Inderscience news

15 September 2015

Call for papers: "Recent Trends in Security of Mobile Cloud Computing and the Internet of Things"

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

Cybersecurity is an essential need for a modern society in which information technology and services pervade every aspect of our lives. However, it is challenging to achieve, as technology is changing at rapid speed and our systems become ever more complex. We are gradually becoming more dependent upon such information and communication infrastructures, and the threats we face are organised by attackers or cyber criminals to exploit our dependency. Moreover, cyberspace is considered as the fifth battlefield after land, air, water and space.

Mobile cloud computing (MCC) and the Internet of Things (IoT) have gained more and more attention in recent years as they integrate different major technologies such as smart phones, tablets, sensors, big data and cloud computing into one platform provided to end users. MCC is vital to overcoming mobile limited storage and computing capabilities by providing remote storage, but requires a strict security system that is responsible for confidentiality, integrity, availability and seamless storage access. There are still significant security challenges to address with the rapid growth of MCC and IoT. This special issue aims to focus on new ideas and solutions to tackle these challenges.

The issue will focus on high-quality research and state-of-the-art research paradigms on security aspects in MCC and IoT. It is open to high-quality research contributions from a wide range of authors including scholars, researchers, academicians and industry. Original research papers and state of the art reviews will be accepted. We anticipate that this special issue will open new roads for further research and technology improvements in this important area.

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

Security and privacy of IoT
Security and privacy management in MCC
MCC intrusion detection systems
Security of pricing and billing for mobile cloud computing services
Security of mobile, peer-to-peer and pervasive services in clouds
Security of mobile commerce and mobile Internet of Things
Security and privacy of mobile cloud computing
Security, privacy and reliability issues of MCC and IoT
Security of mobile social networks
Security and privacy in smartphone devices
Security and privacy in social applications and networks

Important Dates

Manuscript submission deadline: 25 January, 2016

The future of the internet

The current buzzwords that one might hear flung across the boardroom tables of internet and telecommunications companies might include, “the cloud”, “ubiquitous computing”, “internet of things”, “pervasive computing”, “distributed systems”, “Wi-Fi drones”, “big data”, even “ambient intelligence”. The list goes on. Some of these are essentially synonyms, some have been used for years, others are emerging concepts. Either way, the internet as we know it is evolving into something much bigger, something way beyond the social imaginings of that twee paradigm we so coolly used to know as Web 2.0.

Writing in the International Journal of Space-Based and Situated Computing, Rubem Pereira of the School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, at Liverpool John Moores University and Ella Pereira of the Department of Computing, at Edge Hill University, UK, survey the ICT landscape to disentangle the threads of the future internet. They point out that online has driven forward commercial interactions at a staggering rate, but the advent of mobile has accelerated that still further while sensor networks and connectivity for non-traditional ICT devices has allowed technology to seep into almost every niche of our lives.

Much is yet to be done in the realm of big data, cloud computing and the “internet of things”, but we are beginning to see the virtualisation of much more human endeavour while concomitantly those devices and technologies previously off-grid are being assimilated into the realm. The analysis of this activity can be descriptive, predictive or prescriptive whether in the realm of healthcare, the environment, scientific research, finance…almost any sphere. There are many benefits, there are some risks, there are challenges and problems to address and decisions to be made about personal, national and international security, privacy, and such.

How do we gain the most from the cloud, what are the limits and drawbacks of all our technologies being interconnected (and hackable) 24/7? How do we make all this work in concert? And, how do we analyze and utilize all that data?

“The future of the internet brings a myriad of possibilities,” the team says. “Most people, certainly the younger ones, have now come to expect that social interaction, educational material, commercial transactions, entertainment (games, videos, and TV) are all networked and available anywhere and anytime.” They add that, “The substantial challenges posed by massive computing and storage requirements to analyse terabytes of data produced by various, heterogeneous data sources, are only part of the problem.” However, there exists the great promise of analytics becoming a widespread service for businesses, governments, local authorities, regulatory bodies, even individuals.

Pereira, R. and Pereira, E.G. (2015) ‘Future internet: trends and challenges’, Int. J. Space-Based and Situated Computing, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp.159–167.
Original article: The future of the internet.
via Science Spot » Inderscience http://ift.tt/1M8TvCx

Research Extra September 2015

Classified text
There are billions of documents on the web, sites, wikis, blog posts, Facebook pages, Twitter streams and much, much more. Document indexing based on controlled vocabulary, word sense disambiguation, hierarchical categorization is possible, we can filter spam from legitimate emails with great precision, topics can extracted, languages ascertained, sentiments classified, scientific data pulled out and more besides. Now, an Indian research team has developed an approach to text classification that uses feature selection as an effective preprocessing technique to accelerate the overall data mining process. Their approach is a hybrid of Zipf’s curve law with the ranking of features using linear support vector machine (SVM) weights and successfully operated on four well-known benchmark corpuses for testing data mining techniques.

Seetha, H., Murty, M.N. and Saravanan, R. (2015) ‘Effective feature selection technique for text classification’, Int. J. Data Mining, Modelling and Management, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp.165–184.

Movie stars and the teenage dream
Social scientists in India have carried out an empirical study of the socio-cultural impact of film celebrities on teenagers. Movie stars have a special place in the hearts of young and old alike, perhaps nowhere more so than among the fans of movies from perhaps the most prolific film-maker, India; Bollywood is now world famous. Movies reflect society but are also instrumental in setting trends in fashion and lifestyle. The leading actors in those movies are raised on a pedestal and often seen as the heroic icons of the age. Indian teenagers, the team reports, are quite obsessed by film celebrities, holding up their material aspirations to these people and fantasizing about the imagined life of the movie star. The team reports on a small study of teenagers and reveals just how their lifestyles and aspirations are influenced by their favorite movie stars. One has to imagine that a similar phenomenon was seen in the heyday of the US film industry, encapsulated in Hollywood, and will perhaps happen too with the growing Nollywood phenomenon of the Nigerian film industry.

Jain, A., Lata, P., Goyal, A.R., Khandelwal, S. and Jain, G. (2015) ‘Socio-cultural impact of film celebrities on teenagers: an empirical study’, Int. J. Indian Culture and Business Management, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp.308–322.

Global knowledge hubs
Industrial clusters can boost competitiveness, stimulate economic growth, and improve the local employment rate. As capitalism edges increasingly towards knowledge-intensive businesses, researchers in Singapore ask whether the emergence of global knowledge hubs will have the same positive effects as more traditional industrial clusters. As such, the team has developed a model of the global knowledge hub to help them answer that question. The model encompasses geographical aspects of those within the hub, its local networks, the local knowledge base and information flow all of which feed the local cluster and thence the global linkages via multiple-location dynamics and global production networks. From that one might then extract the organizational pipelines and the personal relationships and how all of this meshes together to enhance the knowledge economy at different levels.

Tan, B.S.Y. and Thai, V.V. (2015) ‘Global knowledge hubs: introducing a new conceptual model’, Int. J. Knowledge-Based Development, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp.131–151.

Penetrative broadband
Greek researchers are looking to broadband internet services as a potential source of economic improvement in the present climate of severe economic depression. They assume that increased broadband penetration across the public and private sectors and into people’s homes will be associated with increased income. They then investigated 86 countries (45 developed and 41 developing) to discover whether or not this is indeed the case. The analysis looked for a correlation either one-way or bidirectional between gross national income per capita and broadband penetration level. It also separated the data for the developed and developing world. They conclude that all countries seem to be better off with greater broadband penetration, but for those whose internet industry is still in its infancy the focus should be on first increasing demand for broadband as the nature of the causality is not proven.

Kyriakidou, V., Michalakelis, C. and Sphicopoulos, T. (2015) ‘Broadband penetration as an economic growth accelerator’, Int. J. Electronic Governance, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp.253–265.

Original article: Research Extra September 2015.
via Science Spot » Inderscience http://ift.tt/1KbeVvX

14 September 2015

Inderscience is media partner for Pre-Filled Syringes 2016

Inderscience is a media partner for Pre-Filled Syringes (27-28 January 2016, London, UK).

