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Your Paper Your Way

We now differentiate between the requirements for new and revised submissions. You may choose to submit your manuscript as a single Word or PDF file to be used in the refereeing process. Only when your paper is at the revision stage, will you be requested to put your paper in to a 'correct format' for acceptance and provide the items required for the publication of your article.
To find out more, please visit the Preparation section below.

Introduction

Submission checklist

You can use this list to carry out a final check of your submission before you send it to the journal for review. Please check the relevant section in this Guide for Authors for more details.

Ensure that the following items are present:

One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:
• E-mail address
• Full postal address

All necessary files have been uploaded:
Manuscript:
• Include keywords
• All figures (include relevant captions)
• All tables (including titles, description, footnotes)
• Ensure all figure and table citations in the text match the files provided
• Indicate clearly if color should be used for any figures in print
Supplemental files (where applicable)

Further considerations
• Manuscript has been 'spell checked' and 'grammar checked'
• All references mentioned in the Reference List are cited in the text, and vice versa
• Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Internet)
• A competing interests statement is provided, even if the authors have no competing interests to declare
• Journal policies detailed in this guide have been reviewed
• Referee suggestions and contact details provided, based on journal requirements

For further information, visit our Support Center.

Before you begin

Ethics in publishing

Please see our information on Ethics in publishing.

Declaration of interest

All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples of potential competing interests include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Authors must disclose any interests in two places: 1. A summary declaration of interest statement in the title page file (if double anonymized) or the manuscript file (if single anonymized). If there are no interests to declare then please state this: 'Declarations of interest: none'. 2. Detailed disclosures as part of a separate Declaration of Interest form, which forms part of the journal's official records. It is important for potential interests to be declared in both places and that the information matches. More information.

Declaration of generative AI in scientific writing

The below guidance only refers to the writing process, and not to the use of AI tools to analyse and draw insights from data as part of the research process.

Where authors use generative artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process, authors should only use these technologies to improve readability and language. Applying the technology should be done with human oversight and control, and authors should carefully review and edit the result, as AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete or biased. AI and AI-assisted technologies should not be listed as an author or co-author, or be cited as an author. Authorship implies responsibilities and tasks that can only be attributed to and performed by humans, as outlined in Elsevier’s AI policy for authors.

Authors should disclose in their manuscript the use of AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process by following the instructions below. A statement will appear in the published work. Please note that authors are ultimately responsible and accountable for the contents of the work.

Disclosure instructions
Authors must disclose the use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process by adding a statement at the end of their manuscript in the core manuscript file, before the References list. The statement should be placed in a new section entitled ‘Declaration of Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process’.

Statement: During the preparation of this work the author(s) used [NAME TOOL / SERVICE] in order to [REASON]. After using this tool/service, the author(s) reviewed and edited the content as needed and take(s) full responsibility for the content of the publication.

This declaration does not apply to the use of basic tools for checking grammar, spelling, references etc. If there is nothing to disclose, there is no need to add a statement.

Submission declaration and verification

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract, a published lecture or academic thesis, see 'Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication' for more information), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, including electronically without the written consent of the copyright-holder. To verify compliance, your article may be checked by Crossref Similarity Check and other originality or duplicate checking software.

Preprints
Please note that preprints can be shared anywhere at any time, in line with Elsevier's sharing policy. Sharing your preprints e.g. on a preprint server will not count as prior publication (see 'Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication' for more information).

Use of inclusive language

Inclusive language acknowledges diversity, conveys respect to all people, is sensitive to differences, and promotes equal opportunities. Content should make no assumptions about the beliefs or commitments of any reader; contain nothing which might imply that one individual is superior to another on the grounds of age, gender, race, ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, disability or health condition; and use inclusive language throughout. Authors should ensure that writing is free from bias, stereotypes, slang, reference to dominant culture and/or cultural assumptions. We advise to seek gender neutrality by using plural nouns ("clinicians, patients/clients") as default/wherever possible to avoid using "he, she," or "he/she." We recommend avoiding the use of descriptors that refer to personal attributes such as age, gender, race, ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, disability or health condition unless they are relevant and valid. When coding terminology is used, we recommend to avoid offensive or exclusionary terms such as "master", "slave", "blacklist" and "whitelist". We suggest using alternatives that are more appropriate and (self-) explanatory such as "primary", "secondary", "blocklist" and "allowlist". These guidelines are meant as a point of reference to help identify appropriate language but are by no means exhaustive or definitive.

Author contributions

For transparency, we require corresponding authors to provide co-author contributions to the manuscript using the relevant CRediT roles. The CRediT taxonomy includes 14 different roles describing each contributor’s specific contribution to the scholarly output. The roles are: Conceptualization; Data curation; Formal analysis; Funding acquisition; Investigation; Methodology; Project administration; Resources; Software; Supervision; Validation; Visualization; Roles/Writing - original draft; and Writing - review & editing. Note that not all roles may apply to every manuscript, and authors may have contributed through multiple roles. More details and an example.

