The International Journal on Imaging and Image-Archiving in ALL Medical Specialties
Official Journal of the Computerized Medical Imaging Society

Guide for Authors

Submission to this journal proceeds totally online. Please use the following guidelines to prepare your article. The online submission site for this journal ( http://ees.elsevier.com/cmig) will guide you stepwise through the creation and uploading of the various files. The system automatically converts source files to a single Adobe Acrobat PDF version of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript source files are converted to PDF at submission for the review process, these source files are needed for further processing after acceptance. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor s decision and requests for revision, takes place by e-mail and via the author s homepage, removing the need for a hard-copy paper trail.

The above represents a very brief outline of this form of submission. It can be advantageous to print this "Guide for Authors" section from the site for reference in the subsequent stages of article preparation.

Submission of an Article
Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), 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and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the Publisher.

Copyright Information
Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to sign a Journal Publishing Agreement (for more information on this and copyright see Copyright

Acceptance of the agreement will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. An e-mail (or letter) will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a `Journal Publishing Agreement form or a link to the online version of this agreement.
If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has preprinted forms for use by authors in these cases: contact Elsevier s Rights Department, Philadelphia, PA, USA: phone (+1) 215 239 3804, fax (+1) 215 239 3805, e-mail healthpermissions@elsevier.com. Requests may also be completed online via the Elsevier homepage Permissions

Authors Rights: As an author you (or your employer or institution) retain certain rights; for details you are referred to: Author Rights

Ethical Policy : Authors should indicate whether the procedures carried out on humans followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) In addition, authors should ensure their work complies with local ethical committee standards.

Patient Consent
Studies on patients or volunteers require ethics committee approval and informed consent which should be documented in your paper.

Patients have a right to privacy. Therefore identifying information, including patients? images, names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be included in videos, recordings, written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and you have obtained written informed consent for publication in print and electronic form from the patient (or parent, guardian or next of kin where applicable). If such consent is made subject to any conditions, Elsevier must be made aware of all such conditions. Written consents must be provided to Elsevier on request.

Even where consent has been given, identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning and editors should so note.

If such consent has not been obtained, personal details of patients included in any part of the paper and in any supplementary materials (including all illustrations and videos) must be removed before submission

Covering letter: The online submission system requires a covering letter to be submitted with the manuscript. This should include the following information: • Confirmation of the fact that the article is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. • Confirmation of whether any parts i.e. figures, of the article have been sent by mail. • Each author should have participated sufficiently in any submission to take public responsibility for its content. Please provide full contact details for each author. • Publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out.

Author biography: Each submission should also include a short biography of each of the authors.

Refereeing Procedure: To ensure fairness, each manuscript will be assessed anonymously by independent reviewers. Constructive criticism provided by the assessors will be forwarded to the author.

Electronic format requirements for accepted articles
We accept most wordprocessing formats, but Word, WordPerfect or LaTeX is preferred. Always keep a backup copy of the electronic file for reference and safety. Save your files using the default extension of the program used.

Sections of the Article
Title Page: Please create a title page for your article. The title should be clear, informative and not too long. In addition, please provide an abbreviated title of no more than seven words which will used as a header. This page should bear names, full postal addresses, telephone and fax and email addresses of all author(s). The contact details of the corresponding author should be highlighted.
Abstract: A concise and factual abstract is required (maximum length 100 words). The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separate from the article, so it must be able to stand alone.
Keywords: Please list between 5 and 10 words. These terms should be relatively independent (coordinate index terms), and as a group should optimally characterize the paper.

Preparation of electronic illustrations
General points

• Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.
• Save text in illustrations as graphics or enclose the font.
• Only use the following fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Helvetica, Times, Symbol.
• Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
• Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.
• Provide all illustrations as separate files and as hardcopy printouts on separate sheets.
• Provide captions to illustrations separately.
• Produce images near to the desired size of the printed version.

A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available on our website: Artwork Instructions

You are urged to visit this site; some excerpts from the detailed information are given here.

Formats
Regardless of the application used, when your electronic artwork is finalised, please save as or convert the images to one of the following formats (Note the resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below.):

EPS: Vector drawings. Embed the font or save the text as graphics .
TIFF: Colour or greyscale photographs (halftones): always use a minimum of 300 dpi.
TIFF: Bitmapped line drawings: use a minimum of 1000 dpi.
TIFF: Combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (colour or greyscale): a minimum of 500 dpi is required.
DOC, XLS or PPT: If your electronic artwork is created in any of these Microsoft Office applications please supply as is .

Please do not:
• Supply embedded graphics in your wordprocessor (spreadsheet, presentation) document;
• Supply files that are optimised for screen use (like GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); the resolution is too low;
• Supply files that are too low in resolution;
• Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.

