Special issue: Social capital

International Journal of Management and Decision Making 9(5) 2008

• Does social capital improve labour productivity in Small and Medium Enterprises?
• Building social capital framework in organisations: exploring 'unseen' social capital in participatory decision-making
• Social capital and its impact on the production process
• Diversity, social capital, and leadership practices: building inclusive learning organisations
• Racial identity and social interaction: the impact of 'diversity' on the structural dimension of organisational social capital
• The decline and recombination of networks in the Czech Republic

Special issue: Digital material machining and process quality control: a Chinese perspective

International Journal of Materials and Product Technology 33(1/2) 2008

• Application of rough sets theory in knowledge acquisition for the cold extrusion process
• Mobile Statistic Process Control e-service supported with wireless PDA and digital calipers
• Numerical modelling of microstructure evolution and dendrite growth in alloy solidification process
• An automatic modelling strategy for the reverse engineering of wrap-around freeform surfaces
• An effective approach to rolling bearing diagnosis based on Adaptive Redundant Second-Generation Wavelet
• NURBS curve interpolation algorithm adaptive to the machine's kinetic characteristics
• An Immune Algorithm for the integration of process planning and scheduling
• Topology optimisation design of multiconstraint continuum structure using sequential quadratic programming method
• A novel high-speed 3D profilometry for complex surface measuring
• Estimating curvatures and the Darboux frame from unorganised noisy point cloud
• Wavelet-based process quality monitoring and diagnosing
• RFID-based smart Kanbans for Just-In-Time manufacturing
• Facility health maintenance through SVR-driven degradation prediction

Special issue: Current mobile learning technologies and applications

International Journal of Mobile Learning and Organisation 2(2) 2008

• Exploring potentials and challenges of mobile ICT for learning in Finland and Indonesia
• Supporting multi-step annotation to promote reflective learning: triggered by a cell-phone
• A framework for enabling on-demand personalised mobile learning
• Establishing a mobile blog system in a distance education environment
• Bridging outdoors and indoors educational activities in schools with the support of mobile and positioning technologies
• A learner-centred design of a location-aware learning reminder

Special issue: Data mining: intelligent data discovery and knowledge management

International Journal of Knowledge Management Studies 2(4) 2008

• Cellular manufacturing performance improvement using data mining techniques
• A hierarchical text classification system for manufacturing knowledge management and retrieval
• Summarising text with a genetic algorithm-based sentence extraction
• Discriminant analysis using fuzzy linear programming models
• Closed multidimensional sequential pattern mining
• Integration of OLAP and data mining for analysis of results from dependability evaluation experiments
• Genetic algorithms-baes solution approach to combinatorial optimisation problems
• The data warehouse as a strategic resource: a study in the Spanish financial sector

Special issue: Performance and risk measurement: operations, logistics and supply chains

International Journal of Risk Assessment and Management 9(3) 2008

Selected papers presented at a workshop on ‘Performance and risk measurement: operations, logistics and supply chains’, held at Bocconi University, Milan, Italy on 8-10 December 2004

• Risks and supply chains
• Forecasting risk analysis for supply chains with intermittent demand
• HIV/AIDS employer programmes: a study in risk management
• Copulae and operational risks
• Multivariate methods in enterprise system implementation, risk management and change management
• Risk measurement and management during new product development: an exploratory study
• Assessing performance of supply chain risk management programmes: a tentative approach
• Risk management in information technology projects

Call for papers: Usability and Privacy Issues in Electronic and Mobile Government

Call for papers: Usability and Privacy Issues in Electronic and Mobile Government

A special issue of Electronic Government, an International Journal

Electronic government refers to the use of the Internet and related technologies by federal and state governments for purposes of exchanging information and providing services and transactions for individuals, businesses and other entities. Over the years, paper-based transactions, services and information exchanges involving the government have moved to the Internet platform, allowing easier accessibility and interactions for individuals and companies. This has resulted in speedy development of the e-government concept on a global basis. Web-based platforms allowed individuals to electronically file their taxes, apply for services and grants, learn information on government-related issues and take advantage of a high number of additional services offered.

