Call for papers: "Making Sense of Service Ecosystem Dynamics"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Services Sciences.

Creating world-class processes and products may not provide sustainable business success anymore. There is a growing need to understand the systemic nature and dynamics of business and organisational environments. James Moore (1993) argued as long as two decades ago that business actors should no longer focus on their local environments, but should instead try to understand the cross-industrial ecosystems they are acting in. Due to constant change in business logics and the movement towards service-orientation, a similar need has arisen in the context of services. Viroli and Zambonelli (2009) propose that an inspiration for a potential explanation to tackle issues of modern service system may originate from natural systems: a need to find “the basic rules of the game”.

 

One of the analogues between natural and non-natural systems is provided through various ecosystem conceptualisations focusing on organisational and business contexts. For example, Lusch (2008, 15) defines a service ecosystem as a spontaneously sensing and responding spatial and temporal structure of largely loosely coupled value-proposing social and economic actors interacting through institutions and technology to 1) coproduce service offerings, 2) exchange service offerings and 3) cocreate value. Basole and Rouse (2008) state that the structure and dynamics of value networks as well as customer expectations influence the complexity of the services ecosystem, which indicates that the traditional tools and approaches relevant in static contexts may not be applicable when explaining dynamic service ecosystem functionalities.

 

Despite the growing interest in service ecosystems and related themes, research approaches tend to focus on exploring and describing service systems on an abstract level without the goal of explaining why the ecosystem perspective is valuable, how it should be used and – perhaps most importantly – what kind of new knowledge it offers to service organisations and their management in business or public-sector contexts.

 

Through this call we propose that there is both a scientific and empirical gap in how services are analysed and managed as systems. Adopting more or less novel abstract definitions and concepts is not beneficial if they cannot be used to explain service phenomena in a new way for business or public-sector actors.

 

The main goal of this special issue is to challenge researchers to move forward: from exploration towards potential explanations. We encourage both conceptual and empirical research with the following foci:

 

Conceptual focus: How do we explain the behaviour and influence mechanisms of a business ecosystem as a holistic entity? (Conceptual and theoretical developments)

Empirical focus: How do we study business ecosystems empirically? (Empirical studies and rigorous research methodologies used in them)

 

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

• Conceptual approaches and models explaining the behaviour of service ecosystems as a whole and/or explaining influence mechanisms related to the behaviour of the ecosystem.
• Empirical studies explaining how service ecosystems can be studied empirically while maintaining both scientific and managerial relevancy throughout the study.
• Studies may focus on themes such as:
• service ecosystem evolution
• emergent properties of service ecosystems
• resource integration logics and mechanisms
• value creation logics in service ecosystems
• conditions to support sustainability of service ecosystems
• other relevant themes that provide a clear connection to existing theoretical discussions.
• Approaches such as systems theory, complexity theory, service-dominant networks, service engineering, design theory are expected; however, other rigorous approaches are also welcome.

Important Dates

Submission of manuscripts: 31 December, 2013

Notification to authors: 28 February, 2014

Revisions by authors: 30 April, 2014

Final acceptance: 30 June, 2014

Final versions due: 31 August, 2014

Special issue: "Collaboration, Information Sharing and Integration in Supply Chains: Models for Decision Making"

International Journal of Management and Decision Making 12(3) 2013

• Collaborative supply chain: a conceptual model for operationalisation
• Demand information sharing in supply chains: the impact of lead-time and inventory to backorder cost ratio
• A decision management tool: modelling the order fulfilment process by multi-agent systems
• A cooperative options-based strategy for coordinating supply chain and resource allocation decisions
• Structuring and quantifying the value contribution of supply chain initiatives
• No news, good news: positive impacts of delayed information in MRP

Holding on to microbloggers

To be successful and to keep users coming back for more so-called microblogging services, of which Twitter is probably the most well known have to be useful, easy to use and be enjoyable otherwise new users will abandon the service before they become fully engaged in the community.

As with much on the Internet, especially in the web 2.0 age of user-generated and user-aggregated content as opposed to the original more static and less interactive websites of the 1990s, services come and go. Here’s a short list of sites that offer users the ability to post short updates and links – to micro blog – in other words: Blauk, Facebook, Google+, Heello, ImaHima, MeetMe, Plurk, Soup, Tout, Tumblr, Twitter and Weibo. Which ones have you used? Were you an early adopter, did you stick with them or move on to the next best thing as soon as it popped up in public beta?

Regardless, research published in the International Journal of Electronic Business, by Chien-Lung Hsu of the Department of Marketing Management at Takming University of Science and Technology in Taipei City, Taiwan, and colleagues suggests that microblogging is still growing apace and that more and more people are trying out services like Twitter and Google+. Whether they continue to use these services after an initial personal trial period is a different matter, despite what the companies that host the services will tell you about the number of active subscribers or users.

A standardized survey of hundreds of microbloggers (500+ in Taiwan) revealed to Hsu and colleagues what might seem obvious. If there is a sense of community identity, if the service is easy to use and if it is also enjoyable to participate then users will stick around.

“The effect of community identity on continuance intention of microblogging” in Int. J. Electronic Business, 2013, 10, 355-382

Holding on to microbloggers is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/holding-on-to-microbloggers.html

Inderscience is media partner for Italy and Malta Oil & Gas 2013 Summit

Inderscience is a media partner for the Italy and Malta Oil & Gas 2013 Summit (30-31 October 2013, Rome, Italy).

The journals involved are:

• International Journal of Energy Technology and Policy
• International Journal of Global Energy Issues
• International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology
• International Journal of Petroleum Engineering

Special issue: "Advanced Algorithms Trust, Performance and Optimisation"

International Journal of Trust Management in Computing and Communications 1(3/4) 2013

• Archimedean copula-based estimation of distribution algorithm for multi-objective optimisation
• Selective opportunistic routing based on QoS in wireless mesh network
• Enhanced t-closeness for balancing utility and privacy
• Fuzzy logic-based detection of DDoS attacks in IEEE 802.15.4 low rate wireless personal area network
• Cyber security: testing the effects of attack strategy, similarity, and experience on cyber attack detection

Additional Papers

• Theory and implementation of a virtualisation level Future Internet defence in depth architecture
• Slow DoS attacks: definition and categorisation
• GTC: a geographical topology control protocol to conserve energy in wireless sensor networks

We now have over 3000 likes on Facebook. Thanks so much for following and engaging with us!

Inderscience's Facebook page has just passed a landmark of 3000 followers. We're very grateful to all of those who have 'liked' our page, and look forward to continuing to use the page to inform and engage with you.

A Russian smile for better business

Encouraging Russian business executives to smile

International borders are not necessarily policed with armed guards and barbed wire, armless smiles and barbed comments can be the barrier to international communication. Larissa Zelezinskaya of the Blagoveshchensk State Pedagogical University knows this only too well. As a post-graduate student of History, Philosophy and Cultural Studies she is attempting to understand how humour and a smile might lubricate business between an apparently unsmiling Russia and international associates. As such, she has reported 14 characteristics that feature prominently in social interactions that misinterpreted a seeming unfriendliness may well have been the demise of many a business transaction over the years. It’s not that she is suggesting Russians should “lighten up” or change their ways, but she does

1. In Russia a smile is not a sign of courtesy instead constant “polite” smiling is considered a sign of insincerity, secrecy and an unwillingness to show one’s true feelings.


2. Russians rarely smile at strangers.


3. Responding to a smile with a smile is not common.


4. Russians will avert their gaze rather than smile following a chance meeting of eyes.


5. Russians do not often smile when looking at small children or pets.


6. A smile in Russia is a sign of personal favour, so Russians usually only smile at friends.


7. Smiling when doing serious business is unacceptable, whether executive, bank teller or waiter.


8. When Russians do smile it is sincere, reflecting friendship and a good mood.


9. Russians must have a good reason to smile.


10. Decent (and in fact the only) reason to smile in Russian business communication is to reflect the current financial wellbeing of person.