Authorship

All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following: (1) the conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be submitted.

Changes to authorship

Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the journal Editor. To request such a change, the Editor must receive the following from the corresponding author: (a) the reason for the change in author list and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed.
Only in exceptional circumstances will the Editor consider the addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors after the manuscript has been accepted. While the Editor considers the request, publication of the manuscript will be suspended. If the manuscript has already been published in an online issue, any requests approved by the Editor will result in a corrigendum.

Copyright

Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a 'License Agreement' (see more information on this). Permitted third party reuse of open access articles is determined by the author's choice of user license.

Author rights
As an author you (or your employer or institution) have certain rights to reuse your work. More information.

Elsevier supports responsible sharing
Find out how you can share your research published in Elsevier journals.

Role of the funding source

You are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement, it is recommended to state this.

Open access

Please visit our Open Access page from the Journal Homepage for more information.

Elsevier Researcher Academy
Researcher Academy is a free e-learning platform designed to support early and mid-career researchers throughout their research journey. The "Learn" environment at Researcher Academy offers several interactive modules, webinars, downloadable guides and resources to guide you through the process of writing for research and going through peer review. Feel free to use these free resources to improve your submission and navigate the publication process with ease.

Language (usage and editing services)
Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these). Authors who feel their English language manuscript may require editing to eliminate possible grammatical or spelling errors and to conform to correct scientific English may wish to use the Language Editing service available from Elsevier's Language Services.

Submission

Our online submission system guides you stepwise through the process of entering your article details and uploading your files. The system converts your article files to a single PDF file used in the peer-review process. Editable files (e.g., Word, LaTeX) are required to typeset your article for final publication. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, is sent by e-mail.

Suggesting reviewers
Please submit the names and institutional e-mail addresses of several potential reviewers.

You should not suggest reviewers who are colleagues, or who have co-authored or collaborated with you during the last three years. Editors do not invite reviewers who have potential competing interests with the authors. Further, in order to provide a broad and balanced assessment of the work, and ensure scientific rigor, please suggest diverse candidate reviewers who are located in different countries/regions from the author group. Also consider other diversity attributes e.g. gender, race and ethnicity, career stage, etc. Finally, you should not include existing members of the journal's editorial team, of whom the journal are already aware.

Note: the editor decides whether or not to invite your suggested reviewers.

Preparation

NEW SUBMISSIONS

Submission to this journal proceeds totally online and you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of your files. The system automatically converts your files to a single PDF file, which is used in the peer-review process.
As part of the Your Paper Your Way service, you may choose to submit your manuscript as a single file to be used in the refereeing process. This can be a PDF file or a Word document, in any format or lay-out that can be used by referees to evaluate your manuscript. It should contain high enough quality figures for refereeing. If you prefer to do so, you may still provide all or some of the source files at the initial submission. Please note that individual figure files larger than 10 MB must be uploaded separately.

Formatting requirements
There are no strict formatting requirements but all manuscripts must contain the essential elements needed to convey your manuscript, for example Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Conclusions, Artwork and Tables with Captions.
If your article includes any Videos and/or other Supplementary material, this should be included in your initial submission for peer review purposes.
Divide the article into clearly defined sections.

Peer review

This journal operates a single anonymized review process. All contributions will be initially assessed by the editor for suitability for the journal. Papers deemed suitable are then typically sent to a minimum of two independent expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper. The Editor is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles. The Editor's decision is final. Editors are not involved in decisions about papers which they have written themselves or have been written by family members or colleagues or which relate to products or services in which the editor has an interest. Any such submission is subject to all of the journal's usual procedures, with peer review handled independently of the relevant editor and their research groups. More information on types of peer review.

Use of word processing software
It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the word processor used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the word processor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. The electronic text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts (see also the Guide to Publishing with Elsevier). Note that source files of figures, tables and text graphics will be required whether or not you embed your figures in the text. See also the section on Electronic artwork.
To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the 'spell-check' and 'grammar-check' functions of your word processor.

LaTeX
You are recommended to use the Elsevier article class elsarticle.cls to prepare your manuscript and BibTeX to generate your bibliography.
Our LaTeX site has detailed submission instructions, templates and other information.