The journals involved are:

More information on this event is available here.

Call for papers: "Modelling and Simulation of Interactive and Intelligent Systems"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Simulation and Process Modelling.

With the advancement and widespread use of computers, mobiles and web-based technology, intelligent interactive systems (IISs) are now a hot research area. Two major characteristics of IISs are intelligence and interactivity. Intelligence here refers to intelligence used in developing user interfaces or agents that are responsible for autonomous decision making. Furthermore, these systems should be capable of intelligently interacting with humans or other agents to analyse, learn plan and communicate among themselves and make collective decisions. Applications for IISs are now being found in designing and modelling business intelligence utilising intelligent and interactive communication technologies and big data analysis, machine learning and web intelligence techniques.

Current research work being carried out in the domain of IISs involves modelling and simulation of user-friendly systems with intelligent approaches for interactions, development of interactive systems for clients, executives and decision makers in the business domain, and also modelling intelligent web-stores for new business processes. There are also various issues and limitations of IISs, such as interoperability, flexibility and platform independence, which need to be addressed.

This special issue will provide a forum to consolidate a broader range of current research achievements and future trends in developing new theories, algorithms, architectures and applications of intelligent interactive business processes.

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

Re-engineering processes using intelligent and interactive technologies
Intelligent data mining and distributed warehousing
Big data analytics
Machine learning
Natural language interaction
Web intelligence
Autonomous systems
Speech technologies
Applications of face and gesture analysis
Virtual communication environments
Distributed computing
Data-driven social analytics
Algorithm design
Methods in cognitive systems
Mind, brain and behaviour
New business modelling of audio and music
Market basket analysis

Important Dates

Submission deadline for manuscripts: 31 March, 2016

13 September 2015

Inderscience is media partner for Lightweight Vehicle Manufacturing: Joining, Forming & Assembly Summit 2015

Inderscience is a media partner for the Lightweight Vehicle Manufacturing: Joining, Forming & Assembly Summit 2015 (18-19 November 2015, Birmingham, UK).

The journals involved are:

12 September 2015

Inderscience is media partner for Automotive Lightweight Interiors Cost Effective Material Application & Design Congress

Inderscience is a media partner for the Automotive Lightweight Interiors Cost Effective Material Application & Design Congress (27-28 January 2015, Munich, Germany).

The journals involved are:

Call for papers: "Secure and Distributed Big Data Analysis"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Computational Intelligence in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology.

Effective big data analysis depends on access to large and high-quality data sets. Advances in genome sequencing technology increasingly delivers these data sets. Sequencing projects such as the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC, 300TB) and UK10K (100 TB) produce data sets whose size already poses challenges on many analysis platforms; the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) project already aims to analyse data on the Petabyte scale.

Additionally, data sets of high clinical importance are typically access controlled, placing limits not only on who can use this data, but also on the environment in which this data may be used, to maintain privacy and confidentiality requirements. There is also a growing amount of data held by private institutions, for example by pharmaceutical companies. This data often cannot be made public as a matter of corporate interest; however, some of the data may still be available for analysis in special circumstances or for special collaborations.

The analysis problem that emerges from this developing data landscape is one where the analysis algorithm needs to be able move towards the data, instead of expecting to have the data available locally. It requires the algorithm to perform analysis in individual steps, on globally dispersed data, in heterogeneous computing environments, potentially on encrypted data, while maintaining confidentiality and privacy agreements in place for the data.

For this special issue, we are soliciting submissions for a thematic collection of technical papers and research and commentary articles that explore the frontier of research and practice in this field.

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

Algorithms and bioinformatics
Networking and communications
Computer architecture and real-time systems
Database and data mining
Security and information assurance
Distributed and parallel systems and algorithms
Software engineering
Embedded systems and software
Web and internet computing
Grid and scalable computing
Intelligent information and database systems

Important Dates

Submission of manuscripts: 1 February, 2016

Notification to authors: 28 March, 2016

Final versions due: 30 May, 2016

11 September 2015

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Knowledge Management Studies

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Knowledge Management Studies are now available here for free:

Interrelations between strategic orientation, knowledge management, innovation and performance. Empirical findings from a national survey in Germany
Assessing firm capabilities for innovation
The future of case teaching: applying strategies for enhancing student knowledge with wisdom
Organisational ambidexterity in the search phase of the innovation process. Evidence from a leading case study
Network absorptive capacity: an interorganisational practice-based analysis regarding the development of X-ray technologies
Organisational manoeuvres for exploring and exploiting external knowledge
Absorptive capacity in collaborative technology transfer - a practice perspective on four cases in optics in the USA and Germany
The different modes for absorbing knowledge: an analytic lens on absorptive capacity from a process perspective
Revisiting absorptive capacity from a design perspective

Call for papers: "Recent Research Trends in Life Sciences and Healthcare"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Telemedicine and Clinical Practices.

Life sciences and healthcare play a significant role in the well-being of individuals, both as medical solutions and for healthcare towards everyday well-being. New models and methods continue to be developed to produce safer healthcare environments.

The rapid growth of using devices and technologies in medical fields has generated new opportunities for emerging application improvements; however, huge challenges still need to be addressed in order to develop consistent, suitable, safe, flexible and power-efficient systems fit for medical needs.

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

Understanding of life processes for possible academic, therapeutic or commercial applications
Solutions for challenges in academia and practice
Technologies for cleaner, healthier and sustainable environments
Advanced technologies, devices, protocols and best practices
Techniques for addressing sustainable food and energy challenges
Innovations and ideas for improving the quality of healthcare and quality of life
Novel therapeutic techniques
Understanding of challenging diseases, epidemics and their management
New imaging techniques and rapid diagnostics systems
Innovative digital healthcare systems
Management practices, operations and logistics innovations for health and pharma industries
Medical tourism
Green and sustainable hospitals and rehabilitation centres
Effective public health and sanitation models
Alternative medicine and therapies
Affordable medical care systems and estimation of economic impact on end users
Technological, social, economic and psychological challenges for the health industry
Novel rehabilitation techniques
Innovation in medical education
Disease modelling techniques
Drug discovery, trials and development

Important Dates

Submission of manuscripts: 31 December, 2015

Notification to authors: 31 January, 2016

Final versions due: 31 March, 2016

Inderscience is media partner for Shenzhen International Small Motor, Electric Machinery & Magnetic Materials Exhibition

Inderscience is a media partner for 14th Shenzhen (China) International Small Motor, Electric Machinery & Magnetic Materials Exhibition (24-26 May 2016, Shenzhen, China).

The journals involved are:

More information on this event is available here.

New Twitter account for European Journal of International Management - @EJIM_Editor

The European Journal of International Management has recently launched a Twitter account. Follow the page for the latest tweets, news and views from its Editor in Chief, Prof. Vlad Vaiman.

Wavelets for earlier cancer diagnosis

An approach to converting the data from MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machines, mammograms and other medical equipment gives doctors a much clearer picture of your insides and a chance to detect disease and other problems earlier, according to research published in the International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology. The technique known as the wavelet transform was first reported in 1910, but it was during the early 1990s that its applications in medicine and biomedical research first emerged and it is now reaching maturity as a technique to supplement or even displace conventional analytical methods.

The conventional approach to processing imaging data from medical scanners is to apply a computer algorithm, a Fourier transform, which converts the raw signals into a format that can be displayed as an image on the computer screen to reveal brain damage, detect tumors and look for defects in the heart and for countless other diagnostic reasons. The Fourier transform is a powerful tool but Satya Singh and Shabana Urooj of the Gautam Buddha University, in Uttar Pradesh, India, suggest that an alternative signal processing system based on an analysis of “wavelets” could improve medical imaging significantly. They point out that a wavelet transform applied to the raw imaging data would boost the signal to noise ratio for the data by ignoring many of the artifacts generated by interfering electrical signals and waves present in the body and picked by the scanner.