11. In Russian culture smiling to cheer someone up is not accepted.


12. Russians take their time to smile.


13. A smile must be relevant to all parties and should correspond to the communication.


14. In Russia there is no clear distinction between a smile and a laugh, in practice, often these phenomena are the same.

Of course, cultures change…where once Russians were once considered a gloomy, unsmiling nation jocularity even in the workplace is becoming increasingly common and especially in international business relationships. “Humour plays a great role in personnel management,” says Zelezinskaya, “it helps to create a favourable work atmosphere, to increase productivity and profits of the company, it relieves distrust and tension, and generally facilitates social adaptation to the new environment.”

Zelezinskaya, L. (2013) ‘Humour as a means of management’, Int. J. Qualitative Research in Services, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp.173–181.

A Russian smile for better business is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/a-russian-smile-for-better-business.html

Int. J. of Mechatronics and Automation to publish expanded papers from ICMA 2014

Expanded versions of papers presented at the 2014 IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation (3-6 August 2014, Tianjin, China) will be published by the International Journal of Mechatronics and Automation.

Call for papers: "Large-Scale Distributed Systems for Big Data"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Big Data Intelligence.

This special issue solicits papers in the area of large-scale distributed systems for big data. Big data can be defined as datasets/data streams that become so large that they become awkward to work with using on-hand computer data and computation management tools.

Such datasets are often from various sources (Variety) in unstructured form, such as those from social media, sensors, scientific applications, surveillance, video and image archives, Internet texts and documents, Internet search indexing, medical records, business transactions and web logs. In general, these data streams are not only of a large size (Volume) that cannot be stored but also have fast data in/out (Velocity) and hide valuable knowledge.

Big data size is beyond the capacity of commonly used system storage or computing capabilities within a reasonable time frame, hence demanding new innovative solutions. Considering the complexity and scale of big data, using traditional techniques and models is not enough, and we need to propose new methodologies and frameworks for big data.

This opens several research questions and challenges, including investigating computing systems which can handle the storage, processing and networking requirements of big data. Using cloud resources for the storage and processing of big data applications is currently under investigation by many researchers.

In this special issue, our aim is to explore a broad range of distributed systems including cloud, grid, multi-cluster and volunteer computing systems to handle big data. We believe this issue will be an excellent venue to help the research community define the current state, determine future goals, and propose new frameworks for big data processing.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the 12th Australasian Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Computing (AusPDC 2014), but we also strongly encourage researchers unable to participate in the conference to submit articles for this call.

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

• Performance analysis of big data on distributed systems (cloud, grid, multi-cluster)
• Computational models for big data on distributed systems
• Performance modelling and evaluation of big data applications
• Big data theoretical models, standards and theories
• Simulation and debugging of big data systems and tools
• Modelling and simulation frameworks for big data
• Modelling cloud services for big data
• Performance optimisation of big data applications on distributed systems
• Big data processing in e-research and e-science
• Workflow models for big data on distributed systems
• Distributed storage models for big data

Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 30 April, 2014

Editor's pick of Int. Journal of Shipping and Transport Logistics articles available for free

Papers specially selected by the Editors of the International Journal of Shipping and Transport Logistics (IJSTL) are available as free sample articles here. These articles have been selected to represent the journal's range and quality.

• Editorial: Research in shipping and transport logistics 
• A two-stage supply chain DEA model for measuring container-terminal efficiency 
• The impact of capacity on firm performance: a study of the liner shipping industry 
• North European companies and major Eurasian countries – future outlook on logistics flows and their sustainability 
• In-transit distribution as a strategy in a global distribution system 
• An integrated model for ship routing and berth allocation 
• Protecting Finnish defence security: a logistics challenge 
• Inverse scheduling: applications in shipping
• The effect of safety management on perceived safety performance in container stevedoring operations
• A study on the antecedents of supplier commitment in support of logistics operations

IJSTL is indexed by Thomson Reuters' Social Science Citation Index, and also by other indexing services (details are available here).

Network management for schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a potentially debilitating mental illness affecting a person’s thought processes, perception, language and sense of oneself. Globally, 7 out of every 1000 are affected, accounting for 24 million patients. Significant risk factors for the illness in males is serious problems during birth or fetal hypoxia while increased cerebral ventricular size in both infancy and adulthood due to embryological defects can underlie the condition in other patients. However, it is a multifaceted illness that occurs through a combination of biological factors as well as socioeconomic conditions, such as severely traumatic experiences in childhood.

Writing in the International Journal of Advanced Intelligence Paradigms, Subhagata Chattopadhyay of the Camellia Institute of Engineering in Madhyamgram Kolkata, West Bengal, India , and Farhad Daneshgar of IKI-SEA, Bangkok University, Thailand, explain how they have applied and validated a collaborative management approach and an associated analytical tool called the Awareness Information Net (AIN) model to assist in maintaining awareness capabilities among the various people involved in the management of patients with schizophrenia.

Although treatable with modern drugs, relapse and dropout from treatment is common and the suicide risk among people with schizophrenia is much higher than in the general population. However, patients can be rehabilitated if their symptoms and circumstances are monitored and treated appropriately from earliest childhood. In particular, if the warning signs of emerging symptoms of risk to the patient and others are detected early through management, then many problems can be avoided or their impact lessened. The team suggests a collaborative approach is most effective. As such, they are developing and testing a system for monitoring patient behavior and spotting problems so that carers, experts and the patient themselves can become involved or intervene in treatment in a timely manner.

“The ultimate goal of the current study is to develop the conceptual foundations for an automated workflow management system for a collaborative management process for schizophrenia,” the team says. Schizophrenia can paralyze the socioeconomic status of an affected person and its occurrence is almost inevitable given strong vulnerabilities. The team suggests that their assistive modeling approach will not only help patients themselves but raise awareness in society of this debilitating mental illness and so help others to handle adverse circumstances that arise as a result of schizophrenia should it be in their lives.

“An awareness net collaborative model for schizophrenia management” in Int. J. Advanced Intelligence Paradigms, 2013, 5, 217-232

Network management for schizophrenia is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/network-management-for-schizophrenia.html

Special issue: "Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems"

International Journal of Environment and Sustainable Development 13(1) 2014

Extended versions of papers presented at the 7th Conference on Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems (SDEWES).

• Carbon costs and savings of Greenways: creating a balance sheet for the sustainable design and construction of cycling routes
• Optimisation of renewable forest fuel supply for more sustainable energy production of CHP plant in Finland
• Evaluating the energy and the carbon stored from tropical acacias: the first steps
• Integration of Fischer-Tropsch fuel production with a complex oil refinery
• Modelling energy demand of Croatian industry sector
• Economic prospects of advanced biomass-based energy carriers in EU-15 up to 2050

Gaming console monitors Alzheimer’s symptoms

A rapidly aging population means an increased likelihood of the diseases of old age becoming more prevalent and more problematic for those afflicted with such illnesses, their family and carers, and overburdened healthcare services. In particular, dementia, of which Alzheimer’s disease is perhaps the most well-known form, requires long-term care to manage the negative behavioural symptoms. These are notoriously agitation and aggression.

The prevalence of dementia in the under-70s is relatively low, but incidence approximately doubles from the early 70s to the late 70s, into the 80s and late 80s and by the early 90s incidence is 41 percent. Almost half of people in their late 90s have dementia of one form or another.

Now, Philip Moore of Birmingham City University, UK, and colleagues elsewhere in the UK, in Japan and Spain have studied how processing patient monitoring data might be used to identify when newly diagnosed patients are entering a phase of their illness where agitation and aggression will begin to cause problems. The tools they are developing and the discussion they hope to instigate focuses on the potential for secure monitoring and assessment. This might allow those with the early stages of the disease or who are relatively symptom free to carry on with independent assisted living (IAL) without there being an increased risk of the sufferers harming themselves or others.

The team points out that modern “smart” phones, which have movement sensors and gaming consoles, such as the Microsoft Kinect system with its cameras and microphones could be used to non-invasively monitor a patient’s movements and voice patterns. It could theoretically distinguish between everyday movements and sounds and otherwise uncharacteristic violent movements or shouting.