Special Issues and Article Collections

The peer review process for Special Issues and Article Collections is also a single anonymized review process. All contributions will be initially assessed by the Editor-in-chief for suitability for the journal. Papers deemed suitable are then assigned to an external Guest Editor. All Guest Editors receive training on conducting peer review. The Guest Editor sends the manuscript to a minimum of two independent expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper. The Guest Editor makes a recommendation for the decision to the Editor in Chief. The Editor in Chief is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles. The Editor in Chief oversees the peer review process of all Special Issues and Articles Collections to ensure the high standards of publishing ethics and responsiveness are respected. Guest Editors are not involved in decisions about papers which they have written themselves or have been written by family members or colleagues or which relate to products or services in which the guest editor has an interest. Any such submission is subject to all of the journal's usual procedures, with peer review handled independently of the relevant editor and their research groups.

Article structure

Article structure should be organized in the sequence: Essential title page information, abstract, text, conclusion (and outlook, if applicable), methods (if applicable), references, miscellanea. All headings of this class are in all uppercase.

Essential title page information
Title Concise and informative. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Titles do not exceed 60 characters (including spaces). Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible. All words are in lower-case type except the first word or other specified name of uppercase.
Author names and affiliations Please clearly indicate the given name(s) and family name(s) of each author (e.g., Aaaa-Bbbb Cccc) and check that all names are accurately spelled. You can add your name between parentheses in your own script behind the English transliteration. Please provide the authors' ORCIDs if they have them, and list them after the affiliation line. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lowercase superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.
Author contribution If more than one co-authors are equal in their level of contribution, please state their equal contribution here.
Corresponding author Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication. This responsibility includes answering any future queries about Methods. Ensure that the e-mail address is given and that contact details are kept up to date by the corresponding author.
Present/permanent address If an author has moved since the work described in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, a 'Present address' (or 'Permanent address') may be indicated as a footnote to that author's name. The address at which the author actually did the work must be retained as the main, affiliation address. Superscript Arabic numerals are used for such footnotes.

Abstract
A concise and factual abstract is required. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separately from the article, so it must be able to stand alone. For this reason, References should be avoided, but if essential, then use superscript of the reference number(s). Also, non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself. The abstract should not normally be exceed 300 words.

Text
The text is around 1200 words for an uninterrupted page. Text can be up to 4-11 pages and 4-6 figures or tables. Use a short en dash(-) in between the ranges of numbers or consecutive letters. Use a single space to separate a number and its units or mathematical symbols in the whole manuscript (e.g., 2x10-11 M J.). Physical data should be quoted with decimal points and negative exponents (e.g., cm2 V-1 s-1). Define abbreviations that are not standard in this field in a footnote to be placed on the first page of the article. Such abbreviations that are unavoidable in the abstract must be defined at their first mention there, as well as in the footnote. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the article.


Figures Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original figures.The preferred image resolution should be kept to a minimum of 300 dpi (dots per inch) relative to the final figure size. A figure legend normally begins with a brief title describing its whole contents, and continues with a short description of each panel. The format of figure legends is "Fig. 1 | Figure legend". Figures are referred to in the manuscript as "Fig. 1" and "Fig. 1a" at all of sentences. When figures are divided into parts, each part should be labeled with a lower-case a,b,c and so on, in the same font size as used elsewhere in the figure.
Tables (or Schemes) Each table (or scheme) should have a brief title describing its contents. Title format should follow "Table 1 | Table title (or Scheme 1| Scheme title)". All details, such as nonstandard abbreviations, and a description of standards of error analysis, should be included in footnotes. Tables (or scheme) are referred to in the manuscript as "Table 1 (or Scheme 1)".
Equations Formulae and equations in appendices should be given separate numbering: Eq. (1), Eq. (2), etc.; in a subsequent appendix, Eq. (B.1) and so on.

Conclusions
The main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short conclusion section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a subsection of a discussion or results and discussion section.

Methods
Whenever applicable, experimental (such as instrumentations) and theoretical (such as derivation of equations) methods used to obtain the results presented in the manuscript should be summarized in a separate methods section, which should be placed at the end of the main text, after conclusions and before references.
Materials and Methods Provide sufficient details to allow the work to be reproduced by an independent researcher. Methods that are already published should be summarized, and indicated by a reference. If quoting directly from a previously published method, use quotation marks and also cite the source. Any modifications to existing methods should also be described.
Theory Calculation If applicable, a theory section should extend, not repeat, the background to the article already dealt with in the introduction and lay the foundation for further work. In contrast, a calculation section represents a practical development from a theoretical basis.

