Guide for Authors
The International
Journal for the Science and Technology of Polymers.
In order to achieve rapid publication, it is essential precisely to follow these
instructions. Failure to do so can result in a substantial delay in publication.
Types of paper
Polymer
publishes
original research from all areas of polymer science and technology, with emphasis on molecular or mesoscale interpretation
of data. Papers from new emerging areas of the field are particularly welcome. The journal publishes
regular articles,
communications
(novel, unexpected experimental results or interpretation presented within 4 printed pages) and
feature articles (usually invited
by the Editors).
Contact details for submission
Since 1 September 2005, manuscripts can
only be submitted online via the Elsevier Editorial System (EES) at 
http://ees.elsevier.com/jpol.
During the online
submission, authors are requested to choose the appropriate Editor from a drop down menu, according to the geographical location of the
corresponding author and the subject matter of the paper.
Papers from the Americas should be submitted online via EES to one of
the following editors, according to the subject matter:
Professor S.Z.D. Cheng,
Physics and Physical Chemistry
The
Maurice Morton Institute of Polymer Science, University of Akron, Goodyear Polymer Centre, Room 936, Akron, OH 44325-3909, USA
E-mail:
scheng@uakron.edu
Professor S.R. Turner,
Chemistry and Synthesis
Macromolecules and Interfaces Institute,
2 Davidson Hall (0201), Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA
E-mail:
srturner@vt.edu
All papers from China
(in all subject areas) should be submitted online via EES to:
Professor C.C. Han
Joint Laboratory of Polymer Science
and Materials, Institute of Chemistry , The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Zhongguancum, Beijing, 100080, China
E-mail:
c.c.han@iccas.ac.cn
Papers
from the rest of Asia should be submitted online via EES to one of the following Editors, according to the subject matter:
Professor
K. Tashiro,
Physics
Department of Future Industry-oriented Basic Science and Materials, Graduate School of Engineering,
Toyota Technological Institute, Hisakata 2-12-1, Tempaku, Nagoya 468-8511, Japan
E-mail:
ktashiro@toyota-ti.ac.jp
Professor
S. Ito,
Physical Chemistry and functionality
Department of Polymer Chemistry, Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University,
Kyoto 606-8501, Japan
E-mail:
ito@photo.polym.kyoto-u.ac.jp
Professor T. Masuda,
Chemistry and Synthesis
Department
of Polymer Chemistry, Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan
E-mail:
masuda@adv.polym.kyoto-u.ac.jp
Papers
from Europe and the rest of the world should be submitted online via EES to one of the following editors:
Professor Dr. M.
Ballauff,
Physical Chemistry
Soft Matter and Functional Materials, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und
Energie, Glienicker Straβe 100, 14109 Berlin, Germany
Email:
matthias.ballauff@helmholtz-berlin.de
Professor
G. Krausch,
Physics
Johannes Gutenberg-Universitat Mainz, Forum universitatis 2, 55099 Mainz, Germany
Email:
krausch@uni-mainz.de
Professor
A.H.E. Müller,
Chemistry and Synthesis
Makromolekulare Chemie II, Universität Bayreuth, D-95440 Bayreuth, Germany
Email:
polymer-chem@uni-bayreuth.de
Page charges
This journal has no page charges.
Before starting work on their manuscript authors should familiarise themselves
with our Ethics in Publishing guidelines.
Ethics in publishing
For information on Ethics
in publishing and Ethical guidelines for journal publication see
http://www.elsevier.com/publishingethics and
http://www.elsevier.com/ethicalguidelines.
Conflict of interest
All authors are requested to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest including
any financial, personal or other relationships with other people or organizations within three years of beginning the submitted work
that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence, their work. See also
http://www.elsevier.com/conflictsofinterest.
Submission declaration
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 including electronically in the same form, in English or in any
other language, without the written consent of the copyright-holder.
If revision of the original manuscript is required, authors
will have a maximum of two months (from receipt of the referees comments) to revise and re-submit. A revised manuscript received by the
Editor later than two months after the authors receipt of the referees comments will be treated as a new submission. Authors are allowed
to revise the original manuscript only once. If further revisions are requested the manuscript will be treated as a new submission.
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 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,
including electronically without the written consent of the copyright-holder. To verify originality, your article may be checked by the
originality detection software iThenticate. See also
http://www.elsevier.com/editors/plagdetect.
Changes
to authorship
This policy concerns the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship of accepted
manuscripts:
Before the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange
the author names, must be sent to the Journal Manager from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript and must include: (a)
the reason the name should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, fax, 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. Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded by the
Journal Manager to the corresponding author, who must follow the procedure as described above. Note that: (1) Journal Managers will inform
the Journal Editors of any such requests and (2) publication of the accepted manuscript in an online issue is suspended until authorship
has been agreed.