The team’s preliminary findings suggest that the main challenges lie in the effective realisation of IAL. However, achieving this is a primary objective of multi-disciplinary research involving both clinicians and computer scientists who are developing the software and non-invasive sensor technologies that can be implemented in mobile systems. The team points out that regardless of whether specialized sensors are involved in monitoring or a gaming console with its camera and microphone, the issue of processing and tagging the large amounts of data generated for each patient being monitored is an important one for those looking at the context and knowledge locked within.

“Detection of the onset of agitation in patients with dementia: real-time monitoring and the application of big-data solutions” in Int. J. Space-Based and Situated Computing, 2013, 3, 136-154

Gaming console monitors Alzheimer’s symptoms is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/gaming-console-monitors-alzheimers-symptoms.html

Int. J. of Business and Globalisation to publish expanded papers from 11th International CIRCLE Conference

Expanded versions of papers presented at the 11th International CIRCLE Conference (23-26 April 2014, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK) will be published by the International Journal of Business and Globalisation.

Call for papers: "Advancements in Big Data Analysis"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Sensor Networks.

Today, data is everywhere. For example, in sensor networks; social networks; internet documents; internet search indexing; call detail records; astronomy; genomics; biogeochemical, biological and other complex and often interdisciplinary scientific research; military surveillance; medical records; photography archives; video archives; and large-scale e-commerce.

Big data has attracted increasing attention in the academic and industry communities. Big data analysis refers to technologies, tools and methodologies that aim to transform massive quantities of raw data into “data about data” for analytical purposes. Big data analysis aims to extract, process and analyse knowledge from large amounts of various data. It can be seen as the mining or processing of massive data, so that “useful” information can be retrieved from various large dataset.

However, it becomes difficult to process data using on-hand database management tools or traditional data processing and analysis applications. Approaches and techniques are therefore required to solve various large-scale, dynamic big data analysis problems. The challenges in big data analysis include capture, storage, search, sharing, transfer, analysis and visualisation.

For this special issue, we are interested in inviting and gathering recent advanced theories, tools, techniques, frameworks and solutions to challenging problems in big data analysis. The topics suggested below can be discussed in terms of concepts, states of the art, standards, designs, implementations, and running experiments or applications.

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

• Data query protocol in the cloud and mobile environment
• Data gathering and preprocessing in the cloud and mobile environment
• Data heterogeneity in mobile environments
• Data representation techniques
• Searching, mining and discovering data in real-application environments
• Security with data analysis
• Computational intelligence applied to data analysis
• Data processing and management in real-application environments
• Performance improvement in data analysis
• Applications of big data analysis

Important Dates

Manuscript due: 30 October, 2013

Acceptance/rejection notification: 10 January, 2014

Final manuscript due: 10 February, 2014

Special issue on: "Exploring Some of the Challenges and Opportunities for Growth in the Global Environment"

International Journal of Sustainable Strategic Management 4(1) 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the King’s College School of Business (Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania) annual conference.

• Antecedents of proactive and responsive market orientation
• The evolving role of general managers in today's global organisations
• An exploratory study of psychological tendencies related to texting while driving
• Growth and sustainability through test optional admission policies

Additional Papers

• Strategic framework for sustainable project portfolio selection and evaluation
• Defining a sustainable overbooking approach in the hospitality industry

Editor's pick of Int. Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology articles available for free

Papers specially selected by the Editors of the International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology (IJOGCT) are available as free sample articles here. These articles have been selected to represent the journal's range and quality.

• Biomass gasification with pure steam in fluidised bed: 12 variables that affect the effectiveness of the biomass gasifier 
• Development of Surrogate Reservoir Model (SRM) for fast track analysis of a complex reservoir 
• On the effect of a global adoption of various fractions of biodiesel on key species in the troposphere 
• Numerical studies on the effects of water presence in the coal matrix and coal shrinkage and swelling phenomena on CO2-enhanced coalbed methane recovery process 
• Assessment of the EU target on renewable energy for transport in the framework of the European vegetable oil sector 
• Direct numerical simulation of pore-scale reactive transport: applications to wettability alteration during two-phase flow 
• Pore scale coupling of fluid displacement and unconsolidated sediment mechanics 
• Three-dimensional pore networks and transport properties of a shale gas formation determined from focused ion beam serial imaging 
• Diamondoids: occurrence in fossil fuels, applications in petroleum exploration and fouling in petroleum production. A review paper 
• The Deutsches EnergieRohstoff-Zentrum Freiberg: advanced prospects for applied organic petrology, focused on the generation of coal based chemical products

IJOGCT is indexed by Thomson Reuters' Social Science Citation Index, and also by other indexing services (details are available here).

Inderscience journals to publish expanded papers from FGCT 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the Second International Conference on Future Generation Communication Technologies (12-14 December 2013, British Computer Society, London, UK) will be published by the following journals:

• International Journal of Big Data Intelligence
• International Journal of Computational Science and Engineering
• International Journal of Embedded Systems

Special issue: "Advances in Secure and Trusted Cloud Computing and Distributed Data Storage"

International Journal of Intelligent Information and Database Systems 7(5) 2013

• Design and implementation of a secure cloud-based personal health record system using ciphertext-policy attribute-based encryption
• Comment on Wang et al.'s anonymous multi-receiver ID-based encryption scheme and its improved schemes
• Designated verifier ring signature and ring signcryption
• On the security of two multi-use CCA-secure proxy re-encryption schemes
• Activity clustering for anomaly detection
• Smart wireless sensor networks and biometric authentication for real time traffic light junctions management

Special issue: "Corruption and Financial Performance of Private and Public Firms"

International Journal of Monetary Economics and Finance 6(2/3) 2013

Part I Corruption and Financial Performance in a micro-level perspective

• Financial corporations' performances and corruption indices around Europe 1996-2008
• The impact of external governance quality on the economic and social success of microfinance institutions
• Economic freedom and bank efficiency nexus

Part II Corruption and Financial Performance in a macro-level perspective

• The historical economics of corruption and development within Italy
• Corruption, political instability and public finance in Europe
• Corruption, governance and sustainable development
• A new corruption index based on individual attitudes

Part III Corruption, Crime and Economic indicators

• Economic aspects of the complementarity between corruption and crime: evidence from Italy in the period 1996-2005
• Organised crime and corruption. The effects on legitimate business: evidence from Northern Italy

Editor's pick of European Journal of International Management articles available for free

Papers specially selected by the Editors of the European Journal of International Management (EJIM) are available as free sample articles here. These articles have been selected to represent the journal's range and quality.

• Culture: organisations, personalities and nations. Gerhard Fink interviews 
• Critical issues in international management research: an agenda for future advancement
• Cultural values in organisations: insights for Europe
• A European perspective on HRM
• A new Zeitgeist for international business activity and scholarship
• Publishing in the right place or publishing the right thing: journal targeting and citations' strategies for promotion and tenure committees
• Practical wisdom and the development of cross-cultural knowledge management: a global leadership perspective
• Case selection biases in management research: the implications for international business studies

EJIM is indexed by Thomson Reuters' Social Science Citation Index, and also by other indexing services (details are available here).

Twitter trend tracking

Twitter is a so-called “micro-blogging” site that provides an open publish-subscribe system to its users. It has a relatively simple design and because of its text-messaging initial public offering it limits “tweets” to 140 characters. It has grown quickly in recent years, has become somewhat saturated with bots, spammers, trolls and celebrities, but remains popular. Its long-anticipated flotation on the stock market was announced in September 2013.

One aspect of Twitter that is particularly attractive to users and to those in the news media, is its rapid response to world events and to the display of topics that are being discussed increasingly at any given time, the trends. Now, computer scientist Yavuz Selim Yilmaz of the University at Buffalo, SUNY, New York, USA, and colleagues there and at Universit`a degli Studi dell’Insubria, in Varese, Italy, have devised a passive sensing system for emerging trends. Their system can analyze the ever-changing twitter stream of endless updates from users and extract not only positive and negative emotions represented by those tweets but display the most critical trends in a way that the simple keyword count used by Twitter to display its trending topics cannot.

