If you are stuck in a highly repetitive, altogether routine job with no alternative employment options, then Scott Herriott of the Maharishi University of Management, in Fairfield, Iowa, suggests you take 20 minutes twice a day to experience your inner unbounded awareness and reduce the stress associated with boredom. Writing in the International Journal of [...]

How do we conserve installation art and more specifically how do we allow audio-visual installation art that uses parochial hardware and software, video tapes, computers, DVD players and the like for future generations who will inevitably have other incompatible devices and gadgets for their art and entertainment? Part of the answer must lie in curation [...]

Hurricanes are devastating. Aside from the high, sustained wind speeds, they usually bring with them heavy rain, which can quickly lead to the breaching of flood defences in susceptible areas. Now, US and UK researchers have reviewed hurricane flood defence barriers and technologies with a view to helping engineers find improved designs. Writing in the [...]

Emergencies at educational establishments are on the increase in recent years and campus officials are beginning to recognize that better communications with their students are now needed. Writing in the International Journal of Business Information Systems, US researchers describe how social networking sites might be exploited when an emergency situation arises to help safeguard students [...]

Physicians often ask their patients to Please stick out your tongue. The tongue can betray signs of illness, which combined with other symptoms such as a cough, fever, presence of jaundice, headache or bowel habits, can help the physician offer a diagnosis. For people in remote areas who do not have ready access to a [...]

Health is high on the agenda in many countries with efforts to get more people exercising in order to reduce the problems associated with obesity, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. Unfortunately, risk assessment is inadequate in terms of sports facilities and many fitness programs rely on the participants taking out insurance and signing [...]

A collaboration between NEC Electronics and several academic centres in China and Iran, is investigating how software-defined cellular networking might be used to give smart phone users the next generation of super-superfast broadband, 5G. They provide details in the International Journal of Communication Networks and Distributed Systems. Currently, the fourth generation of mobile phone connection [...]

Members of the public in sub-Saharan Africa who are carriers of the hereditary disease sickle cell disease must be educated aggressively through public health campaigns to raise awareness of the risks of parenting offspring with the disease if their partner is also a carrier, according to research published in the International Journal of Medical Engineering [...]

Spam spreads much faster and to more people when it is being propagated by hacked, or otherwise compromised, email accounts rather than legitimate accounts, according to research published in the International Journal of Security and Networks. The insight should help those modeling the dynamics of information diffusion as well as those hoping to track and [...]

The modern consumer is keen to be more than a passive recipient of goods and services. Social media, web 2.0 and more have empowered customers so that they share their opinions with other consumers online, offer feedback to corporations and through crowdsourcing schemes may even be asked for their expertise, ideas and sometimes financial backing [...]

Gender diversity is relevant when it comes to R&D innovation, according to a study of Spanish manufacturing firms; however much more important is diverse functional expertise, say researcher in a paper to be published in the International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business. Juan Fernndez-Sastre of FLACSO Ecuador explains that innovation does not result from [...]

Reputation is an asset to cherish, whether corporate, institutional or personal. In the age of social media, however, reputation is more fragile than ever. News of a simple mistake or misjudged action can spread rapidly via social networking sites. The ill-judged video, the angry response, the tasteless joke, the inappropriate photograph In the past, they [...]

An international study has devised a new measure for the livability of major cities across the world. The Global Liveable Cities Index (GLCI) takes into account the sensibilities of ordinary working people from 64 cities, balancing work and play, environmental awareness, localism, globalism and many other factors. Details are published in the World Review of [...]

It seems that no company can afford not to engage with its customers and potential clients via online social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, these days. The likes of Facebook have become hubs for such direct company to customer interactions where queries can be quickly answered, grievances addressed and products and services promoted [...]

When astronomers (Bond 2013) first dated the star HD 140283, which lies a mere 190 lightyears from Earth in the constellation of Libra, they were puzzled. This rare, star appeared to be rather ancient and was quickly nicknamed the Methuselah star. It is a metal-poor sub-giant with an apparent magnitude of 7.223. The star had [...]

Are you Facebook friends with your microwave oven, is your car? Does your washing machine have a blog read by the tumble drier? Ever thought of following your lighting circuit on Twitter, would it make sense to have the electric curtain controllers do so? Well, such whimsical ideas are perhaps a little far-fetched at first [...]

Two simple life hacks that might apply to all kinds of situations, business, social life, even family life, emerge from a new study published in the International Journal of Organisational Design and Engineering. The first is: Use face-to-face where possible instead of email and in long-distance collaboration use technologies such as desktop video conferencing The [...]