With the ubiquity of cell phones and other mobile devices, the mobile platform offers a new domain for e-government to thrive. Voice and data communication technologies of mobile devices offer services for individuals regardless of where they are and when they would want or need the services. While electronic and mobile government concepts are rapidly evolving, a number of usability and privacy issues require research to ensure secure, easy-to-conduct transactions.

The goal of this special issue is to address concerns involving privacy and usability as well as additional issues within the broad user-related scope as they relate to electronic and mobile government. At this age of rapid growth in electronic and mobile commerce, the special issue will be a timely contribution to government entities, private entities and users alike to make transactions, information exchanges and services easier to be completed in a more effective, user-friendly, efficient and secure manner.

The special issue provides a global forum for presenting authoritative references, academically rigorous research and case studies in both theoretical development and applied research. The purpose of the special issue is to discuss the effective and timely development of state-of-the-art electronic and mobile government platforms to accelerate the popularity of these concepts in every layer of society. Specifically, it intends to disseminate research and studies in the emerging electronic and mobile government platforms from users’ perspectives and develop techniques and solutions that directly address difficulties currently encountered in these platforms.

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

• Effective design of electronic and mobile government environments
• Emerging electronic and mobile technologies such as wireless network and mobile devices that directly facilitate e-government activities
• Application of e-government systems in industries
• E-government and health care
• User perceptions of electronic and mobile government
• Usability studies involving user performance and preferences in electronic and mobile government
• Privacy and corresponding concerns in electronic and mobile government and solutions
• Development of new electronic and mobile government tools and applications
• Web-based technologies in electronic government and user perspectives
• The future of electronic and mobile government
• Design and evaluation methodologies for e-government and m-government interfaces
• Platform-based e-government and m-government applications
• Education and electronic government
• E-government for specific populations, including the elderly and disabled
• Collaborative e-government
• Authentication and privacy in e-government
• Cross-cultural e-government issues
• Comparisons between electronic and mobile government from users' perspectives
• Assessment of e-government and m-government in multiple contexts
• Human-computer interaction issues in electronic and mobile government
• Ubiquity of e-government
• E-government and industry interactions and user issues
• Support for e-government-user interaction
• Critical success factors in electronic and mobile government
• End-user software development for e-government
• Knowledge management in electronic and mobile government

Important Dates
Proposal deadline (optional): 1 November, 2008
Early submission deadline : 1 February, 2009
Full paper deadline: 15 April, 2009
Notification of status & acceptance of paper: 1 June, 2009
Final version of paper: 15 July, 2009

Call for papers: Web Based Research Networks and Learning Communities

Call for papers: Web Based Research Networks and Learning Communities

A special issue of International Journal of Web Based Communities

Web Based Research Networks (WBRNs) provide advantages of anytime-anyplace participation by traditional researchers and their informants whilst potentially harnessing rich contributions from the wider public. Web Based Learning Communities (WBLCs) similarly bring together dispersed individuals by means of suitable technology to develop their vocational and/or academic understanding collaboratively.

This Special Issue welcomes well-researched contributions building upon the current literature of successful, failing and adaptive WBRNs and WBLCs. Its aim is to identify not so much the technology, but the pedagogies, management models and modus operandi which have demonstrable potential to enhance the future of such communities.

iPED (Inquiring Pedagogies) is an education research network whose experiences as an emergent web-based community are well-documented. Peer-led, iPED aspires to overcome the barriers between researchers of discipline, culture, geography, and economic and hierarchic status. Since its inception in 2005, iPED has benefited from the participation of several hundred academic colleagues of many nationalities in such roles as contributor, peer-reviewer, event delegate and guide. The IJWBC-iPED editorial experience will itself provide a case-study in WBRN activity in the evolving global research context.