The team reports that the same wavelet transform approach could have applications not only in MRI but in simplifying electrocardiography, de-noising biomedical images and in facilitating and functional neuroimaging, including positron emission tomography and functional MRI (fMRI). The latter requiring data processing in real-time so that live images can be recorded and studied. In addition, the wavelet transform produces a much smaller digital file than conventional processing, which means faster data transfer and lower storage requirements per scan.

Singh, S.P. and Urooj, S. (2015) ‘Wavelets: biomedical applications‘, Int. J. Biomedical Engineering and Technology, Vol. 19, No. 1, pp.1-25.
Original article: Wavelets for earlier cancer diagnosis.
via Science Spot » Inderscience http://ift.tt/1FAXOS3

10 September 2015

Call for papers: "Computational Intelligence and Multi-Agent Systems"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Reasoning-based Intelligent Systems.

An agent-based system is a new paradigm for the conceptualisation, design and implementation of intelligent software systems. Agents are computer programs that act autonomously on behalf of their users, across open and distributed environments, to solve a growing number of complex problems. These agents are able to provide the best solutions under the given circumstances. A multi-agent system is a loosely coupled network of agents which work together to solve problems that are beyond the capabilities of individual agents. The agents are autonomous, and may be heterogeneous in nature.

The intersection between computational intelligence and multi-agent technology opens new significant scenarios in many fields where the representation and management of complex systems play a fundamental role. The role of uncertainty becomes crucial for an efficient and coherent resolution of complex problems in the formulation of intelligent agent-based systems. Agents overcome classical programs, thanks to their inner capabilities to be autonomous and to adapt their behaviour to the changing of the environments where they are based and interact. This means that they inevitably encounter uncertainty during their work, or in many cases, due to the great complexity of a problem, the information they handle is (or needs to be) approximate.

Only in recent years has there been a growing awareness that computational intelligence-based handling of uncertainty in agents is equally important as the other features of the agent paradigm. Computational intelligence techniques – including fuzzy sets, neural networks, evolutionary algorithms and their hybridisations – can be successfully applied to agent systems for solving real-world complex problems. These intelligent multi-agent systems are able to solve problems that are beyond the capabilities of individual agents, mainly because of their collective intelligence.

The objective of this special issue is to provide an opportunity to researchers working in the area of theory and applications of computational intelligence and multi-agent systems. The issue invites contributions from the academic community and industry experts in order to report on recent advances in this area.

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

Agents for intelligent manufacturing systems
Agents for knowledge discovery and knowledge management
Agents for ambient intelligence
Agents for dialogue systems
Agents for intelligent avatars
Environment-aware agents
Holonic agents
Agents for smart environments
Middleware agents
Embedded agents
Mobile agents
Adaptive and personalised systems
Business intelligence
E-learning, e-commerce and e-governance
Decision support systems
Human-computer interaction
Knowledge-based and expert systems
Mobile systems
Recommender systems
Semantic web-based systems
Social network analysis
Temporally intelligent systems
Trust, reputation and security
Digital image processing and watermarking
Steganography and steganalysis

Important Dates

Submission of manuscripts: 31 January, 2016

Notification to authors: 31 March, 2016

Final versions due: 31 May, 2016

Inderscience is media partner for 4th Annual Nuclear Energy Expansion Summit

Inderscience is a media partner for 4th Annual Nuclear Energy Expansion Summit (1-2 October 2015, Istanbul, Turkey).

The journal involved is the International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Technology.

European J. of Cross-Cultural Competence and Management to publish expanded papers from IACCM2015

Extended versions of papers presented at the 14th IACCM Annual Conference (1-3 October 2015, Vienna, Austria) will be published by the International Journal of European Journal of Cross-Cultural Competence and Management.

Call for papers: "Big Data and Predictive Analytics Applications in Supply Chain Management"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Automation and Logistics.

In recent years, big data and predictive analytics have attracted burgeoning interest among academia and practitioners (see Wamba et al. 2015; Dubey et al. 2015; Dubey and Gunsekaran, 2015). In current practices, data is generally collected to test the theoretical models derived after extensive literature review, opinion from experts and experience.

This traditional approach has several limitations. Moreover, social media and online data collection and analysis have created opportunities to utilise data for making real-time and more accurate decisions in supply chain management. Hence, various scholars have expressed the need for robust techniques. Waller and Fawcett (2013) have argued for redefining existing theories in supply chains as big data possesses immense potential in terms of volume, velocity and variety (3Vs). In the past, due to limitations of data in terms of volume and variety, researchers have most of the time had to limit the scope of their studies into supply chain. Hence, there is need for revisiting existing theories in supply chain management with data powered by 3Vs.

What is less understood in supply chain literature is the adequate use of big data in supply chain management (Hazen et al. 2014). Contributions to the supply chain literature using big data are scant. In spite of its popularity among industry professionals and practitioners, there is lack of clarity in term of understanding and applications of big data in supply chains. There is an urgent need for contributions in the field of supply chain management in which big data has been used extensively to explain the complex supply theories in supply chains which are still underdeveloped.

The aim of this special issue is to attract manuscripts which are firmly grounded in supply chain theories, using big data and predictive analytics to take current supply chain theory and practice to the next level of excellence in terms of supporting suitable supply design and operations in the context of 21st century organisational competitiveness.

References:
Dubey, R., Gunasekaran, A., Childe, S. J., Wamba, S. F., & Papadopoulos, T. (2015). The impact of big data on world-class sustainable manufacturing. The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 1-15.
Dubey, R., & Gunasekaran, A. (2015). Education and Training for Successful Career in Big Data and Business Analytics. Industrial and Commercial Training, 47(4),174-181.
Hazen, B. T., Boone, C. A., Ezell, J. D., & Jones-Farmer, L. A. (2014). Data quality for data science, predictive analytics, and big data in supply chain management: An introduction to the problem and suggestions for research and applications. International Journal of Production Economics, 154, 72-80.
Waller, M. A., & Fawcett, S. E. (2013). Data science, predictive analytics, and big data: a revolution that will transform supply chain design and management. Journal of Business Logistics, 34(2), 77-84.
Wamba, S. F., Akter, S., Edwards, A., Chopin, G., & Gnanzou, D. (2015). How ‘big data’can make big impact: Findings from a systematic review and a longitudinal case study. International Journal of Production Economics.(DOI:10.1016/j.ijpe.2014.12.031).

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

Supply chain network design
Re-defining existing supply chain theories
Applications of big data in disaster relief supply chain network design
Suppliers selection
Improving coordination in supply chain networks
Applications in natural resource-constrained supply chain networks
The design of ethical supply chains using big data
Explaining complex theories surrounding performance measurement systems (PMS)
Improving forecasting models using big data and business analytics
Explaining crucial properties of supply chain networks
Dynamic supply chain alignment
Supply chain resilience in supply chain network design
Addressing supply chain skill gap issues using big data
Explaining assimilation of big data

Important Dates
Full manuscript submission: 30 June, 2016

9 September 2015

Special issue published: "Electromobility: Challenging Issues"

International Journal of Electric and Hybrid Vehicles 7(3) 2015

Optimal bidding of plug-in electric vehicle aggregator in day-ahead and regulation markets
Participation of an electric vehicle fleet to primary frequency control in France
The role of electric vehicles in demand response: implementation, network impacts and market requirements
Comparing vibration measurements in an electric vehicle with standard vibration requirements for Li-ion batteries using power spectral density analysis
Impact of road- and vehicle-related parameters on the energy efficiency of hybrid city buses

Inderscience is media partner for 4th China International Diesel Engine Summit 2015

Inderscience is a media partner for 4th China International Diesel Engine Summit 2015 (22- 23 October 2015, Beijing China).

The journal involved is the International Journal of Heavy Vehicle Systems.

Call for papers: "Economic Complexity and Complexity of Economics"

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

Modern economies are complex systems, which require sophisticated techniques to be studied, understood and regulated. This special issue aims to raise a rigorous scientific debate on the many interconnections between economic complexity and the tools offered by modern complexity science.

