27 July 2012

Special issue: Intelligence support on learning, composition and networking

International Journal of Knowledge and Web Intelligence 3(1) 2012

Papers from the 15th International Conference on Knowledge-based and Intelligent Information and Engineering Systems (KES2011), held in Kaiserslautern, Germany, 12-14 September 201.
  • Open system of distance learning: soft system approach to information system analysis
  • The development of a course recommendation system for e-learning students
  • Mistake detection method in Chinese-Japanese translation for Japanese learning support
  • Back-review support system for presentation rehearsal review
  • Review-based recommendation of attractive sentences in a novel for effective browsing
  • Chaotic oscillations in user-centric cognitive radio networks and their control

25 July 2012

Special issue: Mergers and acquisitions management: new directions

European Journal of International Management 6(4) 2012
  • Integration in large, related M&As: linkages between contextual factors, integration approaches and process dimensions
  • The stepfamily metaphor: further insights and alternatives for understanding the M&A discourse
  • Mergers and acquisitions as embedded network activities
  • Acquisitions, market share and interest groups
  • Top management retention in cross-border acquisitions: the roles of financial incentives, acquirer's commitment and autonomy

24 July 2012

Call for papers: Mining Social Networks for Recommender Systems

A special issue of International Journal of Social Network Mining

Social networks such as Facebook, Linkedin, etc. contain gigabytes of data that can be mined to make recommendations for products, events or even friendships. The premise of these recommendations is that individuals might only be a few steps from a desirable social friend, event or product, but not realise it.

In such systems, people often belong to multiple explicit or implicit social networks because of different interpersonal interactions. That is, besides the explicit friendship relations between the users, there are also other implicit relations. For example, users can co-comment on products and they can co-rate products or co-tag a photo.

The aim of this special issue is to study how mining of social networks can leverage the quality of recommendations. The analysis of social influence and the inference of social rating networks and social media can help in providing more accurate and effective product, friend, activity and event recommendations.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:
  • Link prediction in social networks
  • Rating prediction in social rating networks
  • Recommendation in social rating networks
  • Cross-domain recommendation in social rating networks
  • Group recommendation in social networks
  • Top-N friend recommendation in social networks
  • Top-N item recommendation in social networks
  • Recommendation in social networks with distrust
  • Recommendation in time-evolving social networks
  • Social network analysis for recommendation
  • Memory-based methods for recommendation in social networks
  • Model-based methods for recommendation in social networks
  • Recommendation by combining multiple social networks
  • Privacy of recommendation in social networks
  • Event and activity recommendation in mobile social networks
  • Recommendation in location-based social networks
  • Collaborative filtering in social networks
  • Context-aware recommendation in social networks
  • Explaining recommendation in social networks
  • Recommendation in social media
  • Multi-criteria recommendation in social networks
Important Dates
Paper submission due: 1 February, 2013
First round notification: 1 May, 2013
Revised version due: 1 August, 2013

Call for papers: Recent Advances in Dependable Computing

A special issue of International Journal of Critical Computer-Based Systems

This special issue is focused on recent progress, ideas, problems and solutions relating to dependable computing and fault-tolerant computing. It is intended for academics, practitioners, scientists and engineers who are involved in the areas of dependable computing theories, practical experiment designs and commercial systems.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the 18th IEEE Pacific Rim International Symposium on Dependable Computing (PRDC 2012)  or in one of its satellite workshops (Fast Abstracts, Industry Track), but we also strongly encourage researchers unable to participate in the conference to submit papers for this call.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:
  • Software and hardware reliability, testing, verification and validation
  • Dependability measurement, modelling and evaluation
  • Security quantification
  • Self-healing, self-protecting and fault-tolerant systems
  • Software aging and rejuvenation
  • Safety-critical systems and software
  • Architecture and system design for dependability
  • Fault-tolerant algorithms and protocols
  • Tools for design and evaluation of dependable systems
  • Reliability in Internet and web systems and applications
  • Internet information security
  • Dependable transportation systems
  • Dependability issues in computer networks and communications
  • Dependability issues in distributed and parallel systems
  • Dependability issues in real-time systems, databases and transaction processing systems
  • Dependability issues in autonomic computing
  • Dependability issues in embedded systems
Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 20 January, 2013
Notification to authors: 30 March, 2013
Final versions due: 30 April, 2013

Call for papers: Inter-Firm Cooperation and Innovation

A special issue of International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management

Since the 1980s the shortening of product and technology life cycles and the overlapping of technological trajectories have pushed firms to reconsider their innovation strategies. In this context cooperation in R&D and innovation widens their technology base and is used to complement internal resources.

 A large number of empirical and theoretical studies have been devoted to inter-firm cooperation in innovative activities. Generally these analyses show that cooperation affects innovation positively and, as a consequence, firms’ performances. Other results suggest that the innovation capability of firms is stimulated through the relationship established with external partners.

 Strategic alliances concerning innovation are increasing in order to facilitate the coordination of complex projects that firms could not carry out individually. In some cases cooperation in innovation is not in addition to, but instead of investing internally in R&D. Of course these alliances can have implications for antitrust and competition, as highlighted by some authors, but generally national and regional governments are increasingly incorporating public support for coordination among firms into their policies.

 In spite of this interest, another strand of the literature emphasises the high rate of failure in cooperative agreements for innovation, especially when direct competitors are involved. Moreover, the rise of these networks as a new method of collaboration (also concerning innovation) has opened a new perspective of analysis involving a larger theoretical approach.