Examples of topics appropriate to the theme of Web Based Research Networks (WBRNs) and Learning Communities (WBLCs) include, but are not limited to:

• Issues of leadership in WBRNs and WBLCs: peer-led teams; special interest (sub)groups; crowd and swarm participation; multi-organisational, multicultural and multinational challenges
• Operational versus strategic WBRNs and WBLCs; the impact on the individual of multiple concurrent WBRN and/or WBLC memberships
• Considerations of the influence of the adopted management model, mores and modus operandi on the sustainability of a WBRN or WBLC
• WBRN responses to inter- and intra-group competition
• Professional development for WBRN or WBLC leadership and facilitation
• Pedagogies suited to successful WBLC development
• Integrating WBRN or WBLC participation into work or study
• WBLC and WBRN use of immersive and social-networking technologies to promote learning and encourage inclusion
• Establishing and developing academic identity with and through WBRNs and WBLCs

Important Dates
Deadline for abstract submission: 30 November 2008
Deadline for paper submission: 31 January 2009
Notification to authors: 28 February 2009
Deadline for camera ready papers: 31 March 2009

Call for papers: Mobile Learning with Context-Aware Technologies

Call for papers: Mobile Learning with Context-Aware Technologies

A special issue of International Journal of Mobile Learning and Organisation

Recent progress in wireless and sensor technologies has lead to a new development of mobile learning, which is able to sense the situation of learners and provide adaptive supports in the authentic environment. Researchers call such feature “context awareness”, and have been investigating the development of new mobile learning environments; nevertheless, the methodologies and applications for conducting effective learning activities in such environments have not yet been well discussed and demonstrated. This special issue aims to enhance mobile learning a step further from learning at anytime anywhere to be at the right time and the right place with right learning resources and right learning peers by applying the context-aware technologies.

This special issue aims at presenting a selection of papers addressing the topics indicated above, but is not limited to them. The following topics are also equally welcome:

• Adaptation of learning content and learning services
• Architecture and applications
• Collaboration support
• Community of practice
• Context management and contextual information collection
• Pedagogical models
• Social network and social networking
• Standards for context-aware and ubiquitous learning
• Tutoring strategy
• User interface technologies

Important Dates
Full paper deadline: 28 February, 2009
Notification of acceptance and Review results: 31 May, 2009
Revised submission (Camera-ready version) deadline: 1 July, 2009

Call for papers: Intelligent Techniques for Personalization and Recommendation

Call for papers: Intelligent Techniques for Personalization and Recommendation

A special issue of International Journal of Advanced Intelligence Paradigms

In recent years, personalization and recommendation technologies have emerged as a means to help users to cope with the problem of information overload caused by the explosive growth of resources available through on-line sources. Examples include adaptive systems, which adapt their behaviour to user preferences and needs, and recommender systems that predict the relevance of diverse items (e.g., movies, travels, products, etc.) according to the user interests. Efficient intelligent techniques are needed to mine data gathered from user behaviour for actionable knowledge enabling the enhancement of the user experience. Intelligent techniques to be applied in personalization and recommendation must address important challenges arising from both the technological and the human perspective, which require the involvement of multiple research fields such as user modelling, machine learning, intelligent information retrieval, data and text mining, statistics, computational intelligence, human-computer interaction and intelligent software agents.

The aim of this issue is to bring together researchers and practitioners working on personalization and recommendation technologies based on intelligent techniques to share their insights, research achievements and experiences in the development of real-world applications.

The guest editor welcomes the submission of original papers addressing the specification and application of intelligent techniques to personalization and recommendation in diverse domains.

Topics of particular interest include, but are not limited to:

• Machine learning techniques for personalization
• Data and text mining for personalization
• Web usage, content, and structure mining for personalization
• User profiling in adaptive systems
• Collaborative and content-based algorithms for recommendation
• Group modeling and community discovery algorithms
• Methodologies for evaluation of recommender and adaptive systems
• Human-computer interaction aspects of personalization
• Conversation recommender systems
• Explanation in recommender systems
• Social modelling and social networking for recommendation
• Security and privacy aspects of personalization and recommendation
• Trust management and reputation in recommender systems
• Interface agents, personal assistants and multi-agent systems for recommendation
• Novel recommendation techniques and algorithms for Web and Web 2.0
• Innovative applications of personalization and recommendation technologies

Important Dates
Title and abstract submission (optional): as soon as possible
Manuscript submission deadline: 15 September, 2008
Notification of acceptance: 15 October, 2008
Camera-ready version deadline: 30 October 30th, 2008

Call for papers: Toy Design Education

Call for papers: Toy Design Education

A special issue of International Journal of Arts and Technology

This special issue seeks long- and short-form submissions exploring issues related to teaching toy design within an academic or higher education setting.