We encourage submissions from all fields of complexity science, using network, computational and econometric and statistical approaches. Papers with relevant policy implications are particularly welcome.

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

Complexity theory and organisations
Out-of-equilibrium dynamics
Network analysis and Bayesian networks
Simulation and agent-based modelling
Robustness and sensitivity analysis
Risk analysis
Econophysics
Nonlinear and chaotic economic systems
Game-theory models
Structural econometric and causal models of complex systems
Time series analysis and forecasting techniques
Complexity and big data
Policy analysis in complex socio-economic systems
Computational modelling in economics and sociology
Software development and implementation
Models of complex networks
Structural network properties and analysis
Complex networks and epidemics
Methodological problems in complex network studies
Multilayer networks
Complex networks in nature

Important Dates

Submission of manuscripts: 15 January, 2016
Notification to authors: February 10, 2016
Final versions due: 15 May, 2016

Pester power and family purchases

In today’s commercial world, companies must not merely satisfy customer demands, they must delight prospective buyers with the products and services they offer. Researchers writing in the International Journal of Business Innovation and Research have focused on the role children play within family purchasing decisions and specifically “pester power”.

Monica Chaudhary of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, at Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India, is an expert in marketing and consumer behavior with ten years of corporate and academic experience. “Consumer behavior is getting increasingly complex,” she says. “and young children are becoming more and more exposed to online marketing communication, responsible marketers need to be very careful in targeting young children.”

She has now developed a research framework to allow social scientists to carry out a structural analysis of the family buying process and to understand children and teens influence family purchases of various products. Her framework incorporates the child’s consumer socialization – via friends, television and the internet, the use of “pester power” and a three-stage family buying process. Her tests focus on three categories of products: loud goods, expensive products such as vacations, computers, mobile phones, cars, televisions and even washing machines. The second category is noisy goods, such as mundane things like stationary, books, food and beverages, clothes, and more exciting things like movie tickets, dining out and video games. The third category, quiet goods, encompasses frequently bought items such as shampoo, toothpaste and grocery items in which children may have the least interest.

She reveals how this framework can allow for responsible marketing but forewarns of health and safety issues that can arise should marketing to youth be irresponsible.

Chaudhary, M. (2015) ‘Structural equation modelling of child’s role in family buying’, Int. J. Business Innovation and Research, Vol. 9, No. 5, pp.568–582

Original article: Pester power and family purchases.
via Science Spot » Inderscience http://ift.tt/1XL4wjV

Scents sell

Catch a whiff of an enchanting perfume, the sweet smell of freshly cut grass, newly baked bread, even the odour of two-stroke engine fumes, and many of us are whisked off to distant places in our memories. Smells trigger immediate emotional responses and marketing departments the world over have exploited this everywhere from supermarkets to car showrooms to help us part with our hard-earned cash.

Now, writing in the International Journal of Trade and Global Markets, Shuvam Chatterjee of the Regent Education & Research Foundation, in Dhakuria, India, discusses the concept of “olfactory branding” and how in some settings, such as the hotel lobby, it can supplant or augment the more traditional audiovisual marketing signals. Chatterjee explains how the Indian tourism and hospitality industry has emerged as one of the key industries driving the growth of the service sector. Moreover, while international tourism has increased, there is a huge, and growing domestic market, with some 30 million internal travellers each year. Obviously, hotels play an important role in this industry.

Earlier researchers have claimed that people remember 35% of what they smell, compared with only 5% of what they see, 2% of what they hear and 1% of what they touch. So, “scent makes a brand identity more unique, strengthens customer loyalty and adds to the perception of quality, an element that is essential to every brand in today’s competitive market,” Chatterjee writes. Intriguingly, the top ten “happy” smells are as follows: freshly baked bread, clean bedsheets, freshly mown grass, fresh flowers, freshly ground coffee, fresh air after rainfall, vanilla, chocolate, fish and chips, and bacon frying, according to earlier surveys.

Now, Chatterjee has surveyed guests at the ITC Sonar Luxury Hotels in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), India, and found that more than 41% of guests agreed that scent is a key factor in the enjoyment of their hotel stay. Indeed, it is a more important factor than the hotel’s “infrastructure”, its food, and the behaviour of staff. Chatterjee suggests that olfactory branding is therefore a critical part of marketing and could set any one hotel ahead of its rivals…

Chatterjee, S. (2015) ‘Olfactory branding: a new trend for defining brands through smell – a case of ITC Sonar Hotel in Kolkata, India’, Int. J. Trade and Global Markets, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp.196–206.
Original article: Scents sell.

via Science Spot » Inderscience http://ift.tt/1Oyvq8c

Special Issue published: "Knowledge Management at the Crossroad: Research, Challenges and Perspectives"

International Journal of Knowledge and Learning 10(2) 2015

Extended versions of papers presented at the International Forum on Knowledge Asset Dynamics 2014.

Sustainable organisations and knowledge process outsourcing: conditions for success
Harnessing the power of knowledge management for innovation
Intellectual capital, knowledge management, knowledge economies and innovation: the case of small asset management firms in Ireland
Strategic intellectual capital management as a driver of organisational innovation
The interplay of knowledge engineering and cognitive psychology: learning ontologies creating
An adaptive environment based on Moodle with treating of quality of context

8 September 2015

Special issue published: "Multi-Dimensional Impacts of Marketing and Operational Strategies on Business Performance"

International Journal of Trade and Global Markets 8(3) 2015

Extended versions of papers presented at the SIBR-Thammasat 2014 Conference on Interdisciplinary Business and Economic Research.

A study on awareness of Islamic banking in India
Olfactory branding: a new trend for defining brands through smell - a case of ITC Sonar Hotel in Kolkata, India
The implementation of quality management practices in Indonesian SMEs
New factor of environment franchise and its influence on business performance of franchise outlets in food and beverage industry: case of Vietnam
How green firms appeal users with pop-ups and inline ads as an effective tool to distort their attitude
The relationships among agility empowerers from the viewpoint of gaining competitive advantage
An empirical analysis of materials' cost effect in the Malaysian housing market industry using deterministic method: case of Klang Valley

Call for papers: "Wine Business and Economics"

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

The objective of this special issue is to explore academic research areas related to the economic and business aspects of the wine industry, including viticulture and oenology.

The special issue will cover a wide array of topics including, but not limited to, production, winery activities, marketing, consumption and tourism, as well as macroeconomic, legal, tasting and trade topics.

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

Economics
International trade
Business history
Economic history
Marketing
Tourism
Regional studies
Legal issues
Operations
Consumer behaviour

Important Dates

Submission of manuscripts: 2 September, 2016

Special issue published: "Sustainable Business Innovation and Technology Management"

International Journal of Business Performance and Supply Chain Modelling 7(3) 2015

Extended versions of papers presented at the 12th International Conference on Business Innovation and Technology Management (ICBITM12).

A theoretical model to investigate customer loyalty on logistics service providers for sustainable business performance
Information communication technology and sustainable food supply chain: a resource-based analysis
Prospects for on-farm anaerobic digestion as a renewable energy technology in the UK: learning from early adopters
The Triple Helix model for innovation: a holistic exploration of barriers and enablers
Mediation effects of sustainable supply chain strategies on supply chain functions and firm performance

7 September 2015

Inderscience is media partner for Cost Estimating and Project Controls for the Oil and Gas Industry 2015

Inderscience is a media partner for Cost Estimating and Project Controls for the Oil and Gas Industry (14-15 October 2015, London, UK).

The journal involved is the International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology.

Call for papers: "Multinationals, Sustainability and Social Change"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Business Environment.

Recent years have seen growing recognition that multinational corporations (MNCs) are resourceful actors that can play a crucial role for sustainable development and social change (Salciuviene et al. 2009). However, while these roles are widely recognised, relevant theories and debates have often remained unconnected.