 The aim of this special issue is to reconsider cooperation for innovation in an interdisciplinary approach in which management, industrial organisation, economics of innovation, public policy and local development can coexist and offer a better interpretation. Submissions from academic researchers, consultants and managers are strongly encouraged. Papers can employ both qualitative and quantitative methodologies.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:
  • Cooperation for innovation among firms
  • Cooperative innovation in networks and clusters
  • Historical trends
  • Typologies of cooperation
  • Formal and informal cooperation
  • Vertical and horizontal cooperation
  • Determinants of success/failure
  • Public policies for cooperation
  • Geographical proximity in cooperation
  • Case studies
Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 31 December, 2012
Notification to authors:  31 January, 2013
Final versions due: 28 February, 2013

Special issue: Strategic practices and cases adopted for technology marketing

International Journal of Technology Marketing 7(3) 2012

Papers from the  International Conference on Management Cases 2011, held in Greater Noida, India, 1-2 December 2011.
  • Pushing new technologies through business model innovation
  • Compressing the business development cycle: applying stewardship design principles for commercial scale solar projects
  • Virtual business empires at Second Life
  • Optimising online marketing resources: SEO strategy
  • Strategic redesign for globally distributed manufacturing: a case study
Regular Papers
  • Managing product variety decisions for sustainable profitability in B2B industries
  • A study of software product sampling
  • Aesthetic technology: scale development and measurement

Special issue: Interesting knowledge mining

International Journal of Data Mining, Modelling and Management 4(3) 2012
  • Discovering (frequent) constant conditional functional dependencies
  • EverMiner: consideration on knowledge driven permanent data mining process
  • Rule schemas and interesting association action rules mining
  • Detection of research trends from bibliographical data
  • Dimensionality reduction framework for blog mining and visualisation
Additional Paper
  • Who are our clients: consumer segmentation through explorative data mining

Special issue: Recent advances in swarm intelligent systems

International Journal of Computational Science and Engineering 7(2) 2012
  • A new chaos particle swarm optimisation algorithm and its applications for transportation continuous network design problem
  • Optimising maximum power output and minimum entropy generation of Atkinson cycle using mutable smart bees algorithm
  • Fast distributed consensus seeking in large-scale sensor networks via shortcuts
  • Social emotional optimisation algorithm with emotional model
  • Using QIGSO with steepest gradient descent strategy to direct orbits of chaotic systems
  • Agent-based model and simulation on firm size
Submitted Papers
  • Multi-objective no-wait hybrid flowshop scheduling problem with transportation times
  • Adaptive testing system based on diagnosis mechanism and normal distribution
  • CFD simulation of gas-solid-liquid fluidised bed reactor

22 July 2012

Call for papers: Constructing Interstitial Heritage: Architectures, Visions and Experiences

A special issue of International Journal of Tourism Anthropology

 This special issue invites submissions that explore the past and present modes through which alternate cultural heritage can be preserved and encouraged. In particular, it focuses on the realm of the interstice: a “space, opening, crevice etc, between things near together or between the component parts of a body”.

 Interstitial heritage can be located between entities as well as within them. By nature, it creates an aperture that forms an alternate field and conduit to existent structures. It needs not necessarily negate a prevailing socio-political and economic frame (though it may well do so), but it ultimately provides individuals and groups with a ground on which to construct their environment and express themselves within it rather than be subservient to it. In the city, for example, spontaneous occupations of grounds and temporary archisculptures have offered models of interstitial production.

 In the ever-increasing flow of images during the 20th century, visual strategies aiming to build alternate banks of visual data have grown inside and outside of the constraints of the society of spectacle. In the everyday life of an increasingly global world, numerous attempts have been made to propose behaviours and experiences that challenge the predicates of top-down social fabrics.

 This issue is concerned with the history and the present of interstitial architectures, visions and experiences. And crucially, it is concerned with the issue of their safeguarding. Given the alternate nature of interstitial production and living, their sustainability is central to the articulation of empowered individual and communal consciousness.

 The issue invites proposals that explore historical and contemporary forms of interstitial heritage, such as spontaneous architectures and three dimensional constructions, visual archives and alternate visual production systems, as well as the transmission of a varied and fertile bodily creativity.

 The readership of this issue includes academics and researchers in anthropology, sociology, architecture, urban history and art history, and historians and professionals of tourism as well as local planners and decision making agents.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the inaugural conference for the Association for Critical Heritage Studies (held in June 2012), but we also strongly encourage researchers unable to participate in the conference to submit papers for this call.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:
  • Theorising interstitial heritage: contemporary developments
  • Theorising interstitial heritage: historical mapping and safeguarding
  • Urban forms and functionalities of architectural interstices
  • Preserving and empowering para-identities
  • Experiencing the norm and subverting or displacing it
  • Constructing interstitial aesthetic machines
  • The economics and politics of a multilayered whole: developing strategies, empowering actors
Important Dates
Deadline for submission of manuscripts: 15 November, 2012
Notification of acceptance/rejection to authors: 15 January, 2013
Final acceptance of manuscript:  31 March, 2013



19 July 2012

Special issue: Metaheuristics and swarm intelligence in engineering and industry

International Journal of Bio-Inspired Computation 4(4) 2012
  • An improved hybrid Cuckoo Search (IHCS) metaheuristics algorithm for permutation flow shop scheduling problems
  • Particle swarm optimisation applied to real time control of spherical tank system
  • Multi-agent simulated annealing algorithm based on differential evolution algorithm
  • Solving 0-1 knapsack problems by a discrete binary version of cuckoo search algorithm
  • Production planning and scheduling by means of artificial immune systems and particle swarm optimisation algorithms
  • Particle swarm optimisation for data warehouse logical design
  • Dynamic objectives aggregation methods for evolutionary portfolio optimisation. A computational study

