Research Pick: Managing the UK’s coasts - "Coastal and estuarine management in the UK: review and overview of perspectives"

The United Kingdom is surrounded by the sea. As such its coasts and estuaries are geographically, economically, socially, and militarily important to the nation’s character, infrastructure, growth, and development.

How the UK manages its coasts and estuaries will be critical in the face of a changing political complexion, climate change, socioeconomic upheaval, and of course geological effects such as erosion. Of the UK’s 17,380 kilometre coastline, 3,008 km is suffering erosion and an additional 3,185 km is protected by engineering structures.

“A complex interaction of physical factors (sea-level change, geomorphology, storminess, waves, tides, near shore current) and human factors (land reclamation, river regulation works, unregulated dredging, etc.) are shaping the UK coastline through the dynamic process of erosion and accretion,” researchers explain in the journal Interdisciplinary Environmental Review.

It is important that they have now reviewed coastal and estuarine management practices with a view to feeding back new understanding to the stakeholders.

Oyedotun, T.D.T. (2018) ‘Coastal and estuarine management in the UK: review and overview of perspectives’, Interdisciplinary Environmental Review, Vol. 19, No. 2, pp.103–110.

Research Pick: Predicting urban sprawl - "A fuzzy classification model for identification of potential areas of urban sprawl"

The proportion of the global population that lives in towns and cities has risen from one in fifty, two centuries ago, to approximately half of all people today.

This radical shift from rural to urban life is an especially pressing problem for developing nations, such as India, where mega cities with uncontrolled, unauthorised, uncoordinated, and unplanned urban growth – urban sprawl – are discovering serious health and safety problems for their citizens in terms of infrastructure demands, traffic and other pollution, and waste and sewage disposal, as well as the obvious pressures of increased population density and demands on food, water, and other resources.

A team from India is now using a fuzzy classification model to help identify areas that might succumb to problematic urban sprawl. They have tested their model with satellite imagery of the city of Jaipur and demonstrated that critically it can distinguish between urban and semi-urban areas and how urban sprawl is emerging.

Sisodia, P.S., Shekhawat, R.S. and Tiwari, V. (2018) ‘A fuzzy classification model for identification of potential areas of urban sprawl’, Int. J. Society Systems Science, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp.171–181.

Special issue published: "Developments and Issues in Medical Imaging"

International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology 27(4) 2018

• Region-based seed point cell segmentation and detection for biomedical image analysis
• Rapid estimation of object movements in magnetic induction tomography
• Domain-specific approach for segmentation of nucleus-cytoplasm in bone cancer histopathology for malignancy analysis
• A new neural network method for peripheral vestibular disorder recognition using VNG parameter optimisation
• PET image reconstruction based on Bayesian inference regularised maximum likelihood expectation maximisation (MLEM) method

Special issue published: "Enterprise Information Systems"

International Journal of Agile Systems and Management 11(3) 2018

• Application of reconfigurable machine tools in the capacity control of job shop systems
• Towards the measurement of enterprise information systems agility to support EIS improving projects
• Heuristic and fuzzy scheduling synergy with knowledge acquisition of resource selection system development for home healthcare service
• ICT enabled collaborative e-health for cleft lip/palate treatment

Research Pick: Puffed up rice - "Study on the preparation and properties of puffing glutinous rice starch"

Researchers in China have developed a new method for “puffing” glutinous rice starch which produces a material with a water-absorbing nanotextured surface that might be exploited in oral pharmaceutical delivery and alternatively in the adhesives industry.

Glutinous rice starch is a well-known natural biopolymer widely used in the food industry as a raw material for cakes, dumplings, rice glue balls, and other food products. Its chemical character might readily be exploited in a range of environmentally benign and biodegradable non-food products, thanks to this new work.

Zhang, J-l., Yang, K. and Zhai, G-y. (2018) ‘Study on the preparation and properties of puffing glutinous rice starch’, Int. J. Nanomanufacturing, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp.219–231.

Special issue published: "Decision Support Models and Applications"

International Journal of Decision Support Systems 3(1/2) 2018

• An agent-based model to explore urban policies, pedestrian behaviour and walkability
• Development of a decision support tool for analysing the avian conservation measures in semi-arid region
• Decision support systems and strategic planning: information technology and SMEs' performance
• A multi-criteria-based ranking of Greek construction companies listed in Athens Stock Exchange using investment ratios
• An intelligent decision support system for managing natural and man-made disasters

Additional papers

• A tradeoff analysis between socio-economic efficiency and environmental performance of irrigated agriculture
• Service quality assessment in retail industry: some evidence from supermarkets in Greece

