30 November 2009

Call for papers: European Perspectives on Talent Management

A special issue of European Journal of International Management

Since the late 1990s, the concept of talent management has gained increasing currency among practitioners and academics alike. Practitioner reports clearly indicate that talent management occupies a significant amount of senior managerial time and additionally that it is something which organisations find quite challenging. For example, a study conducted by the Boston Consulting Group in 2007 identified talent management as one of five key challenges facing the HR profession in Europe. However, the study also concluded that it was one of the challenges where the function was least competent. Thus, the topic is clearly of interest to practitioners.

From an academic perspective, talent management has been criticised for lacking conceptual and intellectual foundation, definition and rigour. However, a number of recent contributions have contributed to this emerging field and provided some theoretical framing for the study of talent management and appear to offer some optimism for the potential of the area to contribute to the study of the management of organisations.

This special issue is intended to contribute to this emerging theoretical and empirical base and to further advance the understanding of talent management. Specifically, it is intended to explore the nature of talent management in the European context. Given that the idea emerged in the North American context and that many of the leading academic contributions have emerged from there also, Europe represents an important context to explore talent management. We welcome empirical and theoretical papers which advance our knowledge of this important area.

The following list is indicative of the types of contributions which may be appropriate. However it is not intended to be exhaustive and rather is illustrative:
  • The linkage between talent management and organisational performance
  • Talent management in the context of the current economic climate
  • Talent management in Central and Eastern Europe
  • The transfer and standardisation of talent management systems in MNEs
  • The role of information systems in talent management
  • The interplay between talent management and knowledge management
  • How talent management is conceptualised and operationalised in different European contexts
  • The role employer branding in talent management
  • The linkages between talent management and corporate social responsibility
  • The language and rhetoric of talent management
  • The role of the line manager in talent management
Important Dates
Draft submission deadline: 1 September, 2010
Final paper submission deadline: 1 March, 2011

Call for papers: Sustainability and Business Research

A special issue of International Journal of Business Innovation and Research

Sustainability is one of the key issues confronting society today, as seen by the increasing attention paid to it by governments, media, academics and industry. Sustainability and sustainable development are defined by the Brundtland Commission of the United Nations as: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Such a definition leads directly to the three pillars of sustainability: the economic, social and environmental dimensions. Sustainability is therefore closely allied to the concept of “quality of life”.

In the context of sustainable development, businesses, often referred to as part of the problem, can be part of the solution. In response, academics with differing backgrounds (e.g. strategy, operations, accounting, supply chain, marketing, technology, etc.) are undertaking research on sustainability, trying to understand how this impacts traditional ways of doing business.

The topic of business sustainability is multidisciplinary in nature, and its complexity calls for putting in place a wide variety of research approaches, such as action research, case studies, surveys, model development, etc. Models and tools are needed to asses current sustainability of businesses, define areas of improvement and drive initiatives.

This special issue intends to give a forum for the state-of-the-art of sustainability research in relation to production and service manufacturing companies. Its aim is to attract high-quality papers representing the impact sustainability research has on multiple areas such as operations, supply chains, accounting, finance, marketing and general management.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:
  • Best sustainable practices
  • Business sustainability frameworks
  • Business sustainability case studies
  • Business sustainability surveys
  • Corporate social responsibility
  • Sustainable operations
  • Sustainability and supply chain planning and management
  • Sustainability reporting and accounting
  • Sustainability and performance measurement
  • Sustainable strategies
  • Marketing and sustainability
  • Innovation and sustainability
  • Knowledge management and sustainability
  • Reverse logistics and green supply chain applications
  • Sustainable product development
  • Sustainable consumption models
  • Sustainability and technologies
Important Date
Submission of Manuscripts: 30 March, 2010

Special issue: The recording industry and Chinese culture

International Journal of Chinese Culture and Management 2(3) 2009
  • Karaoke and the cross-cultural appropriations of music
  • Business negotiation and Taiwanese relationship building: mediated experiences in karaoke singing
  • Branding strategies and celebrity economy: a study of Mandarin pop music in the digital age
  • Rocking gender values: Sammi Cheng's androgynous persona
  • Faye Wong: stardom in Chinese popular music
  • Migration, nostalgia and identity negotiation: Teresa Teng in the Chinese diaspora
Additional Paper
  • Human nature and social complexity: a common challenge for Chinese philosophy and marketing

Special issue: 1st International Workshop on Sensor Networks

International Journal of Sensor Networks 6(3/4) 2009

The workshop was held in conjunction with the 2008 International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN 2008) held in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, 3-7 August 2008.
  • ESD: a novel optimisation algorithm for positioning estimation of WSNs in GPS-denied environments – from simulation to experimentation
  • Optimisations for LocSens – an indoor location tracking system using wireless sensors
  • Exploiting low complexity motion for ad-hoc localisation
  • A message complexity oriented design of distributed algorithm for long-lived multicasting in wireless sensor networks
  • A power-preserving broadcast protocol for wireless sensor networks
  • A flexible approach to WSN development and deployment
  • Dynamic topology control for the IEEE 802.15.4 network
  • Transmission error analysis and avoidance for IEEE 802.15.4 wireless sensors on rotating structures
  • ASGrid: autonomic management of hybrid sensor grid systems and applications
Additional Paper
  • Target tracking in wireless sensor networks using compressed Kalman filter

29 November 2009

Call for papers: Risk Management in Supply Chains

A special issue of International Journal of Mathematics in Operational Research

Risks in supply chains refer to the uncertainties associated with the events that affect one or more members of a supply chain that, usually, negatively affect the chain’s performance. The recent trends such as offshore manufacturing, lean sourcing and global outsourcing has considerably increased the risk exposure of firms and their supply chains. Risk management in supply chains is a crucial discipline which helps companies not only to deal with these risks but also to turn these threats to possible opportunities. In addition to the risk factors in operational level, other unexpected events such as political and environmental issues highlight the importance of this topic. In this special issue we explore the state-of-the-art applications and methods of risk management in supply chains.