Special issue: Recommender systems to support the dynamics of virtual learning communities

International Journal of Web Based Communities 8(3) 2012
  • Case study: recommending course reading materials in a small virtual learning community
  • A hybrid user-centred recommendation strategy applied to repositories of learning objects
  • An evolving recommender-based framework for virtual learning communities
  • Educational resources recommendation system based on agents and semantic web for helping students in a virtual learning environment
  • Designing a user interface to manage recommendations in virtual learning communities
  • Theories of participation in online learning communities: an intersectional understanding
  • Does beauty matter? The role of friends' attractiveness and gender on social attractiveness ratings of individuals on Facebook

Newly announced title: International Journal of Quantitative Research in Education

Beginning publication in 2013, International Journal of Quantitative Research in Education aims to enhance the practice and theory of quantitative research in education, defined in the broadest sense of the word, to include settings outside the school. It will publish empirical research employing a variety of quantitative methods and approaches, including but not limited to surveys, cross sectional studies, longitudinal research, structural equation modelling, multilevel modelling and Rasch modelling.

18 July 2012

Call for papers: Entrepreneurship and its Socio-cultural Contexts

A special issue of Journal for International Business and Entrepreneurship Development

The literature acknowledges that context is important for understanding when, how and why entrepreneurship happens and who becomes involved. Since entrepreneurship is about people, it is conditioned by the socio-cultural background of the entrepreneurs as well the socio-cultural contexts in which they do their business. On the other hand, as an economic activity, entrepreneurship can exert certain influence on socio-cultural changes. However, the link between entrepreneurship and its socio-cultural contexts is still under explored in the literature.

This special issue seeks to compile a collection of papers that can contribute to the development of an exciting new research agenda geared towards the assessment of the relationship between entrepreneurship and its socio-cultural contexts.

The issue welcomes research papers that offer valuable new insights or present new approaches to any of the above or related topics. Papers that are either conceptually or empirically-based, employ a range of methodological approaches and offer an international dimension with valuable cross-country/cross-sectoral comparisons are also encouraged. Case studies on any of the above topics may also be submitted.

Topics appropriate to this special issue include, but are not limited to the following:
  • The impact of culture versus location on entrepreneurial activities
  • The impact of entrepreneurship on socio-cultural changes
  • How enterprise-creation processes are shaped by the entrepreneur's socio-cultural background
  • Entrepreneurial orientation in different socio-cultural contexts
  • Socio-cultural influence on entrepreneurial propensity
  • Socio-cultural influence on international entrepreneurship
Important Dates
Expressions of interest in the form of an abstract by: 30 November, 2012
Deadline for submission of full manuscript: 28 February, 2013



Call for papers: Current Trends and Improvements in Software Engineering Practices


A special issue  of International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology

Software Engineering (SE) had witnessed many changes in practices over the years. Software has been developed for use in many sectors such as medicine, education, engineering, etc. Improvements in SE practices will improve the quality of software to be developed for various sectors, thereby enhancing productivity in the client organisations.

This special issue invites original submissions that present innovative methods, tools and techniques that result in improvements in SE practices. Papers reporting the experiences, transitions from different practices, are also welcome.

Papers are invited covering, but not limited, the following topics:
  • New modelling techniques
  • Automation support and improvement
  • Requirements engineering
  • Software testing
  • Software maintenance
  • Programming/coding practices
  • Decision making in software development
Important Dates
Last Date for Paper Submission: 4 January, 2013
Editorial Review results: 14 January, 2013
1st review decision: 14 March, 2013
Submission of revisions: 14 April, 2013
Final Acceptance/Rejection decision: 14 May, 2013


Special issue: Industry, defence and logistics: sustainability of multiple simulation based approaches

International Journal of Simulation and Process Modelling 6(4) 2011
  • Java for parallel discrete event simulation: a survey
  • Industrial workstations design: a real case study
  • New developments in simulation-based harbour crane training
  • Automatic warehouse modelling and simulation
  • Logistic assistance systems for collaborative supply chain planning
  • Intelligent agents driving computer generated forces for simulating human behaviour in urban riots
  • Multi-agent simulation for analysing the robustness of inland container terminal networks


17 July 2012

First issue: International Journal of Work Innovation

Covering new forms of work organisation (such as virtual teams, network organisations, teleworking, learning organisations, flexible and dispersed work, etc.) International Journal of Work Innovation also deals with practices such as knowledge management, teamwork, lean management, project-based work, outsourcing, etc.

There is a free download of the papers from this first issue, which is a special one: New forms of (work) organisation: the transformation of work in an amoral and lawless world

Special issue: Business ethics in the social sciences

International Journal of Society Systems Science 4(3) 2012
  • Using an informing strategy to manage moral legitimacy in healthcare organisations
  • The unifying function of leadership: shaping identity, ethics and the local rules of interaction
  • Preliminary validation of a model for describing the ethical climate of a business community
  • Teaching social responsibility through service learning: a study of antecedents leading to change
  • Ethical receptive capacity and teaching business ethics
  • Aristotle's ethics in the business classroom

Special issue: Data mining concept and applications in business intelligence

International Journal of Business and Systems Research 6(3) 2012
  • An enhanced pre-FUFP algorithm for incremental mining of association rules
  • Predicting quality of data warehouse using fuzzy logic
  • A novel algorithm for extracting knowledge based on mining multi-level sequential patterns
  • HUPT-mine: an efficient algorithm for high utility pattern mining
  • Detecting data inconsistencies by multiple target rules
  • Examining cultural effects on distributed decision-making processes using keyword analysis and data mining techniques
  • Social media framework for business blog mining


15 July 2012

Call for papers: Computational Intelligence and Pervasive Computing Environments

A special issue of International Journal of Computational Intelligence Studies
 
Computational intelligence in this context is essential as information from different networked devices should be combined and assessed, and then proper actions should be quickly inferred in response to events occurring in the deployment area.