References
Please ensure that every reference cited in the text, tables, boxes, figure legends, methods, extended data tables and data figure legends, is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). The APA reference style should be consistently used in references. For a research article, at least 40 references are expected to be cited in the main text; Reviews can include up to 150 references. Please note that incorrect surnames, journal/book titles, publication year and pagination may prevent link creation. Please provide DOI links to the references, when they are available.
Reference style
Text: Indicate references by the superscript of number(s) in text. The actual authors can be referred to, but the reference number(s) must always be given.
Example: '..... as demonstrated 1,2. Barnaby and Jones 8 obtained a different result ....'
List: Number the references (numbers) in the list in the order in which they appear in the text.
Examples:
Reference to a journal /book/conference/Web publication:
1 Zhang, X.-M. & Yung, M.-H. Low-depth optical neural networks. Chip 1, 100002 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chip.2021.100002. (Journal article)
2 Crespi, A. et al. Integrated multimode interferometers with arbitrary designs for photonic boson sampling. Nat. Photonics. 7, 545-549 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2013.112. (Journal article)
3 Baek, B., McKay, K. S., Stevens, M. J., Kim, J., Hogue, H. H. & Nam, S. W. Single- photon detection timing jitter in a visible light photon counter. IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 46, 991-995 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1109/JQE.2010.2042141. (Journal article)
4 MacKay, D. J. & Kay, D. J. M. Information theory, inference and learning algo- rithms. Cambridge university press (2003). (Book)
5 Nair, V. & Hinton, G. E. Rectified linear units improve restricted boltzmann machines. In Proceedings of the 27th international conference on machine learning (ICML-10) (pp. 807-814) (2010). (Conference proceeding)
6 Lincoln Laboratory, State of the art focal plane arrays of inp/ingaasp geiger-mode avalanche photodiodes for active electro-optical applications. https://www.ll.mit.edu/r-d/ publications/state-art-focal-plane-arrays-inpingaasp-geiger-mode-avalanche photodiod-es active, 2016 (accessed 20 November 2021). (Web publication)

Miscellanea
Supplementary material (delete if not applicable) Supplementary material such as applications, images, sound clips and shared data, can be published with your article to enhance it. Submitted supplementary items are published exactly as they are received (Excel or PowerPoint files will appear as such online). Please submit your material together with the article and supply a concise, descriptive caption for each supplementary file. If you wish to make changes to supplementary material during any stage of the process, please make sure to provide an updated file.
Video Elsevier accepts video material and animation sequences to support and enhance your scientific research. Authors who have video or animation files that they wish to submit with their article are strongly encouraged to include links to these within the body of the article. In order to ensure that your video or animation material is directly usable, please provide the file in one of our recommended file formats with a preferred maximum size of 150 MB per file, 1 GB in total.
Acknowledgments (or Funding) Please do not include any author names or institution or country information that may identity you to the reviewer. This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (Nos. xxxx and yyyy); the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA (No. zzzz); and the United States Institutes of Peace (No. aaaa).

If no funding has been provided for the research, it is recommended to include the following sentence:

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

The authors are advised to use our manuscript template (in .docx format) when preparing their submissions; The authors may also refer to Recent Articles published in our journals for the detailed formatting.

Research data

This journal encourages and enables you to share data that supports your research publication where appropriate, and enables you to interlink the data with your published articles. Research data refers to the results of observations or experimentation that validate research findings, which may also include software, code, models, algorithms, protocols, methods and other useful materials related to the project.

Below are a number of ways in which you can associate data with your article or make a statement about the availability of your data when submitting your manuscript. If you are sharing data in one of these ways, you are encouraged to cite the data in your manuscript and reference list. Please refer to the "References" section for more information about data citation. For more information on depositing, sharing and using research data and other relevant research materials, visit the research data page.

After acceptance

Online proof correction

To ensure a fast publication process of the article, we kindly ask authors to provide us with their proof corrections within two days. Corresponding authors will receive an e-mail with a link to our online proofing system, allowing annotation and correction of proofs online. The environment is similar to MS Word: in addition to editing text, you can also comment on figures/tables and answer questions from the Copy Editor. Web-based proofing provides a faster and less error-prone process by allowing you to directly type your corrections, eliminating the potential introduction of errors.
If preferred, you can still choose to annotate and upload your edits on the PDF version. All instructions for proofing will be given in the e-mail we send to authors, including alternative methods to the online version and PDF.
We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor. It is important to ensure that all corrections are sent back to us in one communication. Please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility.

Offprints

The corresponding author will, at no cost, receive a customized Share Link providing 50 days free access to the final published version of the article on ScienceDirect. The Share Link can be used for sharing the article via any communication channel, including email and social media. For an extra charge, paper offprints can be ordered via the offprint order form which is sent once the article is accepted for publication. Corresponding authors who have published their article gold open access do not receive a Share Link as their final published version of the article is available open access on ScienceDirect and can be shared through the article DOI link.

Author inquiries



Visit the Elsevier Support Center to find the answers you need. Here you will find everything from Frequently Asked Questions to ways to get in touch.
You can also check the status of your submitted article or find out when your accepted article will be published.