Topics of interest focus on solving supply chain problems considering risk factors and include, but are not limited to:
  • State-of-the-art reviews
  • Operations decision making under uncertainties
  • Supply chain disruption management
  • Optimisation with risks
  • Risk assessment and mitigation in supply chains
  • Risk management in inventory control
  • Value of information and information asymmetry
  • Impact of risk aversion in supply chain performance
  • Financial risk measures and portfolio risk
  • Decision analysis in energy markets considering risks
  • Risk management in projects
Important Dates
Submission due: 30 June, 2010
Editorial decisions: 30 October, 2010

Special issue: Data mining and knowledge management

International Journal of Rapid Manufacturing 1(2) 2009
  • A new approach for sensitive association rules hiding
  • A comparative analysis of predictive data mining techniques
  • Effective hybrid PSO and K-means clustering algorithm for gene expression data
  • MMeR: an algorithm for clustering heterogeneous data using rough set theory
  • Investigations for statistically controlled rapid casting solution of low brass alloys using three dimensional printing
  • Semi supervised ensemble clustering algorithm for high dimensional genomic data
  • A methodology for mining material properties with unsupervised learning

24 November 2009

Call for papers: Degenerate and Singular Parabolic and Elliptic Equations

A special issue of International Journal of Dynamical Systems and Differential Equations

This special issue is intended to survey the recent progress in analyses and applications of nonlinear degenerate and singular equations and systems of elliptic, parabolic, and mixed parabolic-hyperbolic types. Particular attention will be paid to the mathematical and numerical analysis of models arising in the study of reaction-diffusion-convection processes.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:
  • Model development and analysis involving degenerate or singular parabolic or parabolic-hyperbolic equations.
  • Well-posedness of the Cauchy or initial-boundary value problems of degenerate parabolic-hyperbolic equations.
  • Regularity of solutions of time-dependent and steady-state solutions.
  • Long term behaviour of time-dependent solutions.
  • Blow-up property of time-dependent solutions.
  • Stability and instability of steady-state solutions.
  • Uniqueness or multiplicity of steady-state solutions.
  • Numerical analysis and computation of degenerate and singular elliptic, parabolic, or parabolic-hyperbolic equations.
Important Date
Deadline for Submission: 30 June, 2010

Special issue: Dynamic and impact behaviour of cellular materials

International Journal of Materials Engineering Innovation 1(2) 2009
  • The impulsive response of aluminium foam core sandwich structures
  • The mechanical behaviour of polyurethane foam: multiaxial and dynamic behaviour
  • Dynamic behaviour of regular closed-cell porous metals – computational study
  • Hyperelastic and dynamical behaviour of cork and its performance in energy absorption devices and crashworthiness applications
  • Frequency and temperature dependent dynamic shear response of polyurethane foams
  • Inverse method for dynamic characterisation of cork compounds

23 November 2009

Newly announced journal: International Journal of Cognitive Biometrics

Beginning publication in 2011, International Journal of Cognitive Biometrics will bridge the gap between behavioural and physiological biometrics and deal with novel approaches using biosignals (such as EEG and ECG) produced by cognitive and emotional brain states as the authentication medium.

Special issue: Mobile multimedia systems and applications

International Journal of Wireless and Mobile Computing 3(4) 2009
  • Important scene analysis model using result importance and situation importance
  • Anonymous communication protocol for sensor networks
  • Heterogeneous clock group protocol for causally ordered delivery of messages
  • Satoshi Kawanami, Tomoya Enokido, Makoto Takizawa
  • An adaptive ARQ timeout approach for audio streaming over Bluetooth
  • A maximum a-posteriori identification criterion for wavelet domain watermarking
  • Hierarchical network architecture for layered video streaming
  • Duplex narrowcasting operations for multipresent groupware avatars on mobile devices
  • A mobile intelligent negotiation agent embedded and hybrid architecture based online purchasing system
  • Content-based scene segmentation scheme for efficient multimedia information retrieval
  • Performance evaluation of selective-border-casting zone routing protocol for ad-hoc networks
  • On the effect of handover mechanisms on the performance of video communications in WATM networks

22 November 2009

Call for papers: Inter-Firm Networks, Governance and Innovation in the Automotive Industry

A special issue of International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management

The automotive industry is one of the most studied industries, which holds especially true for research on innovations, inter-firm networks and governance mechanisms within these networks. However, recently, major changes have occurred, triggered partly by the current financial crisis.

Questions raised include:
  • Which organisational innovations have taken place in the automotive industry in recent years?
  • Is lean management still the benchmark for organising the manufacturing of automobiles?
  • What can be said of the national innovation systems? For example, are there differences between European, Japanese and US car manufacturers with regard to the degree of outsourcing R&D?
  • Does the nationality of the car manufacturer critical for R&D activity?
  • Did design thinking change the process of innovation?
  • And what about user or internet driven innovations?
Another question of interest is the phase in which an innovative idea is developed, chosen or rejected. At what stage of the innovation process are innovations rejected or reinforced and how is this done?