The team suggests that there are at least two important uses of their trending algorithm. The first one, they say, is sensing trends in public opinion by using the emotion-category corpus. The second is sensing trends in location-types in a city by using a location-category corpus. “Our experiments show that the proposed methods are able to determine changes in trends effectively in both application scenarios,” they report in the journal Int. J. Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing.

The researchers explain that their system has three characteristics that make it a viable alternative to simplistic trend counting:

1. Our trend sensing framework utilizes a multi-category corpus to detect and process multiple dimensions in tweets. This method enables expanding representation from binary (‘positive or negative’) options with respect to a single dimension to a continuum of options with respect to multiple dimensions, and provides more granularity in trend sensing.


2. Our trend sensing framework combines vector and set space methods to identify the trends accurately. From the experimental results, we find that using these two methods together eliminates false positives and improves the accuracy.


3. Our trend sensing framework utilizes a dynamic scoring function to give a synopsis (in terms of a list of prominent words) for the cause of the change in trends.

Yilmaz, Y.S., Bulut, M.F.,

Akcora, C.G., Bayir, M.A. and Demirbas, M. (2013) ‘Trend sensing via Twitter’, Int. J.

Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp.16–26.

Twitter trend tracking is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/twitter-trend-tracking.html

Inderscience is media partner for 5th International Conference on Electromagnetic Fields, Health and Environment (EHE2014)

Inderscience is a media partner for the 5th International Conference on Electromagnetic Fields, Health and Environment (24-26 April, 2014, Porto, Portugal).

The journal involved is Progress in Industrial Ecology, An International Journal.

10 free sample articles from Int. Journal of Web Based Communities to celebrate 10 years

To celebrate nearly ten years of publishing, the International Journal of Web Based Communities is now offering ten key papers as free sample articles:

• Designing and evaluating online communities: research speaks to emerging practice 
• The rationale of online learning communities 
• SIOC: an approach to connect web-based communities 
• Identifying communities in blogs: roles for social network analysis and survey instruments 
• Learning relations and networks in web-based communities 
• Enhancing the understanding of genres of web-based communities: the role of the ecological cognition framework 
• Supporting a virtual community of tutors in experience capitalising
• Bridging and bonding in social network sites – investigating family-based capital 
• A cross-cultural analysis of Flickr users from Peru, Israel, Iran, Taiwan and the UK 
• Twitter for crisis communication: lessons learned from Japan's tsunami disaster

These sample articles are available here.

Inderscience is media partner for International Multidiscplinary Modeling & Simulation Multiconference (I3M)

Inderscience is a media partner for The International Multidiscplinary Modeling & Simulation Multiconference (25-27 September 2013, Athens, Greece).

The journals involved are:

• International Journal of Engineering Systems Modelling and Simulation
• International Journal of Service and Computing Oriented Manufacturing
• International Journal of Simulation and Process Modelling

Int. J. of Embedded Systems to publish expanded papers from CBSEC 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the Brazilian Conference on Critical Embedded Systems (4-8 November 2013, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói/RJ, Brazil) will be published by the International Journal of Embedded Systems.

Call for papers: "Critical and Real-Time Embedded Systems"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Embedded Systems.

Critical and real-time embedded systems integrate the modelling, design and analysis of hardware, software and communication systems that are deeply integrated with physical processes and with strict time and other requirements. These systems have special features that make them different to regular computer systems, i.e. (1) they are closely integrated to physical systems; (2) software is normally embedded in hardware with limited resources; (3) the system is distributed and in large scale; (4) they must be adaptable and reconfigurable; (5) and must be dependable, secure and reliable.

Some critical embedded systems have even more strict constraints of resources and reliability, e.g. systems used in operating rooms for surgeries assisted by robots, and those used for the controlling of electric power grids (smart grids) and unmanned vehicles. The development of such systems that have these features, mainly through fact of being in large scale and through the necessity of adaptability and reliability, is the main challenge of this special issue.

In special cases, embedded systems are formed by a huge amount of devices requiring computational power and, consequently, higher complexity. It is not rare to find different applications being executed by the same embedded system. Modelling, simulation and verification of such systems demand methods and tools that allow them to take place in an efficient and practical way. The necessary computational power is sometimes huge and scales quickly; thus distributed computing might be necessary in order to create an environment with high-performance execution of large-scale and heterogeneous models.

In addition, critcal and real-time embedded systems are required to be dependable, secure, reliable, adaptable and reconfigurable. Adaptability is a key feature, as it permits the system to have its own configuration to bring more security, reliability and dependability. One special case of such systems is autonomous computing systems, i.e. systems able to self-manage features to provide adaptation and awareness. Modelling and simulation are among the research challenges bound to these systems.

Being reliable and fault-tolerant is another feature common to critical and real-time systems that could be listed as another challenge of this project. A system is considered to be fault-tolerant if it does not fail despite the presence of faults. The most common way to have a fault-tolerant system is by adding redundancy that can be achieved at hardware, software and network levels.

The main focus of this special issue is to discuss and present the state of the art concerning practices and tools for the development of adaptable and reliable systems ready to be embedded into critical and real-time systems.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the III Brazilian Symposium on Computer Systems Engineering (SBESC 2013), but we also strongly encourage researchers unable to participate in the conference to submit articles for this call.

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

• Modelling, design and simulation of critical and real-time systems
• Embedded systems in critical and real-time systems
• Networks, protocols and communication related to critical and real-time systems
• Distributed computing for support to critical and real-time systems
• Adaptable and reconfigurable systems and architectures in critical and real-time systems
• Fault tolerance in critical and real-time systems
• Harvesting energy and power consuption techniques in critical and real-time systems
• Applications: smart grids, smart cities, robotics, unmanned vehicles, etc.
• Autonomous computing systems in critical and real-time systems

Important Dates
Submission deadline: 8 January, 2014
Review results: 8 March, 2014
Final versions due: 8 May, 2014

Call for papers: "Concurrent Engineering in Product and Service Solutions"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Agile Systems and Management.

Concurrent engineering (CE), as a concept, initiates processes with the goal of improving product quality, production efficiency and overall customer satisfaction. The definition of a product has evolved from manufacturing and supplying goods only to providing goods with added value, and to eventually promoting a complete service business solution with support from introduction to service, then from operations to decommissioning.

 

Services are becoming increasingly important to the economy: the service industry has grown significantly, and even companies that fall outside of the traditional service industry are more and more reliant on service-based business. For example, in Japan, the USA, Germany and Russia, more than 60% of the GDP stems from service-based activities.

 

The 20th ISPE International Conference on Concurrent Engineering (2-5 September 2013) carried the theme Product and Service Engineering in a Dynamic World and included papers which present recent research results, new concepts and insights that cover the conference topics or more specifically the theme of the conference. This issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the conference, but we also strongly encourage researchers unable to participate in the conference to submit articles for this call.

 

The issue will be of interest to those who work in a service-oriented business environment or interact with relevant stakeholders, i.e. customers, suppliers, maintainers, regulators and engineers.

 

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

• Service engineering
• Systems engineering
• Design for sustainability
• Product lifecycle management
• Collaborative engineering
• Cost engineering
• Cloud computing
• Knowledge engineering/management
• Engineering visualisation
• Managing product variety
• Decision support
• Digital manufacturing
• Extended enterprise
• Distributed engineering
• Capability maturity model integration
• Ontology
• Web technologies
• Intellectual property protection
• Digital rights management
• Requirements management
• Interoperability
• Service engineering
• Standards
• Long-term retention and archiving
• Variability management
• Formal methods in concurrent engineering
• Measuring/analysing product variety

Important Dates

Submission deadline: 1 December, 2013

Special issue: "Developments and Applications in Maintenance Performance"

International Journal of Strategic Engineering Asset Management 1(3) 2013

• Systematic approach in maintenance management improvement
• Qualitative and quantitative aspects of maintenance performance measurement: a data fusion approach
• The role of quality management activities in achieving high performance of maintenance processes
• How an enlarged maintenance function affects the performance of industrial maintenance and maintenance services
• Deployment of electronic multimedia technical documentation solutions: a longitudinal study in partnership with a defence contractor
• Maintenance strategy development in the UK food and drink industry
• An Australian railway bridge management framework
• Seasonal effects on haul truck tyre life

Inderscience is media partner for 3D Printing & Additive Manufacturing 2013

Inderscience is a media partner for 3D Printing & Additive Manufacturing (19-20 November 2013, London, UK).