This special issue will focus on computational intelligence techniques that can be employed in pervasive computing, and will also identify new possibilities, opportunities and challenges arising in that respect.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:
  • Energy-efficient computational intelligent techniques in wireless sensor/actuator networks
  • RFID/NFC technologies
  • Distributed algorithmic techniques in pervasive computing
  • Mobility-aware techniques in pervasive computing
  • Context-aware computing
  • Positioning and tracking techniques
  • Opportunistic pervasive computing
  • Data fusion
  • Context-aware recommender systems
  • Service adaptation in pervasive environments
  • Web services in context-aware environments
  • Intelligent agents in pervasive systems
  • Cyber foraging
  • Computational intelligence in home automation
Important Dates
Manuscript submission deadline: 31 October, 2012
First notification: 31 December, 2012
Submission of revised paper: 31 January, 2013
Notification of acceptance: 20 March, 2013



Special issue: Recent advances in P2P systems

International Journal of Communication Networks and Distributed Systems 9(1/2) 2012
  • Security analysis of public cloud computing
  • Task scheduling in heterogeneous distributed systems with security and QoS requirements
  • A hierarchical approach to improve performance of unstructured peer-to-peer system
  • Using contracts to induce cooperation in large scale P2P communication networks: algorithms, stability and applications
  • Analytical evaluation of P2P reputation systems
  • Local key management in opportunistic networks
  • SPA-based task scheduling for hypercubic P2P grid systems
  • On effectiveness of cooperation enforcement mechanisms in wireless ad hoc networks
  • SSO password-based multi-server authentication protocol

Special issue: Business process management and reuse approaches

International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management 6(1) 2012

Papers from the  Second International Workshop on Reuse in Business Process Management (rBPM 2011) held with the Ninth International Conference on Business Process Management (BPM 2011) in Clermont-Ferrand, France, 29 August 2011.
  • A semantic approach to the discovery of workflow activity patterns in event logs
  • The process configurator
  • A component abstraction for business processes
  • Building a modular YAWL engine with Cumbia
  • A survey on reuse in the business process management domain
Regular Paper
  • Scenario-driven approach for business process development

Special issue: Advances in simulation and process modelling

International Journal of Simulation and Process Modelling 7(1/2) 2012

Papers from the  2012 International Conference on Information, Computing and Telecommunications (ICICT 2012) held in Harbin, China, 9-10 January 2012.
  • Impact investigation of turbulence image features on the computation of flow kinetic energy
  • Mathematical modelling and solution of pipeline laying problem
  • Simulation platform for microgrid based on photovoltaic generation
  • MEGA: a real-time visualisation framework for large-scale terrain
  • Forecasting hepatitis epidemic situation by applying the time series model
  • Traffic information collecting algorithms for road selection decision support in vehicle ad hoc networks
  • A train control system simulation and analysis method
  • A refined F-M partitioning algorithm for logic simulation
  • Forecast model for inner corrosion rate of oil pipeline based on PSO-SVM
  • Geostationary weather radar super-resolution modelling and reconstruction process
  • Application of multi-resolution modelling in emergency evacuation simulation
  • Sensing characteristics of conductance sensor for measuring the volume fraction and axial velocity in oil-water pipe flow
  • Stimulus generation for RF MEMS switches test application
  • CMOS readout circuit for piezo-resistive accelerometer
  • Design and properties research of capacitive RF-MEMS switch

Special issue: Advances in artificial intelligence and applications

International Journal of Data Analysis Techniques and Strategies 4(3) 2012

Papers presented at the  5th International Symposium on Advances in Artificial Intelligence and Applications (AAIA'10) held in Wisla, Poland 18-20 October 2010.
  • Evaluation of clustering algorithms for word sense disambiguation
  • Data modelling and ontological semantics
  • ANN application in emotional speech analysis
  • On some properties of binary chromosomes and states of artificial immune systems
Additional Paper
  • Evaluating category performances in category management: an empirical regional study

Special issue: Business growth in complex and hostile economies

International Journal of Business Competition and Growth 2(3) 2012
  • Factors of competitiveness in the Spanish hotel industry
  • China and Japans turbulent affair: why must it continue?
  • Multilocated research strategies of SMEs: choices of governance
  • Design and competitiveness in a Portuguese SME in the footwear industry: a case study
  • The Rasch model applied to the attitudes towards change and innovation in commercial enterprises in the Canary Islands: a comparison with other sectors

12 July 2012

Call for papers: Sites of Religion, Sites of Heritage: Exploring the Interface between Religion and Heritage in Tourist Destinations

A special issue of International Journal of Tourism Anthropology

This special issue invites submissions that examine the interrelationship between pilgrimage sites and heritage sites: how religious sites are considered to be indicative of a community’s broader cultural heritage, and, conversely (and often simultaneously) how heritage sites become places of pilgrimage to certain groups of visitors who ascribe deep meaning to them.

