Computers in Biology and Medicine

Authors are requested to submit their paper and figure online via the Elsevier Editorial System (EES). EES is a web-based submission and review system. Authors may submit manuscripts and track their progress through the system to publication. Reviewers can download manuscripts and submit their opinions to the editor. Editors can manage the whole submission/review/revise/publish process.

Manuscript Submission. Manuscripts should be submitted to the website http://ees.elsevier.com/cbm/. All submission information is provided at the web site. The Guide for Authors is also available at the site. Authors who submit a manuscript for the first time must register with the system before submission. Postal submissions are not accepted from 1 June 2005.

Authors should note that the original manuscript and diagrams will be discarded one month after publication unless the Publisher is requested (on submission of the manuscript)to return original material to the author.

The Artwork Quality Control Tool is now available to EES users. To help authors submit high-quality artwork early in the process, this tool checks the submitted artwork and other file types against the artwork requirements outlined in the Artwork Instructions to Authors on HTTP://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.

Inquiries about online submissions should be sent to: authorsupport@elsevier.com. Queries about manuscripts submitted before online submission should be submitted to journals@nationalbiomedical.org

Authors should provide a list of up to 5 potential reviewers (e-mail, phone and fax numbers) who are knowledgeable in the subject matter, have no conflict of interest, and are likely to agree to review the manuscript.

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.

Acknowledgements
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship as defined above should be listed in an acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a department chair who provided only general support. Authors should disclose whether they had any writing assistance and identify the entity that paid for this assistance.

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.

Randomised controlled trials
All randomised controlled trials submitted for publication in Computers in Biology and Medicine should include a completed Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) flow chart. Please refer to the CONSORT statement website at http://www.consort-statement.org for more information. Computers in Biology and Medicine has adopted the proposal from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) which require, as a condition of consideration for publication of clinical trials, registration in a public trials registry. Trials must register at or before the onset of patient enrolment. The clinical trial registration number should be included at the end of the abstract of the article. For this purpose, a clinical trial is defined as any research project that prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention or comparison groups to study the cause-and-effect relationship between a medical intervention and a health outcome. Studies designed for other purposes, such as to study pharmacokinetics or major toxicity (e.g. phase I trials) would be exempt. Further information can be found at www.icmje.org.

Ethics
Work on human beings that is submitted to Computers in Biology and Medicine should comply with the principles laid down in the Declaration of Helsinki; Recommendations guiding physicians in biomedical research involving human subjects. Adopted by the 18th World Medical Assembly, Helsinki, Finland, June 1964, amended by the 29th World Medical Assembly, Tokyo, Japan, October 1975, the 35th World Medical Assembly, Venice, Italy, October 1983, and the 41st World Medical Assembly, Hong Kong, September 1989. The manuscript should contain a statement that the work has been approved by the appropriate ethical committees related to the institution(s) in which it was performed and that subjects gave informed consent to the work. Studies involving experiments with animals must state that their care was in accordance with institution guidelines.

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.

General Form: The entire manuscript should be typed double-spaced, including the abstract, footnotes, references, legends and tables, with 3-cm margins. An accompanying letter should be included, indicating the name, address, telephone and fax number of the corresponding author. The title of the paper and the author's name, address, fax number and/or telephone number should be given. Manuscripts may not exceed 35 double-spaced pages, including figures, references, etc. Figures and tables should appear at the end of the manuscript, following all text. The publication language is English.

Summary: A summary at the end of the paper (not exceeding 500 words) should accompany the manuscript on a separate sheet.

Abstract: A short abstract in English (not exceeding 100 words) should immediately precede the introduction. The abstract should stand alone from the text, therefore no references should be included.

Key Words: Enclose with each manuscript, at the end of the abstract, from five to ten key words. These terms should be relatively independent (coordinate index terms), and as a group should optimally characterize the paper.

References: References should be cited in the text in numerical order as bracketed numerals (e.g. Parton [1]) and the list placed at the end of the article (not as footnotes on each page) in numerical sequence, not alphabetical order. The list should include the author's initials and last name, title of book or article in the original language, publisher or name of periodical abbreviated in the style of the World List of Scientific Periodicals, with volume, page and year, e.g.

1. K.C. Parton, The Digital Computer, p. 99. Pergamon Press, Oxford (1964).

2. T. Pavlidis, Analysis of set patterns, Pattern Recognition 1, 165 (1968).

Illustrations: Illustrations and tables accompanying manuscripts should be numbered (provided with suitable legends on a separate sheet),. Authors should indicate on the manuscript the appropriate positions of tables and text figures. A reasonable number of half-tone illustrations will be reproduced free of cost to the author, but special arrangements must be made with the editor for colour plates. The lettering should be large enough to be legible after reduction. It will facilitate publication if line drawings are submitted in a form suitable for direct reproduction. The following standard symbols should be used on line drawings since they are readily available to the printer:

(open circle), (closed circle), (open triangle), (closed triangle), (open box), (closed box), +, 7times;, (open downward triangle), (closed downward triangle)

Footnotes: Footnotes, as distinct from literature references, should be indicated by the following symbols: *, ¿, ¿, §, [], ¶, commencing a new on each page.

Refereeing Procedure

To ensure fairness, each manuscript will be assessed anonymously by at least two independent reviewers. Constructive criticism provided by the assessors will be forwarded to the author.

Copyright Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to sign a ¿Journal Publishing Agreement¿¿ (for more information on this and copyright see http://authors.elsevier.com). 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.

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: Tel. (+1) 215 238 7869; Fax (+1) 215 238 2239; e-mail healthpermissions@elsevier.com . Requests may also be completed online via the Elsevier homepage (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/permissions).

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 agreemnts and policies please visit http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies

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 http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. Instructions on how to annotate PDF files will accompany the proofs. The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/acrrsystemreqs.html#70win.
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.

Offprints
The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail or, alternatively, 25 free paper offprints. 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. Additional paper offprints can be ordered by the authors. An order form with prices will be sent to the corresponding author.