A key aim of this special issue is to explore the theoretical intersections around the complexities of MNCs, sustainability and social change. Diverse theoretical perspectives implicitly or explicitly address the role MNCs play in sustainable development and social change, such as (i) the growing literature on sustainability transitions (e.g. Geels 2011; Loorbach & Wijsman 2013), (ii) network theories (Webb et al. 2010, Ritvala et al. 2014), (iii) institutional change and the role of MNCs in institutional voids (e.g. Mair and Martí 2009, Pinkse and Kolk 2010, Tracey and Phillips 2011), (iv) more traditional international business perspectives (e.g. Shane & Venkataraman 2000, Birkinshaw et al. 2005, Freeman et al. 2010, Khanna & Palepu 2010, Ellis 2011, Jones 2011), and (v) complexity theory (de Lange et al. 2015). However, these theoretical approaches are primarily discussed in separate streams of literature.

Additionally, in the relatively young academic field of corporate sustainability, many theoretical concepts on possible contributions of MNCs to sustainable development have not yet sufficiently been tested empirically. This special issue therefore aims to provide a platform for linking previously unconnected streams of literature on the (positive and negative) contributions of MNCs to sustainable development and social change, as well as to discuss the relevant theoretical concepts based on new empirical insights. It will explore the manifold roles of MNCs in the institutional, environmental and social domain. Exploring this multidimensionality calls for a use of different theories, research perspectives (e.g. critical and mainstream) and methods (conceptual and empirical).

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the “Multinationals and Entrepreneurship” subtheme of EGOS 2016, but we also strongly encourage researchers unable to participate in the conference to submit articles for this call.

References:
Birkinshaw, J.; Hood, N.; Young, S. (2005): Subsidiary entrepreneurship, internal and external competitive forces, and subsidiary performance. International Business Review 14 (2), 227-248.
de Lange, D.E.; Armanios, D.; Delgado-Ceballos, J.; Sandhu, S. (2015): From Foe to Friend: Complex Mutual Adaptation of Multinational Corporations and Nongovernmental Organizations. Business & Society. DOI: 10.1177/0007650314568537.
Ellis, P.D. (2011): Social ties and international entrepreneurship: Opportunities and constraints affecting firm internationalization. Journal of International Business Studies 42 (1), 99-127.
Freeman, R. E.; Harrison, J.S.; Wicks, A.C.; Parmar, B.L.; de Colle, S. (2010): Stakeholder theory. The state of the art. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Geels, F. W. (2011): The mulit-level perspective on sustainability transitions: Responses to seven criticisms. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 1, 24-40.
Jones, Marian V.; Coviello, Nicole; Tang, Yee Kwan (2011): International Entrepreneurship research (1989-2009): A domain ontology and thematic analysis. In: Journal of Business Venturing 26 (6), S. 632-659.
Khanna, T.; Palepu, K. G. (2010): Winning in emerging markets: A roadmap for strategy and execution. Boston: Harvard Business Press.
Loorbach, D.; Wijsman, K. (2013): Business transition management: Exploring a new role for business in sustainability transitions. Journal of Cleaner Production 45, 20-28.
Mair, J.; Marti, I. (2009): Entrepreneurship in and around institutional voids: A case study from Bangladesh. Special Issue Ethics and Entrepreneurship 24 (5), 419-435.
Pinkse, J.; Kolk, A. (2010): Challenges and trade-offs in corporate innovation for climate change. Business Strategy and the Environment 19 (4), 261-272.
Ritvala, T.; Salmi, A.; Andersson, P. (2014): MNCs and local cross-sector partnerships: The case of a smarter Baltic Sea. International Business Review 23 (5), 942-951.
Salciuviene, L.; Chidlow, A.; Ghauri, P.N.; Nguyen, T.B. (2009): Multinational enterprises and their linkage effects on local socio-economic environments in emerging markets. International Journal of Business Environment 2 (4), 468-484.
Shane, Scott; Venkataraman, S. (2000): The Promise of Entrepreneurship as a Field of Research. In: The Academy of Management Review 25 (1), 217-226.
Tracey, P.; Jarvis, O. (2007): Toward a Theory of Social Venture Franchising. Entrepreneurship Theory & Pract 31 (5), 667-685.
Webb, J.W.; Kistruck, G.M.; Ireland, R.D.; Ketchen, D.J. (2010): The Entrepreneurship Process in Base of the Pyramid Markets: The Case of Multinational Enterprise/Nongovernment Organization Alliances. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 34 (3), 555-581.

We invite contributions that empirically and/or theoretically address the theme of the special issue. Exemplary topics are displayed in the following non-conclusive list:

MNCs and sustainable development

When and how does multinationality enable (or prevent) the sustainable evolution of corporations, corporate sectors and national standards?
Interaction of MNCs with local and national proponents of social and sustainable development
Stakeholder theory perspectives on MNCs and sustainability
The role of MNCs in shaping discourses on sustainability issues
The role of MNCs in transferring and diffusing sustainability practices across countries (e.g. GRI)
MNCs as social and sustainable entrepreneurs
New actor constellations and interaction patterns between MNCs and other sustainable/social entre-/intrapreneurs
MNCs as drivers, facilitators or obstacles of sustainable and social entre-/intrapreneurship and of sustainable development

MNCs and institutional/social entrepreneurship

When and how do MNCs act as institutional/social entrepreneurs?
The role of institutional embeddedness, diversity (e.g. kind of market economies) and contradiction for the ability and motivation of MNCs to transform or protect institutions
MNCs as drivers, facilitators or obstacles of institutional change, social transition and development in emerging markets
The role of MNCs in major institutional change projects such as TTIP

Important Dates
Submissions deadline: 15 November, 2016

Inderscience is media partner for Advanced Project Risk Management for the Oil and Gas Industry

Inderscience is a media partner for Advanced Project Risk Management for the Oil and Gas Industry (15-16 September 2015, London, UK).

The journal involved is the International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology.

Inderscience journals to publish expanded papers from ICCA 2016

Extended versions of papers presented at the International Conference for Critical Accounting (28-29 April 2016, New York, USA) will be published by the following journals:

6 September 2015

Inderscience is media partner for Military Airlift and Rapid Reaction Operations 2015

Inderscience is a media partner for Military Airlift and Rapid Reaction Operations (1-2 December 2015, Sevilla, Spain).

The journals involved are:

Call for papers: "Tourism Governance during Public Sector Reform and Financial Uncertainty: How Can Destination Management Organisations Adapt?"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Tourism Policy.

The current trend for decentralisation of tourism policy to the local level coupled with public sector reforms and expenditure cuts is transforming tourism governance arrangements. Destination management organisations (DMOs) are experiencing resource constraints at a time when they are increasingly expected to create and lead on added value initiatives and make up the shortfall in public funding through product innovation and other means.

These changes in the policy environment precipitate a fresh perspective on destination management and necessitate the reconfiguration of relationships with other actors in tourism policy networks. However, there is evidence (Halkier, 2009; Coles et al., 2014; Slocum and Everett, 2014) that localist interests tend to dominate tourism-related policy networks and that the rescaling and reconfiguration of tourism structures adds further complexity, and thus uncertainty, to the tourism system.

The purpose of this special issue is to map out the experience of different destinations by posing the following questions: How has public sector reform affected tourism policy making and implementation at the destination level? How has the reconfiguration of policy at the local level influenced the roles, functions and performance of DMOs? Where does better practice exist in stakeholder engagement, leadership and financing of destination level organisations?

The issue invites contributions that adopt an interdisciplinary perspective to bring together researchers from tourism, economics, geography, public administration and policy, regional studies and organisational studies.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the International Conference in Tourism (ICOT 2015), 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:

(Re)definition of DMO roles and responsibilities
Top-down and bottom-up approaches to destination management
Performance measurement and evaluation of DMO strategy implementation
Corporate governance and inter-organisational dynamics of DMOs
Stakeholder engagement, management and collaboration
Knowledge management and product innovation
Competitiveness and destination governance
Destination leadership and trust: national, regional and local challenges
Standards of governance, accountability and transparency
Best practice in DMO adaptation approaches to change and uncertainty
Case studies of impact of public policy reform on destination management organisations

Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 31 January, 2016

Inderscience is media partner for Cold Chain Distribution 2015

Inderscience is a media partner for Cold Chain Distribution (3-4 December 2015, London, UK).