Papers to be included in this special issue should be focused on one or more of the following subjects (the list is indicative rather than exhaustive):
  • Inter-firm networks
  • Governance and innovation in the automotive industry
  • Technology transfer in networks
  • Technology transfer and governments
  • Innovation systems and the automotive industry
  • Organisational innovations
  • Design thinking for innovations
  • The process or the stages of (non-)innovation
Case studies, surveys and papers based on empirical data are preferred; a rigorous research methodology is required, as well as a review of existing literature and adequate reference to bibliographical sources. Contributions will be subjected to double-blind review

Important Dates
Deadline for (extended) abstract submission: 1 February 2010
Response by guest editor: 28 February 2010
Deadline for full paper submission: 31 May 2010

Call for papers: Advances in Nanoindentation and Nanotribology

A special issue of International Journal of Surface Science and Engineering

Efforts to miniaturise optical, electrical and mechanical components have been ongoing for several decades. Development of processing technologies for semiconductors, actuators, microprocessors, sensors, mechatronics, etc. has revolutionised technologies for MEMS, smart structures, micro pumps, micro engines, micro biomedical devices etc. These devices have the ability to sense, detect, compute and activate in real time. These micro components have a very high surface to volume ratio. The forces applied to such systems are quite low, meaning that surface forces play a dominant role. However, as the sizes of such systems are quite low, the contact pressure is estimated to be few hundred MPa. Such forces cause undesirable effects such as stiction and high friction leading to reduction of operational reliability. It is for these devices that nanotribology and nanoindentation become relevant.

Nanotribology, which deals with the friction, wear and lubrication of interacting surfaces in relative motion at the nanometer scale, has seen considerable advances in recent times. Many phenomena in nanotribology pose new challenges in concept as well as in practice. Although conventional tribology is well established, nanoindentation, nanomechanics and nanotribology are evolving rapidly. With the invention of probe-based microscopes and nanoindentation techniques, study of nanomechanical properties and nanotribology has quickly become a routine laboratory testing method for characterizing material surfaces and coatings for miniaturised systems.

The purpose of this special issue is therefore to present a collection of examples illustrating the state-of-the-art developments of nanoindentation, nanotribology and their applications to surface science and engineering research. To serve as a useful forum to discuss the capabilities and limitations of these technologies, the scope of this special issue is to be as broad as possible, covering all relevant aspects.

Topics covered by this special issue include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • Theory and modelling of nanoindentation
  • Nanoindentation to characterize mechanical properties of materials and coatings
  • Nanoindentation techniques
  • Nanotribology experiments and theory;
  • Nanobiotribology
  • Nanolubrication
  • Nanomechanics
  • Nanoscale analysis of wear mechanisms,
  • Nanoscale wear measurement,
  • Nanotribology of magnetic recording system
  • Nanotribology of MEMS
Important Date
Submission of papers: 30 June 2010

19 November 2009

Special issue: Management and promotion of international sports

International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing 6(4) 2009
  • Motives of United States and Japanese professional baseball consumers and level of team identification
  • Key leadership qualities for major sporting events: the case of the World Aquatics Championships
  • International players from Asia: an analysis of text themes in news coverage
  • The influence of socialisation agents on the fan loyalty of Korean teens

Special issue: Organisational learning

International Journal of Collaborative Enterprise 1(2) 2009
  • The use of blogs as organisational learning tools within project-based environments
  • Sub-cultures as leverage for organisational learning and lean thinking
  • From bureaucratic forms towards team-based knowledge work systems: implications for human resource management
  • Seeking the robust core of organisational learning theory
  • Organisational learning at the public-private sector interface
  • Determining the impact of organisational culture on organisational learning
  • The nature of a schematic description of a socially constructed organisational competency model (CCM)
  • Technical note: Learning based product and service development

18 November 2009

Call for papers: Challenging Research Issues in Logistics Management

A special issue of International Journal of Logistics Economics and Globalisation

Companies today face numerous transportation challenges, including rising fuel costs, new regulatory mandates and global operations with higher levels of lead time variability. Customers have increasing demands for transportation performance, higher on-time delivery performance and reduced damage-in-transit. They expect transportation providers to be flexible and quickly adapt to order changes. Add to all of this an increased need for global freight visibility and control, and companies are scrambling to find the right solution to quickly address these challenges. Transportation and logistics management accomplishes this by supporting processes including carrier contract negotiations, transportation network modelling, shipment order handling, freight planning, order execution and monitoring, and freight financial settlement.

