Research pick: Journalists trusting websites - "Website user experience model: testing on journalists"

Journalists tend to be a cynical bunch, it comes with the job – ever questioning. As such, they are rather demanding of their sources and the trustworthiness of websites and brands. Research from Indonesia in the International Journal of Web Engineering and Technology describes a model of website user experience that has now been tested on journalists.

Journalists, of course, need to make judgements as to the trustworthiness of a website, especially when seeking information and sources during an investigation. However, they are not the only user group for whom “brand” trust is important, the same applies to people from all walks of life, whether shopping online, studying, making political choices, seeking out entertainment, or other activities.

Purwadi Purwadi of the Research Center for Society and Culture at the National Research and Innovation Agency and Irwansyah Irwansyah of the Faculty of Social Science and Political Science at the Universitas Indonesia, explain how they used partial least square-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) for data processing techniques and hypothesis testing on a survey of 300 journalists.

The team found that there was a significant correlation between the user experience, measured by six components and trust in the brand associated with the website. Those six components are site access speed, culture, design, hedonic, public value, usability, user value, and user emotions. Their second model showed that access speed, user value, and user emotion also correlated with brand trust. Of course, perceived trustworthiness based on such variables as page load speed and access times on a website are not necessarily a true reflection of whether or not the given site is trustworthy. A slow site may simply have technical issues that have not been overcome rather than that technical deficit reflecting poor content. That said, a site that does not look after its technical side, as well as its content, may well be a less worthy resource as such a lack of attention to detail in the technical area may reflect a similar lack of attention to content. The team recommends the use of the first model with its greater number of variables for future studies of the website user experience.

Purwadi, P. and Irwansyah, I. (2022) ‘Website user experience model: testing on journalists’, Int. J. Web Engineering and Technology, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp.63–87.

New Editors for International Journal of Information and Operations Management Education

Dr. Luna Leoni from the University of Rome "Tor Vergata" in Italy has been appointed to take over editorship of the International Journal of Information and Operations Management Education. She will be joined by Dr. Matteo Cristofaro, who will take on the role of Executive Editor.

Research pick: Recruiting Nigerian Facebook users - "Association rule mining for job seekers’ profiles based on personality traits and Facebook usage"

Might an analyse of social media use and connections help employers find the right employee? New work in the International Journal of Business Information Systems, has used association rule mining to analyse job seekers’ profiles and activity on Facebook to determine personality traits that might be matched to a given job by a putative employer.

An international team of researchers from Finland, Ghana, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Sweden, and the USA explains how personality traits play a significant part in the suitability of an employee for a particular role. They suggest how Facebook use might be analysed to help match unemployed users of the social networking site with an appropriate job. The team looked at data from 3000 unemployed Facebook users in Nigeria. Association rule mining allowed them to extract useful information and identify interesting characteristics and traits that might otherwise remain hidden or not be discernible from a job seeker’s application form or resume. The team focused on a particular sector, that which employs public relations officers (PROs), marketers, and advertisers.

The team discusses earlier work from Italy that used an alternative approach to profiling unemployed Facebook users there. They now write that “Much research has been done in the area of Web usage clustering, with the issues involved in data mining for extraction of web navigation patterns, ordering relationships, prediction of web surfing behaviour, and clustering of web user sessions based on weblogs.” Nigeria is one of the biggest users of Facebook in Africa, however, and so should provide useful information above and beyond what might be gleaned from web use.

The team demonstrated that sentences and phrases used on the social networking site can reveal correlations with particular personality traits such as conscientiousness and agreeability. Given that employers commonly look to social media as a pre-selection tool before calling prospective job candidates to interview, the development of an analytical approach that might improve and validate this screening approach could be very welcome among human resource managers and recruiters. Moreover, there has been a degree of stagnation in the rising employment rates in many developing nations, such as Nigeria, new tools to help remedy this, COVID-19 impact notwithstanding, are urgently needed

Olaleye, S.A., Ukpabi, D.C., Olawumi, O., Atsa’am, D.D., Agjei, R.O., Oyelere, S.S., Sanusi, I.T., Agbo, F.J., Balogun, O.S., Gbadegeshin, S.A., Adegbite, A. and Kolog, E.A. (2022) ‘Association rule mining for job seekers’ profiles based on personality traits and Facebook usage’, Int. J. Business Information Systems, Vol. 40, No. 3, pp.299–326.