After the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Any requests to add, delete, or rearrange
author names in an article published in an online issue will follow the same policies as noted above and result in a corrigendum.
Copyright
Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a 'Journal Publishing Agreement'
(for more information on this and copyright see
http://www.elsevier.com/copyright). Acceptance of the agreement will ensure
the widest possible dissemination of information. An e-mail 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.
Subscribers may reproduce
tables of contents or prepare lists of articles including abstracts for internal circulation within their institutions. Permission of
the Publisher is required for resale or distribution outside the institution and for all other derivative works, including compilations
and translations (please consult
http://www.elsevier.com/permissions). 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: please consult
http://www.elsevier.com/permissions.
Retained
author rights
As an author you (or your employer or institution) retain certain rights; for details you are referred to:
http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights.
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 then this should be stated.
Please see
http://www.elsevier.com/funding.
Funding body agreements and policies
Elsevier
has established agreements and developed policies to allow authors whose articles appear in journals published by Elsevier, to comply
with potential manuscript archiving requirements as specified as conditions of their grant awards. To learn more about existing agreements
and policies please visit
http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies.
Open access
This
journal offers you the option of making your article freely available to all via the ScienceDirect platform. To prevent any conflict
of interest, you can only make this choice after receiving notification that your article has been accepted for publication. The fee
of $3,000 excludes taxes and other potential author fees such as color charges. In some cases, institutions and funding bodies have entered
into agreement with Elsevier to meet these fees on behalf of their authors. Details of these agreements are available at
http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies.
Authors of accepted articles, who wish to take advantage of this option, should complete and submit the order form (available at
http://www.elsevier.com/locate/openaccessform.pdf).
Whatever access option you choose, you retain many rights as an author, including the right to post a revised personal version of your
article on your own website. More information can be found here:
http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights.
Language services
Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a
mixture of these). Authors who require information about language editing and copyediting services pre- and post-submission please visit
http://www.elsevier.com/languageediting or our customer support site at
http://epsupport.elsevier.com
for more information.
Manuscripts which are not written in fluent English will be rejected automatically without refereeing.
Submission
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 source files to a single PDF file of the article, which is used
in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript source files are converted to PDF files 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 removing the need for a paper trail.
Submit
your article
Please submit your article via
http://ees.elsevier.com/jpol/
Referees
Please
submit, with the manuscript, the names, addresses and e-mail addresses of 5 potential referees. Note that the editor retains the sole
right to decide whether or not the suggested reviewers are used.
Manuscripts
must be typewritten, with 1 1/2 line spacing and wide margins on one side, using a 12 pt font size. All pages must be numbered consecutively.
The order of the manuscripts should be title, author(s) and affiliation(s), telephone and fax numbers as well as e-mail addresses of
the corresponding author, abstract, keywords, text, references. Tables, schemes and figures must be inserted into the main text. Sequences
of tables, figures and schemes should be numbered with Arabic numerals.High resolution images (e.g. micrographs) can be uploaded additionally.
Use of wordprocessing software
It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the wordprocessor
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 wordprocessor'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:
http://www.elsevier.com/guidepublication).
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 wordprocessor.
Article structure
Subdivision - unnumbered
sections
Divide your article into clearly defined sections. Each subsection is given a brief heading. Each heading should
appear on its own separate line. Subsections should be used as much as possible when cross-referencing text: refer to the subsection
by heading as opposed to simply "the text".
The main text should include introduction, experimental section, results, discussion
and conclusion. All footnotes (except for table footnotes) should be identified with superscript Arabic numbers. Headings and subheadings
for different sections of the papers should be used and clearly identified. If each section needs to be numbered, a sequence such as
2., 2.1., 2.1.1., etc should be used. All tables and figures must be mentioned in the text. Trade names should have an initial capital
letter.
Introduction
For full-length manuscripts, a proper
introduction is required.
The purpose of the introduction is to briefly summarise previous work and recent progress in the field and not to repeat information
found in previous publications. The introduction must be kept to a minimum length and only references that pertain to the information
in the manuscript should be used. For shorter articles, introductions should be correspondingly brief.
The title should be concise,
informative and representative of the contents of the manuscript.
Experimental
The
experimental
section should provide sufficient detail of the materials, methods and equipment to allow repetition of the work elsewhere, but should
not contain excessive detail of commonly used procedures. Precautions for handling dangerous material or for performing hazardous procedures
should be explicitly stated.