 Tourist destinations in general often espouse different and frequently conflicting meanings (Di Giovine 2009; Singh 2011), necessitating, for site managers, both an understanding of, as well as a sensitivity to, the different communities who stake claims to them. Such sensitivity is perhaps most necessary at sites with heightened ideological value—“hyper-meaningful” places that play a significant and often central role in a group’s cosmology, social identity, or ability to maintain well-being; both pilgrimage sites and heritage sites (local, national, regional, and “universal”) are examples par excellence of this phenomenon.

 The overlap between pilgrimage sites and heritage sites is great, particularly in the post-modern 21st century tourism milieu, wherein visitors often call their secular travels “pilgrimages” (scholars have discussed “pilgrimages” to Elvis’ Graceland and Michael Jackson’s Neverland, to the Baseball Hall of Fame, to important restaurants, and, most prominently, to imagined “homelands,” ancestral motherlands, or sites of cultural heritage). This interface is most evident—and indeed, enshrined—in UNESCO’s World Heritage List, which, particularly in its first twenty years, ascribed “universal cultural value” primarily to religious places that have historically been pilgrimage sites: cathedrals, temples, shrines, sacred landscapes, and pilgrimage routes.

 We therefore especially welcome abstracts that interrogate the ways in which pilgrimages are conceived of as heritage and vice-versa, either historically or in contemporary society; the unique issues inherent in such formal and informal designations; a discussion of the implications of such shifting values; and/or the unique challenges for sustainably developing and managing these complex and multi-vocal sites.

 This issue encourages an engagement with tourism, pilgrimage studies, heritage, and issues of identity formation. Submissions may be from various disciplines, including social anthropology, sociology, folklore, human geography, history, economics, management science, politics, heritage studies, management, development studies, and tourism and leisure studies, as well as religious studies and related disciplines. Collaborative works by interdisciplinary research teams are sought. Both empirical and theoretical papers are welcome.

Topics appropriate for this special issue include, but are not limited to, the following subject areas:
  •  The link between religious pilgrimage and heritage
  •  Theorising religious heritage versus religion-and-heritage sites
  •  Value claims on religious / heritage sites
  •  Religious and ethical implications of heritage / pilgrimage destinations
  •  Management implications for sites of both religious and heritage values
  •  Nationalism and religion at tourist sites
  •  Secular pilgrimage sites / sites of “political religions”
  •  Religious tourism and sustainable development
  •  Religion’s role in cultural preservation
  •  Pilgrimage-Heritage-Tourism trajectory
  •  UNESCO World Heritage sites (particularly those of religious significance)
  •  Green Pilgrimage Cities Network
Important Dates
Deadline for submission of manuscripts: 15 September, 2013

Special issue: Feature extraction and selection for images recognition in large databases


International Journal of Signal and Imaging Systems Engineering 5(2) 2012
  • Iris localisation and extraction algorithm from an eye image
  • Texture analysis of multi-spectral prostate tissue using Generalised Grey Level Difference Method
  • Visual object recognition using multi-scale local binary patterns and line segment feature
  • Unsupervised spatio-functional clustering of fMRI data based on new functional feature
  • Comparison of graph-based methods for non-linear dimensionality reduction
  • Relevance analysis of 3D shape descriptors on interest points and regions of the face
  • A new system for offline signature identification and verification
  • Characterisation of mammographic masses using a new spiculated mass descriptor in computer aided diagnosis systems
  • Image database categorisation using robust modelling of finite generalised Dirichlet mixture

Special issue: Novel decentralised processing and organisation in gridsInternational Journal of Grid and Utility Computing

International Journal of Grid and Utility Computing 3(2/3) 2012
  • Multi-layer security analysis and experimentation of high speed protocol data transfer for GRID
  • Gustav: CPU accounting for small-sized grid infrastructures
  • A CUDA programming toolkit on grids
  • OXDP & OXiP: the notion of objects for efficient large XML data queries
  • Simple dynamic load balancing mechanism for structured P2P network and its evaluation
  • Dynamic reallocation rules on multi-server web-based MORPG system
  • GAUR: a method to detect Sybil groups in peer-to-peer overlays
  • Allocating replicas in large-scale data grids using a QoS-aware distributed technique with workload constraints
  • PPPDM - a privacy-preserving platform for data mashup
  • P2P video-on-demand streaming using caching and reservation scheme based on video popularity
  • A framework for interest-based community evolution and sharing of latent knowledge

9 July 2012

Call for papers: E-Leadership: Sustainability of E-Government and E-Business Innovations

A special issue of Electronic Government, an International Journal

E-leadership, a concept described by Avolio, Kahaia and Dodge (2000) as a process of influence operating within or enabled by information and communications technology (ICT) environments has been gaining traction over the past decade within the disciplines and the practitioner communities of information systems (IS) and organisational/management studies. The origins of the term can be linked to the commercial spread of the Internet since the mid-1990s, and the increasing pervasiveness of advanced information and communications technologies leading to a globalised knowledge economy.

 The rise in ICT investments in both the public and the commercial sectors has also meant that organisations (public and private) are either wholly and/or partially dependent on ICT, which has resulted in extensive virtual networks as a basis for not only inter-personal relationships, but also intra- and inter-organisational networks. Therefore, when e-leadership is considered within the context of the increasingly knowledge-based society, the need to focus on developing capabilities to integrate critical knowledge resources, of which ICT forms a critical component, must be emphasised in order to enhance provision of value in service delivery in both public and private sector organisations.

