional Paper

• Moving tele-monitoring and tele-treatment from promise to practice: a business model approach for a chronic lower back pain application

Special issue: Parallel high performance systems and architectures

International Journal of High Performance Systems Architecture 3(2/3) 2011

Papers from the 2009 WSCAD-SSC Conference held in São Paulo, Brail, 28-31 October 2009.

• A minimalist cache coherent MPSoC designed for FPGAs
• Dynamic workload balancing deques for branch and bound algorithms in the message passing interface
• Challenges and solutions to improve the scalability of an operational regional meteorological forecasting model
• Automated refactorings for high performance Fortran programmes
• Assessing the influence of data access patterns and contention management policies on the performance of software transactional memory systems
• The impact of applications' I/O strategies on the performance of the Lustre parallel file system
• Trebuchet: exploring TLP with dataflow virtualisation
• A RISC architecture for 2DLNS-based signal processing
• GNLS: a hybrid on-chip communication architecture for SoC designs
• A hardware architecture for subtractive clustering

Call for Papers: Services Innovation in Emerging Economies: Theory, Practice and Policy

A special issue of International Journal of Services Technology and Management

Services innovation is a topic of growing interest for researchers and policy makers alike. Despite the growing number of studies conducted in developed economies, current literature provides only fragmentary insights into the nature of services innovation in emerging economies such as China, India, Brazil, etc.

In recent years, emerging economies have transformed the global competitive landscape. Though still in the follow-up stage, service sectors in emerging economies have boomed alongside flourishing manufacturing industries, and have grown to constitute a much larger part of employment and output than before. The successful development and launch of innovative services is not only becoming key for services enterprises to survive and succeed in developing and sustaining competitive advantage, but is also considered to be an important trigger for the extension of services business and a new source of competitive advantage for manufacturing firms.

However, owing to the differences in development stage, factor endowment, technology development, market maturity and service culture and consumption habitation, services innovation activities in emerging economies inevitably show significant differences to those in developed economies. Interestingly, more and more services firms in emerging economies have grown rapidly and become formidable competitors to established services firms in developed economies, despite being latecomers.

Therefore there is a multitude of issues which deserve to be studied theoretically and empirically in emerging economies, which would raise profound implications for the management of services innovation activities and policymaking.

To gain a more comprehensive and deeper understanding of services innovation in emerging economies, this special issue aims to present research on the theory, practice and policy of services innovation in emerging economies.

Qualitative and quantitative as well as conceptual approaches defining, understanding and managing services innovation activities in enterprises in emerging economies are appropriate and appreciated. Contributions will be evaluated on the basis of originality, clarity and relevance. We encourage submissions that provide a unique perspective using diverse methodological approaches, and from interdisciplinary/international/industry-academic co-author teams.

Theoretical, methodological and/or empirical research papers in any sector of services or manufacturing are invited. Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• Taxonomies, modes and processes of services innovation in emerging economies
• Obstacles and bottlenecks for innovation activities in services in emerging economies
• New service development (NSD) in emerging economies
• Innovation activities of knowledge intensive business services in emerging economies
• Services innovation systems in emerging economies
• The measurement and assessment of services innovation in emerging economies
• Performance effects of services innovation in emerging economies
• Determinants to services innovation success
• The relationship between services innovation and service quality and capability
• Protection of services innovation in emerging economies
• Localisation and globalisation of services innovation in emerging economies
• The influence of services innovation on manufacturing at different levels, including firm level, industry level and regional level
• Formation, implementation and assessment of innovation policy in services in emerging economies

Important Dates
Submission deadline: 31 October, 2011
Author notification/review comments: 15 January, 2012

Final manuscript due: 31 March, 2012

Special issue: Reliability of welded components

International Journal of Microstructure and Materials Properties 6(1/2) 2011

Includes papers from the International Institute of Welding's International Conference on Safety and Reliability of Welded Components in Energy and Processing Industry held in Graz, Austria, 10-11 July 2008.

• Structural steel for the application in offshore, wind and hydro energy production: comparison of application and welding properties of frequently used materials
• Properties of T/P92 weld metals for ultra super critical (USC) power plant
• Hardfacing of austenitic stainless steel with nickel-base NiCr alloy
• On the application of weld strength factors on welded components
• Long-term creep strength and strength reduction factor for welded joints of ASME Grades 91, 92 and 122 type steels
• Creep behaviour of steel P23 weldments
• The influence of welding process parameters on residual stresses by means of coupled thermo-mechanical simulation
• Development and microstructure of advanced creep resistant ferritic steels
• Optimisation and sensitivity analysis of friction stir welding process and tool parameters for joining AA1100 aluminium alloy
• Mechanical properties and operational damage evaluation of CSM composites by destructive and non-destructive techniques

Call for Papers: Optimisation and Simulation in Real-life Scenarios

A special issue of International Journal of Data Analysis Techniques and Strategies

Optimisation and simulation methods and techniques have rapidly evolved over the last decades. One factor that explains this development is outstanding and continuous improvement in computer hardware and software. Another factor is the increasing use of problem-solving approaches that benefit from more computing power, e.g. metaheuristics, hybrid algorithms, parallel and distributed computing, large-scale simulations, multi-agent approaches, etc.