The journals involved are:

More information on this event is available here.

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Reliability and Safety

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Reliability and Safety are now available here for free:

Standby redundant systems: a quantitative reliability perspective
System reliability-based optimisation for truss structures using genetic algorithm and neural network
Quantitative risk analysis of subsea pipeline and riser: an experts' assessment approach using fuzzy fault tree
A gamma distributed degradation rate model for reliability analysis of concrete pipes subject to sulphide corrosion
Abnormal behaviour propagation in hybrid dynamic systems

5 September 2015

Inderscience is media partner for Airborne ISR 2015

Inderscience is a media partner for Airborne ISR (26-27 October 2015, London, UK).

The journals involved are:

Int. J. of Sustainable Real Estate and Construction Economics to publish expanded papers from ETE 2015

Extended versions of papers presented at the Second International Conference on Environment Technology & Energy 2015 (22-23 November 2015, Colombo, Sri Lanka) will be published by the International Journal of Sustainable Real Estate and Construction Economics.

Inderscience is media partner for Defence Exports 2015

Inderscience is a media partner for Defence Exports 2015 (30 September - 1 October 2015, Amsterdam, Netherlands).

The journals involved are:

Call for papers: "Diplomacy, Europe and Migration"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Diplomacy and Economy.

The Mediterranean became been the heart of the world with the great discoveries at the end of the 15th century, and then the focus moved to the Atlantic and later to the Pacific. However, the Mediterranean never really left the agenda.

In recent years we have witnessed different programmes and strategies for the Mediterranean region. Just before the millennium, the European Union prepared the EUROMED strategy, which was later modified to the Union for the Mediterranean, etc.

When talking about the region, we cannot forget the events that took place several years ago in the frame of the Arab Spring in the Maghreb countries, nor the Middle East question, the latest events in Iraq and Afghanistan and finally, yet not the least importantly, the establishment of the so-called Islamic State, among other things.

It is also a fact that, for decades, migrants from the Southern Mediterranean have been trying to get to Europe, but the numbers of immigrants were previously much lower and the majority of them targeted the small Italian island of Lampedusa. It is more than obvious that in this context the diplomacy of the West did not work in the above-mentioned countries. Nor did the economy. Thus we have, over the last year and especially over the last few months, witnessed hundreds of thousand of migrants leaving Africa and travelling towards the West. Sadly and unfortunately, many of them are also dying in doing so.

The European countries are addressing these questions differently. Some are helping the migrants, while others are building walls. The European Union states that it needs to react properly and actively. While having stated that, it is certainly somewhat late for strategies and talks, with several hundred thousands of immigrants at the European borders today.

In order to address these issues we have launched this call for papers and hope to provide some answers to the delicate questions about and interconnections between diplomacy, migration and economic matters such as FDI, remittances, labour force impact, etc. Theoretical, research, case study and more practical papers are welcome.

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

The role of diplomacy in Maghreb countries
Diplomacy and migration
The impact of immigrants on FDIs
The impact of immigrants on remittances
The impact of immigrants on labour force in Europe
European diplomacy and the Mediterranean
Economic reasons for migration
EU policies towards the Mediterranean
Humanitarian questions concerning immigration
European year of Development 2015
Development diplomacy
International development cooperation

Important Dates
Submission of one page abstracts (max. 500 words) (by email): 15 October, 2015
Notification of acceptance of abstracts: 1 November, 2015
Submission (online) of full papers following acceptance of abstracts: 1 February, 2016
Notification of acceptance, refusal or revision of full papers: 1 March, 2016
Submission of accepted and revised final papers: 1 April, 2016

4 September 2015

Inderscience is media partner for Military Flight Training 2015

Inderscience is a media partner for Military Flight Training (16-17 September 2015, London, UK).

The journals involved are:

Special issue published: "Accounting and Finance in MENA Countries"

International Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Performance Evaluation 11(3/4) 2015

Factors influencing students' choice of an accounting major in Egypt
A balanced scorecard model for performance excellence in Saudi Arabia's higher education sector
Corporate governance, organisational power and disclosure by firms in the United Arab Emirates
Corporate governance mechanisms and audit report timeliness: empirical evidence from Oman
Market timing behaviour, bankruptcy costs and capital structure decisions in MENA: the case of Egypt

Additional paper

A comparison of US and Canadian environmental disclosures according to AICPA and CICA guidelines

Inderscience is media partner for Active Safety: ADAS to Autonomous

Inderscience is a media partner for Active Safety: ADAS to Autonomous (12-13 October 2015, Novi, USA).

The journals involved is the International Journal of Vehicle Autonomous Systems.

Call for papers: "Big Data Management in Clouds: Opportunities, Issues, Challenges and Solutions"

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

Cloud computing and big data has emerged as an important computing model, enabling software, infrastructure and information to be used as services over the network in an on-demand manner. Currently, both industry and academia have access to high-resolution datasets that allow for data-intensive decision making at a level never before imagined.

This special issue solicits high-quality original research papers on all aspects of cloud computing and big data with emphasis on cloud systems, cloud services and big data management in clouds. The issue will be a platform for creating awareness for students, faculties, the industrial community and society regarding the usage of big data.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the 3rd International Symposium on Big Data and Cloud Computing Challenges (ISBCC 2016), 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:

Architecture
Map reduce
Security and privacy
Big data science and foundations
Big data infrastructure
Big data management
Big data search and mining
Big data security and privacy
Big data applications
The 5Vs of the data landscape: volume, variety, velocity, veracity, value
Big data science and foundations, analytics, visualisation and semantics
Software and tools for big data management
Security, privacy and legal issues specific to big data
Big data economy, QoS and business models
Intelligence and scientific discovery
Large-scale recommendation systems and graph analysis
Algorithmic and experimental prototyping and implementation
Data-driven innovation, computational modelling and data integration
Data-intensive computing theorems and technologies
Modelling, simulation and performance evaluation
Complex applications in areas where massive data is generated
Big data and social networking concepts and applications
Emerging technologies in big data and social networking
Management issues of social network big data
Security challenges in big data and social networks
Social network and big data analytics
Open source tools for big data
Green computing for big data
Network infrastructure for social networking and big data
Social network monitoring tools as a service
Cloud computing for big data and social networks
Big data and the Internet of Things
Big data management
Big data and decision making
Big data for wireless sensor networks
Visualisation tools for big data
Mobile cloud networks and big data
Social network data analysis tools and services on the cloud
Large-scale bioinformatics data analysis and management
Case studies

Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 12 June, 2016
Notification to authors: 25 July, 2016
Final versions due: 1 August, 2016

3 September 2015

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Behavioural and Healthcare Research

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Behavioural and Healthcare Research are now available here for free:

HRD climate in National Rural Health Mission in India - an empirical study
Studies of Nuclex effect under cardiovascular disorders, influenza and acute upper respiratory tract infection
Artificial neural networks for medical diagnosis using biomedical dataset
The fallacy of one-dimensional theory of planned behaviour structure in predicting health behaviour
A new pension adjustment formula for Germany: distributional sensitivity results

Call for papers: "Ground Vehicles: Aerodynamics, Thermal Modelling, Design and Optimisation"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Aerodynamics.

In the transport and automotive industry, aerodynamic improvements are highly desirable in the design of fuel-efficient vehicles. Over the last two decades, continuous efforts to build aerodynamic designs by modifying external vehicle surfaces and through add-on aerodynamic drag reduction devices are growing rapidly.

In transport vehicles, external airflows are highly inhomogeneous and can have a positive or even negative impact on aerodynamics and thermal management, depending on the vehicle position and influence of vehicle traffic. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling offers an excellent alternative to experiments in modelling and designing aerodynamic and stylish vehicles.