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Decision Support Systems

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

• An efficient and refined minimum spanning tree approach for large water distribution system
• Implementation of parametric design philosophy into industrial production line simulation for c-Si PV modules
• Resource levelling using genetic algorithms for a power plant boiler construction project
• Development and use of a model for the investigation of energy and emission aspects on the Athens-Thessaloniki rail intermodal freight transport
• Risk assessment of ship-to-ship transfer operations based on stochastic criteria evaluation and intervally scaled importance weights
• Evaluating the performance of a merge supply network with supplier interruptions
• Balancing setup workers' load of flexible job shop scheduling using hybrid genetic algorithm with tabu search strategy
• Occupational health and safety within corporate social responsibility context: a balanced scorecard dynamic decision making model
• Critical success factors in the TBL concept of sustainable entrepreneurship
• Optimal trading strategy under linear-percentage temporary impact price dynamics with conditional value-at-risk as timing risk measure
• Nash type games in competitive facilities location

Themed Issue on: "Management Innovation In SMEs"

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business 35(1) 2018

• Integrated software deployment and management innovation: a bricolage perspective
• The generation of management innovation in microentreprises: absorptive capacity and entrepreneur-CPA relationship
• The concept of management innovation: definition, state of the art and future research avenues
• Categorising the internationalisation of SMEs with social network analysis
• Entrepreneurship: an insomniac discipline? An empirical study on SME owners/directors
• Understanding the international strategic alliances of SMEs: a case-study approach
• Growth constraints and management consulting: the case of SMEs in peripheral regions

Research Pick: Repurposing consumers - "Exploring how and why consumers create unintended uses of products"

People often find weird and wonderful alternative uses for the products they buy. For example, coal drinks have been used as household cleaner, construction toys such as Lego and Meccano are often used to ad lib rigs for a variety of purposes such as to support cameras, and of course many people “hack” their game consoles or other devices to do computational and communications jobs for which the device was not originally designed. And for many years, people have ripped old clothing into rags for a wide range of cleaning applications.

Understanding how and why consumers engage in such creative re-use, sometimes upcycling, is the focus of research from Thailand. The aim is to help manufacturers and their designers find new ways to build original products for the consumer market. There is also the need to educate consumers about repurposing specific products where there might be new health and safety risks associated with such change of use.

Wongkitrungrueng, A. (2018) ‘Exploring how and why consumers create unintended uses of products’, Int. J. Business Innovation and Research, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp.453–470.

Special Issue on: "Developments in Risk Management Using Fuzzy Set Techniques"

International Journal of Business Continuity and Risk Management 8(3) 2018

• An unsupervised classifier system using soft graph colouring
• Scatter search for the soft graph colouring problem
• PSO-3P for the portfolio optimisation problem
• A vehicle recall index and the sales impact by type of recall
• Expert's opinion impact on financial risk management
• Linguistic work quality index

International Journal of of Business and Emerging Markets to invite expanded papers from ABEM 5th International Conference for potential publication

Extended versions of papers presented at the Academy of Business and Emerging Markets (ABEM) 5th International Conference (7-9 August 2019, San José, Costa Rica) will be invited for review and potential publication by the International Journal of Business and Emerging Markets.

Special issue published: "Thermal Engineering Theory and Applications"

International Journal of Aerodynamics 6(2/3/4) 2018

• Effect of ternary nanoparticles fluid mixture in heat enhancement and heat storage
• Brinkman-Forchheimr model for fat accumulation in arterial wall
• A numerical analysis of casing groove parameters on the performance of wave energy conversion device
• Parametric study of operational PEM fuel cell using computational simulation, engineering applications of computational fluid mechanics
• An algorithm for optimal design and thermomechanical processing of high carbon bainitic steels
• Parametric optimisation of raised-floor data centres to enhance the thermal performance

Additional papers

• Experimental and numerical evaluation of the drag and lift forces on a scaled-down airfoil
• Aerodynamic aspects of a small UAV during VSTOL

Special issue published: "Recent Advances in Theory and Applications of Visual Intelligence"

International Journal of Computational Vision and Robotics 8(4) 2018

• Calibration and using a laser profile scanner for 3D robotic welding
• Content-based image retrieval using multiresolution speeded-up robust feature
• An image encryption algorithm using logarithmic function and Henon-chaotic function
• Support vector machine-based approach for text description from the video
• Detection of defective printed circuit boards using image processing
• Improved eigenspectrum regularisation for human activity recognition

Special Issue published: "Financial Development and Economic Policies in Emerging Economies"

International Journal of Economic Policy in Emerging Economies 11(3) 2018

• Downgrading employment of university graduates in Korea and policy implications
• Unexpected social performance and share returns in South African companies: an event study methodology
• Exploring optimal hedging strategy in Thai rice pledging scheme policy
• Investment aid as a catholicon for regional development in Slovakia?
• Determining the lowest loan-to-value ratio on commercial real estate investment
• Impact of underwriter reputation on the accounting conservatism of the IPO firm: South Korean cases
• The effect of internal auditor competence and objectivity, and management support on effectiveness of internal audit function and financial reporting quality implications at local government
• Guidelines for voluntourism development: a case study of undergraduate student activities in the Northeast of Thailand
• Housing property market and tourism accommodation in South Africa: time series analysis
• Food crops production efficiency analysis in Indonesia in 1971-2008

Research Pick: Open access challenges - "Is open access publishing a case of disruptive innovation?"