However, despite these significant advances in this scientific arena, there seems to be an important gap between theory and practice; most industrial sectors (including services) are still far from employing the full potential of state-of-the-art scientific advances in optimisation and simulation.

This special issue aims at providing a set of selected articles which describe, mostly in case-study style, how optimisation and simulation methods and techniques have been successfully applied in real-life scenarios. In this regard, submitted articles should describe in detail how optimisation and/or simulation methods and techniques were selected and adapted to the particular problem at hand, what challenges needed to be addressed, and how the application of these methods and techniques has contributed to advancement in industrial, management or telecommunication systems and/or processes.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• Genetic algorithms
• Metaheuristics
• Machine learning
• Mathematical programming
• Case studies
• Business reengineering
• Computer simulation
• Decision support systems
• Fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic
• Parallel and distributed computing
• Transportation and logistics
• Process scheduling
• System availability
• Environmental issues

Important Date
Article submission deadline: 30 December, 2011

Special issue: From concepts to intentions: the primary challenges in entrepreneurship educationInternational Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small B

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business 13(1) 2011

Papers from the 18th Internationalizing Entrepreneurship Education and Training (IntEnt) Conference held in Oxford, Ohio, USA, 17-20 July 2008.

• Entrepreneurship theory, process, and practice in the 21st century
• Find your own way: entrepreneurship course development, strategic fit, and the problems of benchmarking
• Creativity and feasibility: applying the IDEO innovation processes to current societal challenges
• Gender and the effects of an entrepreneurship training programme on entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial knowledge gain
• Increasing entrepreneurial intention: effective entrepreneurship course characteristics
• Competing models of entrepreneurial intentions: the influence of entrepreneurial self-efficacy and attitudes
• Entrepreneurial intention among secondary students: findings from Portugal

Special issue: Cultural diversity, tourism and development

International Journal of Tourism Anthropology 1(2) 2011

• Commoditisation effects on cultural identity: a process model
• 'It's a funny thing that they were all bad men': cultural conflict and integrated tourism policy in Shetland, UK
• Ecomuseums, tourism and the representation of rural France
• An exploratory study of attitudes toward tourism on American Indian reservations
• Ukrainian localities meet Jewish guests: negotiation of Jewish heritage and ethnic tourism in the former Pale of Settlement

Special issue: Supply chain performance measurement

International Journal of Procurement Management 4(3) 2011

Papers from the 6th Annual International Symposium on Supply Chain Management, held in Calgary, Canada, 15- 17 October 2008.

• Supply chain assessment tool development in Thailand: an SME perspective
• Performance measurement in buyer-supplier collaboration programmes: implementing the common scorecard
• The impact of information sharing on supply chain performance: an empirical study
• A multi-attribute approach to the modelling of human elements in electronic negotiation
• Supply chain integration under chaotic conditions: not-for-profit food distribution

General Paper

• Utilising multicriteria decision making for rewarding participants in collaborative e-procurement

Special issue: The nexus of risk, crime and tourism – empirical and theoretical insights

International Journal of Tourism Policy 3(4) 2010

• Tourism crises: a comparative perspective
• A theoretical model for strategic crisis planning: factors influencing crisis planning in the hotel industry
• Online tourism marketing for Sub-Saharan African countries: battling stereotypes of high risk, hostility and underdevelopment
• The moderator effect of risk on Travel Decision Making

Research Notes

• Crisis and risks in tourism: death takes a holiday – debunking the myth of terrorism and its psychological impact on the tourism industry
• A contextual typology for the study of the relationship between political instability and tourism

Special issue: Selected papers from IEEE BIBM 2009, Part II

International Journal of Data Mining and Bioinformatics 5(3) 2011

The 3rd IEEE International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedicine was held in Washington DC, USA, 1-4 November 2009.