 This call for papers is motivated by a number of trends: the first is related to increasing demand for ICT services, which has resulted in huge global ICT investments. For instance, HIS Global predicted that 2010-2013 would be a recovery period in which emerging markets in Africa , the Middle East and elsewhere will experience faster growth rates than the advanced economies of North America and in parts of Europe . The result has seen increased ICT demand not only in the emerging markets but also in the developed nations as well. News ICT sectors and changes in industry can also be linked to the pervasiveness of the Internet.

However, despite increased ICT investments, failure in ICT projects is also common. The second trend is linked to the continued transformation of organsational structures by ICT, which requires that management and leadership of organisational units develop new competencies at both the organisational and individual level. New leadership competencies are required since the organisational leader and manager now grapples with greater dispersion of units, customers, suppliers and stakeholders as well as a greater need for frequent communication enabled by ICT (Zaccaro and Bader, 2003). As a reaction to these trends and changes, information systems and organisational scientists have begun to talk about e-leadership as an emerging field (Dasgupta, 2011) that can respond to leadership and management opportunities and challenges in the digital age.

 This special issue recognises that e-leadership will become routine in practice and in thinking about public and private sector leadership, especially as ICT continues to play a dominant role in innovations that shape the knowledge economy. ICT and leadership are known to enjoy a recursive relationship which impacts on various innovations, but challenges remain as to the nature of the impact, nature of trust in new innovations, and how information ecology impacts the relationship process and the nature of impact on performance (Avolio, Walumbwa, and Weber, 2009).

 Therefore, the objective is to provide an outlet for publishing original research highlighting current issues related to technical, organisational, managerial and socio-economic aspects of e-leadership and its impact on e-government and e-business innovations. We invite theoretical, conceptual and empirical papers that address how e-leadership influences digital strategy (e-government and e-business strategies); management in the digital era (e-management); how ict enables organisational transformation (e-transformation) and the sustainability of digital innovations from the perspective of ICT4D (e-sustainability).

 Avolio, B. J., Kahai, S., & Dodge, G. E. (2000). E-leadership: Implications for theory, research, and practice. The Leadership Quarterly, 11 (4), 615-668 
 DasGupta, D. (2011). Literature Review: e-Leadership. Emerging Leadership Journeys, 4(1), pp. 1- 36
 Zaccaro, S. J., & Bader, P. (2003). E-leadership and the challenges of leading e-teams: Minimizing the bad and maximizing the good. Organizational Dynamics, 31(4).

Contributed papers may deal with topics which include but are not limited to:

I. DIGITAL STRATEGY
 Models of e-leadership
 E-education strategy and management
 Social, political and legal frameworks for transformational government
 Social, political and legal frameworks for e-business
 Case studies on development e-business and e-government strategies
 Change management in ICT-enabled environments

 II. E-MANAGEMENT
Virtual project leadership
 E-management models
 Adapting business process for e-management
 IT governance for e-commerce
 E-business risk management
 Managing the transition to digital broadcasting
 Performance management in e-business and e-government

 III. E-TRANSFORMATION
 E-commerce trends and issues
 Social networking in organisations
 Business intelligence and web analytics
 E-business and e-government infrastructure development
 Technology solutions for integrating inter-firm and inter-governmental processes
 E-tendering
 E-procurement
 IT diffusion in developing regions
 Mobile applications in developing regions
 Mobile money
 Cloud computing
 ICT4D

IV. E-SUSTAINABILITY
 Sustainability frameworks for e-business and e-government
 E-business sustainability in small and medium-sized enterprises
 Realising e-participation for e-governance
 Value chain management for e-business and e-government innovations
 Modelling online user behaviour
 Sustaining transformational government

Important Dates
Proposal deadline (optional): 15 August, 2012
Submission deadline: 31 October, 2012
Notification of status & acceptance of paper: 31 December, 2012
Final version of paper: 15 March, 2013

Call for papers: Marx and Marxism – Still Relevant After the Crisis?

A special issue of International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education

Global capitalism is in the grips of the worst recession in 60 years. Mainstream economics has failed to devise effective solutions, instead offering trite, banal and failed policies, which not only lack imagination, but are setting the stage for a future crisis. No wonder many people are re-examining Marx to understand the current crisis and chart a way forward.

This special issue invites papers on the relevance of Marx and Marxism in an age of pluralism and global crisis. Its objective is to investigate the usefulness of Marx in understanding the crisis and in charting a way forward.

Suitable themes include but are not limited to:
  •  Is Marxism still relevant?
  •  How should we read Capital in the 21 st century?
  •  How can we teach Marx to today’s students?
  •  Is Marxism consistent with pluralism?
  •  What is the Marxian Theory of Money and Finance?
  •  What are the obstacles to teaching Marx?
  •  Is Marxian value theory analytically useful in explaining the current crisis?
  •  Who was Marx and what were his values?
  •  Is Marxian value theory analytically useful in explaining the current crisis?
  •  How can we use the insights of Marxism to help chart a path forward after the crisis?
  •  How can Marxism more sharply elucidate the weaknesses of mainstream economics?
  •  Marxism and the critique of contemporary capitalism.
  •  What could we learn from a Marxian Freakonomics?
  •  What aspects of Marxism can help build a pluralist economics?
  •  Can meaningful synergy be attained between Marxist economics and other branches of heterodox economics?
  •  Is Marxism consistent compatible with ecological sustainability?
  •  Marx versus Sraffa: still relevant?
  •  Should students learn marginal distribution theory or the labour theory of value? Or both?
  •  How receptive is Marx in different parts of the world?
  •  Are there cherished icons within Marxism that should be re-examined?
Important Dates
Deadline for abstracts: 1 November, 2012
Decisions announced: 1 December, 2012
Deadline for full papers: 1 May, 2013
Referees' reports sent by: 1 July, 2013
Final version of full papers due by: 15 August, 2013