Logistics is the system of managing and regulating the movement of goods, services, information and other resources from supplier to final user. The main objective of logistics is to co-ordinate these activities in a way that meets customer requirements at minimum cost. It involves the integration of information, transportation, warehousing, inventory, material handling and packaging. The field of logistics has now come to be considered as an immensely complicated responsibility. It is a normal part of the progress in the study of any business discipline for research simultaneously to become more rigorous and more applicable to practitioners, hence the decision to publish a special issue devoted to the topic.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:
  • Distribution and transport management
  • Warehouse management and warehouse control systems
  • Business and production logistics
  • Third-party logistics (3PL), fourth-party logistics (4PL)
  • Green/sustainable logistics
  • Inventory Management
  • Modelling and simulation of logistics and supply chain network
  • Role of information technology in logistics (internet, RFID etc.)
  • Supply chain performance management
  • Reverse logistics and closed loop supply chain management
  • Global logistics operations
  • Buyer-supplier relationships in logistics
  • Vehicle routing
  • Research methodologies
  • Case studies
Important Dates
Manuscript submission: 20 January 2010
Notification of initial decision: 20 March 2010
Submission of revised manuscript: 20 May 2010
Notification of final acceptance: 20 July 2010
Submission of final manuscript: 20 October 2010

Call for papers: Application of Multivariate Techniques in Decision Making Models for Customer Service in Supply Chain

A special issue of International Journal of Electronic Customer Relationship Management

Customer service is widely understood as an important profit generating mechanism for a successful organisation. In the early days, customer service was viewed as a vision behind corporate success. The visionary concept has evolved to be seen as a day-to-day process towards market success. A process view has taken center-stage and treats customer service as an outcome from wide-spectrum of activities. The approach also assumes customer service as a package of diverse service elements. The majority of practitioners and educationists believe that most of the service elements are unexplored. The passage of time has brought several important customer service elements to the light. A few service elements such as quality at source and on-time delivery are focused in academic and industry circles. The remaining service elements such as customer support, after-sales services, lead time, environmental concerns, condition of goods/services, quantity of goods/services, and value added services are left unscathed and overlooked despite their importance.

Recent studies underscore customer service from logistics perspective. Improving customer service is an ongoing focus of the logistics community. Logistics is understood as market winner in the industry. The term ‘logistics’ denote the systematic and planned movement of organisational resources to attain competitive advantage. Organisational resources include men, material and information that satisfy customers. Organisations mobilise these resources through a wide range of activities called processes. In essence, industry views customer service as processes to move organisational resources. Therefore, the logistics perspective culminates into a process-centric approach for customer service. This study is deeply rooted on process-driven approach for customer service in the premises of logistics. The ultimate aim of logistics is to create customer value and deliver good customer service through processes and systems.

Successful firms prove the value of long-term customer relationships and the importance of customer retention. Emulating successful firms, companies brace for customer retention methods to obviate the cost of customer acquisition. The philosophy that emphasises customer retention through relationship building is known as ‘customer relationship management’ ( CRM ). Value-added customer services ensure the organisational efforts towards building long-term customer relations. Latest CRM practices advocate post-purchase services to create customer value.

Emerging market trends visualise a strong requirement for improved customer service and support in developing markets. Industries offer customer support through a network of service centers.

This special issue intends to improve customer support performance and it is relevant to the above deliberations in following ways.
  • Identifying analytical models to improve the customer service and support process.
  • Analytical modelling in the premises of market knowledge to improve the customer service and support process.
  • Identifying country and industry-specific variables that impact customer service and support operations.
Other streams of interest will be practical applications in the form of quantitative and qualitative case studies based on customer service support in supply chain.

Finally, papers must have real value relevance, be primarily focused on real time implementation, and the target audience are researchers, managers, practitioners and consultants.

Contributors are encouraged to submit original manuscripts that have practical relevance, case studies, and focus on the following or other areas related to customer service support in manufacturing and service industries, but are not limited to:
  • Customer service in manufacturing supply chain
  • Customer service in services supply chain
  • Multivariate techniques for customer service
  • Multicriteria decision making models for customer service
  • Analytical models for customer service and support
  • Process of customer value creation
  • Marketing and logistics elements of customer service
  • Transaction and augmented product concept in customer service
  • Information integration for customer service
  • Service quality models focusing customer support
  • Queuing models for customer service
  • Stochastic models for customer service
  • Mathematical models for customer service
  • Simulation and optimiSation for customer service
  • After-sale services models
Important Dates
Manuscript submission: 15 March 2010
Notification of initial decision: 15 May 2010
Submission of revised manuscript: 15 June 2010
Notification of final acceptance: 15 July 2010
Submission of final manuscript: 15 August 2010

Special issue: RFID network technologies and innovative applications

International Journal of Internet Protocol Technology 4(4) 2009
  • Creating a RFID data integration framework for enterprise information systems
  • RFID-based seamless multimedia services for smart homes
  • An RFID prototype providing industrial security features in the manufacturing environment
  • An RFID localisation system using Dynamic Range Adjustment Localisation
  • An integrated surveillance system using RFID and vision-tracking technologies

Special issue: Computational Intelligence Part 2

International Journal of Modelling, Identification and Control 8(3) 2009

Further papers from the International Conference on Modelling, Identification and Control (ICMIC 2008) held in Shanghai, China, 28 June - 2 July 2008.
(See also International Journal of Modelling, Identification and Control 8(2) 2009)
  • A fast method for fuzzy neural network modelling and refinement
  • A three-dimensional self-adaptive region fuzzy guidance law based on RBF neural networks
  • Hardware-in-the-loop simulation of electro-hydraulic pressure servo system
  • Online variety recognition of auto rack girders based on combination of Fuzzy ART neural network with D-S evidence theory
  • Developing an R&D projects portfolio selection decision system based on fuzzy logic
  • Pareto optimisation of grillage system with multi-objectives
  • Optimum design and local structural analysis of the power yacht based on micro-genetic algorithm
  • Application of particle swarm optimisation based on immune evolutionary algorithm for optimal operation of cascade reservoirs
  • Speech recognition system based on visual features and neural network for persons with speech-impairments
  • Research on context-aware computing with uncertainty for proactive service