Colour illustrations
Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format (TIFF, EPS or MS Office files) and with the correct resolution. If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable colour figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in colour on the Web (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites) regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article. Please indicate your preference for colour in print or on the Web only. For further information on the preparation of electronic artwork, please see Artwork Instructions

Please note: Because of technical complications which can arise by converting colour figures to grey scale (for the printed version should you not opt for colour in print) please submit in addition usable black and white versions of all the colour illustrations.

Equipment and Drugs: When quoting specific equipment or drugs, authors must state in parentheses the name and address of the manufacturer. Generic names should be used wherever possible since trade names vary from country to country.

Units and Abbreviations
Measurements of length, height, weight and volume should be given in metric units (metre, kilogram, litre) or their decimal multiples in terms of the International System of Units http://www.bipm.fr/en/si/. Temperatures should be given in degrees Celsius and blood pressure in mmHg. Define abbreviations that are not standard in the field at their first occurrence in the article, in the abstract but also in the main text after it. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the text.

References
Responsibility for the accuracy of bibliographic citations lies entirely with the authors.
Citations in the text: Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Any references cited in the abstract must be given in full. Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these references are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution of the publication date with either Unpublished results or Personal communication Citation of a reference as in press implies that the item has been accepted for publication.
Citing and listing of Web references. As a minimum, the full URL should be given. Any further information, if known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.
Text: Indicate references by number(s) in square brackets in line with the text. The actual authors can be referred to, but the reference number(s) must always be given.
List: Number the references (numbers in square brackets) in the list in the order in which they appear in the text.
Examples:
Reference to a journal publication:
[1] Van der Geer J, Hanraads JAJ, Lupton RA. The art of writing a scientific article. J Sci Commun 2000;163:51 9.
Reference to a book:
[2] Strunk Jr W, White EB. The elements of style. 3rd ed. New York: Macmillan; 1979.
Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
[3] Mettam GR, Adams LB. How to prepare an electronic version of your article. In: Jones BS, Smith RZ, editors. Introduction to the electronic age, New York: E-Publishing Inc; 1999, p. 281 304
Note shortened form for last page number. e.g., 51 9, and that for more than 6 authors the first 6 should be listed followed by et al. For further details you are referred to Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journals (J Am Med Assoc 1997;277:927 934) (see also http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/terms_cond.html)

Proofs
One set of page proofs in PDF format will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author (if we do not have an e-mail address then paper proofs will be sent by post). Elsevier now sends PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download Adobe Reader version 7 available free from Adobe. Instructions on how to annotate PDF files will accompany the proofs. The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site .

If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and return by fax, or scan the pages and e-mail, or by post. 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. We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately. Therefore, it is important to ensure that all of your 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. Note that Elsevier may proceed with the publication of your article if no response is received.

Electronic offprints (e-offprints)
The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use.

Author enquiries
For enquiries relating to the submission of articles (including electronic submission where available) please visit this journal s homepage at Computerized Medical Imaging and Graphics

You can track accepted articles at http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle and set up e-mail alerts to inform you of when an article s status has changed, as well as copyright information, frequently asked questions and more.
Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating to proofs, are provided after registration of an article for publication

Conflict of interest At the end of the text, under a subheading "Conflict of interest statement" all authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organisations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding.

Role of the funding source All sources of funding should be declared as an acknowledgement at the end of the text. Authors should declare the role of study sponsors, if any, in the study design, in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; and in the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. If the study sponsors had no such involvement, the authors should so state.

Special Subject Repositories Certain repositories such as PubMed Central ("PMC") are authorized under special arrangement with Elsevier to process and post certain articles. The following agreements have been established for authors whose articles have been accepted for publication in an Elsevier journal and whose underlying research is supported by one of the following funding bodies
• National Institutes of Health. Elsevier will send a version of the author's accepted manuscript that includes author revisions following peer-review for public access posting 12 months after final publication. Because the NIH 'Public Access' policy is voluntary, authors may elect not to deposit such articles in PMC. If you wish to 'opt out' and not deposit to PMC, you may indicate this by sending an e-mail to NIHauthorrequest@elsevier.com. More information regarding the agreement between Elsevier and the National Institutes of Health can be found at Elsevier NIH policy statement


• The Wellcome Trust. Elsevier will send to PMC the version of the author's manuscript that reflects all author-agreed changes including those made post peer review, for public access posting immediately after final publication. Authors are required to initially subsidize their manuscript with fees reimbursed by the Wellcome Trust. Wellcome Trust authors, whose manuscripts are subsidized, will have the corresponding articles made free to non-subscribers on Science Direct and Elsevier's electronic publishing platforms. More information regarding the agreement between Elsevier and The Wellcome Trust can be found at Policy for Wellcome Trust funded authors