Electric vehicles in towns and cities are not the answer to pollution problems and climate change, but they might help country folk reduce their carbon bootprints. Researchers in the UK are questioning the received wisdom regarding the promotion of electric vehicles in towns and cities. Writing in the International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management, [...]

The Internet of Things IoT its a phrase we hear more and more, often hyped, often discussed seriously in the context of cloud computing but definitely a buzz phrase. Put simply, it is the connection of smart (and otherwise) devices, washing machines, refrigerators, scanners and printers, health monitoring devices, environmental sensors, earthquake and [...]

Social network analysis could improve knowledge sharing in the healthcare sector, according to research results published in the International Journal of Collaborative Enterprise. Elizabeth Cudney, Steven Corns and Suzanna Long in the department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology, in Rolla, Missouri, USA, explain how knowledge management systems [...]

An aging population and an increased incidence of debilitating illnesses such as Parkinsons and Alzheimers disease means there is pressure on technology to offer assistance with healthcare monitoring and treatment. Research published in the International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing Andrew Thomas formerly of Birmingham City University, UK and colleagues there and [...]

Landlords should be helping their social-housing tenants improve the energy efficiency of their homes, according to research published in the International Journal of Environment and Sustainable Development. Given that warmth is commonly the greatest need for such tenant, habit the greatest barrier and money the greatest motivator improvements to heating systems and advice on how [...]

Climate change, pollution, dwindling natural resources, diminishing fresh water suppliesthe list of problems we face as a species in the twenty-first century continues to grow. Many of the environmental problems are sadly our own doing and yet therein lies the solution. We must halt the devastation, reverse the problems. Now, sustainability associate Kaushik Sridhar of [...]

How do we perceive the jobs other people do? Are there dirty or morally tainted jobs and how do we reconcile the fact that many of the people doing such job provide an invaluable and often essential service regardless of our perceptions of the jobs as physically, socially or ethically tainted? By definition a job [...]

From Latvia to North Korea Internet resilience ranked The Internet is a critical component of modern communication for billions of people and businesses. But, how resilient is it to sabotage, accidents and political abuse? Writing in the International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations this month, researchers in Germany explain how geography is one [...]

Making light work of the workload for overworked healthcare workers Modern hospitals are staffed by overworked and overstressed healthcare workers, according to a research paper published in the International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology. As such, new technology must be implemented to reduce the number of treatment errors that arise because of this. Uta [...]

Face recognition software measures various parameters in a mug shot, such as the distance between the persons eyes, the height from lip to top of their nose and various other metrics and then compares it with photos of people in the database that have been tagged with a given name. Now, research published in the [...]

Cloud computing involves displacing data storage and processing from the users computer on to remote servers. It can provide users with more storage space and computing power that they can then access from anywhere in the world rather than having to connect to a single desktop or other computer with its finite resources. However, some [...]

An evolutionary analysis of public health data during a major disease outbreak, such as bird flu, E coli contamination of food or the current outbreak of Ebola virus could help the emergency services plan their response and contain the disease more effectively. Details are reported in the International Journal of Innovative Computing and Applications. Dehai [...]

There are seven keys to creating a successful university-based entrepreneurship ecosystem (U-BEE), according to research published in the aptly named International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management. Mark Rice, Michael Fetters and Patricia Greene of the School of Business at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA, have undertaken case studies of six universities, three [...]

The smart phone has changed our behavior, sometimes for the better as we are now able to connect and engage with many more people than ever before, sometimes for the worse in that we may have become over-reliant on the connectivity with the outside world that these devices afford us. Either way, there is no [...]

Cut flowers last longer with silver nanotechnology Once cut and dunked in a vase of water, flowers are susceptible to bacterial growth that shortens the length of time one has to enjoy the blooms. A few silver nanoparticles sprinkled into the water, might be the answer to longer-lasting cut flowers according to research published in [...]

Prolonging the lifespan of products is vital in order to decouple economic success from environmental impact, according to Marie Hebrok of the National Institute for Consumer Research (SIFO) in Oslo, Norway. Writing in the Journal of Design Research she is developing a theory of dis-domestication of products that should help inform designers and manufacturers as [...]

Ananda Mitra of the Department of Communication, at Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina and colleague Sanjay Mamani point out that there are increasing amounts of unstructured data permeating the internet and in big databases. They refer to the narrative bits of unstructured data, the social media updates and the like as narbs. They have [...]