Special issue: International Conference on Applied Economics (ICOAE) 2008

International Journal of Computational Economics and Econometrics 1(2) 2009

Papers from the International Conference of Applied Economics (ICOAE 2008), held in Kastoria, Greece, 15-17 May 2008.
  • Monopolisation of triopoly – revisited
  • Optimal investment in immobile human capital in an economic and monetary union
  • Business cycles in Bulgaria and the Baltic countries: an RBC approach
  • A new macroeconometric approach to the NATREX model of the equilibrium real exchange rate
  • A comparison of alternative parametric efficiency estimates using rank-sum test statistic
  • A note on impact of new economic reforms on the elasticity of substitution in Indian industries: alternative measures
  • Risk process estimation techniques used in the optimisation of financial resources of an insurance company

Special issue: Reform and opening 30 years: the development of China's economy and culture

International Journal of Chinese Culture and Management 2(2) 2009
  • Development strategies of high-tech enterprises in response to the new economic reform in China
  • Listen to the young employees
  • A survey on Beijing's cultural creative industries
  • Cultural and creative tourism: a case study of dance drama in Shanxi
  • Analysis of the talent exodus in the Chinese online game labour market

13 November 2009

Special issue: Immersive virtual, mixed or augmented reality art

International Journal of Arts and Technology 2(4) 2009
  • New media in situ: the re-socialisation of public space
  • The agent takes the stage
  • Intermediary zones: augmented space between real and digital
  • WorldWideWalks: mapping the 'mixed realities' of physical and virtual space-time
  • Neurophysiology-based art in immersive virtual reality
  • On intuitive use, physicality and tangible user interfaces

11 November 2009

Special issue: Open forum on metadata registries

International Journal of Metadata, Semantics and Ontologies 4(4) 2009

Papers from the annual Open Forum on Metadata Registries
  • Experiences with discovery metadata
  • The Nordic Common Data Element repository for describing cancer data
  • Terminological concept modelling and conceptual data modelling
  • A net-centric metadata framework for service-oriented environments
  • ISOcat: remodelling metadata for language resources
  • Representing metadata constraints in Common Logic
Submitted paper
  • Evidence-based decisions for the wiki world

10 November 2009

Special issue: Machine learning in biomedicine and bioinformatics

International Journal of Data Mining and Bioinformatics 3(4) 2009

Extended version of papers presented at a workshop on ‘Machine Learning in Biomedicine and Bioinformatics' at the Sixth International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications (ICMLA 2007) held in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, 13-15 Dec. 2007.
  • Biomarker identification by knowledge-driven multilevel ICA and motif analysis
  • Logistic ensembles of Random Spherical Linear Oracles for microarray classification
  • Gene identification and survival prediction with Lp Cox regression and novel similarity measure
  • An analysis pipeline for the inference of protein-protein interaction networks
  • A technique to search for functional similarities in protein-protein interaction networks
  • Refinement of under-determined loops of Human Prion Protein by database-derived distance constraints
  • PRTAD: A database for protein residue torsion angle distributions

Special issue: Services operations and management

International Journal of Services Operations and Informatics 4(4) 2009

Revised papers from the 2008 IEEE International Conference on Service Operations, Logistics and Informatics (IEEE/SOLI’2008) held in Beijing, China, 12–15 October 2008.
  • Pricing and order coordination of two-echelon supply chain under duopolistic retailer's competition
  • Service analytics framework for web-delivered services
  • The value of integrated logistics and finance services of third party logistics firms
  • Optimal decision-making on product allocation for crossdocking and warehousing operations
  • Research on the symbiotic relationship model of network shaped enterprises in the ecological logistics park
  • User acceptance of internet banking: an extension of the UTAUT model with trust and quality constructs

9 November 2009

Special issue: Service oriented grid and pervasive technologies

International Journal of Autonomous and Adaptive Communications Systems 2(4) 2009
  • Adoption of service-oriented architecture by information systems
  • Reputation and policy-based three-tier grid architecture with genuine feedbacks
  • Proposing a service-enabled semantic grid model
  • A negotiation-based trust establishment service for CROWN grid
  • A peer-to-peer IO buffering service based on RAM-grid
Additional paper
  • A methodology for designing of intelligent services in ubiquitous communications

Special issue: Software issues in computational science and engineering

International Journal of Computational Science and Engineering 4(4) 2009

Papers from a workshop at held in Uppsala, Sweden, 15–16 August, 2007
  • Coordinate-free numerics: all your variation points for free?
  • Unified framework for finite element assembly
  • Software engineering meets scientific computing: group projects in CSE education
  • Co-processor acceleration of an unmodified parallel solid mechanics code with FEASTGPU
  • Dominik Goddeke, Hilmar Wobker, Robert Strzodka, Jamaludin Mohd-Yusof, Patrick Reconsidering algorithms for iterative solvers in the multicore era
  • Efficient representation of computational meshes
  • F2PY: a tool for connecting Fortran and Python programs
  • Automatic parallelisation of staggered grid codes with expression templates
  • Run-time automatic instantiation of algorithms using C++ templates