In this context, a broad definition is used of ‘toys’ as the physical and virtual objects and surroundings offering opportunities for playful behaviour, including games, playground equipment, real and virtual environments, video games and interactive installations.

With an increasing complexity of the working field of design, specialisations arise and this has resulted in programmes and courses on the design of toys and other products for play, such as games and interactive media for children. To some extent, toy design depends on general design methodology and knowledge. But the nature of play and its special characteristics brings challenges that require special knowledge and new approaches to the profession of design.

This special issue focuses on the following issues:
What justifies toy design to be considered a specialisation within the general world of design?
How can awareness among students be created of the special characteristics of play, and toys as the carriers of these special characteristics?
Which special issues, approaches, and ways of thinking do students need to become familiar with?
To what benefit can various contemporary fields of research be applied within toy design?
How can an effective toy design curriculum be created to incorporate this?

The special issue seeks contributions from professionals in toy design education and affiliated areas that focus on experiences and knowledge on effective teaching in toy design. It welcomes both theoretic contributions and case studies or examples of best practice. Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Toy design curriculum building
• Key issues distinguishing toy design from general design, and how to transfer knowledge on these issues to students
• Sources and resources for toy design teaching
• Assessing general quality and play value of toy design within students' programmes
• Example projects demonstrating educational effectiveness of toy design programmes
• Challenges in toy design education and needs for further research and development of toy design curricula

Each submission should be written in a way that is accessible to the multidisciplinary audience of the journal.

Important Dates
Abstract (optional): 3 November, 2008
Paper submission: 2 February, 2009
Acceptance notification: 24 April, 2009
Camera ready papers due: 30 June, 2009

Call for papers: Strategic Management of Warranty and Quality during Product Development

Call for papers: Strategic Management of Warranty and Quality during Product Development

A special issue of International Journal of Technology Management

Warranty is a phenomenon experienced by business. Quality and reliability is what the customer should experience. The product development process is the connecting link that should be tuned to understand the customer experience and should be geared to drive a better quality product in terms of customer quality acceptance and lower future expected warranty. This whole process of managing warranty into acceptable market quality is warranty management.

Current literature in product warranty management classifies the developments in this field into three generations. There has been a good article published in Warranty Week Magazine by D.N.P. Murthy, Wallace Blishcke et al. on these generations and the current status quo. The first generation deals with warranty information management. The second generation deals with modifying product design and improving product reliability as a response to warranty data reported. The third generation, which is yet to crystallise as a formal method-set, envisions viewing warranty as a strategic organisational behaviour.

The first part of this special issue is a step towards compiling a formal body of knowledge (methods, strategies, systems) for strategic warranty and quality management during product development process. We invite papers that represent the warranty and quality considerations during the product development cycle, covering the empirical modelling techniques, theoritical developments including rigorous validation schemes and implementation issues and solutions. This compilation is intended to help organisations focus on their warranty metrics by viewing warranty from a strategic perspective during their product development process in the near and long term.

The issue targets the following broad objectives to be addressed:

• To coalesce quality-based policy level objectives with product development, design and supplier strategy
• To consider warranty as an attribute of negotiation along with other customer exciters, thereby assisting in the synthesis of product, target setting and in achieving a balance in product attributes while maintaining product quality
• To relate quality information with physical phenomenon and develop physics-based predictive science models for product development
• To knit warranty feedback and analytics with Enterprise Decision Management at an operational level

Suitable topic areas include, but are not limited to:

• Impact of design and product development on product quality

• Predictive science modelling for expected warranty
• Functional modelling - study of energy loss/gain/transformation and its impact on reliability
• Physics based and statistical techniques to uncover dependencies in a product and study of correlations of such dependencies to the expected warranty.
• Effect of product-packaging and product-design on subsystem warranty and associated issues and solutions

• Warranty modelling in product domain

• Product structure decomposition techniques for warranty analysis
• Fault tree encoding techniques
• Mapping product structure to failure reporting structure