By adapting the Lean Six Sigma principle of manufacturing to rural hospitals, Indian researchers suggest that patient queues might be shortened by 91 percent while consultation time could be reduced to about a third of the time. Details of the approach are reported in the International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management. The Six Sigma [...]

While long-form writing, epic cinematic tales and hefty tomes have had something of a renaissance recently, the continued popularity of the so-called microblogging platform Twitter and other such tools highlights the fact that many people still like to be very succinct. The terse commentary, the abstract, the executive summary: all still favored by many of [...]

Wikipedia the free, online collaborative encyclopedia is an important source of information. However, while the team of volunteer editors endeavors to maintain high standards, there are occasionally problems with the veracity of content, deliberate vandalism and incomplete entries. Writing in the International Journal of Information Quality, computer scientists in China have devised a software algorithm [...]

Cryptographers in China have have developed a new type of cryptography that can better resist so-called offline dictionary attacks, denial of service (DoS) hacks, and cracks involving eavesdroppers. Their approach, reported in the International Journal of Electronic Security and Digital Forensics, extends and improves a type of cryptography that uses an intractable mathematical problem as [...]

Students do not mind buying healthier snacks from vending machines, according to research published in the International Journal of Food Safety, Nutrition and Public Health. The findings could have implications for campus health initiatives as well as vendor profits. The common stereotype of the busy student is of someone who will grab a junk food [...]

Growth in scientific knowledge seems to lead to an exacerbation in debate over politically sensitive issues rather than resolution? Nuclear power, global warming, vaccination, creationism, frackingthe list goes on. There are at least two possible explanations. First, controversies arise because of the complexity of nature. Secondly, politics and power drive the debate. The result is [...]

The spread of misinformation through online social networks is becoming an increasingly worrying problem. Researchers in India have now modeled how such fictions and diffuse through those networks. They described details of their research and the taxonomy that could help those who run, regulate and use online social networks better understand how to slow or [...]

Plant-derived natural product chemicals could offer protection to the skin from the harmful effects of gamma radiation during cancer radiotherapy. Radiotherapy for cancer involves exposing the patient or their tumor more directly to ionizing radiation, such as gamma rays or X-rays. The radiation damages the cancer cells irreparably. Unfortunately, such radiation is also harmful to [...]

Allowing patients to choose which hospital they attend when suffering illness during a pandemic rather than assigning them to a specific healthcare facility is appealing to patients during such a crisis. However, such a patient-centric hospital capacity management is conventionally viewed as inefficient system-wide. According to research published in the International Journal of Mathematics in [...]

Sustainability is the environmental buzzword of the day, but it need not apply only to conservation and preservation in that context: with a concept of sustainable tourism, many tourist destinations fail to thrive and often perish, according to a research paper published in the International Journal of Environment and Sustainable Development. The studys authors Ana [...]

The European Southern Observatorys VLT, Very Large Telescope, is a group of four 8.2-metre diameter optical telescopes located in northern Chile. It also has four movable 1.8-metre diameter auxiliary telescopes and they all work together to act as what ESO calls a giant interferometer. The overall resolution of this instrument is some 25 times higher [...]

Individualized climate control for burns victims in hospitals might not only improve comfort for such patients, but improve working conditions for those taking care of them. In addition, it could cut energy requirements by three quarters where cooling is needed and by up to a quarter where heating is used. Details of this low-exergy, LowEx, [...]

When governments, organizations or corporate entities have made a mistake, we often hear that the problems that arose were covered up; there was a whitewash. The term alludes to a relatively quick, easy and cheap way of painting over the cracks in a wall. Today, we also have greenwashing. Greenwashing is the environmental equivalent of [...]

A new music recommendation system has been developed by information scientists in Korea. They report details in the latest issue of the International Journal of Intelligent Information and Database Systems. The addition of emotional tags, evocative keywords, to the music files you listen to could improve music recommendations in a way that is not possible [...]

How to solve engineering problems by swimming against the stream and avoiding the grizzlies. Solving complex problems is rarely a straightforward process, there are often many variables and countless plausible solutions each one of which has its pros and cons. Mechanical engineers at the Babol University of Technology in Mazandaran, Iran, have turned to nature [...]

Using the stuff of sand, silicon dioxide, as a binding layer for replacement bone prosthetics could allow more biocompatible artificial joints to be manufactured as well as reducing the risk of post-operative infection, according to research published in the International Journal of Surface Science and Engineering. The metals titanium and tantalum are widely used to [...]