8 November 2009

Special issue: Delivering electronic government

International Journal of Electronic Governance 2 (2/3) 2009
  • Electronic procurement: a case study of Malaysia's e-Perolehan (e-procurement) initiative
  • Process evaluation of award of work contracts in a government department
  • Does e-governance facilitate citizen empowerment in democracies? A critical discourse analysis
  • Decision making of agrarian communities: exploring the impact of e-governance initiatives in India
  • An e-governance framework for Vietnam
  • Development of Knowledge Model for Administrative Procedures based on behavioural trait analysis: the case of Japan
  • A typology of e-governance operational Information Systems tasks
  • E-government and integrated service delivery in Canada: the Province of Nova Scotia as a case study
  • Creating comparative advantage for Micro-Enterprises through e-governance
Additional paper
  • Changing perspectives and pragmatics of good governance and e-governance in India: a shared vision of citizens
Technical papers
  • Promoting electronic participation systems in the Balkans: the case of national press agencies
  • The role of e-facilitation (ICTs) in economic development of the rural population

Call for papers: Recommender Systems to Support the Dynamics of Virtual Learning Communities

A special issue of International Journal of Web Based Communities

Recommender systems are used in commercial sites like Amazon, Last.fm, Netflix and others to recommend relevant products (or more generally, pieces of information such as books, music from movies, etc) to users according to their interest. It is a successful technique in the entertainment domains which is now being applied into e-learning. Recommenders are changing the way people interact with the web-based applications as they help others to find relevant products and complex information among the huge amount of products and unstructured information available in the web, providing a more personalised information access experience.

Traditionally, much of the published research on recommenders has focused on the algorithms that power the recommendation process. However, many research challenges remain, especially when it comes to applications in specific domains, the design of the interfaces and the social implications of recommenders. Research is still needed to analyse needs and expectations from the users to which recommendations are offered. In particular when recommenders are applied in domains other than the ones traditionally covered, a study of the user needs should be carried out.

This special issue aims to gather a collection of high quality contributions that reflect the support that can be provided by recommender systems in virtual learning communities (VLC). It focuses on the e-learning domain and the virtual learning communities that grow around it.

Users interact in web-based applications that provide social spaces such as learning management systems, and produce contributions with shared learning goals in mind. Moreover, mostly these communities use Web 2.0 services that can provide semantic information. This semantic information together with the contextual information provided by the community infrastructure can feed the recommender strategies. The virtual learning communities that emerge store contextual and semantic information from the contributions provided by the users when they participate in the services offered, such as discussions on forums, shared links, entries in blogs, ratings to learning objects, comments to contributions, etc. This information contributed to the virtual community could become relevant to their mates. These contributions increase continually and the community members are unable to process all of them. Recommenders can provide a valuable functionality to the members of virtual learning communities, recommending what pieces of information shared by the diversity of the members' contributions are the more interesting for each member (taking into account his/her profile).

Moreover, there is a need to take into account user-centred design methods in order to direct the technical design as well as the graphical user interface. In this sense, this special issue calls for papers in the community of researchers for recommender systems in the educational domain that analyse the needs and propose solutions from a user-centred point of view. Contributions are expected to answer some of the following questions (among others):
  • How recommendations can impact on the participants in VLC?
  • What type of activities within the VLC could be improved or made more productive with the usage of recommender systems?
  • What types of situations in VLC are meaningful for providing recommendations?
  • How can the utility of a recommender system be measured in a VLC?
  • What types of recommendations are of special interest for the educational domain?
  • How can users be modelled to facilitate the recommendations process in VLC?
  • What is the most appropriate design for a tool to manage the recommendations?
Suitable topics include but are not limited to:
  • Recommender systems for educational domain
  • Inclusive recommendations in virtual learning communities (i.e. take into account the diversity of the users, including the accessibility preferences)
  • User-centred design methods
  • User-centred evaluation
  • User modelling to support recommender systems for educational domain
  • Personalisation and user needs in educational domain
  • Design of the user interface for recommenders in virtual learning communities
  • Authoring/administration tools to manage/supervise the recommendations process
  • Evaluating recommendation interfaces through user studies and other human-computer interaction approaches
  • Recommenders to support social networking in virtual learning communities
  • Case studies of recommenders in virtual learning communities
  • Evaluation of recommender systems in educational scenarios
Important Dates
Notification of Intent to Submit: as soon as possible
Submission of Title and Extended Abstract deadline: 28 February, 2010
Full paper submission deadline: 30 March, 2010
Notification of status & acceptance of paper: 15 May, 2010
Second round of contributions: 13 June, 2010
Final version of paper: 15 September, 2010 (tentative)

Special issue: Advances in tribology in metal manufacturing

International Journal of Surface Science and Engineering 3(5/6) 2009
  • Effect of tool surface topography on interfacial deformation behaviour of metal microtubes in flaring test
  • Tribological features of roll surface in cold metal rolling
  • Friction and slab deformation behaviour during rough rolling
  • Surface roughness characteristics of Ti6Al4V alloy in conventional lathe and mill machining
  • Effect of cold reduction on surface roughness of low hot-rolled carbon steel in CSP
  • Deformation of oxide scale and surface roughness transfer during hot rolling of stainless steel 304L
  • Oxide scale behaviour and surface roughness under hot rolling conditions of Fe-Ni36 Invar alloy
  • Numerical simulation of slab edging process by the Reproducing Kernel Particle Method considering friction effect

First issue: International Journal of Computational Economics and Econometrics

Investigating the application of recent mathematical, statistical, and computational techniques to empirical economics studies International Journal of Computational Economics and Econometrics adopts an international and multidisciplinary scope in the examination of recent quantitative methods and their problems in policy analysis.

There is a free download of the papers from this first issue.