For Part 1 see International Journal of Data Mining and Bioinformatics 5(2) 2011

• Cancer progression analysis based on ordinal relationship of cancer stages and co-expression network modularity
• Building a standards-based and collaborative e-prescribing tool: MyRxPad
• Image segmentation of biofilm structures using optimal multi-level thresholding
• Biomarkers associated with metastasis of lung cancer to brain predict patient survival
• Pancreas modelling by a deterministic optimisation method
• Activated germinal centre B cells undergo directed migration
• Combining multiple perspective as intelligent agents into robust approach for biomarker detection in gene expression data

Call for Papers: Ubiquitous Multimedia Networks and Services

A special issue of International Journal of Computational Science and Engineering

As contemporary computing and communication devices foster human interactions in cyberspace, social events are taking place ubiquitously in the form of multimodal adaptive interactions between participants. Cutting edge interactive systems therefore focus on how to deliver multimodal media in different contexts of use to humans in a way that offers better quality of experience.

To achieve this there are a great deal of challenging problems yet to be solved, mainly in how to bring together ICT technologies for context adaptation, inter-device interaction, and media/data communication for the wellbeing of humans. This special issue strives to foster state-of-the-art research pertaining to the area of ubiquitous multimedia networks and services, covering various areas of computation/communication infrastructure, middleware, human-computer interaction, and applications for ubiquitous multimedia.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• Sensor networks/RFID for ubiquitous multimedia
• Heterogeneous infrastructure for ubiquitous multimedia
• 3G and advanced communication techniques
• Storage and indexing for ubiquitous multimedia
• Cross-network communication and servers for ubiquitous multimedia
• Multimedia embedded systems
• Context-aware multimedia
• Computational intelligence for ubiquitous multimedia
• Semantic web and knowledge grids
• Multimedia content protection and security
• Privacy and security in ubiquitous environments
• Plasticity and dynamic composition of user interfaces
• Multimodal interaction
• Social networks
• Ubiquitous multimedia services for commerce
• Ubiquitous multimedia services for games
• Ubiquitous multimedia services for healthcare
• Ubiquitous multimedia services for smart homes

Important Dates
Submission deadline: 15 December, 2011
Acceptance notification: 15 February, 2012
Final paper due: 15 April, 2012

Special issue: Strategic issues and organisational performance

Journal for Global Business Advancement 4(1) 2011

• The effect of organisational trust on employees' attitudes and behaviours
• Sourcing strategies, practices and effects on organisational performance
• The relationship between human resource management and firm performance in small businesses: evidence from Canada and New Zealand
• An analysis of motivational factors affecting Middle East tourists visiting Malaysia
• Does common stock hedge against inflation in G7 countries? A co-integration analysis

Special issue: Advances in ubiquitous communications, sensing, and applications

International Journal of Space-Based and Situated Computing 1(2/3) 2011

Papers from the 13th International Conference on Network-Based Information Systems (NBiS-2010), held in Gifu, Japan, 14-16 September, 2010

• Construction of high realistic sensation fusion space over the ultrahigh-speed network
• Sensing, collecting, and discovering the home environment information for ecological lifestyle
• A video-based portal system for remote appliance control
• A survey on clustering algorithms for wireless sensor networks
• Data sharing in mobile ad-hoc networks – a study of replication and performance in the MIDAS data space
• Security in wireless sensor networks: a survey of attacks and countermeasures
• Integrated cloud computing environment with IT resources and sensor devices
• Prediction of sales volume based on the RFID data collected from apparel shops
• Design and development of efficient algorithm for mobile ad hoc networks using cache
• Field estimation for terrestrial digital broadcasting in Western part of Fukuoka
• Analysis and characteristics of diffracted waves going over building rooftop
• Managing threats by the use of visualisation techniques

Special Issue: Mobile data services on a global consumer perspective

International Journal of Electronic Business 9(1/2) 2011

Includes papers based on data collected through the Global Mobile Survey (GMS) led by the Institute for Communication Technology Management at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business.

• Are phones fun? Usage and barriers to adoption for wireless data services among the younger generation of Asians
• Determinants of customer acceptance for mobile data services: an empirical analysis with formative constructs
• A study of the loyalty-building process for Mobile Data Service usage in Korea
• The pervasiveness of Mobile Data Services: Do usage and attitudinal divides exist in Asia and North America?
• Diffusion of innovation: analysis of internet cellular phone adoption by users in Jordan
• Balancing privacy concerns in the adoption of Location-Based Services: an empirical analysis
• Mobile data services in Finland: usage of networks, devices, applications and content
• An international study of smartphone usage

Special issue: Non-destructive testing and preventive technology

International Journal of Materials and Product Technology 41(1-4) 2011

Papers from the 4th International Conference on NDT of the Hellenic Society for NDT (HSNT), held in Chania, Crete, 11-14 October 2007.