However, prototype experimental observations are inevitable in developing high-fidelity numerical models and in verifying numerical results. Today’s high-performance computing allows the building of very robust aerodynamic and fuel-efficient vehicles with minimal amounts of time and cost. This special issue invites articles on the latest developments in aerodynamics and thermal management.

Aerodynamic and thermal applications in automotive, transportation and sports contexts share a common approach to modelling, design and optimisation. This special issue will focus on experimental aerodynamic and thermal modelling of vehicles. The use of any advanced numerical tools and various types of commercial, open source and in-house software (Ansys®, StarCCM+®, Exa®, OpenFOAM®, etc.) is welcome in the research submitted to the issue.

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

Automotive applications (low-, medium- and heavy-duty trucks, agricultural vehicles, etc.)
Transport industry (on-road, railroad, etc.)
Sports applications (bicycles, cars, etc.)
Vehicle traffic/platooning influence on aerodynamics
CFD modelling, design and optimisation
Advancements in vehicle simulations (surface morphing, computational efficient algorithms, etc.)
Wind-tunnel experiments and real-time aerodynamic drag and temperature monitoring
Traffic and aerodynamic influence on vehicle thermal management
Other aerodynamic applications (airfoils, etc.)

Important Dates

Submission of manuscripts: 9 June, 2016

It’s a (bio)gas, gas, gas for British farmers

Land, labour and capital resource-related requirements, as well as significant regulatory and financial barriers are preventing more farmers from adopting an important renewable energy technology – Anaerobic Digestion, or Biogas to give it its shorthand name – according to research published in the International Journal of Business Performance and Supply Chain Modelling.

Animal manure, grass, maize and waste vegetable matter from farms can be converted into a methane-based biogas and a nutrient-rich soil fertiliser using a process called Anaerobic Digestion (AD), explain Martin Tidy and Xiaojun Wang of the University of Bristol, and Mark Hall of the University of Birmingham, UK. There has been enthusiastic uptake in Germany and elsewhere in Europe of on-farm AD facilities. However, despite AD being a renewable energy technology that could mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and save farmers money on heating and electricity costs, only a small and slowly growing band of “early adopters” in the UK are using the technology, the team points out.

Martin Tidy and his colleagues have looked at six case studies of early adopters of on-farm AD in South West England and suggest that even though the UK government is keen to promote the technology there are substantial barriers precluding its more widespread take-up by farmers for home energy use or export to the grid. Fundamentally, the necessary changes in the way a farm operates in order to to adopt AD means it is usually a large time and capital-hungry investment that has to fit in with existing crop and livestock enterprises . But, there are lessons to be learned by the far more enthusiastic use of on-farm AD in Germany that might help British farms diversify their energy sources and improve their waste-management practices extensively.

There are potentially many economic benefits to the adoption of on-farm AD: improved profitability, energy cost control, return on capital, diversification of income sources, business resilience and energy security. There are also significant environmental benefits: compliance with statutory regulations now and in future, improved soil health, plus global benefits through a reduction in carbon emissions and a reduced reliance on fossil fuels. Nevertheless, the team concludes, establishing an on-farm AD plant is a complex and ‘thick-ended’ process, in the sense of having to achieve the alignment of many factors crucial to viability ahead of the investment decision. A clearer lead must come from government in the form of proper energy price and investment support and streamlined planning rules, then, “the on-farm AD sector will have the potential to grow, eventually establishing a better track record with which to impress private lenders, and creating a larger UK AD industry-base, so driving down costs due to economies of scale, as well as creating a market of a size sufficient to encourage the wider growth of a technical support sector.”

Tidy, M., Wang, X. and Hall, M. (2015) ‘Prospects for on-farm anaerobic digestion as a renewable energy technology in the UK: learning from early adopters’, Int. J. Business Performance and Supply Chain Modelling, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp.256–277.

Original article: It’s a (bio)gas, gas, gas for British farmers.
via Science Spot » Inderscience http://ift.tt/1LX0nFM

Special issue published: "Smart Energy Grids"

International Journal of Process Systems Engineering 3(1/2/3) 2015

Single phase low THD optimised inverter for PV voltage regulation
gpuMF: a framework for parallel hybrid metaheuristics on GPU with application to the minimisation of harmonics in multilevel inverters
Improving the accuracy of the single diode PV models
Energy and exergy analyses of power generation via an integrated biomass post-firing combined-cycle
Incentives for the reuse of electric vehicle batteries for load-shifting in residences
Robust hydro-thermal power system controller considering energy capacitor system and wind power source
Automotive underbody diffuser for battery thermal management
Heat management in a campus cafeteria with optimal insulation thickness for thermal comfort of a space-variant manikin
Smart grids vs. storage management
Economic and environmental analysis of a green energy hub with energy storage under fixed and variable pricing structures
Additional papers
Analytical and experimental investigation of thermal efficiency improvement of thermochemical water splitting for hydrogen production
Configurations for multiple thermal energy storages in thermal networks

2 September 2015

Inderscience journals to publish expanded papers from ISICA 2015

Extended versions of papers presented at the 7th International Symposium on Intelligence Computation and Applications (21-22 November 2015, Guangzhou, China) will be published by the following journals:

New Editor for International Journal of Emergency Management

Dr. Gilles Dusserre from the Ecole des mines dAls, France, has taken over as Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Emergency Management. The retiring Editor, Professor Jean-Luc Wybo, has been appointed Honorary Editor in recognition of his contribution to the establishment and development of the journal.

Call for papers: "The Demand and Supply of Healthcare in China"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management.

During the last three decades, the People’s Republic of China has experienced exceptional growth and industrial development. This uninterrupted process has created a substantial increase in personal incomes in most parts of the country. Incomes, standards of living and expectations have risen so much that there is now a substantial (middle) class of people with discretionary incomes and tastes that extend well beyond the historic needs of subsistence. This population seeks a higher quality of life with access to improved consumer goods and services that are more consistent with those of wealthy countries in Europe and the United States.

The capability of meeting these expectations is the crucial challenge for China today. In fact, it is likely that the sustainability of the entire economic, social and political system is dependent on the economy’s ability to satisfy these emerging demands. Political leaders and local and central government authorities seem well aware of this challenge. The exchange between legitimisation and consensus requires better education, better housing, better urban quality, better environment…and better healthcare.

To understand the implications of these trends, we are looking for interdisciplinary contributions that shed light on the current status of the Chinese healthcare industry and delivery system. We seek papers that offer original ideas concerning both the demand and supply of healthcare in China. We seek studies at both national and territorial levels and also at the sector level, including studies that focus on important industries such as pharmaceuticals or biotech. We are interested in manuscripts estimating the Chinese population’s health status and looking at social and territorial disparities. We also encourage papers providing original and rigorous analysis of the traditional Chinese medicine industry. Finally, we also welcome analyses of the penetration of Western Medicine into China. Papers must be analytical (rather than descriptive) and methodologically rigorous.

The papers will be of great interest to academics, policy makers and industrialists in both China and the United States and Europe who are either involved in healthcare, or are contemplating becoming so.