Open access journal publishing means different things to different people, whether author, editor, publisher, or reader. However, it is viewed it is a disruptive concept that seeks to change the way in which the traditional academic print literature with its centuries-old heritage is handled in today’s world of instant-access databases and online publishing.

Researchers in the West Indies have reviewed the major full-text aggregator databases and other secondary sources and conducted a thematic analysis. Through this research, they hope to identify the main issues involved in open access publishing and the question of its disruptive impact on the industry.

Critically, and perhaps paradoxically given the hyperbole and the activism surrounding Open Access, it is on the increase but academia is actually slow to adopt the concept more widely. Moreover, while there are indications that the traditional business models of publishers are being affected to some degree, it would be premature to claim that Open Access has achieved its potential as a disruptive force.

Allahar, H. (2018) ‘Is open access publishing a case of disruptive innovation?’, Int. J. Business Environment, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp.35–51.

Special issue published: "Real-Time Communication Issues in IoT Using Big Data Stream Computing"

International Journal of Grid and Utility Computing 9(3) 2018

• Investigation on association of self-esteem and students' performance in academics
• Consistent and effective energy utilisation of node model for securing data in wireless sensor networks
• Image encryption based on random scrambling and chaotic logistic map
• Predicting the soil profile through modified regression by discretisation algorithm for the crop yield in Trichy district, India
• A study on computing and e-learning in the perspective of distributed models
• A personalised user preference and feature based semantic information retrieval system in semantic web search

Regularly submitted papers

• An improved multi-instance multi-label learning algorithm based on representative instances selection and label correlations
• Improved quantisation mechanisms in impulse radio ultra wideband systems based on compressed sensing

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of High Performance Systems Architecture

The following sample articles from the International Journal of High Performance Systems Architecture are now available here for free:

• Multi-architecture profiler for Android
• Hardware design of parallel switch setting algorithm for Benes networks
• A novel high-performance and reliable multi-threshold CNFET full adder cell design
• CHILL: a system for fine-grained mapping of chained high impact long-latency load phases on tightly coupled heterogeneous multi-cores

Special issue published: "Applications of Optimisation in Finance"

International Journal of Financial Engineering and Risk Management 2(4) 2018

• Machine learning, economic regimes and portfolio optimisation
• Multi-period portfolio optimisation with alpha decay
• Asset-liability management and goal-based investing for retail business
• Factor-based optimisation and the creation/redemption mechanism of fixed income exchange-traded funds
• Why your smart beta portfolio might not work

Research Pick: Green manufacturing - "Bibliometric analysis of the term ‘green manufacturing"

The underlying concepts of green manufacturing seek to balance environmental concerns without loss of efficiency. Indeed, improvements in efficiency benefit any manufacturer in terms of reduced costs, lower energy bills, and less waste and so is a green motivator in itself. Now, researchers from Australia and Indonesia have reviewed dozens of research papers with a view to understanding what is meant by “green manufacturing” in more detail and how this term and concept are actually having an effect on industry. Overall, they found that the study of green manufacturing concepts is increasing but with special attention is now needed for more inter-regional research collaborations involving Asian researchers and other developing countries in specific sectors.

Setyaningsih, I., Indarti, N. and Jie, F. (2018) ‘Bibliometric analysis of the term ‘green manufacturing’’, Int. J. Management Concepts and Philosophy, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp.315–339.

Special issue published: "Information Systems in Support of Business Functions"

International Journal of Business Information Systems 29(1) 2018

• A user study on trust perception in persuasive technology
• E-collaborative learning experience, interdependencies of presences and learning outcomes: evidence of mediating and moderating effects
• Mobile decision support system with dynamic knowledge base using decision tree and case-based reasoning
• An investigation of factors influencing the intention to use mHealth apps for self-care
• Predicting generalised anxiety disorder among women using decision tree-based classification
• Business to customer (B2C) e-commerce implementation process: a case study experience in fashion and apparel business in Malaysia
• Toward Green IT adoption: from managerial perspective
• Validation of a multimodal interaction model for foot reflexology virtual reality stress therapy application