Call for papers: Web-based Learning Environments for Interactive and Collaborative Learning

A special issue of International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning

Compared to the physical classroom, the web-based learning environment has many unique advantages. For instance, it provides an equal opportunity for every student to participate, share information, voice their opinions and construct knowledge with the rest of the group. It also enables students to interact and collaborate with each other at any time and anywhere. Additionally, the learning process is often automatically recorded and can be easily monitored and tracked.

However, designing and using a web-based environment to support teaching and learning has many challenges as well. The environment must be easy to access and must meet different students’ needs, and must be a safe and comfortable space in which students are willing to contribute and support one another.

The main objective of this special issue is to provide a venue for researchers to share their experiences and challenges in designing and using web-based learning environments to support interactive and collaborative learning. The learning environment can be an online course, a space created in a course management system (such as Blackboard or Moodle), or a shared workspace designed using any free web 2.0 tools such as weblog or wiki. The discussions in this issue will have implications for practitioners designing effective web-based learning environments.

The issue will publish empirical research papers and case studies of designing or using web-based learning environments to support interactive and collaborative learning. Conceptual papers that address critical issues and concerns about online learning, interactive and collaborative learning or learning environment design are also welcome.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:
  • Web-based virtual learning environments
  • Using social media to support teaching and collaborative learning
  • Enhancing interactive and collaborative learning by using technology
  • Technology-supported collaborative learning
  • Using web 2.0 tools such as weblog, wiki, microbloging and Facebook for learning
  • Web-based learning communities
  • Web-based communities of practice for teachers' professional development
  • Web-based learning resource management and utilisation
  • Collaborative knowledge construction
  • Webquest design
  • Social presence in web-based learning environments
  • Social affordances of technology for teaching and learning
  • Innovative use of course management systems to support interactive learning
  • Issues and concerns of learning environment design
Important Dates
Submission of manuscripts: 30 October, 2012
Notification to authors:  31 December, 2013
Final versions due:  28 February, 2013



Special issue: Design and control of unmanned ground vehicle systems

International Journal of Vehicle Autonomous Systems 10(1/2) 2012
  • Fractal terrain generation for vehicle simulation
  • Efficient object motion prediction using fuzzy Petri net based modelling in a robot navigational environment
  • Velocity occupancy space: autonomous navigation in an uncertain, dynamic environment
  • Hardware-in-the-loop simulation of automatic steering control for double lane change and sine steer manoeuvres
  • Adaptive control of mobile manipulators subject to external force and uncertainties
  • Road safety: embedded observers for estimation of vehicle's vertical tyre forces

Special issue: Sustainable supply chain design and practice – Part 2

International Journal of Agile Systems and Management 5(3) 2012

Part 1 is in International Journal of Agile Systems and Management 5(1) 2012
  • The links between supply chain disturbances and resilience strategies
  • Sustainable supply chain by intermodal itinerary planning: a multiobjective ant colony approach
  • Production location and sustainability
  • Selecting the supply chain route: environmental aspects

Special issue: New combinatorial optimisation models for decision making

International Journal of Applied Management Science 4(3) 2012
  • Optimal allocation plan for distribution centres of a frozen food company
  • Dynamic cellular manufacturing design and its sensitivity analysis
  • A simulated annealing-based hybrid algorithm for solving UFL problems
  • A priority-based goal programming method for solving academic personnel planning problems with interval-valued resource goals in university management system
  • Development of a fuzzy multi-criteria facility layout generation model

Special issue: Developments in machining technology

International Journal of Materials and Product Technology 43(1-4) 2012
  • Selection of optimal condition for finishing of centreless-cylindrical ground parts using grey relational and principal component analyses
  • Kinematic analysis and design optimisation of a surgical rod cutter for shearing of Ti6Al4V rods
  • Drilling of carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP) composites - a review
  • Machinability studies on laser-sintered iron-silicon carbide metal matrix composites using wire electrical discharge machining
  • Parametric optimisation of ECH of spur gears by Taguchi technique
  • An experimental investigation of temperature and machinability in turning of compacted graphite irons
  • Machinability study on stainless steel and optimum setting of cutting parameters in turning process using Taguchi design of experiments
  • An assessment of residual stresses on 316LN SS machined plates by hole-drilling strain-gage method
  • Comparison of central composite and orthogonal array designs for cutting force and surface roughness prediction modelling in turning
Additional Papers
  • Performance and wear of coated carbide drill in machining of carbon fibre reinforced composite/titanium stack
  • Influence of some processing variables on the rheological properties of lithium lubricating greases modified with recycled polymers

Special issue: Evaluating the effect of public policies on corporate R&D and innovation: processes and behaviours, measurement methods and indicators