The journals involved are:

• International Journal of Design Engineering
• International Journal of Materials Engineering Innovation
• International Journal of Manufacturing Research
• International Journal of Manufacturing Technology and Management
• International Journal of Process Systems Engineering
• International Journal of Precision Technology
• International Journal of Rapid Manufacturing

The 3D Printing & Additive Manufacturing: Industrial Applications Summit 2013 is the world’s first industry-led forum designed specifically to identify the real business benefits and new opportunities these technologies present.

Bringing together a cross-section of industry leaders and experts, you will be able to gain first hand insights on successful commercial applications, state of the art developments, and ultimately thesteps necessary to enable scalability.

Hear from EADS, BAE Systems, Siemens, GE Oil & Gas, Airbus, Williams F1, Dyson and other users of additive manufacturing technologies explain the strategic reasoning behind investment and their visions of what these new processes really mean in terms of commercial opportunities for industrial production.

**** Special 15% Discount For Inderscience Subscribers ****

To claim discount, enter code ‘INDER15’ by October 4th at the checkout

CLICK HERE for full Agenda, Speaker Line-up

Inderscience is media partner for The Trading Show 2013

Inderscience is a media partner for The Trading Show (3-4 December 2013, New York, USA).

The journals involved are:

• International Journal of Behavioural Accounting and Finance
• International Journal of Financial Engineering and Risk Management
• International Journal of Financial Markets and Derivatives
• International Journal of Financial Services Management
• International Journal of High Performance Computing and Networking
• International Journal of Portfolio Analysis and Management

Call for papers: "Subtyping of Complex Phenotypes and Genetic Analysis of Phenotypic Subtypes"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Bioinformatics Research and Applications.

Identifying genetic variation that underlies complex phenotypes is an important problem in genetics. Despite great progress in the molecular genetic methods to identify both rare and common variants in the whole genome, there has been considerably less progress in the refinement of phenotypes. Many biological traits are heterogeneous, which substantially limits the identification of genotype-phenotype correlations or genetic linkage results. Differentiating homogeneous subtypes of a complex phenotype can improve the identification of genetic factors for many complex biological systems.

There has been a great need for statistically rigorous methods to derive heterogeneous subphenotypes. Currently, the most sophisticated subtyping methods perform unsupervised cluster analysis on phenotypic features, and the most sophisticated subtype analysis methods (once subtypes are defined) perform multinomial analysis over multiple subtypes. This special issue aims to provide a forum for researchers who work on the development of novel computational methods for quantitative subtyping of complex traits and related methods to improve genetic analysis (association, sequencing or linkage analysis) for subtype analysis, which will translate into personalised diagnosis and therapy.

There are two directions of subtyping: molecular subtyping and clinical syndrome-level subtyping. Molecular subtyping differentiates subjects with a disease by gene expression signatures or other molecular-level factors. Clinical subtyping is used to identify homogeneous traits at the clinical syndrome level. For many complex diseases, such as mental illness, subtyping based on clinical features might be the most feasible study. For cancer, the former approach which mainly uses clinical syndrome information, however, can be ineffective for discriminating multiple illnesses with overlapping syndromes. The diagnosis or subtyping of complex diseases depends on multiple factors including genomic, epigenomic, clinical and environmental changes, necessitating multiscale approaches.

Recently, the progress of genomic technology has opened new avenues. The multi-omics data from next generation sequencing (NGS), epigenomics, transcriptomics, functional genomics, proteomics, and molecular and cell biology provide multiple and complementary information, which can be used as novel biomarkers for improved subtyping. However, the mining and integrating these biomarkers for subtyping of complex diseases and complex phenotypes pose significant challenges. This issue will publish papers selected from the subtyping workshop jointly held with IEEE International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedicine 2013, but welcomes contributions from any other researcher discussing the challenges outlined above and related challenges and solutions.

Suitable topics include but not limited to:

• Association analysis, QTL, eQTL with multiple phenotypes or traits jointly
• QTL or eQTL with multiple quantitative traits that are subtypes of a complex phenotype
• Studies that prove the advantages of subtyping and subtype analysis
• Case studies of various complex diseases related to the analysis of multiple disease phenotypes
• Quantitative search of subtypes from electronic medical records related to a complex disease
• Cancer subtype discovery based on tumor gene expression, somatic mutations, or epigenome data
• The integration of multi-omics data for subtype analysis
• The identification of novel biomarkers from NGS platforms that can be used to improve subtyping
• Novel mathematical and computational models such as sparse regression and cluster analysis for the classification and identification of phenotypic subtypes

Important Dates

Due date for paper submission: 20 February, 2014

Cellular breast cancer healthcare

Dawna Komorosky and Silvina Ituarte of the Department of Criminal Justice Administration at California State University, in Hayward, recently brought to light an issue of which one hears very little – the health of the incarcerated. Specifically, they have looked at the American and European prison systems which focus on incapacitation and punishment, and report that healthcare for women in prison is often poor.

They suggest that many female inmates have histories of abuse, poor quality of life, and limited medical attention before they even enter the prison system and so arrive with factors that put them at risk of breast cancer. The pair alludes to the fact that this is not appropriate for a modern correctional system regardless of the crimes involved and they have eight recommendations that implemented should allow women to follow a healthy rehabilitation

1. Since women entering prison are less likely to receive mammograms or access preventative care, it is imperative that correctional facilities address a woman’s unique health concerns by providing frequent opportunities for preventative education and screening of breast and cervical cancers throughout incarceration.


2. The use of telemedicine and telecare should be considered for bolstering healthcare in regions that lack resources.


3. Organisations such as The Breast Health Global Initiative and Middle East Partnership Initiative must be recognised as important in helping low income countries promote breast health awareness.


4. Correctional staff working in either security or health-related capacities must be informed and trained to recognise the psychological factors that hinder a female inmate’s ability to accept prevention education or treatment from prison medical staff and correctional officers.


5. An inmate’s history with abuse or maltreatment must be comprehended and validated in order that any educational or treatment services be delivered compassionately and successfully.


6. Inmates living with a breast cancer diagnosis need support systems in order to facilitate the survival and coping processes.


7. Correctional institutions can facilitate the creation of support groups for incarcerated women who have a history of trauma and are diagnosed with breast cancer.


8. Incarcerated women who are diagnosed with terminal cancer need access to hospice services that assist in easing the end-of-life progression. All persons ought to be afforded at least a minimal level of comfort and dignity in their final moments, regardless of freedom status.

Komorosky, D. and Ituarte, S. (2013) ‘Breast cancer and incarcerated women: risk, prevention, and coping in prison’, Int. J. Qualitative Research in Services, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp.113–124.

Cellular breast cancer healthcare is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/cellular-breast-cancer-healthcare.html

International Journal of Computational Science and Engineering increases issues

From January 2014, the International Journal of Computational Science and Engineering will increase the frequency of its issues from 4 to 6 per year.

Call for papers: "Cyber Attacks in Cloud Computing: Security, Privacy, and Forensics Issues"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Information and Computer Security.

Cloud computing is one of the most significant, cost-efficient, flexible, user-friendly and accessible virtualised resources of the modern digital era. It provides a platform where resources are offered as services and accessed by users from anywhere in the world, via the Internet.

 

Recent research work has improved the quality of cloud computing through factors such as: cost reduction, higher device and location independence, better reliability and scalability, efficient resource utilisation, on-demand availability and increased flexibility. Users can have as much of a service as they need at any particular moment.