6 November 2009

Call for Papers: Water Wars in the 21st Century along International River Basins: Speculation or Reality?

A special issue of International Journal of Sustainable Society

This issue seeks to assess the current status of the water management in international river basins for a reality check of the potential of water wars and to encourage intellectual discussion, new methodologies and strategies to promote sustainable development and avert water related conflicts in the international river basins.

The subject coverage of this special issue includes, but is not limited to:
  • Integrated water resources management in international river basins
  • Averting conflicts and promoting peace through international river basin management
  • Water diplomacy
  • International river basins under risk of mismanagement and conflicts
  • Benefits and costs asssociated with integrated river basins management
  • How international water policies shape international river basins management
  • New strategies for international river basins management
  • Institutional and legal issues related to international river basins management
  • International water treaties
  • Mechanisms for data and information sharing between riparian countries
  • UN watercourses convention (1997) and other international water related declarations
  • Influence of regional politics and non-water sectors in managing international river basins
  • Strategic research agendas to positively influence international river basins management
  • Best practices and lessons learned from international river basins management
  • International water resources managment principles and guidelines
  • Shared water-shared opportunities
Important Dates
Deadline for submission of manuscripts: 10 May 2010
Communication of peer review to authors: 10 August 2010
Deadline for revised manuscripts: 15 October 2010

Call for papers: Advances in Wireless, Mobile and P2P based Internet Protocols, Applications and Architectures

A special issue of International Journal of Internet Protocol Technology

Interconnection networks have just not facilitated sharing of information; they have reorganised our social existence. Over the last two decades we have witnessed a tremendous influx of new technology to facilitate Internet accessibility. These technologies are in essence emerging because of the advancement in newer paradigms that encompass WiFi, ad hoc networks, and P2P technologies. Today, the Internet no longer is confined to wired technologies. Therefore, we must understand the latest advances in these technologies to pave the way for newer Internet protocols, applications, and architectures.

The special issue will primarily encompass theoretical and practical solutions that advance the research in Internet protocols, applications, and architectures based on WiFi, mobile Ad Hoc, and P2P technologies.

The topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
  • WiFi and mobile network protocols
  • P2P protocol design
  • Internet mobility and accessibility
  • Mobility models
  • Algorithms and theoretical advances in network protocol design
  • Internet data management
  • Internet data consistency and correctness
  • Cross layer protocol design for efficient data accessibility and sharing
  • Hybrid network design for reliable connectivity
  • Mobile and P2P applications
  • Emerging technologies
  • Technology integration in cross platforms
Important Dates
Paper submission: 1 April, 2010
Initial notification: 15 May, 2010
Rebuttal submission: 1 July, 2010
Final notification: 1 August, 2010

Call for papers: Information Technology Risks: Benefits or Threats

A special issue of International Journal of Information Technology and Management

Modern business has undoubtedly benefited from the rapid development of Information Technology (IT) tools. On the other hand, IT risk has become one of the most significant threats posed to companies, with a common sense from senior risk managers that this represents a very high threat to business in today’s economy. Business exists to cope with risks, including IT risks. As time spans, management of existing IT systems that are being used by business requires constant and continuous check and review. Companies continuously seek methods and techniques to improve performance to achieve optimised efficiency and effectiveness of utilizing IT tools.

This special issue is intended to present the state-of-the-art work that demonstrates tools to manage IT risks and thus improve IT management in the e-society. Both theoretical and applied work is welcome.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following aspects:
  • Enterprise risk management related to IT
  • IT security
  • Emerging advances in IT and its new applications
  • Management of IT systems in financial risks
  • IT and e-governance
  • IT risk assessment
  • Productivity uncertainty of adopting different IT tools
  • IT and uncertainty and risks in the supply chain
  • IT outsourcing assessment
  • Other issues related to IT risks
Important Dates
Submission Deadline: June 10, 2010
First-Round Reviews: August 30, 2010
Camera-ready version: September 30, 2010

5 November 2009

Special issue: Agent-based modelling and decision making

International Journal of Critical Infrastructures 5(4) 2009
  • Editorial: The operation and evolution of infrastructures: the role of agent-based modelling and decision making
  • Tackling challenges in infrastructure operation and control: cross-sectoral learning for process and infrastructure engineers
  • Agent-based decision support for failure-prone networked infrastructures
  • Reciprocally altruistic agents for the mitigation of cascading failures in power grids
  • A real-life test bed for multi-agent monitoring of road network performance
  • Transition of energy infrastructures: modelling the Brazilian case
  • Resilience and vulnerability in critical infrastructure systems – a physical analogy

Special issue: Value creation

International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing 1(2) 2009
  • Business ecosystem perspective on value co-creation in the Web 2.0 era: implications for entrepreneurial opportunities
  • The building blocks of a relational capability – evidence from the banking industry
  • Do direct or indirect relations between incumbent firms and corporate spin-offs affect the performance of spin-offs?
  • Supporting value creation in SMEs through capacity building and innovation initiatives: the danger of provoking unsustainable rapid growth
  • Firm-level entrepreneurship and performance for German Gazelles
  • Supporting value creation by reducing cultural distance as a barrier to exporting

Special issue: Managing the quality of sport services and sport organisations

International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing 6(3) 2009
  • Measuring customer service quality of English public sport facilities
  • ADVENTUREQUAL: an extension of the SERVQUAL conceptual gap model in young people's outdoor adventure
  • The mediating role of place attachment on the relationship between service quality and loyalty in the context of skiing
  • Model of service quality in event sport tourism: development of a scale
  • A decade of quality and performance management in Flemish organised sport