• Formalisms in quality-related corporate decision making processes
• Quality projection, tracking and target setting; axiomatic quality, DFSS, quality in view of product-complexity
• Policy strategy based on analysed warranty and quality planning

• Methods to bind product design quality and supplier quality
• Mapping product content to supplier specifications to model expected quality of product
• Methods to bind subsystem quality to supplier quality
• Impact of technology and interoperable systems on strategic quality
• Optimising quality feedback process/time/accuracy/efficiencies

• Intangibles related to quality

• Quantifying intangibles (resale, perception)
• Models to capture customer behaviour/satisfaction
• Methods to build positive perception, credibility

• Warranty as an attribute of trade-off in multi-objective multidisciplinary corporate negotiations

• Math-based techniques to perform trade-off
• Physics based trade-off models (physical relations to product content and packaging, performance etc.)
• Translating product QRD (quality, reliability and durability) to warranty attributes (for forecasting warranty)

• Robust quality (insensitive to handling range)

• Product decomposition engineering
• Warranty sensitivity models to product content, manufacturing, sourcing (evaluating quality elasticities)
• Optimal product content for product families/architectures - impact on long term corporate strategic quality

• Quality control - relation to process capability and impact of manufacturing, field test, reporting
• Quality/warranty information collation techniques, automated data processing systems and strategies
• Quality packaging for an integrated enterprise [wrapping part planning, inventory, development, sales, warranty under one umbrella]; non-conventional methodologies for quality modeling and analysis
• Quality-based design feedback process - from service technician to designer to policy maker
• Quality glidepath and relation to product/process scalability addressing how the expected warranty fluctuates during product development
• Quality from a business angle: warranty promotions and its expected impact on sales as a key enabler for product planning

Related Areas:

• Supplier-manufacturer quality equations, collaborative methods and environments. sourcing, market decisions and their impact on quality
• Impact of product development quality on emerging markets; warranty strategy as an organisational behavior
• Critical systems warranty (impact-severity driven methods and decisions); electronic systems warranty
• Impact of technology on warranty and overall quality
• Warranty time study: warranty service studies and analysis during different time-windows; techniques for launch-time warranty control to achieve better first-time-quality (FTQ)

Any other relevant topical area

Submission deadline: 30 November, 2008
Notification of Acceptance: 30 December, 2008
Submission of Final Manuscript: 28 February, 2009

Call for papers: Understanding Determinants and Effects of Entrepreneurship: Individual and Environmental Perspectives

Call for papers: Understanding Determinants and Effects of Entrepreneurship: Individual and Environmental Perspectives

A special issue of International Journal of Business Environment

Entrepreneurship is increasingly important as an academic and research focus. Nowadays, the role of business creation on growth, development, employment and innovation is generally accepted. Based on these economic and social influences, the special issue aims to contribute to the understanding of the determinants and effects of entrepreneurial activity.

It focuses on the determinants and effects of business creation process. This process is undertaken by individuals or entrepreneurial teams that have their own human and social capital, cognitive properties and particular circumstances, but are also immersed in a specific context with social, cultural, political and economic characteristics.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to:

• Entrepreneurial opportunities: existence, discovery, exploitation
• Perceptions, attitudes and intentions
• Human and social capital
• Environmental factors: economic, political and socio-cultural context
• Nascent entrepreneurs
• Regional and cultural differences
• Economic and social effects of entrepreneurial activity
• Conceptual models related to determinants and effects

Important Date
Paper submission deadline: 31 January, 2009

Call for papers: Reshaping Central Banking: Monetary Policy, Lending of Last Resort and Banking Supervision

Call for papers: Reshaping Central Banking: Monetary Policy, Lending of Last Resort and Banking Supervision

A special issue of International Journal of Banking, Accounting and Finance

In a period of rapid innovation and structural changes in the national financial industries, the activity of the central banks in different fields – monetary policy, lending of last resort, payment system, currency markets, banking supervision – as well as their organisation – independence, accountability, transparency – is also changing rapidly. Assessing and addressing these developments has raised important questions that required effective answers by policymakers and central bankers.