Research pick: A flock of seagulls improves edge computing - "Using seagull optimisation algorithm to select mobile service in cloud and edge computing environment"

A new algorithmic approach based on the behaviour of gulls that could improve edge computing is discussed in the International Journal of Web Engineering and Technology.

While the enthusiasm for cloud computing has not blown over, there adjuncts to the services it provides that have already come over the horizon to bring certain aspects of “cloud” closer to the user – so-called edge computing. By bringing certain resources closer to the user’s own computer, edge computing can improve performance and reduce lag, or latency, between user command and system response. However, increasing demands on edge services mean that their great promise might not be fulfilled in an increasingly connected and mobile world.

Feilong Yu, Jing Li, Ming Zhu, and Xiukun Yan of the College of Computer Science and Technology at Shandong University of Technology in Zibo, China, have proposed a service-selection model the cloud and edge-computing environments. “The proposed model combines the seagull optimisation algorithm and the simulated annealing algorithm,” the team explains. The seagull algorithm encodes the migratory and attack behaviour of gulls in such a way that it can be used to solve problems such as the assigning and routing of computational resources. The use of the simulated annealing algorithm in conjunction with the seagull algorithm will help the system avoid the local maximum and premature convergence problems, which are often the bane of other approaches to similar problems.

The team has carried out comparative experiments on simulated datasets with referencing to some other service selection models and have demonstrated that the proposed selection model improves QoS (Quality of Service) and requires fewer iterations. Such a boost to edge computing will improve the performance of software and applications that utilise natural-language processing, facial recognition, and video processing all of which are what the team describes as “delay-sensitive and demand-intensive”.

The next step is to demonstrate proof of principle with a real-world setup and then to optimise the approach in terms of minimising energy consumption to address the issues of processing energy requirements, idle power, and leakage of power.

Yu, F., Li, J., Zhu, M. and Yan, X. (2022) ‘Using seagull optimisation algorithm to select mobile service in cloud and edge computing environment’, Int. J. Web Engineering and Technology, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp.88–114.

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Web Engineering and Technology

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Web Engineering and Technology are now available here for free:

• Toward a better understanding of intentionality in service engineering: a systematic review
• A fusion of aspect and contextual information for rating prediction in recommender system using a latent factor model
• Zero-shot image classification based on factor space

Special issue published: "Intelligent Control for Future and Complex Systems"

International Journal of Modelling, Identification and Control 40(3) 2022

• Robust hybrid controller for quadrotor UAV under disturbances
• Black widow optimisation-based controller design for Riverol-Pilipovik water treatment system
• Digital implementation of model predictive control of an inverter for electric vehicles applications
• Experimental and numerical study of the influence of FFF process parameters on the flexural A study on photovoltaic charging strategy of electric vehicles with multi-objective constraints
• Research on the emerging mechanism of complex networks community dividing based on cellular automata
• Investigation and realisation of PID and LQR control methods in Parrot Mambo minidrone
• Hybrid fuzzy level set approach for multiple sclerosis lesions assessment in magnetic resonance brain images
• An optimal control problem associated with Lorentz group SO(3; 1)

Research pick: Can academics ever truly retire? - "Intentions towards work post-retirement: a mediator-moderator analysis through job satisfaction and age"

It seems like an oxymoron – working in retirement. And, yet there will be many people who are either forced into working because of finances after they reach statutory retirement age or choose to carry on working, perhaps in an entirely different area to their career. One particular group of people who often choose to continue working into retirement are those in academia. They may feel that do not want to succumb to an arbitrary endpoint to their career and provided a role is still there for them, they will remain active in academia.

Preeti Tarkar and Somesh Dhamija of the Institute of Business Management at GLA University in Mathura, India, have looked at job satisfaction and age and how these moderate work, post-retirement among academics. They published details in the International Journal of Human Resources Development and Management.

The team’s survey of retired academics points to a need to understand the intentions of experienced academics and to allow find ways to allow those that wish to work after notional retirement to do so. This is especially pertinent in India, Tarkar and Dhamija suggest that given an aging population and a likely fall in the number of young people over the next ten years. It is likely that there will be a shortfall of qualified academics.

However given the changes that have occurred in academia in recent years, wherein teaching and research are often given less prominence for senior academics who must also subsume managerial and administrative duties, it will be interesting to see how the situation pans out. After all, are “retired” academics who enjoyed teaching and/or research likely to be satisfied with a role that focuses on management and administration. Of course, it might be that those not at retirement age take on more of those duties leaving the older academics free to fulfill non-administrative roles. Job satisfaction will be a critical component of persuading the retired to continue in work to plug the putative workforce gaps.