Special issue: OLAP intelligence: meaningfully coupling OLAP and data mining tools and algorithms

International Journal of Business Intelligence and Data Mining 4(3/4) 2009
  • Mining significant change patterns in multidimensional spaces
  • Mining convergent and divergent sequences in multidimensional data
  • Reduced representations of Emerging Cubes for OLAP database mining
  • Fragmenting very large XML data warehouses via K-means clustering algorithm
  • Embedded indicators to facilitate the exploration of a data cube
  • A novel visualisation and interaction technique for exploring multidimensional data
Additional papers
  • ReliefMSS: a variation on a feature ranking ReliefF algorithm
  • Exact and inexact methods for solving the problem of view selection for aggregate queries

2 November 2009

Call for papers: Risk Management and Related Standards – the Role of Standards in the Management of Business and Related Risks

A special issue of International Journal of Business Continuity and Risk Management

The IJBCRM goal is to provide an academic and professional forum to develop and disseminate research, practical methods, theories, and experiences in the advancing area of business continuity and risk management. This growing body of knowledge provides a vital lead within organisations in the process of systematic decisions to protect people, assets and operations and ensures the continuation of an organisation following disaster.

Risk standards are one means used by organizations to assure systematic decisions when managing risk. Standards are accepted specifications which define terms, concepts, methods, processes and practices. There is no shortage of standards, codes and guidelines in the area of risk management and the international community has developed many. One of the difficulties, however, is that this large body of information has grown in an uncoordinated manner. Some have argued this divergent growth of standards and guidelines in risk management has resulted in there being no universal approach and terminology that is recognized as the industry standard.

Several of the well known risk management standards include: the risk standard of AIRMIC/ALARM/IRM 2002, the Australian/New Zealand Standard AS/NZS 4360:2004; the Enterprise Risk Management - Integrated Framework, COSO 2004 and the ISO/DIS 31000 International Standard or BSI British Standards - BS 31100:2008. Other standards exist such as the ISO/IEC Guide 73:2002 Risk Management — Vocabulary, the CSA Q 850:1997 Risk Management Guidelines for Decision Makers; the JIS Q 2001:2001 Guidelines for development and implementation of risk management system and the BS 25999-1:2006 Business continuity management Code of practice.

Such standards vary in scope, purpose, perceived benefits, guidelines, principles, frameworks, components, terminology, objective, implementation advice, risk processes, structural recommendations and in adoption, certification and compliance monitoring processes. Standards also vary regarding their primary reason for creation - the thinking behind them.

Adoption of and compliance with a standard requires the allocation of internal or external resources and represents an additional business cost. Standards too can be expensive to implement and to maintain. This may have an impact on the competitiveness of corporations. Companies seeking to implement risk standards must know whether benefits are really worth the costs involved. Whatever their nature, standards and technical regulations will have no effect unless they are properly implemented.

Aside from identifying and establishing the general worth of standards, we might question:
Whether risk specialists and practitioners think in ways that are consistent with the standards?
Are changes needed and if so, what changes are needed and why?
What are the objectives of a risk standard?
What have organizations learned whilst implementing these standards?

Therefore, the aim of this special issue is to clarify the role of risk management and related standards and to assess their impact. Bringing together such a body of knowledge through case studies, research and literature review on topics such as implementation and enterprise risk management, as well as a standards update, will enable practitioners to make immediate improvements to their risk management activities and to plan for the future. The special issue should enable a better understanding of the tools that are available to manage the risks, sharing best practice on how to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of standards. It will also help academics and researchers to ground future work.

Potential authors are invited to submit contributions which evaluate existing risk management standards, critically analyzing their role and contributing to our knowledge of why standards should or should not be adopted. Contributions will also further knowledge concerning the implementation issues of how, where and when such risk management standards might be applied. The goal is to prepare a reference issue that could be of immediate use to those interested in the management of risk and business continuity assurance and the implications of risk standards for business, whether they are academics, practitioners or researchers.

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to:
  • Comparison of standards worldwide
  • Critical evaluation of standards
  • Role of standards in specific branches/industries, e.g. banking, telecomms, healthcare etc.
  • Role of standards in specific functions, e.g. IT/IS risk, operations, project management etc.
  • Frameworks for the management of risk
  • Influence of laws and policy makers
  • Economic performance and business benefits of organizations adopting risk standards
  • Regulation and other drivers for adoption
  • Standards and the regulatory environment
  • Communicating risk standards
  • Case studies on implementation and adoption of risk standards
Important Dates
1-2 page abstract due: 1 February 2010
Notification to authors: 1 March 2010
Submission of manuscripts due: 30 August 2010
Notification to authors: 15 October 2010
Final drafts of papers: 31 December 2010

Special issue: FACTS technology in power system studies

International Journal of Power and Energy Conversion 1(4) 2009
  • A new method for locating TCSC for congestion management in deregulated electricity markets
  • Comparative performance of BESS and SMES in distribution network to improve power quality
  • PSO embedded online adaptive self-tuning UPFC shunt converter control
  • Transmission line overload alleviation due to contingency based on DAG assisted PSO method
  • Reactive and real power compensation with DSTATCOM and BESS for mitigation of flicker
  • STATCOM based voltage-frequency regulation for SEIG driven by an uncontrolled speed turbine