This special issue, jointly promoted with the Paolo Baffi Centre for Central Banking and Financial Regulation (Bocconi University), welcomes unpublished papers which discuss the positive as well as normative implications

The special issue will focus on the economics and politics of central banking. Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Monetary policy
• Lending of last resort
• Payment systems
• Currency markets and banking supervision
• Central banking governance

Theoretical and empirical papers – with policy implications – which explore causes and effects of the actual evolution of central banking welcomed.

Important Date
Deadline for submissions of completed papers: 1 December 2008

Call for papers: Novelty Developments in Materials and Technologies in the Multidimensional Construction Sector

Call for papers: Novelty Developments in Materials and Technologies in the Multidimensional Construction Sector

A special issue of International Journal of Materials and Product Technology

This special issue addresses topics of interest to all industrialists and researchers concerned with innovative materials and technologies in the construction industry. The multidimensional approach to the construction sector will be undertaken through the study of the materials performance, the analysis of new strengthening techniques of decayed structures, the sustainable value application methodologies in construction sector, the re-use and valorisation of industrial by-products such us raw materials in construction (mainly in concrete) and the structural analysis of structures.

As stated in the Materials Focus Area of the ECTP (European Construction Technology Platform), for any kind of construction building, materials (concrete, stone, polymers, composites, etc.) are needed. The total amount of materials required for construction purposes in Europe exceeds 2 billion tonnes per year, making it the largest raw material consuming industry. The materials form an essential part of the buildings we live and work in; the roads, in bridges and tunnels we use to move around and in the networks of drinking and waste water etc. Materials, and their combinations, create the aesthetic expression and provide structural strength and durability to all buildings and structures.

Construction materials have an important role to play in sustainable development through their energy performance and durability, as this determines the energy demand of buildings through the lifetime. By developing the use of materials and their combinations, significant improvements of the environment and quality of life can be achieved. Any strategy to achieve economic, ecologic and social objectives within Europe must include measures to improve functionality, durability and efficiency of materials used for construction.

New technologies and analytical techniques offer a wide spectrum of opportunities for further improvements. One main obstacle hindering an efficient development of knowledge is the fragmentation of research activities, both on industrial and academic level. Improved coordination of RTD activities and networking between all interest groups therefore offers huge potential to gain speed in the development of fundamental understanding, thus enabling breakthrough innovations.

This special issue invites the submission of high quality research papers related to analytical and experimental topics of traditional and modern construction materials (stone, cement, composites, etc.), their application to main typologies of structures (masonry, concrete, etc.) and their agreement with sustainable requisites.

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

• Study of the materials performance: mechanical and durability behaviour
• Construction advanced materials and technologies
• Construction materials selection
• New strengthening solutions in concrete and masonry elements
• The sustainable value analysis methodologies in construction materials and structures
• Re-use and valorisation of industrial by-products such us raw materials in construction sector, mainly in cement, mortar and concrete
• Structural analysis
• Structural safety
• Innovative approaches in concrete strengthening with fibre reinforced polymers
• Textile reinforced mortars in masonry and concrete refurbishment structures
• Graffiti protection in stone structures
• Strengthening of structures with reinforced micro-concrete layers
• Strengthening of structures with steel expanded mesh
• Strengthening of rubble and ordered stone masonry
• Static and dynamic responses of masonry and concrete structures

Important Dates
Deadline for authors to submit the first draft of their papers: 1 December 2008
Refereeing process and to inform authors about any changes requested by referees: 1 February 2009
Authors to resubmit the final manuscript, incorporating any changes requested by referees: 1 May 2009

Special issue: Applications, services and infrastructure for wireless and mobile computing

International Journal of Wireless and Mobile Computing 3(1/2) 2008

• An adaptive reservation time division multiple access control protocol for robot inter-communication
• A directional propagation model for locating mobile stations within a mobile phone network
• Real-time traffic routing over a multilayered satellite architecture
• Providing transparent internet mobility for dual-interfaced mobile devices
• Ubiquitous sensor-based human behaviour recognition using the spatio-temporal representation of user states
• Load sharing and session preservation with multiple mobile routers for large scale mobile networks
• A self-organising algorithm for sensor placement in wireless mobile microsensor networks
• Indexing schemes for multichannel data broadcasting in mobile databases
• A new VoIP quality evaluation for 60 GHz wireless campus network
• A mobile auction service based on mobile agents: design and analysis