Results
Results should be clear and concise.
Discussion
This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. A combined Results
and Discussion section is often appropriate. Avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature.
Conclusions
The
main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion
or Results and Discussion section. Please note that the conclusions should not repeat the summary.
Essential
title page information
•
Title.
Concise and informative. Titles are often used in information-retrieval
systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible.
•
Author names and affiliations.
Where the family name
may be ambiguous (e.g., a double name), please indicate this clearly. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work
was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case 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.
•
Corresponding author.
Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence at
all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication.
Ensure that telephone and fax numbers (with country and area code)
are provided in addition to the e-mail address and the complete postal address. Contact details must be 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
An abstract of approximately 100 to 150 words identifying the new
and significant results of the study must be provided for all manuscripts, including articles, reviews, and communications. The abstract
should comprise a brief and factual account of the contents and conclusions of the paper as well as an indication of any new information
presented and its relevance. Abstracts should be self-contained. References to formulae, equations or references that appear in the main
text are not permissible.
Graphical Abstract
In addition to the Abstract, which will
appear at the beginning of the text, the author should provide a graphical abstract (TOC). The TOC graphic should capture the reader's
attention and, in conjunction with the manuscript title, should give the reader a quick visual impression of the essence of the paper.
It should be in the form of a structure, graph, drawing, TEM/SEM/AFM micrograph, or reaction scheme without any added text. Tables or
spectra are not acceptable. Color is encouraged. Type size of labels, formulas, or numbers within the graphic must be legible. The graphic
should be submitted as a separate file in either TIFF, JPG, Word, or Powerpoint format.
Acknowledgements
Collate
acknowledgements in a separate section at the end of the article before the references and do not, therefore, include them on the title
page, as a footnote to the title or otherwise. List here those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g., providing language
help, writing assistance or proof reading the article, etc.).
Units
Follow internationally
accepted rules and conventions: use the international system of units (SI). If other units are mentioned, please give their equivalent
in SI.
Nomenclature and units
Nomenclature should conform to current scientific usage. Author(s)
should use systematic names similar to those used by Chemical Abstracts Service and the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry.
Chemical Abstracts (CA) nomenclature rules can be found in Appendix IV of the Chemical Abstracts Index Guide.
Math
formulae
Detailed mathematical discussion should be placed in an appendix. Equations and formulae should be typewritten.
Footnotes
Footnotes should be used sparingly. Number them consecutively throughout the article, using superscript
Arabic numbers. Many wordprocessors build footnotes into the text, and this feature may be used. Should this not be the case, indicate
the position of footnotes in the text and present the footnotes themselves separately at the end of the article. Do not include footnotes
in the Reference list.
Table footnotes
Indicate each footnote in a table with a superscript lowercase letter.
Artwork
Electronic artwork
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, Times, Symbol.
• Number the illustrations according to their
sequence in the text.
• Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.
• Provide captions to illustrations
separately.
• Produce images near to the desired size of the printed version.
• If you use high resolution graphics
(e.g., micrographs), submit each figure as a separate file.
A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available on our website:
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions
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: color or grayscale 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 (color or grayscale): 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 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.
Color artwork
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 color
figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in color on the Web (e.g., ScienceDirect and
other sites) regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in color in the printed version.
For color reproduction
in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article. Please indicate
your preference for color in print or on the Web only. For further information on the preparation of electronic artwork, please see
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Please note: Because of technical complications which can arise by converting color figures to "gray scale" (for the printed version
should you not opt for color in print) please submit in addition usable black and white versions of all the color illustrations.
At the editors discretion colour may be provided at no cost to the author, if it is deemed essential to the clarity and presentation
of the article. Colour illustrations should be scanned at 300 dpi (500 dpi for halftones/line art combinations).
Figure
captions
Ensure that each illustration has a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached to the figure. A caption
should comprise a brief title (
not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations
themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.
Tables
Number tables
consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. Place footnotes to tables below the table body and indicate them with
superscript lowercase letters. Avoid vertical rules. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in tables do
not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article.
References
Citation
in 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.
Web references
As
a minimum, the full URL should be given and the date when the reference was last accessed. 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.
Reference
management software
This journal has standard templates available in key reference management packages EndNote (
http://www.endnote.com/support/enstyles.asp)
and Reference Manager (
http://refman.com/support/rmstyles.asp). Using plug-ins to wordprocessing packages, authors only
need to select the appropriate journal template when preparing their article and the list of references and citations to these will be
formatted according to the journal style which is described below.