Tarkar, P. and Dhamija, S. (2022) ‘Intentions towards work post-retirement: a mediator-moderator analysis through job satisfaction and age’, Int. J. Human Resources Development and Management, Vol. 22, Nos. 3/4, pp.180–196.

New Editor for International Journal of Computational Intelligence Studies

Prof. Paolo Crippa from the Università Politecnica delle Marche in Italy has been appointed to take over editorship of the International Journal of Computational Intelligence Studies.

Special issue published: "Harnessing the Power of Contemporary Global Business Research on the Global Stage"

Journal for Global Business Advancement 14(6) 2021

• Japanese multinational corporations and corporate tax change
• Building marketing intelligence capability with the internet of things for competitiveness: empirical evidence of selected retail companies in Oman
• Relevance of DOI and TOE for assessing FinTech adoption by banks: comparative analysis between Egypt and Bahrain
• Examining perceptions of American and Omani university students towards ethical behaviour of entrepreneurs and business managers
• Stigmatised minorities: an explorative study into the challenges of Muslim women entrepreneurs
• The mediation role of brand trust and satisfaction between brand image and loyalty

Research pick: Australian international education - "A critical review of Australia’s China-dominant education supply chain"

In 2019, international education in Australia generated more than 40 billion Australian dollars. Just under a third of that came from students from China. However, the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw Australia close its doors to international visitors essentially halted that revenue stream for the country. Although there is a notion that we are nearing a post-pandemic world, ongoing geopolitical tensions between Australia and China may well somewhat thwart efforts at recovery in the international education sector.

Writing in the International Journal of Agile Systems and Management, Mamta B. Chowdhury of the School of Business (Economics, Finance and Property) at Western Sydney University in Penrith, New South Wales has examined just how much dependency there has been on student visitors from China and how those geopolitical tensions and the effects of the pandemic might affect the future. She makes policy recommendations that emphasise greater diversification of the education sector and improvements in its supply chain management.

Chowdhury points out that since increasing globalization in the middle of the 1980s, there has been increasing attention in research to international education as international student numbers rose. The quality of education and opportunities that developed nations can offer students from developing nations have brought many millions of students to those countries. While in education, they, of course, boost the host nation’s economy, and on returning to their home country, their new skills and experience help bolster growth and development there. It is, in the modern vernacular, a win-win situation. Australia has been at the forefront of attracting international students and has benefited significantly from that increased diversity in higher education as well as reaping the financial rewards.

Indeed, there had been double-digit growth in international student numbers in Australia since around 2014. International education was Australia’s third biggest “export” after iron ore and coal, in 2018. In December 2019, just as the novel coronavirus, later known as SARS-CoV-2 and the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were almost a million international students enrolled to study in Australia. The numbers fell significantly with the pandemic so that in 2020, there were almost 10 per cent fewer students than in December 2019. 28% of those students originated from China, India (17%), Nepal (8%), Vietnam (4%), and Brazil (3%) across all educational disciplines.

The shocks of a pandemic or geopolitical tensions should serve as a warning, however, to the Australian system that reliance on a particular market within the sector could stifle growth. There is a need for greater diversity and for policymakers to manage the supply chain to help increase growth.

“Designing and implementing forward-looking approaches in diversifying the market in a timely fashion and appropriate intertwined education, employment and immigration policies might facilitate the transfer of valuable foreign exchange earnings into the education sector,” writes Chowdhury. Ultimately, this will in turn improve trade and alliances, as well as strategic and diplomatic relationships between Australia and those countries that enjoy the benefits of its education system.

Chowdhury, M.B. (2022) ‘A critical review of Australia’s China-dominant education supply chain’, Int. J. Agile Systems and Management, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp.147–166.