• Delamination detection and impact damage assessment of GLARE by active thermography
• Thermal non-destructive characterisation of layers detachment in the roadways
• A preliminary estimation of analysis methods of vibration signals at fault diagnosis in ball bearings
• Statistical damage diagnosis in smart systems via contact-free MetGlas® sensors and stochastic non-linear modelling of system output data
• Industrial radiography and tomography based on scanning linear scintillator array
• Automated eddy current data analysis
• Classification of wavelet decomposed AE signals based on parameter-less self organised mapping
• Investigation of accurate imaging of the defects in composite materials using ultrasonic air-coupled technique
• On the application of non-destructive testing techniques on rotating machinery
• Ultrasonic guided wave tomography for the inspection of the fuel tanks floor
• Application of acoustic emission method in contact damage identification
• Ultrasound interferometry for the evaluation of thickness and adhesion of thin layers
• The effect of the angle of inclination of the exciting coil in electromagnetic-thermal non-destructive inspection
• An experimental research on three-dimensional waves in a concrete panel
• Visualisation of guided wave propagation by ultrasonic imaging methods
• Realistic evaluation of the size of a reflector perpendicular to a surface in double-V butt welds and T joints with ultrasound

Special issue: Evolutionary world; games, complex networks, agent simulations

International Journal of Bio-Inspired Computation 3(3) 2011

• A study of the relationship between scale-freeness and evolution of cooperation
• Evolution of cooperation on different combinations of interaction and replacement networks with various intensity of selection
• RElements of a network theory of complex adaptive systems
• Modelling generation and sharing of novel expressions and meanings in symbolic communication
• Robustness in artificial life
• Evolutionary optimised consensus and synchronisation networks

Special issue: Risk control in revenue management: quantitative analysis and empirical perspectives

International Journal of Revenue Management 5(2/3) 2011

• An ACO-based algorithm for optimising the revenue of TV advertisement using credit information
• Comparative analysis of risk control in logistics and supply chain finance under different pledge fashions
• A linear programming model to revenue management for advertising in mass media
• Risk management in supply chains
• Empirical analysis on threats to Hong Kong port in regional competitive environment
• Product demand risk management model based on empirical forecasting: consumer electronics product case

Regular papers

• Solving a reverse auction problem by bi-level distributed programming and genetic algorithm
• A system design to bridge the gap between the theory and practice of retail revenue management

Special issue: Application of digital human modelling tools in user centred design processes

International Journal of Human Factors Modelling and Simulation 1(4) 2010

• Time-related ergonomics evaluation for DHMs: a literature review
• Vehicle internal design improvement guidelines by using the computational pregnant occupant model 'Expecting'
• Quantitative body movement and gesture assessment in ergonomics
• Using visibility tools in Classic JACK to assess line-of-sight issues associated with the operation of mobile equipment
• Validation of the HADRIAN system using an ATM evaluation case study

Special issue; Advances in theory and applications of wireless, ad hoc and sensor networks

International Journal of Sensor Networks 9(3/4) 2011

• Energy-efficient collaborative tracking in wireless sensor networks
• Enhancing lifetime of wireless sensor networks using multiple data sinks
• Increasing energy efficiency in sensor networks: blue noise sampling and non-convex matrix completion
• Testing network protocols and signal attenuation in packed food transports
• A uniform airdrop deployment method for large-scale wireless sensor networks
• Per node deployment based detection of controlled link establishment attack in distributed sensor networks

Added paper

• RF angle of arrival-based node localisation

Special issue: Marketing and sponsorship in sport leagues

International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing 9(1/2) 2011

• Marketing and sponsorship in French football league
• Marketing in sport leagues: optimising the product design. Intra-championship competitive intensity in French football Ligue 1 and basketball Pro A
• The influence of club and sponsor images and club-sponsor congruence in the Australian Football League
• Analysing sport sponsorship effectiveness – the influence of fan identification, credibility and product-involvement
• Exploring the effect of communication channels on sponsorship effectiveness: a case study of Super Bowl XLII
• Twenty20 cricket sport sponsorship management strategies: a comparison between India and the UK
• Sport fans' sponsorship evaluation based on their perceived relationship value with a sport property

Special issue: The informatics of meta-data, questions, and value sets

International Journal of Functional Informatics and Personalised Medicine 3(4) 2011

• Questions on public health forms: the metadata required to describe standard data elements deployed in dynamic contexts
• LOINC®: a universal catalogue of individual clinical observations and uniform representation of enumerated collections
• United States Health Information Knowledgebase (USHIK)
• Standardising clinical data elements
• The use of SNOMED CT to support retrieval and re-use of Question and Answer Sets for patient registries

Special issue: Automatic free-text evaluation

International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning 21(2/3) 2011