 

However, security and privacy issues are still important. Due to the flexibility and availability of cloud services, malicious users can act as adversaries. Thus, there are possibilities of security pitfalls for the users, as well as the systems.

 

Cyber attacks can create serious problems for cloud computing systems. There are many open issues that remain to be dealt with, such as secure and efficient models for cloud computing and their applications, security and privacy issues, cyber threats and development of tools for computer forensics to deal with computer crime.

 

This issue aims at providing researchers and professionals with insight into the state-of-the-art in security, privacy and forensics for cloud computing. It will publish novel and high quality research contributions from industry, government, business, and academia. In particular, the aim is to publish highly technical, original and unpublished papers.

 

Suitable topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Computer crime and forensics in the cloud
• Cryptography in the cloud
• Cloud computing and smart grid security and privacy issues
• Models for creating and securely managing federations of clouds and internetworking between clouds
• Multimedia security and privacy issues in the cloud
• Reverse engineering of malicious code and intrusion detection systems in the cloud
• Secure virtualisation and resource allocation mechanisms
• Securing distributed data storage in the cloud
• Security and privacy in big data management in the cloud
• Security and privacy in mobile cloud
• Security and privacy issues in cloud computing
• Security and privacy requirements engineering in the cloud
• Security management in the cloud
• Security modelling and threats in cloud computing
• Systems engineering and development for imaging hiding and security in the cloud

Important Dates

Paper submission: 30 April, 2014

First notification: 1 August, 2014

Revised manuscript submission: 1 October, 2014

Final decision: 1 December, 2014

Call for papers: "High Performance Data Intensive Computing: Methodology and Practice"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Big Data Intelligence.

Currently, data volumes of applications in scientific, engineering, and commercial fields are expected to double every two years. With this continuing data explosion, it is necessary to store and process data efficiently by utilising enormous computing power that is available in the form of cluster and super computers. The data analytics and intelligence retrieving pose crucial challenges for high performance large-scale data processing, including exploiting parallelism of current and upcoming computer architectures, programming models and algorithmic methodology for data intelligence mining, as well as engineering issues for implementation, deployment and operation of commercial data intensive computing systems.

These challenges are significant and expected to grow with the scaling of the data and the whole computing system. More importantly, these new challenges may comprise, sometimes even deteriorate, the performance, efficiency and scalability of the dedicated data intensive computing systems.

There is no doubt in the industry and research community that the importance of data-intensive computing has been increasing and will continue to be among the foremost fields of research. This increase brings up many research issues, in forms of capturing and accessing data effectively and speedily, processing it while still achieving high performance and high throughput, and storing it efficiently for future use.

Programming for high performance yielding data-intensive computing is an important challenging issue. Expressing data access requirements of applications and designing programming language abstractions to exploit parallelism are an immediate need. Application and domain specific optimisations are also parts of a viable solution in data-intensive computing.

While these are a few examples of issues, research in data-intensive computing has become quite intense during the last few years, yielding strong results. Moreover, in a widely distributed environment, data is often not locally accessible and has thus to be remotely retrieved and stored. While traditional distributed systems work well for computation that requires limited data handling, they may fail in unexpected ways when the computation accesses, creates and moves large amounts of data especially over wide-area virtualised cloud environments.

This special issue will contain the significantly revised selected papers of the IPDPS workshops we organised (the forthcoming 2014 International Workshop on High Performance Data Intensive Computing (pending), 2013 International Workshop on High Performance Data Intensive Computing and 2012 International Workshop on High Performance Data Intensive Computing). However, we also welcome external submissions.

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

• Big data science and foundations, analytics, visualisation and semantics
• Software and tools for big data management
• Algorithmic, experimental, prototyping and implementation
• Data-driven innovation, computational modelling and data integration
• Computing, scheduling and resource management for sustainability
• High performance distributed cache and optimisation
• High performance data transfer and ingestion
• NoSQL data store
• Machine learning algorithms for big data
• Data-aware high performance data access toolkits and middleware
• Service oriented architectures for data-intensive computing
• Power and energy efficiency for data-intensive computing systems
• Programming models, abstractions for data-intensive computing
• Data capturing, management and scheduling techniques
• MapReduce, Hadoop, Spark and their applications in data-intensive computing
• Performance measurement, analytical modelling, simulation
• Distributed ensemble classifier

Important Dates
Submission of Manuscripts: 1 July, 2014
Notification to Authors: 15 September, 2014
Final Versions Due: 15 October, 2014

Special issue: "Applied Economics"

International Journal of Computational Economics and Econometrics 3(1/2) 2013

Includes expanded versions of papers presented at the International Conference on Applied Economics (ICOAE2012).

• The Central Bank's endogenous and non-linear credibility in a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model: theory and a small computational simulation
• A boundary analysis of ICT firms on Thailand Stock Market: a maximum entropy bootstrap approach and highest density regions (HDR) approach
• Phillips curve inflation and unemployment: an empirical research for Greece
• The long run dynamic of the Dutch disease phenomenon: a SVAR approach
• Indigenous R&D effectiveness, technology transfer and productivity growth: evidence from the hi-tech industry of China

Research Notes

• Forecasting the insolvency of US banks using support vector machines (SVMs) based on local learning feature selection
• A quantitative approach to Faber's tactical asset allocation

Int. J. of Renewable Energy Technology to publish expanded papers from EWRES 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the European Workshop on Renewable Energy Systems (20-29 September 2013, Antalya Turkey) will be published by the International Journal of Renewable Energy Technology.

Call for papers: "Theory and Applications of the Harmony Search Method"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Bio-Inspired Computation.

The Harmony Search (HS) method is an emerging meta-heuristic optimisation algorithm. As we know, when musicians play in harmony, they usually try various possible combinations of music pitches stored in their memory. This kind of efficient search for a perfect harmony is analogous to the procedure of finding optimal solutions to real-world problems.

First proposed by Geem in 2001, the HS method was inspired by the underlying principles of harmony improvisation. During recent years, it has been successfully applied in numerous engineering fields such as mechanical structure design, slope stability analysis, optimal control systems, pipe network optimisation, etc.

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

• Fundamentals of the HS method
• Theoretical analysis of the convergence and stability of the HS method
• Empirical study of the performance of the HS method
• Benchmarking and comparison of the HS method with other optimisation algorithms
• Hybrid HS methods
• Large-scale optimisation using the HS method
• Applications of the HS method

Important Dates

Manuscript submission: 1 April, 2014

Notification of acceptance/rejection: 1 June, 2014

Final version submission: 1 September, 2014

Arresting model stops cars

Researchers in China have developed a mathematical model that could help engineers design a flexible vehicle-arrest system for stopping cars involved in criminal activity or terrorism, such as suspect car bombers attempting break through a check point, without wrecking the car or killing the occupants.

Writing in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Vehicle Design, Pak Kin Wong and colleagues in the Department of Electromechanical Engineering at the University of Macau, in Taipa, Macao, explain how common vehicle-arrest systems used by law enforcement, the military and in anti-terrorism activities, usually cause serious damage to the vehicle and maim or kill the occupants. A more positive system for bringing a car chase to a halt or stopping a car-bomber in their tracks is needed if perpetrators, witnesses and evidence are to be protected.

A flexible system would increase the stopping distance of a vehicle involved in criminal or terrorist activity and allow its kinetic energy to be dissipated without the complete destruction of the vehicle as otherwise occurs with solid, immovable barriers and equipment currently used. The team’s mathematical model of vehicle arrest with different flexible materials and designs bears up to theoretical and experimental scrutiny and offers engineers a new set of variables to embed in their design program in the development of new, effect vehicle arrest systems. Moreover, the system could allow the design of an “intelligent” vehicle-arrest system for roadblocks and checkpoints that could respond differently depending on vehicle speed and type and allow for greater control in bringing a vehicle to a stop.