A system for high-performance, scalable, multidirectional asynchronous and timely file replication of data across cloud servers has been developed by computer scientists in China. The approach, described in the International Journal of Internet Protocol Technology overcomes one of the major problems facing widespread adoption of cloud services how to keep data in sync. Anirban [...]

A new hybrid filtering system to protect cloud computing services from distributed denial of service (dDOS) attacks has been developed by US and Indian researchers. They provide details in the latest issue of the International Journal of Grid and Utility Computing. A distributed denial of service (dDOS) attack usually involves a network of computers infected [...]

US researchers have carried out an environmental lifecycle assessment of 2-megawatt wind turbines mooted for a large wind farm in the US Pacific Northwest. Writing in the International Journal of Sustainable Manufacturing, they conclude that in terms of cumulative energy payback, or the time to produce the amount of energy required of production and installation, [...]

Humanitarian liking on Facebook Liking page on the social networking site Facebook is a new form of civic engagement and humanitarian support, so concludes research published in the International Journal of Web Based Communities. According to the papers authors social motives and an emotional response underpinned users inclination to like, or follow, a page, rather [...]

Research published in the International Journal of Sustainable Development suggests that purportedly entertaining films that feature global warming and climate change can affect public understanding. But films are often bound up in problematic and limiting identity politics, which commonly reiterate racial, gender and sexual stereotypes positioning as they do white men as being the decision [...]

As the developing world continues to develop, standards of living and access to technology increases. Unfortunately, as personal computers, laptops and mobile phones become increasingly common so the problem of recycling and disposal of such devices when they become technologically obsolete rises too. Neelu Jain of the PEC University of Technology, in Chandigarh and Pamela [...]

Which look bigger, packages of complicated shape or packages of simple shape? Some prior research shows that complex packages appear larger than simple packages of equal volume, while other research has shown the opposite that simple packages look bigger than the more complex. US researchers, writing in the International Journal of Management Practice believe [...]

Internet service providers (ISPs) hoping to emulate the success of New Zealands ultrafast broadband initiative, which has positioned that country as a global leader in this realm, should heed four lessons from their approach according to research published in the International Journal of Technology Policy and Law. Malcolm Webb, Mark Toner and Jordan Cox of [...]

Word-of-mouth marketing is recognized as a powerful route from long-tail sales to blockbuster, whether one is talking about the latest fishy ice cream flavor or a Hollywood romantic comedy. In the age of social media and online networking sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, the potential for spreading the word could mean the difference between [...]

Wildfires and flooding affect many more people in the USA than earthquakes and landslide and yet the dread, the perceived risk, of the latter two is much greater than for those hazards that are more frequent and cause greater loss of life. Research published in the International Journal of Risk Assessment and Management, suggests that [...]

The use of so-called drones unmanned aircraft for domestic security purposes, surveillance of citizens and putative criminals and organizations raises many legal and ethical concerns particularly with regard to the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution, Council of Europe instruments, and the EU Data Protection Framework, according to a research paper published in [...]

Website privacy policies are almost obligatory for many online services, but for anyone who reads these often unwieldy documents, trust in the provider is more commonly reduced than gained, according to US researchers writing in the International Journal of Services and Standards. Almost every commercial website, social network, search engine and banking site has a [...]

If conventional lie detector machines, polygraphs, have been endlessly debunked and shown not to provide admissible nor even valid evidence, then the 21st Century tool of choice for reading the minds of witnesses and putative criminals may well be the brain scanner. More specifically, the kind of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with a little f [...]

A simple model that can quickly determine which masonry buildings are most at risk of collapse following a serious landslide has been developed by researchers in Italy. They publish details in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Structural Engineering. Fabrizio Palmisano of Politecnico Bari, and Angelo Elia of PPV Consulting, also in Bari, [...]

Mums on the net should be the focus of those carrying out market research as it turns out that the old word-of-mouth benefits to sales are stronger than ever now that the school gathering places, shops and mother and child groups have been augmented by online social networks aimed at mothers. Thats the conclusion of [...]

A computer program can analyze CCTV images and spot aggressive human behaviour nine times out of ten, according to research published in the International Journal of Computational Vision and Robotics. The research is an important step forward in intelligent security systems that could raise an alarm without requiring constant human vigilance. Image-processing experts Abdelhak Ouanane [...]

Small businesses could save up to 62% of energy costs by switching to a cloud computing system for their invoicing, according to research published in the International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management. The approach of integrating cloud computing and a more environmentally-aware approach to information technology also cuts carbon emissions, the team reports, [...]