• EssayAid: towards a semi-automatic system for assessing student texts
• Automated free-text assessment: some lessons learned
• Willow: a system to automatically assess students' free-text answers by using a combination of shallow NLP techniques
• Understanding expert ratings of essay quality: Coh-Metrix analyses of first and second language writing
• Using latent semantic analysis to grade brief summaries: some proposals
• Prediction of item psychometric indices from item characteristics automatically extracted from the stem and option text
• Automatising language creativity for learning second language vocabulary
• Categorising spelling errors to assess L2 writing
• A metamorphosis of university from past to present: a three-stage development trajectory with strategic management perspective

Special issue: Business process management

International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management 5(2) 2011

Includes papers from 2nd Workshop on Business Process Modelling organised in Vila Velha, Brazil in October 2008, in conjunction with WebMedia 2008 (promoted by the Brazilian Computer Society)

• Conformance analysis on software development: an experience with process mining
• Fraud detection in process aware systems
• Uncovering the organisational modelling and business process modelling languages in the ARIS method
• Aligning goal analysis and business process modelling: a case study in healthcare
• Using business models to identify expected quality for information systems
• Ontology-dependent two-phase semantic web services discovery and its e-government implementation
• Collaborative scientific workflows supporting collaborative science

Special issue: Corporate volunteering: conceptual embedment, empirical research and future perspectives

International Journal of Business Environment 4(2) 2011

• No corporate volunteering without volunteers
• Personal and corporate volunteerism: employee motivations
• Employee volunteerism: an exploratory study of recruiting volunteers in the workplace
• Corporate volunteering – business implementation issues
• How, why, and to what end? Corporate volunteering as corporate social performance

Special issue: WWER RPV embrittlement knowledge consolidation

International Journal of Nuclear Knowledge Management 5(1) 2011

Papers relating to the EU CAPTURE (Knowledge Management, Training and Education in Reactor Design and Operation) project.

• Post-irradiation annealing and re-irradiation review
• WWER RPV embrittlement: start of life toughness
• Mechanical property changes of VVER RPV materials embrittlement (tensile-Charpy properties)
• A historical review of WWER RPV embrittlement issues

Submitted papers

• Problems and challenges of teaching nuclear energy physics in a small university
• Knowledge management for radioactive waste disposal: moving from theory to practice

Special issue: System modelling and advanced control – Part I

International Journal of Advanced Mechatronic Systems 3(1) 2011

Papers from the 2010 International Conference on Modelling, Identification and Control (ICMIC‘10), held in Okayama, Japan, 17-19 July 2010.

• Extensions to experiment design and identification algorithms for large-scale and stochastic processes
• Development of static friction compensation for feed drive motions of machine tools
• HVAC control strategies for thermal comfort and indoor air quality
• A novel power swings blocking scheme verified with a new power swing simulation model
• Fault detection for stator inter-turn short circuit in doubly fed induction generators using adaptive observers
• Asymptotic parameter sensitivity for polynomial dynamical systems
• Turbofan aero-engine full flight envelope control using H∞ loop-shaping control technique

Special issue: The smart digital home

International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing 7(3) 2011

• The Smart Home meets the Web of Things
• How to communicate smartly with your house?
• Topology mining of sensor networks for smart home environments
• Reliable context capturing for smart offices using a sensor network
• Wearable assistance system for interacting with electronic devices in smart digital home
• Robots in the smart home: a project towards interoperability

Added paper

• Implementation of a distributed file storage with replica management in Peer-to-Peer environments

Imaging, Visualization and Simulation: New Tools for Technology and Healthcare

Inderscience is a media partner for the New York Academy of Sciences forum: Imaging, Visualization and Simulation: New Tools for Technology and Healthcare to be held on Friday 17 June 2011.

Massive data sets are generated in technical, financial, medical and social arenas. Featuring keynote speaker, David Shaw, this forum will feature cutting edge concepts and tools for data processing, integration, analysis and simulation that span diverse applications, with a focus on the innovations applied to health care.

Deadline for poster abstracts is Friday 20 May 2011.

Special issue: Innovative Production Machines and Systems (I*PROMS)

International Journal of Computer Aided Engineering and Technology 3(3/4) 2011

Papers from the 2008 Virtual Conference on Innovative Production Machines and Systems (IPROMS 2008)

• An investigation of influence of machining conditions on machining error
• Improvement of the sprue system design of an injection mould for optical disc substrates using computer aided design and simulation
• Automated design of fixtures based on FEM simulations
• Application of design functionality and design for manufacture rules in CAD/CAM
• Behaviour and integration of service-oriented automation and production devices at the shop-floor
• Towards an Auto-ID-enabled framework for manufacturing information sharing systems
• An improved scheme for online recognition of control chart patterns
• Smart connected and interactive production control in a distributed environment
• An IEC 61499 distributed control concept for reconfigurable robots
• Discovery of association rules from manufacturing data
• An integrated modelling approach in support of next generation reconfigurable manufacturing systems
• Queuing network modelling techniques for response time enhancement in electronics assembly
• A framework for fit manufacturing

Special issue: Innovative business resources in economic development: analysis and policy

International Journal of Foresight and Innovation Policy 7(1-3) 2011

Papers from the 2008 and 2009 Tinbergen Institute International Workshops: Creative, Intellectual and Entrepreneurial Resources for Regional Development: Analysis and Policy.