“Modelling and testing of arresting process in flexible vehicle arresting systems” in Int. J. Vehicle Design, 2013, 64, 1-25

Arresting model stops cars is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/arresting-model-stops-cars.html

Authentic brain waves for a safer, secure drive

One-time entry authentication methods, such as passwords, iris scanners and fingerprint recognition are fine for simple entry whether to a protected building or a private web page. But, a continuous biometric system is needed in some circumstances such as authenticating drivers of vehicles carrying valuable commodities and money, and even public transport vehicles and taxis. Now, such a system based on scanning the driver’s brain waves described in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Biometrics could make hijacks of such vehicles a thing of the past.

Isao Nakanishi of the Graduate School of Engineering, at Tottori University, and colleagues explain that conventional biometric systems commonly assume that authentication is “one-time-only”, but if an imposter replaces the authenticated user in a hijacked car, for instance, such systems have no way of verifying that the person currently driving the car is the legitimate driver and that the hijacker hasn’t thrown the owner from the car or tied them up in the boot. An authentication system based on password entry or iris scanning that repeatedly checks that the driver is the legal driver of the vehicle would be not be safe and so would be wholly unviable.

However, measuring the driver’s brain waves continually – via sensors in the headgear of the driver’s headgear – would be straightforward and would allow authentication that could not be spoofed by an imposter. If the wrong brain waves are measured, the vehicle is safely immobilized.

The Tottori team has now developed a system that can process electroencephalogram (EEG) signals in the alpha-beta band of the brain’s electrical activity and verify the signals it receives against a pre-programmed sample from the legitimate driver. “Brain waves are generated by the neural activities in the cerebral cortex; therefore, it is hidden in the body and cannot be bypassed,” the team explains.

Fundamentally, the system records the pattern of alpha-beta brain waves of a driver with their eyes open carrying out the normal functions of driving, given that this is the condition in which authentication is required. An alternative brain wave scan might have them with eyes closed and not carrying out any task. Importantly, the ongoing authentication of drivers using their brain waves would facilitate a simple way to preclude starting the engine if the driver is intoxicated with drugs or alcohol, or even just too tired because their brain waves would not match their normal pattern under such circumstances.

“Using brain waves as transparent biometrics for on-demand driver authentication” in Int. J. Biometrics, 2013, 5, 288-305

Authentic brain waves for a safer, secure drive is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/authentic-brain-waves-for-a-safer-secure-drive.html

What are the risks of student cyberbullying?

Details of a survey of middle and high school student attitudes to cyberbullying and online safety will be published in the International Journal of Social Media and Interactive Learning Environments. The analysis of the results shows that many children are bullied and few understand internet safety.

Stacey Kite, Robert Gable and Lawrence Filippelli of the Johnson & Wales University, in Providence, Rhode Island, USA, surveyed more than 4200 students about their knowledge of potential risks, appropriate use, and their behaviors on the internet and social networking sites, especially regarding behaviors that may lead to cyber bullying or contact with potential internet predators. The survey was based on the 47 items and five dimensions of the “Survey of knowledge of internet risk and behavior” (SKIRB).

The team found that an alarming number of students, almost one in three admitted to being bullied at school. They also found that parental involvement in monitoring internet activity is low among this group with about a third of middle school and 17% of high school students reporting that their parents monitor their internet. Overall, the researchers found that students had little or no knowledge of internet safety.

While parents and carers endeavor to protect children from danger usually outside the home, the environment in which the so-called digital natives are growing up in is very different from the world in which their parents reached adulthood. Information and communications technology is almost ubiquitous with almost nine out of every ten children having access to a computer at home now and 93% of teens using the internet.

“The need to monitor children’s behaviors has become increasingly difficult with the extension of the internet and cell phones. No longer are children safe and sound in their home or school. In fact, the threats found on the internet may be more dangerous and threatening since there are often no barriers,” the team says. They add that it is becoming increasingly apparent that many teens are unaware of the risks of inappropriate behaviors online, viewing them as trivial and taking an “it won’t happen to me” stance. Unfortunately, this lack of understanding and frivolous interpretation often leads to them coping on their own, not informing a parent or adult in a judicious time, if at all, and exposing them to real dangers in the offline world.

The team reports that educating youngsters about the risks in an non-patronizing way as well as teaching them about respect and having an open anti-bullying approach to relationships is vital to reduce the risk of children and teens being exposed to potential harm, whether physical or psychological, originating online.

“Cyber threats: a study of what middle and high school student know about threatening behaviors and internet safety” in Int. J. Social Media and Interactive Learning Environments, 2013, 1, 240-254

What are the risks of student cyberbullying? is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/what-are-the-risks-of-student-cyberbullying.html

Sudoku thwarts digital photo thieves

A new watermarking technology based on a system akin to the permutation rules used to solve the numeral puzzles known as Sudoku has been developed by computer scientists in Malaysia. Writing in the International Journal of Grid and Utility Computing the team reports how their system could resist attempts to “crop” the watermark in more than 9 times out of ten cases.

Images, photos and graphics on the web are easy pickings for plagiarists and those who might ignore copyright rules. Photographers and others often add a watermark to their images to reduce the risk of their images being lifted for use on others’ sites without permission. However, those intent on leeching an image might simply crop the watermark in some cases.

With the proliferation of digital multimedia content on the internet, content owners and service providers require robust technology to protect their work. Digital watermarking is commonly used to embed specific information into the media to be protected, such as a company’s logo or product serial number. Such information can later be extracted and used to detect forgery and unauthorized usage and to prove authenticity and provenance. Importantly, a digital watermark must not distort or disrupt display of the image when used in its rightful place and so needs to be imperceptible in use.

Now, Shamsul Khalid of the Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, in Johor, and colleagues, explain how a valid 9×9 Sudoku solution – comprising a pixelated second image – is used to create the watermark so that it is evenly distributed within an image and so that it resists automated cropping and noise additions by bots and other tools that scrape images from websites and add them to an illicit database for unlicensed resale or distribution to other websites that require a range of unique images but do not wish to pay for the privilege.

The approach uses the permutations of rows and columns in Sudoku solutions to create and detect an invisible digital watermark that is overlaid on an image with a random distribution. If the image pirate crops part of the image, then the chances are that enough of the watermark will remain elsewhere in the image that the complete watermark might be retrievable provided that the precise and correct Sudoku solution is given.

The team’s initial tests showed that with 81 9×9 Sudoku solutions they could defeat more than 94% of attempts at cropping. They are currently implementing 256 16×16 Sudoku, which they suggest will be even stronger. The best “anti-cropping” watermarks used previously achieved only 75% resistance. Moreover, the Sudoku approach does not require investigators or the authorities to have access to the original image. Based on the relationship between full and partially recovered watermarks, the Sudoku approach will be able to discern whether a pirated image has the copyright owner’s watermark.

“Anti-cropping digital image watermarking using Sudoku” in Int. J. Grid and Utility Computing, 2013, 4, 169-177

Sudoku thwarts digital photo thieves is a post from: David Bradley's Science Spot

via Science Spot http://sciencespot.co.uk/sudoku-thwarts-digital-photo-thieves.html

Special issue: "Smart Materials and Structures in Automotive Applications"

International Journal of Vehicle Design 63(2/3) 2013

• Semi-active control of magneto-rheological variable stiffness and damping seat suspension with human-body model
• Analysis of a magnetorheological damper incorporating temperature dependence
• Semi-active control of an integrated full-car suspension with seat suspension and driver body model using ER dampers
• Design of car hood of sandwich structures for pedestrian safety
• Hydraulic hybrid vehicle vibration isolation control with magnetorheological fluid mounts
• A magnetorheological-elastomer-based energy absorption device for car crash protection
• Magneto-rheological fluid flow through complex valve geometries
• A compressible magneto-rheological fluid damper-liquid spring system
• Quasi-steady modelling for magneto-rheological fluid mount based on squeeze mode and experimental testing
• Characterisation of friction reduction with tangential ultrasonic vibrations using a SDOF model

Regular Paper

• Stochastic modelling of 1-D and 2-D terrain profiles using a polynomial chaos approach

Call for papers: "Advances in Computational Economics and Econometrics"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Computational Economics and Econometrics.