A statistical analysis of the gift "fulfillments" at several hundred online wedding gift registries suggests that wedding guests are caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to buying an appropriate gift for the happy couple. The details reported in the International Journal of Electronic Marketing and Retailing suggest that most people [...]

Digital personal health records (PHR) represent an important shift away from conventional electronic health records, offering patients and healthcare workers the opportunity for more predictive, personalized, participatory, ubiquitous and interconnected treatment. However, the closure of one major provider in this realm sponsored by Google until 2012, left something of a void and perhaps stymied innovation [...]

An escape route mapping system based on the behavior of ant colonies could give evacuees a better chance of reaching safe harbor after a natural disaster or terrorist attack by building a map of showing the shortest routes to shelters and providing regular updates of current situations such as fires, blocked roads or other damage [...]

There are 8 million dogs in the UK, which adds up to a lot of daily walks and potential for a lot of dog faeces to be left behind. Most dog walkers are happy and even proud to bag and bin their dogs waste, some might leave waste if they are off the beaten track [...]

Computer technology that can mine data from social media during times of natural or other disaster could provide invaluable insights for rescue workers and decision makers, according to an international team writing in the International Journal of Emergency Management. Adam Zagorecki of the Centre for Simulation and Analytics, at Cranfield University, Shrivenham, UK and David [...]

Inspiring primary school age children to think of themselves as inventors and to devise novel solutions to the problems around them was the aim of an educational experiment reported in the International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning. Charles Crook and Colin Harrison of the School of Education, at the University of Nottingham, UK, suggest that [...]

Colonial legacy has a significant impact on scientific productivity across the continent of Africa, according to a study by researchers at the University of Lom, in Togo. Writing in the International Journal of Education Economics and Development, the team suggests that Africa performs relatively poorly compared with other regions of the world. Moreover, their analysis [...]

There are various ways to protect a wireless network. Some are generally considered to be more secure than others. Some, such as WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy), were broken several years ago and are not recommended as a way to keep intruders away from private networks. Now, a new study published in the International Journal of [...]

Human trafficking for forced labour, sexual exploitation and the illegal organ trade amounts to a criminal industry generating untaxed and untaxable revenues of some $32 billion, according to a paper published this month in the International Journal of Public Law and Policy. The study by Katherine Taken Smith of Murray State University, in Kentucky, USA, [...]

Measuring blood sugar when you have diabetes usually involves pricking your finger and using a glucose monitor for the test. While this approach can give people with diabetes vital information about whether they need to take insulin or eat something sugary, it is nevertheless painful and inconvenient. Now, an international research team is one step[...]

Scientists in Russia plan to use DNA our genetic material to help them solve one of the perennial back to school problems faced by school administrators the world over: how to match up students, with classes and available teachers. Writing in the International Journal of Bioinformatics Research and Applications, the team explains how[...]

MINT is the new BRIC, according to Fidelity, a Boston-based asset management firm. The term, referring to the rapidly developing and growing nations of Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey, has moved into popular economics courtesy of Jim ONeill of Goldman Sachs, who coined the term BRIC to refer to the earlier upward mobility of Brazil,[...]

Could managers gain a new kind of understanding about their interaction with colleagues and employees by dancing? Thats the question arising from new research published this month in the International Journal of Work Organisation and Emotion. Management is usually considered a stiff and rational business, decisions made based on fiscal studies, profit margins and market[...]

There are several good reasons why a company might practice reverse logistics - the process of retrieving broken, worn out or obsolete items for recycling or refurbishment. These include improved public image wherein customers recognize the benefits of buying from an environmentally responsible company, improved environmental record and improved resource usage. However, there are several [...]

Quality is in the eye of the beholding manager Managers in the UKs National Health Service lack quality management skills and application and this has led to a lack of emphasis on operations excellence and future planning, according to Uche Nwabueze, now at the School of Business Administration, in Victoria, Texas, USA, who has [...]

Establishing and maintaining relationships online is becoming ever more important in the expanding global knowledge economy. But what happens to the relationship between business and consumer when a user unfriends? Writing in the International Journal of the Business Environment, Christopher Sibona and Steven Walczak of The Business School, at the University of Colorado Denver, USA, [...]

New technology to capture the kinetic energy of our everyday movements, such as walking, and to convert it into electrical energy has come a step closer thanks to research to be published in the International Journal Biomechatronics and Biomedical Robotics. Researchers have for many years attempted to harvest energy from our everyday movements to allow [...]