Reference style
Author(s)
carry the full responsibility for the accuracy of their references. The format of references must be uniform and consistent with those
found in a typical issue of Polymer. All publications cited in the text should be presented in a list of references following the text
of the manuscript. In the text refer to references by a number in square brackets on the line (e.g. Kim and Michler [1]), and full reference
should be given in a numerical list at the end of the paper in the following form:
1. Kim GM, Michler GH. Polymer 1998;39(23):5689-5697.
2. Jenkins AD, Loening KL. Nomenclature. In: Allen G, Bevington JC, Booth C, Price C, editors. Comprehensive polymer science, vol.
1. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1989. pp. 13-54.
3. Van Krevelen DW. Properties of polymers, 3rd ed. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1990 (chapter
6).
Journal abbreviations source
Journal names should be abbreviated according to
Index
Medicus journal abbreviations:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/lji.html;
List of title word abbreviations:
http://www.issn.org/2-22661-LTWA-online.php;
CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service):
http://www.cas.org/sent.html.
Video data
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 these within the body of the article. This can be done
in the same way as a figure or table by referring to the video or animation content and noting in the body text where it should be placed.
All submitted files should be properly labeled so that they directly relate to the video file's content. In order to ensure that your
video or animation material is directly usable, please provide the files in one of our recommended file formats with a preferred maximum
size of 50 MB. Video and animation files supplied will be published online in the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web
products, including ScienceDirect:
http://www.sciencedirect.com. Please supply 'stills' with your files: you can choose
any frame from the video or animation or make a separate image. These will be used instead of standard icons and will personalize the
link to your video data. For more detailed instructions please visit our video instruction pages at
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Note: since video and animation cannot be embedded in the print version of the journal, please provide text for both the electronic and
the print version for the portions of the article that refer to this content.
Supplementary data
Elsevier
accepts electronic supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the author additional
possibilities to publish supporting applications, high-resolution images, background datasets, sound clips and more. Supplementary files
supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect:
http://www.sciencedirect.com. In order to ensure that your submitted material is directly usable, please provide the data
in one of our recommended file formats. Authors should submit the material in electronic format together with the article and supply
a concise and descriptive caption for each file. For more detailed instructions please visit our artwork instruction pages at
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Authors
should be encouraged to submit their supplementary data in PDF format and include a note at the end of the manuscript with a link to
the materials free of charge.
Submission checklist
The following list will be useful during
the final checking of an article prior to sending it to the journal for review. Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details
of any item.
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
• Telephone and fax numbers
All necessary files
have been uploaded, and contain:
• Keywords
• All figure captions
• All tables (including title, description,
footnotes)
Further considerations
• Manuscript has been 'spell-checked' and 'grammar-checked'
• References are
in the correct format for this journal
• 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 Web)
• Color figures
are clearly marked as being intended for color reproduction on the Web (free of charge) and in print, or to be reproduced in color on
the Web (free of charge) and in black-and-white in print
• If only color on the Web is required, black-and-white versions of
the figures are also supplied for printing purposes
For any further information please visit our customer support site at
http://support.elsevier.com.
Use of the Digital Object Identifier
The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) may be used to cite and link to electronic
documents. The DOI consists of a unique alpha-numeric character string which is assigned to a document by the publisher upon the initial
electronic publication. The assigned DOI never changes. Therefore, it is an ideal medium for citing a document, particularly 'Articles
in press' because they have not yet received their full bibliographic information. The correct format for citing a DOI is shown as follows
(example taken from a document in the journal
Physics Letters B):
doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2003.10.071
When you use the
DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, they are guaranteed never to change.
The correct hyperlink to the DOI above
is:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2003.10.071
Proofs
One set of page
proofs (as PDF files) 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) or, a link will be provided in the e-mail so that authors can download the files themselves. Elsevier now provides authors
with PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download Adobe Reader version 7 (or higher) available free from
http://get.adobe.com/reader.
Instructions on how to annotate PDF files will accompany the proofs (also given online). The exact system requirements are given at the
Adobe site:
http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/tech-specs.html.
If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function,
you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return them 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 – please let us have all your corrections within 48 hours. 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. Note that Elsevier may proceed with the publication of
your article if no response is received.
Offprints
The corresponding author, at no cost,
will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail. For an extra charge, paper offprints can be ordered via the offprint order
form which is sent once the article is accepted for publication. 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.
For inquiries relating to the submission of articles (including electronic submission) please visit this journal's
homepage. Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating to proofs, will be provided
by the publisher. You can track accepted articles at
http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle. You can also check our Author
FAQs (
http://www.elsevier.com/authorFAQ) and/or contact Customer Support via
http://support.elsevier.com.