This special issue welcomes theoretical and applied papers dealing with computational techniques in all branches of economic and econometric modelling. Submissions of both methodological and policy-oriented papers using computational econometrics and statistics, simulation and agent-based models are appreciated. The issue is aimed at stimulating discussion and advances in economic and econometric research.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the International workshop on Computational Economics and Econometrics (Rome, July 12-13, 2013), but we also strongly encourage researchers unable to participate in the conference to submit articles for this call.

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

• Applied micro and macro econometrics
• Agent-based modelling
• Economic dynamics
• Bayesian econometrics and statistics
• Optimisation methods
• Financial econometrics
• Monte Carlo simulation
• Time series analysis and forecasting techniques
• Software development and implementation

Important Dates

Submission of manuscripts: 30 October, 2013

Notification to authors: 30 January, 2014

Final versions due: 30 March, 2014

Int. J. of Computer Aided Engineering and Technology to publish expanded papers from TAEECE2014

Expanded versions of papers presented at the Second International Conference on Technological Advances in Electrical, Electronics and Computer Engineering (18-20 March 2014, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) will be published by the International Journal of Computer Aided Engineering and Technology.

Special issue: "Knowledge and Innovation as a Tool for Sustainability in Economies in Crisis"

International Journal of Innovation and Learning 14(3/4) 2013

• Learning, knowledge and dynamic capabilities: theoretical implications for competitiveness and innovation in the 21st century
• Are USOs more supported to compete than spin-offs not linked to universities? A dynamic overview and proposal of model of USOs support
• The impact of non-technological innovation on the technological innovation in industry and services in Portugal
• The differences in structural relationships among software engineering capabilities and business performance depending on origin of IT firm in Japan
• Factors influencing innovation decision making in Portuguese firms
• Innovation and learning through knowledge gatekeepers: a critical examination of the relationship between trust, openness, and the use of gatekeepers in organisations
• Knowledge and satisfaction - two premises for healthcare service innovation and development: the perspective of UCSPVR users
• The creation of new technology-based firms at the Spanish public research institutions: an analysis of their financial statements
• The relationship among organisations' factors, information technology, innovation and performance: an Indonesian SMEs study
• R&D capital and private production: testing firm characteristics using micro data
• Retail marketing innovation in Spain

Call for papers: "Strategic Interactions between Manufacturers and Retailers"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Economics and Business Research.

This special issue solicits original papers that contribute to our understanding of the dynamic strategic interactions between manufacturers and retailers at the full spectrum of their competitive rivalry.

The themes of dynamic interactions may include strategic competition among retailers, competition among manufacturers to increase their market power in retail markets, strategic location of retail stores, strategic location and procurement issues for manufacturers and suppliers, strategic shelf space allocation within retail stores, strategies of national and own brands, new retail formats to curb manufacturers’ power, retail prices and consumers’ welfare, as well as strategic supply chain management and price negotiation considerations.

This call provides an excellent opportunity to publish relevant papers which focus on theoretical and applied research that will enhance our understanding of manufacturer and retailer conflict and cooperation within a holistic framework of interdependent competitive rivalry processes.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• Modelling of interactive manufacturers - retailer phenomena
• Private labels versus national brands
• Retailers' countervailing power
• Interbrand competition and retail prices
• Strategic location of retailers and manufacturers
• Hard and soft discounters, supermarkets and manufacturers
• Shelf space strategies and manufacturers' power
• Retail prices and consumers' welfare
• Strategic vertical and horizontal supply chain management
• Strategies for price negotiation

Important Dates

Submission of manuscripts: 30 December, 2014 (extended)

Special issue: "Emerging Trends in Business in the Present Decade: Proactive Versus Reactive Strategies of Indian Companies"

International Journal of Indian Culture and Business Management 7(3) 2013

• Strategic leadership for corporate sustainable development at Tata Steel
• Business ethics in SMEs: an empirical study of selected units of Haryana
• Environment management system variable verification - a qualitative pilot study
• New England Indic restaurants business and culture: an exploratory empirical study
• Understanding Indian supply chain management practices
• Organisational role stress: level of stress, major stressor and its differences
• What do Indian customers want in a cell phone? Strategies for network providers and handset manufacturers
• Consumer behaviour, customer satisfaction vis-a-vis brand performance: an empirical study of dairy food supply chain in India
• Relationship among social capital, innovation and performance: a preliminary investigation in India
• Opportunities and challenges of corporate governance reforms in India: a study on Infosys Technologies
• Contemporaneous HR practices in Indian banking scenario: a review
• An empirical study on awareness about Islamic economics in India

Special issue: "Cloud Computing"

International Journal of Communication Networks and Distributed Systems 11(3) 2013

• An approach to fault tolerance in the cloud using the checkpointing technique
• A cost effective cloud data centre capacity planning method based on modality cost analysis
• Detection of distributed denial of service attacks in cloud computing by identifying spoofed IP
• Dynamic negotiation of cloud computing services in market-oriented environments
• Effective use of cloud computing in education: education as a service
• VMM detection using privilege rings and benchmark execution times
• SLA-driven dynamic capacity forecasting and resource allocation with risk analysis on clouds

Special issue: "New Energy Materials and Nanotechnology – Part I"

International Journal of Nanomanufacturing 9(3/4) 2013

Expanded versions of papers presented at the 2012 UK-China Symposium of New Energy Materials and Nanotechnology.

• Nano-silver arrays assisted chemical etching and catalysed texturing of silicon wafers for solar cells
• The application of double-layer silicon nitride films on the solar cell anti-reflection coatings
• Brownian dynamics of polymer rheological properties with hydrodynamic interaction and excluded-volume effects
• The microstructure of multi-layer nc-Ca films on different substrates
• Making nano-crystal alloy Fe36Co36B20Si4Nb4 by copper mould sucking - casting method
• Preparation and thermal treatment of titania aerogels
• A facile and reliable solvothermal route for SnO microstructures with different morphologies
• Synthesis of hopcalite nanomaterials and study of their properties
• Synthesis and optical properties of NdF3 nanocrystals from one source precursor
• Effects of manganese and rare earth elements on the microstructural evolution and deformation behaviour of the anode materials of AZ61 magnesium alloy
• Effect of ethylene glycol variation on silica antireflective coatings
• Hydrothermal synthesis of nanostructured NiS and its optimisation as cathode material for rechargeable lithium battery
• Electrochemical properties of LiNi1/3Col/3Mnl/3O2/Cu(Ac)2 composite cathode materials for Li-ion batteries
• Fluorescence of nanocomposite materials with hydroxyl-functionalised ionic liquid confined into mesoporous silica gel
• Thermal conductivity and flow properties analysis of nanofluids based on the Lennard-Jones potential model
• Exergy analysis of a latent storage system combined solar selective coating with nickel nano-particles
• Simulation study on temperature-sensitive mechanism of PNIPAM hydrogels
• Influence of nanoscale pores in coal on methane adsorption
• High power laser diode with non-absorbing windows fabricated by quantum well intermixing
• Nanostructure and supramolecular assembly of binary mixed organogels via trigonal acids and bipyridine derivatives
• Influences of nanometre Y2O3 and Yb2O3 additives on structure and properties of α/β-Sialon ceramics prepared by spark plasma sintering
• Photocatalytic performance of carbonaceous TiO2 nanotube arrays for degradation methyl orange dye under UV light

Special issue: "Management Devices and the Quest for Performance in the Public Sector"

International Journal of Public Sector Performance Management 2(2) 2013

• Public action: a question of performance?
• Tracing the quest for performance in Germany's public sector: institutional entrepreneurship with rhetorical strategies of persuasion
• The rationalisation process of mental health services: illustration of a conflict field between professional and management rationality
• Interpretive schemes in performance management - measurement problems generating managerial action in Finnish local government
• Positioning the performance of public service. When management tools are in conflict: the case of urban water management