• Accessibility to human capital and new firm formation
• Bridging the gap between universities of professional education and Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises
• Locational patterns of new graduate employment and regional economic performance in Australia
• Using a multi-level framework to understand individual fortunes: an illustration for individual labour market outcomes
• Innovative marketing strategies for national industrial flagships: brand repositioning for accessing upscale markets
• Interregional mobility, productivity and the value of patents for prolific inventors in France, Germany and the UK
• Entrepreneurship in technological regimes in metro and non-metro areas
• Companies in rough seas: predictors of early insolvency risk in the Romanian IT industry
• The effect of social diversity on regional innovation: measures and empirical evidence
• Risky business: climate control legislation, regional development uncertainties and California's SB 375 law
• Creative capacity for sustainable development: a comparative analysis of the European and Turkish rural regions
• Australian agricultural R&D and innovation systems
• The role of proximity during long-distance collaborative projects. Temporary geographical proximity helps

Call for Papers: Spatial Knowledge-Based Development

A special issue of International Journal of Knowledge-Based Development

This special issue aims to increase knowledge of spatial knowledge-based development (SK-BD) in an international context. It welcomes articles that provide insight into spatial formations of knowledge-based development from various perspectives including analyses of public and private sectors together with NGOs and other stakeholders.

Potential papers may focus on theoretical developments or empirical analyses. The issue is aimed at the academic community as well as practitioners, such as spatial developers, planners and officers, in order to increase understanding of the dynamics and factors affecting KBD; in particular, information regarding the challenges and obstacles that should be considered in decision making in cities of various sizes and/or peripheral locations.

The issue’s broad research themes may be addressed through case studies or international comparisons. The purpose of the issue is to further explore any academic, conceptual, methodological or application-based research work being done across countries with regard to spatial development and/or the analysis of KBD projects at changing spatial scales.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• Integration of spatial analysis and knowledge-based theory
• Regional case studies of KBD
• Epistemological considerations for information- and knowledge-driven studies of spatial or regional development
• Spatial scaling of knowledge sources for economic growth
• Cities as clusters of knowledge creation
• Urban-rural dichotomies and KBD
• Case-based solutions for local knowledge economies
• Comparative studies of KBD and innovative growth
• Geographical differentiation of KBD between and within countries
• Local lessons of KBD initiatives
• Policy studies of KBD
• Travelling theory, location context and KBD
• Conceptual elaborations of KBD and spatial aspects

Important Dates
Submission of full paper: 15 October, 2011
Notification of review results: 15 December, 2011
Final paper submission: 31 January, 2012

Call for Papers: Climate Change Adaptation and Agriculture

A special issue of International Journal of Agricultural Resources, Governance and Ecology

Climate change will have particular implications for agriculture, which is the most climate-dependent economic activity. Climate change can be expected to have significant impacts upon crop yields through changes in both temperature and moisture availability. The increased variability of rainfall and weather events will necessitate new management techniques. Climate change-induced variations in the distribution of plant diseases and pests may also have adverse effects on agriculture.

For agricultural systems, adaptation to climate change requires initiatives and measures to reduce the vulnerability of the systems to actual or expected climate change effects.

This special issue is devoted to questions such as:

• In what ways are agricultural systems vulnerable?
• What are the expected impacts of climate change on agricultural systems?
• What measures could be used to adapt to the expected climate change effects?
• What measures could be used to manage the risks of climate change to agricultural production?

Answering this range of questions requires the skills of many disciplines. As such, this issue is open to a large range of disciplines – papers from agronomy, soil science and farm management through to resource/ecological economics, law and policy are welcome. The notion is to present a set of papers that cover the range of issues associated with adaptation of agricultural production to climate change.

Topics include but are not limited to:

• Estimating the impacts of climate change on agricultural production
• Altering the timing of planting dates to adapt to changing growing conditions
• Altering cropping mixes and species that are better suited to changing climatic conditions
• Breeding new plant species and crops that are more tolerant to changed climate conditions
• Controlling insect outbreaks and disease outbreaks
• Strategies for risk management in the face of increased climate variability
• Farmer education to respond to climate change

Important Date
Deadline for submission: 31 July, 2011

Call for Papers: Climate Change Adaptation and Water Resources

A special issue of International Journal of Water

Climate change is expected to have significant impacts on water supplies and water quality. In some areas the seasonal timing of water flow is shifting, which will affect the availability of water for agriculture. Changes in quantity, timing and intensity of precipitation may result in more floods and droughts, as well as greater uncertainty about supply.

