Guide for Authors
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carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere including electronically in the same form, in English or in any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.
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 and 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://webshop.elsevier.com/languageservices
or our customer support site at
http://support.elsevier.com
for more information.
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/devec/.
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.
LaTeX
If the LaTeX file is suitable, proofs will be
produced without rekeying the text. The article should preferably be written using Elsevier's document class 'elsarticle', or alternatively
any of the other recognized classes and formats supported in Elsevier's electronic submissions system, for further information see
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorsview.authors/latex-ees-supported.
The Elsevier 'elsarticle' LaTeX style file package (including detailed instructions for LaTeX preparation) can
be obtained from the Quickguide:
http://www.elsevier.com/latex. It consists of the file: elsarticle.cls, complete user documentation
for the class file, bibliographic style files in various styles, and template files for a quick start.
Article structure
Submission should not exceed
60 pages ( including figures/tables/schemes/references ).
Introduction
State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.
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.
Glossary
Please supply,
as a separate list, the definitions of field-specific terms used in your article.
Appendices
If there is more than one appendix, they should be identified as A, B, etc. Formulae and equations in appendices should be given
separate numbering: Eq. (A.1), Eq. (A.2), etc.; in a subsequent appendix, Eq. (B.1) and so on. Similarly for tables and figures: Table
A.1; Fig. A.1, etc.
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
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 cite the author(s) and year(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.
Abstract must be a maximum of 150 words
Graphical abstract
A Graphical abstract is optional and should summarize the contents of the article in a concise, pictorial form designed to capture
the attention of a wide readership online. Authors must provide images that clearly represent the work described in the article. Graphical
abstracts should be submitted as a separate file in the online submission system. Image size: Please provide an image with a minimum
of 531 × 1328 pixels (h × w) or proportionally more. The image should be readable at a size of 5 × 13 cm using a regular
screen resolution of 96 dpi. Preferred file types: TIFF, EPS, PDF or MS Office files. See
http://www.elsevier.com/graphicalabstracts
for examples.
Authors can make use of Elsevier's Illustration and Enhancement service to ensure the best presentation of their images
also in accordance with all technical requirements:
Illustration
Service.
Highlights
Highlights are mandatory for this journal.
They consist of a short collection of bullet points that convey the core findings of the article and should be submitted in a separate
file in the online submission system. Please use 'Highlights' in the file name and include 3 to 5 bullet points (maximum 85 characters,
including spaces, per bullet point). See
http://www.elsevier.com/highlights for examples.
Keywords
Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of 6 keywords, using American spelling and avoiding
general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, 'and', 'of'). Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly
established in the field may be eligible. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.
Classification codes
Please provide up to 6 standard JEL codes. The available codes may be accessed at JEL:
http://www.aeaweb.org/journal/elclasjn.html.
Abbreviations
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.
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.
Math formulae
Present simple formulae in the line of normal text where possible and use the solidus (/) instead of a horizontal line for small
fractional terms, e.g., X/Y. In principle, variables are to be presented in italics. Powers of e are often more conveniently denoted
by exp. Number consecutively any equations that have to be displayed separately from the text (if referred to explicitly in the text).
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.
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.
• 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.
If your electronic artwork is created in a Microsoft Office application (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) then please supply 'as is'.
Please
do not:
• Supply files that are optimised for screen use (e.g., 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.
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.
References in a special issue
Please ensure that the words 'this issue' are added to any references in the list (and
any citations in the text) to other articles in the same Special Issue.
Reference
style
Text: All citations in the text should refer to:
1.
Single author: the author's name (without
initials, unless there is ambiguity) and the year of publication;
2.
Two authors: both authors' names and the year of publication;
3.
Three or more authors: first author's name followed by 'et al.' and the year of publication.
Citations may be made
directly (or parenthetically). Groups of references should be listed first alphabetically, then chronologically.
Examples: 'as demonstrated
(Allan, 2000a, 2000b, 1999; Allan and Jones, 1999). Kramer et al. (2010) have recently shown ....'
List: References should
be arranged first alphabetically and then further sorted chronologically if necessary. More than one reference from the same author(s)
in the same year must be identified by the letters 'a', 'b', 'c', etc., placed after the year of publication.
Examples:
Reference to a journal publication:
Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J.A.J., Lupton, R.A., 2010. The art of writing a scientific article.
J. Sci. Commun. 163, 51–59.
Reference to a book:
Strunk Jr., W., White, E.B., 2000. The Elements of Style, fourth ed. Longman,
New York.
Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
Mettam, G.R., Adams, L.B., 2009. How to prepare an electronic version of
your article, in: Jones, B.S., Smith , R.Z. (Eds.), Introduction to the Electronic Age. E-Publishing Inc., New York, pp. 281–304.
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.
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.2010.09.059
When you use the DOI to
create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, the DOIs are guaranteed never to change.
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.