Special issue: Services innovation

International Journal of Services Technology and Management 9(3/4) 2008

• Shaping R&D and services innovation in Europe
• Customer-based innovation of knowledge e-services: the importance of after-innovation
• Capturing the benefits of open innovation in public innovation: a case study
• Skills, expertise and innovation in the developing knowledge economy: the case of business and professional services
• Intellectual property protection as a key driver of service innovation: an analysis of innovative KIBS businesses in Finland and the UK
• A model for analysing the innovation dynamic in services: the case of 'assembled' services
• Innovation in large-scale retailing: towards a revisited approach to its organising principles and trajectories
• When innovating services, are 12 Ps enough? Towards a design oriented framework
• Is there a rationale for services R&D and innovation policies?

Special issue: Changes in society, changes in organisations, and the changing role of HRM: managing human resources in a complex world

European Journal of International Management 2(3) 2008

Includes papers from the 9th International Human Resource Management Conference held in Tallinn, Estonia from 12-15 June 2007

• Moscow on the Hudson: assessing expatriates' affective fit in host cultures with the intercultural communication affinity scale
• Organisational change under transcultural project leadership: developing a survey instrument
• How to get employees to work with you, not just for you: an action model and propositions
• Human resource challenges of global offshoring
• Organisational training and development in the European context: a longitudinal comparative study among 18 European countries
• From social capital to human resource development: a cross cultural study of the role of HRM in innovation and entrepreneurship in high technology organisations
• Is a happy nation a productive nation? An exploration of the relationship between job satisfaction and productivity at the national level

Call for papers: Advances in Tribology in Metal Manufacturing

Call for papers: Advances in Tribology in Metal Manufacturing

A special issue of International Journal of Surface Science and Engineering

Metal manufacturing, such as metal rolling, forging, extrusion, stamping and so on, is an essential process for mass production. All the processes involve surface contact mechanics and tribology. Compared to many relatively old and well established basic engineering subjects, e.g., thermodynamics, mechanics and plasticity, tribology is still in an imperfect state and subject to some controversy which has impeded the diffusion of information to technologists in general. In particular, the development of tribology in metal manufacturing is still ongoing and the new knowledge, fundamental principles, experimental and simulation skills are continuously generated in this field.

The goal of this special issue is to present to the researchers and engineers in this technical community a state-of-the-art development of tribology applications in metal manufacturing.

Papers fall into, but are not limited to, the following areas:

• Friction in metal manufacturing
• Lubrication in metal manufacturing
• Tools wear in metal manufacturing
• Tribology in micro- and nano- manufacturing
• Surface characterisation of metal manufacturing
• Surface oxidation in hot metal rolling
• Modelling of surface texture in metal manufacturing
• Modelling of contact mechanics in metal manufacturing

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

Call for papers: Biomass Energy Conversion Technologies

Call for papers: Biomass Energy Conversion Technologies

A special issue of International Journal of Global Energy Issues

The main objective of this special issue is to address issues related to theory and experimental research in the field of biomass energy conversion technologies, including conversion technologies, techno-economic assessment, and case studies of biomass energy in the world.

The topics of this Special Issue include, but are not limited to:

• Direct combustion technology of biomass
• Thermo-chemical conversion technologies
• Bio-chemical conversion technologies
• Techno-economical assessment of biomass energy technology
• Case study of biomass energy in developing countries.

Important Dates
Submission by: 22 September, 2008
Review process by: 22 November, 2008
Revised submissions by: 22 December, 2008

Inderscience and the 2009 International Sports Management Conference

The International Journal of Sports Management and Marketing is an official media partner for the 2009 International Sports Management Conference: Innovative Solutions for Administration, Facilities, Events, Legal Aspects, Marketing and Technology in Sport to be held in Lausanne, Switzerland 6-8 May 2009.