Free sample articles newly available from African Journal of Economic and Sustainable Development

The following sample articles from the African Journal of Economic and Sustainable Development are now available here for free:

• Child's well-being and parents' employment status in Nigeria
• Chinese businesses and transnational knowledge transfer under constrained environment: results from the field in Ghana
• Testing the environmental Kuznets curve in selected West African countries: empirical evidence estimation
• Manufacturing in Africa: an example from Zambia
• The effect of household income on child welfare clinic attendance in Ghana

Special issue published: "Technology Advances in Internet of Things Learning and Teaching"

International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning 32(4) 2022

• Research on modelling and analysis of factors influencing students' classroom communication ability based on support vector machine
• An interactive practice platform of English mobile teaching in colleges and universities based on open API
• The advantage resources mining of practical English with internet of things technology
• A new hybrid teaching platform for college English based on IoT
• Information exchange platform for digital art teaching in colleges and universities based on internet of things technology
• Research on the reform of English teaching mode and analysis of teaching efficiency based on QFD theory model
• Multi-interaction English teaching platform based on internet of things

Additional paper

• Students as researchers: towards redefining undergraduate projects

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Agile Systems and Management

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Agile Systems and Management are now available here for free:

• Hospital 4.0 roadmap: an agile implementation guideline for hospital manager
• A structured approach to large and medium scale business change: a resource orchestration perspective
• Performance metrics in scrum software engineering companies
• Agile information technology service management with DevOps: an incident management case study
• A framework to promote social sustainability in industry 4.0
• Critical factors in information technology capability for enhancing firm's environmental performance: case of Indonesian ICT sector
• Multidisciplinary design automation – a conceptual framework for working with product model extensions
• Knowledge management support in the engineering change process in small and medium-sized companies
• A systemic approach to applying asset orchestration theory
• A human factors assessment model for sustainable manufacturing

Special issue published: "Computer Applications in Technology and its Role in Education with an Economic Impact"

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology 68(3) 2022

• Efficient residential load forecasting using deep learning approach
• Fake profile recognition using big data analytics in social media platforms
• Comparative study of satellite multispectral image data processing with MapReduce and classification algorithm
• Improving software performance by automatic test cases through genetic algorithm
• Towards an enhanced user experience with critical system interfaces in middle-eastern countries: a case study of usability evaluation of Saudi Arabia's weather interface system (Arsad)
• Management techniques and methods of total quality management implementation in management institutions of Odisha
• Application of hazard identification and risk assessment for reducing the occupational accidents in firework industries - specific reference to Sivakasi
• Flight web searches analytics through big data
• The electrical circuit of a new seven-dimensional system with 21 boundaries and the phenomenon of complete synchronisation
• An expert system-based IoT system for minimisation of air pollution in developing countries
• An empirical study for customer relationship management in banking sector using machine learning techniques
• Data visualisation using augmented reality for education system
• Design of QoS on data collection in wireless sensor network for automation process
• Application of information technology to e-commerce

Research pick: Securing a demographic in a pandemic - "COVID-19-induced financial anxiety and state of the subjective wellbeing among the Bangladeshi middle class: the effects of demographic conditions"

Very few people have been completely unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the developing world, where a burgeoning middle-class was hauling itself out of the poverty trap of its ancestors, we might expect the detrimental effects of the pandemic to have been felt more harshly than for the well-off in the developed world.

Writing in the International Journal of Happiness and Development, A.F.M. Jalal Ahamed of the School of Business at the University of Skövde in Sweden has considered the financial anxieties and subjective well-being of the middle-class of Bangladesh. In this part of the world, as with many developing areas, the middle class commonly falls out of focus during times of crisis.

Ahamed has turned his focus on this demographic and found a worrying state of affairs that should help policymakers in the future ensure that those in this group who are actually on lower incomes are not abandoned. If they are, then there is the risk that such educated workers and consumers will accumulate problems, mental health issues, relationship troubles and potentially fall into the poverty trap that cumulative issues can bring in the developing and developed world, but that are starker in the former.

The research suggests that as well as helping those in the lower classes during a crisis, there is also a need to help those who might be perceived as well off, who suffer too and to put in place universal job security insurance and financial counselling for employees in the post-pandemic world. It was obvious that during the height of the pandemic, lockdowns, firm closures, reduced consumption, limited social interactions, disrupted supply chains, and insufficient medical support would all contribute to a heightened sense of anxiety for everyone.

The aspirational demographic might face its own risks, perhaps hidden from view, while policymakers attempt to assist those in severe poverty. Without a thriving middle-class, however, Ahamed suggests, the notion of “developing” might be stalled or even come to a halt. It should be pointed out that in this country, an income of just over US$700 and up to about $7000 per annum is considered middle-class, $2 to $20 dollars a day. However, Ahamed’s study also considered education and culture as criteria for defining the middle-class demographic rather than simply income.