Despite the proclamations of the so-called organic movement and the anti-industry activists, small farmers in developing countries are benefiting significantly from genetically modified crops, according to a large review of the peer-reviewed research literature by US consultants. Writing in the International Journal of Biotechnology, Janet Carpenter of JE Carpenter Consulting LLC in Boylston, Massachusetts explains [...]

Now you can protect yourself online with your secret place. Its much easier to remember a place you have visited than a long, complicated password, which is why computer scientist Ziyad Al-Salloum of ZSS-Research in Ras Al Khaimah, UAE, is developing a system he calls geographical passwords. Writing in a freely available open access research [...]

Software that can fix 90 percent of broken links in the web of data, assuming the resources are still on the sites server, has been developed by researchers in Iran. The details are reported this month in the International Journal Web Engineering and Technology. Everyone knows the frustration of following a link to an interesting [...]

Micro-machining could be used to create almost flat, Fresnel lenses, that boost the electrical efficiency of solar panels, according to researchers in China. Fresnel lenses were invented by French engineer and scientist Augustin-Jean Fresnel, in the early nineteenth century, they are essential two-dimensional equivalents of conventional optical lens, but they have ridges in concentric rings [...]

In nations where corruption is rife it seems that citizens these days find an escape from the everyday problems that trickle down to their lives by using online social media more than those elsewhere. Research to be published in the International Journal of Web-based Communities also suggests that these two factors more corruption, more [...]

How do you detect a botnet, a network of computers infected with malware -so-called zombies that allow a third party to take control of those machines? The answer may lie in a statistical tool first published in 1966 and brought into the digital age researchers writing this month in the International Journal of Electronic [...]

A smart phone and a connection to the internet of things could allow people with chronic lung disease to avoid risky areas where environmental conditions, pollution and weather might exacerbate their symptoms. Details of a framework that would hook into networks of sensors and provide patients with timely alerts are reported this month in the [...]

There is a high privacy threat to users of the myriad cloud services on the internet especially those that operate dynamically based on personal information such as a persons location, their user preferences, linked calendars and social networks. As such, the cloud represents a legal quagmire especially given that a specific application that appears to [...]

Social media and networks are ripe for politicization, for movement publicity, advocacy group awareness, not-for-profit fund-raising campaigns and perhaps even e-government. However, the majority of users perhaps see these tools as being useful for entertainment, interpersonal connections and sharing rather than politics. A research paper to be published in the Electronic Government, An International Journal [...]

Researchers in India have developed a relatively low-temperature process to convert certain kinds of plastic waste into liquid fuel as a way to re-use discarded plastic bags and other products. They report full details next month in the International Journal of Environment and Waste Management. Many pundits describe the present time as the plastic age [...]

High on the international agenda are terrorism and so-called cyber warfare and rightly so. However, there are more insidious threats to national security. For instance, communications, transport, food and water supply, healthcare and other aspects of infrastructure rely heavily on the fabrication of countless pieces of equipment that require rare chemical elements for their manufacture, [...]

The use of portable, wireless cameras and monitoring equipment for recording and transmitting footage of wildlife is perhaps familiar to anyone who watches nature programs on TV. However, common to all such equipment is the problem of limited battery life, which becomes particularly troublesome when using such equipment in remote and hazardous locations. A new [...]

Free energy inventions, perpetual motion machines have been mooted for millennia. Humanity has always had a hankering for the something-for-nothing. Of course, weve known since at least the early nineteenth century that thermodynamically there is no free lunch. Thats not to say, however, that we cannot make power, if not with greater than 100% efficiency, [...]

Cliques make team player less altruistic. That is the finding from a study of teams in business and not-for-profit organizations published this month in the European Journal of International Management. The study has implications for management of teams when measures of diversity including gender, ethnic origin and other demographic factors are considered. Pinar Acar of [...]

Scientists at Chalmers University in Gteborg, Sweden, are working with a team at car manufacturer Volvo to develop a vehicle control system that can take over steering and breaking when it detects an imminent collision. Details of the computer algorithm on which the team is working that can make split-second decisions on behalf of the [...]

Claims that the internet will democratize the global village are not supported by research published in the International Journal of Electronic Governance. Instead, non-democratic governments simply exploit the networks to spy on and control their citizens more effectively and efficiently than they did before. In a post-Snowden NSA revelation world, many pundits have suggested that [...]

Internet trolling is a matter of moral panic, according to an assessment of this activity by Jonathan Bishop of the Centre for Research into Online Communities and E-Learning Systems in Brussels. Writing in the International Journal of Web Based Communities he suggests that the misrepresentation by the media of all those who participate in this [...]