Sea level rise will result in saltwater intrusion into coastal fresh water aquifers, potentially reducing water resource availability. At the same time the world population is increasing and putting more pressure on water resources, which in areas of scarcity may result in transboundary conflicts.

This special issue is devoted to questions such as:

• How do we manage water supplies in the face of increased variability?
• Are different institutional arrangements required?
• Is it possible to change demand and the way we use water?
• How might we use and allocate water resources more efficiently?

Answering this range of questions requires the skills of many disciplines. As such, this issue is open to a large range of disciplines – papers from climate science, catchment hydrology and water engineering through to resource/ecological economics, law and policy are welcome. The notion is to present a set of papers that cover the range of issues associated with adapting to the changes in water supply which occur due to climate change.

Topics include but are not limited to:

• Altering infrastructure or institutional arrangements
• Changing demand for water
• Strategies for managing risk in supply
• Improving water use efficiency
• Planning for alternative water sources
• Changing water allocations between users
• Protecting coastal freshwater resources from saltwater intrusion
• Modelling the policy implications of reduced water supply
• Water markets
• Transboundary water issues

Important Date
Deadline for submission: 31 July, 2011

Call for Papers: Business Intelligence and Information Infrastructure

A special issue of International Journal of Computational Science and Engineering

Large scale information systems in public utility services depend on computing infrastructure. These systems pose challenging requirements. The challenges of building consistent, available and scalable data management systems require multiple research efforts to address a large variety of problems.

These data management systems must be capable of handling petabytes of data. The systems must also be able to provide service to millions of users. Many research efforts are being made in related areas such as cloud computing, mobile computing, sensor networks, high-level user interfaces and information access by web users. In this context, the complexity associated with activities in the form of business logic has become immensely large. At the same time, information infrastructure requires innovations.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• Networked information systems: infrastructure
• Cloud computing infrastructure
• Access to information resources
• Information and knowledge management systems
• Information extraction from data resources
• Geo-spatial decision making

Important Dates
Submission by authors: 15 July, 2011
Submission of finalised manuscripts: 30 July, 2011

Special issue: E-Business

International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations 8(3/4) 2011

Papers from the 8th Wuhan International Conference on E-Business (WHICEB2009) held in Wuhan, China, 29-30 May 2009

• Eliminating the cyber 'lemons' problem with the e-reputation in e-commerce market: theoretical model and practice
• Organisational knowledge transformation and its influencing factors in individual, team and organisational level
• Optimal design of reverse logistics network on e-waste in Shanghai
• The impact of business-to-business electronic marketplaces: a field study
• A framework for developing an ergonomic programme to reduce MSD in the workplace
• The provision of global public goods: a game-theoretic comparison of international environment and knowledge
• The impact of online social networking on learning: a social integration perspective
• Business intelligence approach to support modelling and analysis of complex economic networks
• An empirical research on exploring information sharing behaviour based on virtual teams
• Economic agent-based resource management in ad hoc grid environment
• Innovating IS management by enhancing knowledge intensive service activities (KISA): the study of two cases in the banking sector
• A Deep Web education resources sharing solution different from China e-Learning Technology Standard

Special issue: Nanoindentation and nanotribology

International Journal of Surface Science and Engineering 5(1) 2011

• Influence of carbon content on the nanotribology of W-S-C films
• Local mechanical properties and nanoscale deformation of aluminium and magnesium lightweight alloys
• Investigation of deformation behaviour and abrasive wear mechanism in nanomachining
• Effect of porosity on the indentation behaviour of nanoporous alumina films
• Nanoindentation studies in NiTi films deposited on Si wafer

Call for Papers: Social, Economic and Policy Aspects of Human-Centric Systems in Telecommunications

A special issue of International Journal of Technology Marketing

This special issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at The fully networked human? − Innovations for future networks and services: ITU Kaleidoscope conference (Cape Town, South Africa, 12-14 December 2011.) Authors who could not participate in the conference are encouraged to submit their work for consideration according to the schedule below.