COVID-19 is not the first pandemic, nor will it be the last. Its impact will be felt for many years to come and will inevitably overlap with the next major, international crisis. Ahamed suggests that the developing world needs to be prepared if it is to fulfill its aspirations and that will likely involve securing its middle class.

Jalal Ahamed, A.F.M. (2022) ‘COVID-19-induced financial anxiety and state of the subjective wellbeing among the Bangladeshi middle class: the effects of demographic conditions’, Int. J. Happiness and Development, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp.142–158.

Free open access article available: "Process concatenation to reduce thermal changes in machine tools"

The following paper, "Process concatenation to reduce thermal changes in machine tools" (International Journal of Mechatronics and Manufacturing Systems 15(2/3) 2022), is freely available for download as an open access article.

It can be downloaded via the full-text link available here.

Special issue published: "Artificial Intelligence in Advanced Manufacturing" (includes Open Access article)

International Journal of Mechatronics and Manufacturing Systems 15(2/3) 2022

• Performance improvement techniques for neural networks in tool condition monitoring
• Machine learning approaches towards digital twin development for machining systems
• Hybrid finite elements method-artificial neural network approach for hardness prediction of AA6082 friction stir welded joints
• Process concatenation to reduce thermal changes in machine tools [OPEN ACCESS]
• Preliminary study for the development of an autonomous system for emulating mandibular bone drilling
• Structured light-based dynamic 3D measurement system for cold-formed steel hollow sections

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Vehicle Design

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Vehicle Design are now available here for free:

• Design and fatigue analysis of an aluminium alloy aerodynamic wheel
• Implementation of design for six sigma methodology on the car bumper production process
• Robust model referenced control for vehicle rollover prevention with time-varying speed
• Quantifying parameters of the seat-occupant interface during simulated low speed rear-impact collisions
• Morphing applications in automobiles: a review

Special issue published: "Managing International Political Risk: Arising Challenges for Multinationals in the Post COVID-19 World"

European Journal of International Management 18(2/3) 2022

• A configurational approach to explain non-market strategies in emerging economies
• The effects of home country political risk and uncertainty on the financial performance of firms
• So, what comes next? Company's uncertainty on regulatory void over Brexit: the case of Polish companies
• The response of EU trade dependent firms to the globalisation backlash
• Regulatory uncertainty and foreign subsidiary strategic proactiveness: an institutional approach
• A tale of two international strategies: how telecom operators of the European Union and the USA dealt with the political-institutional environment after the global financial crisis
• Project finance and recourse loans: determining debt choices in political, economic and financial risk positions under global perspective

Additional papers

• The reliability of information systems in organisation as a source of competitive advantage
• Educational credentials and career success of CEOs of Latin American firms
• Psychic distance, marketing strategy adaptation and export performance: the role of international experience
• An analysis of the socioeconomic characteristics determining religious choice

Research pick: Streaming to the cinema show - "Analysis of the factors that determine cinema attendance"

Technology has brought the cinema to our homes. Huge screens, powerful sound systems, projectors, streaming services, and even active seating and other novelties, have all conspired to keep many cinemagoers away from the traditional venues for watching movies. This coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic that had many of us confined to our homes for the sake of personal and public health also reduced cinema attendance significantly and whether numbers are rising again in the purported post-pandemic era remains to be seen.

Research in the International Journal of Entertainment Technology and Management has looked closely at what factors determine whether or not people become active cinemagoers. Marta Batlle-Beltrán and Manuel Mateo of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain, suggest that those who run cinemas must offer much greater added value than ever before at a reasonable price in order to entice people back to the traditional Saturday night at the movies.

Of course, there remain many good reasons why people will still pay to go to the movies – the scale of the screen and the big sound, the social side, the peripheral activities such as drinking and dining before, after, and during the cinema show, an escape from domesticity, and the anticipation of novelty and difference.

The team found through a comprehensive survey that factors such as comfort, service, and facilities were strong influencers of whether or not they would choose to watch a movie at the cinema, especially given that generally, the same movies may well be available via streaming services, if not immediately, then within a few months of theatrical release. They also found that older people were generally more inclined to go to the cinema and with the right enticements might become loyal regulars.

Batlle-Beltrán, M. and Mateo, M. (2022) ‘Analysis of the factors that determine cinema attendance’, Int. J. Entertainment Technology and Management, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp.201–221.