World Review of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development 9(2-4) 2012
  • Designing ex-post assessment of corporate RDI policies: conceptualisation, indicators and modelling
  • Evaluating the additionality of innovation policy. A review focused on the behavioural dimension
  • Assessing the assignation of public subsidies: do the experts choose the most efficient R&D projects?
  • R&D investment responses to R&D subsidies: a theoretical analysis and a microeconometric study
  • Additionality of public R&D funding for business R&D - a dynamic panel data analysis
  • Public funds additionality in R&D expenditure in presence of essential heterogeneity: an empirical investigation using the Italian CIS3 data
  • Evaluation of public R&D policies: a cross-country comparison
  • R&D policy evaluation: the effects of R&D subsidies in Italy

Special issue: New perspectives on entrepreneurial marketing

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business 16(4) 2012
  • The impact of market orientation on family firm performance
  • Entrepreneurship and social media marketing: evidence from French small business
  • Community marketing in social media - can marketers leverage Facebook groups of celebrities?
  • Brand communities for market trend discovery: a study to advance entrepreneurial marketing research
  • Entrepreneurial pricing: characteristics and implications of pricing in SMEs and start-ups
  • Entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation and internationalisation in born global small and micro-businesses
  • Entrepreneurial marketing and capital acquisition
  • Card-based game methods: exploring SME entrepreneurial marketing practice

Special issue: Logistics services for effective supply chains

International Journal of Enterprise Network Management 5(2) 2012
  • Knowledge build-up high complexity environment: towards on the innovation value chain performance in the product development process under uncertainty and restraint
  • Open innovation of consensus standard - cases of business model creation in ICT
  • Technology to prevent mobile phone accidents
  • Corporate social responsibility in face of global financial crisis: evidence from Nigeria
  • Influence of advertising led brand personality consumer congruity on consumer's choice: evidence from Indian apparel market
  • Dynamic vehicle path planning using an enhanced simulated annealing approach for supply chains

Special issue: One-to-one technology-transformed learning in the age of mobile connectivity

 International Journal of Mobile Learning and Organisation 6(2) 2012
  • User and context modelling for adaptive mobile learning interfaces
  • Integrating mobile-based individual activities into the Japanese EFL classroom
  • Towards seamless vocabulary learning: how we can entwine in-class and outside-of-class learning
  • Towards a seamless language learning framework mediated by the ubiquitous technology
  • Theoretical and methodological considerations regarding the design of innovative mathematical learning activities with mobile technologies


Special issue: Emerging wireless technologies: 3G and beyond

International Journal of Internet Protocol Technology 7(1) 2012
  • Performance of LTE network for VoIP users
  • A new BlueGreen methodology for designing next generation networks
  • Agent assisted mobility and load aware fast handoff scheme in wireless mesh networks
  • Hierarchical DWT-based optimal diversity power allocation for video transmission in OFDMA/MIMO wireless systems
Additional Paper
  • Memorised carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (MCSMA/CA) protocol for IEEE 802.11p

Special issue: Innovative entrepreneurship: sources of innovation, policies and learning

International Journal of Innovation and Regional Development 4(3/4) 2012
  • Networks, spatial diffusion of technological knowledge and regional economic growth: an agent-based modelling approach
  • The entrepreneur's personal network structure and firm growth
  • Technology transfer approaches for early stage desalinisation technologies: a case study
  • The emergent process of social innovation: multi-stakeholders perspective
  • Radical innovation and policy-making: nanotechnology public R&D funding in the USA and the EU
  • Students' propensity to entrepreneurship: an exploratory study from Greece
  • Digital games for entrepreneurial learning, innovation and creativity: examples and evaluation criteria
  • Conceptual fundamentals of the long wave theory and the innovative potential of the Russian economy

Special issue: Collaborative Innovation Networks (COINS)

International Journal of Organisational Design and Engineering 2(2) 2012

Papers  from the 3rd International Conference on COINs held in Basel, Switzerland,  8–10 September 2011.
  • Lessons learned and future directions: designing for multidisciplinarity in collaborative innovation networks (COINs)
  • Supporting development efforts of clinical care teams
  • Collective intelligence-based resource allocation to optimise knowledge and innovation harnessing in corporate environmentsEntrepreneur online social networks - structure, diversity and impact on start-up survival
  • Wikimaps: dynamic maps of knowledge

Special issue: Knowledge management and e-human resources practices for innovation

International Journal of Knowledge and Learning 8(1/2) 2012
  • Fostering creativity through assessment and the use of IT: a feasibility study carried out in higher education
  • The influence of organisational learning culture on information system project team capabilities: an empirical study
  • An innovative ontology-driven system supporting personnel selection: the OntoHR case
  • Knowledge management for designing business workflows through semantic compositions of web services
  • Semantic people tagging and ontology maturing: an enterprise social media approach to competence management
  • Competence semantics: engineering and application
Additional Papers
  • The project-based company as an autopoietic knowledge system
  • Analysis of the design of effective learning activities using learning-type PDCA and CAPD cycles on the basis of the characteristics of individual students
  • What makes end-user training successful? A mixed method study of a business process management system implementation

8 July 2012

Newly announced title: International Journal of Decision Support Systems

Beginning publication in 2013, International Journal of Decision Support Systems will seek to significantly improve current DSS technologies and decision information frameworks by publishing novel and high-quality theoretical or empirical contributions. Its content will reflect the research directions and motivation of those involved both in academia and industry.

Newly announced title: International Journal of Nonlinear Dynamics and Control

Beginning publication in 2013 and with the support and cooperation of members of Dynamics and Control Committee of the Chinese Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, International Journal of Nonlinear Dynamics and Control is one of the very few journals explicitly dedicated to this emerging area. It will publish original research and review articles on theoretical, numerical and experimental works advancing knowledge of nonlinear dynamic systems and their control.