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

Estimates of the changing demand for healthcare in China
The supply of healthcare in China, such as hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, private and public providers
The health industry in China: main actors, organisation and performance
Government policy for the promotion of the health industry in China
The pharmaceutical and biotech industries in China
Western medicine in China: production and consumption
Use of Western healthcare inputs in China (including drugs, devices and diagnostic equipment)
The traditional Chinese medicine industry
Barriers to entry in the Chinese healthcare market
Opportunities for the European and American health industries to help address unmet needs in China
Opportunities for the Chinese health industry in Europe and the US
Health status in China: social and territorial disparities
Financing health in China: public and private actors

Important Dates

Submission of letter of intent to contribute, including a 100-200 word abstract of the proposed paper (by email): 31 October, 2015

Submission of manuscripts (online): 31 January, 2016

Notification to authors: 31 March, 2016

Final versions due: 31 May, 2016

Submission of completed manuscripts: 30 June, 2016

1 September 2015

Special issue published: "Design and Social Practice Theory: a Promising Dialogue for Sustainable Living"

Journal of Design Research 13(3) 2015

Reorienting sustainable design: practice theory and aspirational conceptions of use
Characterising elements of practice: the contours of altruistic material divestment
Social science, design and everyday life: refiguring showering through anthropological ethnography
Family farming as a practice: re-evaluating supporting narratives for a sustainable future in marginal areas
Toilet practices and system change: lessons from a transdisciplinary research project

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

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Process Systems Engineering are now available here for free:

A robust method for coupling detection among process variables
Optimisation of thermally coupled distillation sequences with side columns
Analysis of thermal system network of an ammonia plant using genetic algorithms – part I: synthesis and optimisation
A systems integration approach to the optimum operation and scheduling of biocide usage and discharge for seawater cooling systems

Call for papers: "Inventory Systems with Consumer Behaviour Considerations"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Inventory Research.

Inventory plays a critical role in balancing supply and demand across different echelons in a supply chain. Inventory management and control systems, however, have been extensively studied with a focus on aggregate level analysis (for example, based on aggregate demand). Today, internet and technology development drive new economies and dramatically reshape the ways customers normally shop and purchase products. Consequently, the demand pattern is fundamentally different from that typically assumed in the literature.

In the past decade, although researchers’ interests have moved to individual customer incentives and behaviour, limited studies have been carried out on inventory systems with consumer behaviour considerations. This suggests a need for a better understanding of the impacts of individual behaviour on inventory systems. This special issue aims to fill this gap by publishing high-quality and timely theoretical/empirical findings on this topic.

The purpose of the issue is to present new findings in inventory systems with consumer behaviour consideration using quantitative models.

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

Optimisation-based decision models for addressing strategic, tactical and operational inventory problems considering consumer behaviour
Consumer behaviour analysis in inventory-related decisions
New role of inventory considering consumer behaviour
Modelling of consumer behaviour in inventory management
Inventory systems and customer search behaviour
Inventory and strategic customer behaviour
Risk and uncertainty of inventory systems considering consumer behaviour
Inventory, sales promotion and consumer behaviour
Using inventory to match customer supply with demand in two-sided markets
Inventory management in Omni channels with different customer behaviours

Important Dates

Submission of manuscripts: 30 April, 2016

Identifying illegal websites in photos

European computer scientists have developed a way to “read” web addresses in images that could improve filters for blocking pornographic, gambling and other sites. They provide details in the new issue of the International Journal of Reasoning-based Intelligent Systems.

Internet marketers of all shades might add a website address, a URL, to a graphic or photo that might then be found through an image search engine. The user finding such an image may be interested in visiting said site, but will have to type out the URL into their browser’s address bar to do so.

Conversely, the URL might point to illicit content – pornography, gambling sites, illegal drugs, terrorist propaganda. In that content, those in authority, whether parents and guardians of children or law enforcement, may wish to automatically blacklist such URLs.

Now, Nikolay Neshov of the Technical University of Sofia, Bulgaria and colleagues at the University of Karlstad, Sweden, and the University of Belgrade, Serbia, have developed a computer algorithm that can detect the presence of text overlaid on to an image or a still from a video, extract the text and convert it into an active URL for accessing or blocking a website.

Simple optical character recognition (OCR) does not work well with text overlaid on images as the background is usually complex, the text is likely to be of lower resolution and lower intensity and contrast than that seen in a scanned document or page, for instance. The new approach uses an identification extraction technique that finds anomalies in an image that would be present if text is overlaid. It then removes the details surrounding those anomalies leaving just the area occupied by any text – the team calls this the binarisation process. This isolated text image can then be fed into an (OCR) system to convert the image of the text into actual text in the computer.

The team has successfully tested their algorithm on thousands of images with overlaid URLs. They were able to identify 619 URLs from a random selection of 1000 test images at a rate of three per second using their approach. Conventional OCR was faster but only found 83 URLs in the same 1000 images, an improvement from about 8% to more than 60%.

The researchers’ initial motivation was to assist computer forensic investigations in which tens of thousands of illegal and illicit photos must be scanned and any associated websites identified quickly in an investigation. This is critical in investigations of child pornography and child sexual abuse, the team reports, but such work is often stymied by the vast numbers of images involved.
Given that internet search companies and other service providers are involved in various initiatives to identify and block illegal material on the internet, this new approach to URL extraction from images could be added to their arsenal of techniques for detecting such content as well as being useful in criminal investigations surrounding said content.

Popova, A., Garcia, J., Neshov, N., Draganov, I. and Brodic, D. (2015) ‘Finding URLs in images by text extraction in DCT domain, recognition and matching in dictionary’, Int. J. Reasoning-based Intelligent Systems, Vol. 7, Nos. 1/2, pp.78–92.

Original article: Identifying illegal websites in photos.
via Science Spot » Inderscience http://ift.tt/1LQJ5dt

Research Picks September 2015

Robotic safety rules
Domestic robots are not just electrical appliances, Greek researchers suggest, they can and will manage processes and structures in the home environment that involve organisational and cultural aspects. “These robots could be viewed as socio-technical systems since they are operating in the house and the most domestic scenarios depend on close human-robot interaction,” the team says. Despite Isaac Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics”, there are currently no standards for safety. A new approach to safety standard for a future of domestic robot servants has been developed by researchers in Greece. Their proposal fills a gap not only in the standards domain but most importantly in the approach.

Mitka, E. and Mouroutsos, S.G. (2015) ‘Applying the STAMP system safety engineering methodology to the design of a domestic robot’, Int. J. Applied Systemic Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp.81–102

Merging little pharma
The Indian pharmaceutical industry (IPI) is a leader in the developing world, a dynamic and vibrant industry of the developing world. The technology and range of medicines is provides positions it very highly among other developing nationa and it is ranked third in terms of volume of manufacturing. However, under revised pharmaceutical patent laws in India, smaller drug companies might benefit significantly from growing their plant size or else merging with other larger companies to take advantage of the economies of scale and to preclude the significant managerial inefficiencies which currently stymie their economic growth, according to a team at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee.

Mahajan, V., Nauriyal, D.K. and Singh, S.P. (2015) ‘Efficiency trends in the Indian pharmaceutical industry in the new patent regime’, Int. J. Business Performance Management, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp.389–406.

Alien invaders
There is an enormous discrepancy between the scale of damage due to invasive alien species, whether non-indigenous plants or animals, and current expenditure on preventing the spread of such pests in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Tony Jackson of the School of the Environment, at the University of Dundee, recently asked why this should be so: why is such a high-income economy under-investing in biosecurity and is this a more widespread problem? He suggests that a combination of environmental and economic factors has frustrated global efforts to ensure biosecurity and reviews the proposals that have been put forward to remedy this situation.

Jackson, T. (2015) ‘Addressing the economic costs of invasive alien species: some methodological and empirical issues’, Int. J. Sustainable Society, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp.221–240.

The nanotechnology domain
A vast generic research domain, such as nanotechnology, is incredibly complex and spans countless industries. As such, there is a need for improved understanding of how intermediary organisations facilitate the connections between research and development in academia and industry and commercialise the technology that emerges from such a domain. UK researchers have investigated the nature of such intermediaries in the context of knowledge management and have demonstrated that knowledge creation and exploration, knowledge storage, and knowledge transfer capacity are critical to the success of intermediaries. As such, proprietary access to an extensive network database is essential. The team’s conclusions have implications for those utilising such intermediaries.

Mount, M., Milewski, S. and Fernandes, K. (2015) ‘Exploring the knowledge complexities of innovation intermediaries: the case of nanotechnology in the UK’, Int. J. Technology Management, Vol. 69, No. 1, pp.20–37.

Original article: Research Picks September 2015.
via Science Spot » Inderscience http://ift.tt/1JydwRX