The issue will consider the business and technical management aspects of human-centric communication systems. Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• Societal impact of telecommunications standards
• Legislative and regulatory frameworks of standards
• Standards for security, confidentiality and privacy
• Standards for accessibility and usability
• Business models of human-centric telecommunication (including accounting, billing and charging)
• Prospective roles for standards development organisation and other intergovernmental/interfirm organisations
• Standardisation models
• The role of standards for conformance and interoperability
• New approaches to innovation in telecommunications and IT
• Network neutrality regulatory and technological issues
• Standards and regulation for inclusiveness, affordability and equal access
• Internationalisation and localisation
• Role of ICT standards for environmental sustainability
• Standards and innovation for key management and identification schemes

Important Dates
Submission of full paper proposals: 31 January, 2012
Notification of preliminary paper acceptance: 15 March, 2012
Notification of final acceptance: 31 May, 2012
Submission of final paper: 30 June, 2012

Call for Papers: Urban Computing and Smart Grids

A special issue of International Journal of Computational Science and Engineering

Urban computing is an emerging field of study that focuses on the use of technology in public environments such as cities, parks, forests and suburbs. It also studies the interaction between humans and such environments, which is becoming increasingly common as access to computing devices extends beyond home and office.

A smart grid is a form of electricity network using digital technology. Smart grids are being promoted by many governments as a way of addressing energy independence, global warming and emergency resilience issues. Technologies in urban computing and smart grids have gained more and more attention in recent years.

This special issue strives to foster state-of-the-art research pertaining to urban computing and smart grids in the areas of advanced technologies and innovative applications.

Subject coverage:

• Urban computing
• Smart grids
• Bioscience and biotechnology
• Control and automation
• Disaster recovery and business continuity
• Database theory and application
• Future generation communication and networking
• Grid and distributed computing
• Multimedia, computer graphics and broadcasting
• Security technology
• Signal processing, image processing and pattern recognition
• u- and e-services, science and technology

Important Dates
Submission deadline: 15 November, 2011
Acceptance notification: 15 January, 2012
Final paper due: 15 March, 2012

Call for Papers: Mobile Social Networking and Cloud Computing

A special issue of International Journal of Computational Science and Engineering

Since social networks come with a large amount of possible applications and have different characteristics of information generation and transmission, there exist several challenges and design issues that need to be overcome and integrated with different kinds of network technologies.

Among the most popular integrated network technologies, cloud computing represents a paradigm shift from existing IT infrastructures to using the services of software applications, computing and storage over wide-area distribution networks. This trend is being empowered by the drastic performance improvement of IT infrastructure components, together with key innovations in the way cloud computing infrastructure is built, such as virtualisation, distributed computing, multi-core processors and service-oriented architectures.

Social networking and cloud computing technology have gained more and more attention in recent years. This special issue strives to foster state-of-the-art research pertaining to social networking and cloud computing, especially in relation to mobile services, in the area of advanced technologies and in innovative applications.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the 1st International Workshop on Mobile Social Networking and Cloud Computing (MSC 2011), but we also strongly encourage researchers who did not participate in the conference to submit papers.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• Social structure and community modelling
• Evolution of social media and information ecosystems
• Interoperability of social applications
• Social network behaviors, dynamics, topology, analysis and self-organisation
• Agent cooperation and models
• Fairness-based resource sharing and allocation
• Scalability of social networks
• Identity and simulation of social networks
• Recommender and collaborative filtering systems
• Link analysis and network structure discovery
• Privacy and security issues in social computing systems
• Mobile, peer-to-peer and pervasive services in clouds
• Applications of multimedia, video and speed in clouds
• Cluster computing technology based on distributed architecture for multimedia applications
• Intelligent multimedia computing in clouds
• eScience and eBusiness
• Virtual enterprises and organisations
• Performance evaluation of multimedia applications for clouds
• Multimedia indexing and retrieval in clouds
• Image processing and digital signal processing in clouds

Important Dates
Submission deadline: 15 November, 2011
Acceptance notification: 15 January, 2012
Final paper due: 15 March, 2012

Special issue: Decision-making and optimisation in supply chain

International Journal of Business Performance and Supply Chain Modelling 3(1) 2011

• A branch-and-price approach for an integrated capacity dimensioning and demand routing in SDH/WDM networks
• Applying a new ordering policy in a two-echelon inventory system with Poisson demand rate for retailers and transportation cost
• Multiple criteria decision-making for environmental impacts optimisation
• Intermodal transportation within the green supply chain: an approach based on ELECTRE method

Additional Papers

• Analysis of distribution system of supply chain and relationships between manufacturer and customers for Indian textile industry
• Factors perceived to influence the selection of information technology jobs

First issue: International Journal of Management Development

Dedicated to publishing papers based on scholarly empirical and theoretical research on various dimensions of management, International Journal of Management Development attaches particular value to papers that incorporate fresh perspectives on these issues and challenges and contribute to greater efficiency and social and environmental responsibility at different levels of management across various forms of organisations.

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