Guide for Authors

Devoted to the Rapid Publication of Short Contributions to Information Processing

All contributions must be submitted through the Elsevier Editorial System (EES) site at http://ees.elsevier.com/ipl/. Multiple submissions will be unconditionally rejected. Potential authors are also advised not to direct the same or similar papers to two or more Editors. Before submitting your contributions you may wish to consult the IPL Editors' Domains of Competency below. Contributions must be in English or American. Please contact the Managing Editor if you have questions or problems concerning submission, processing, or publication of a paper. Submit a paper ONLY to an Editor (based primarily on subject-area proximity) who is on the Board of Editors. The Managing Editor is not responsible for directing submissions to appropriate Editors.

The authors must make sure that the papers are submitted in the final version. An additional careful look through the paper may often help to improve the submission considerably.
Since no linguistic assistance in the form of copy editing is provided by IPL, poorly written papers will not be considered.

The length of a contribution (including all figures, references etc.) should not exceed the equivalent of nine A4 or 8 1/2-by-11 pages, typed with wide margins and double line-spacing, i.e., approximately a 20K character file or 3,000 words. An Editor's decision to reject a contribution because of its length is final.

An abstract is not required, but appropriate keywords must be supplied; these should include at least one keyword drawn from the following list of keywords: algorithms – analysis of algorithms – approximation algorithms – automatic theorem proving – combinatorial problems – compilers – computational complexity – computational geometry – concurrency – cryptography – databases – data structures – design of algorithms – distributed computing – distributed systems – fault tolerance – formal languages – formal methods – formal semantics – functional programming – graph algorithms – information retrieval – interconnection networks – on-line algorithms – operating systems – parallel algorithms – parallel processing – performance evaluation – program correctness – program derivation – programming calculi – programming languages – program specification – randomized algorithms – real–time systems – safety/security in digital systems – scheduling – software design and implementation – software engineering – specification languages – theory of computation.

References should be numbered and put in alphabetical order at the end of the paper. References should contain the names and initials of all authors, title of the article, name of the journal, volume number, year of publication (or title of volume, name of editor(s), name of publishers), and page numbers. See papers in existing issues of IPL for the preferred style. Since IPL is not published from camera-ready copies, there is no need to supply fancy print-outs. If computer-assisted printing is used, care must be taken that the print is legible and properly paginated and that the paper satisfies the length constraint stated earlier. Figures should be sharp glossy prints of about manuscript size or, preferably, original drawings or computer output.

Once a submission has been accepted for publication, all further correspondence should be sent directly to the Publishers (Elsevier B.V., P.O. Box 2759, 1000 CT Amsterdam, The Netherlands - refer to IPL on the envelope).

Upon acceptance of an article, author(s) are asked to transfer copyright of the article to the Publisher. This transfer of copyright will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. There are no page charges. 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.
Notice will be sent by the Publisher upon receipt of the paper.

IPL Editors' Domains of Competency For each IPL keyword, the table below lists Editors who prefer handling submissions classified by that keyword. Choosing an Editor indicated in the table may lead to a shorter processing time for your submission. Within each group, the Editors are listed alphabetically --no order of preference is implied.
algorithms: Bertossi, Chin, Doerr, Hambrusch, Hsu, Okabe, Vitanyi, Yamashita
analysis of algorithms: Doerr, Hambrusch, Hsu, Okabe, Yamashita
approximation algorithms: Chin, Doerr, Okabe
automatic theorem proving: Basin, Chomicki, Muscholl
combinatorial problems: Doerr, Hambrusch, Hsu, Muscholl, Okabe, Yamashita
compilers: Morrisett, Okabe
computational complexity: Bertossi, Muscholl, Okabe, Vitanyi
computational geometry: Chin, Hambrusch, Yamashita
concurrency: Fiadeiro, Muscholl
cryptography: Desmedt, Pointcheval, Yamashita
databases: Chomicki, Hambrusch, Zhou
data structures: Bertossi, Doerr, Hambrusch, Hsu, Yamashita
design of algorithms: Doerr, Hambrusch, Hsu, Okabe, Yamashita
distributed computing: Chin, Vitanyi, Okabe, Yamashita
distributed systems: Vitanyi
fault tolerance: Bertossi,
formal languages: Muscholl, Yamashita
formal methods: Basin, Fiadeiro, Muscholl
formal semantics: Fiadeiro, Yamashita, Morrisett, Muscholl
functional programming: Morrisett
graph algorithms: Chin, Doerr, Okabe, Yamashita
information retrieval: Hambrusch, Hsu, Zhou
interconnection networks: Bertossi, Hambrusch, Okabe, Yamashita, Zhou
on-line algorithms: Doerr, Okabe
operating systems:
parallel algorithms: Bertossi, Doerr, Hambrusch, Okabe, Yamashita
parallel processing: Hambrusch, Okabe
performance evaluation: Bertossi
program correctness: Basin, Fiadeiro, Morrisett, Muscholl
program derivation: Basin
program specification: Basin, Chomicki, Fiadeiro, Morrisett
programming calculi: Morrisett
programming languages: Chomicki, Morrisett
randomized algorithms: Doerr, Okabe
real-time systems: Bertossi
safety/security in digital systems: Basin, Chomicki, Desmedt, Morrisett, Okabe, Yamashita
scheduling: Bertossi, Yamashita
software design and implementation: Fiadeiro
software engineering: Fiadeiro
specification languages: Basin, Chomicki, Fiadeiro, Muscholl
theory of computation: Hambrusch, Muscholl, Okabe, Yamashita
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Electronic Submission: LaTeX documents
The Latex source for an accepted paper (only) may be submitted along with the final printed version; this can speed up processing time and reduce errors.
If the file is suitable, proofs will be produced without rekeying the text. The article should be encoded in ESP-LaTeX, standard LaTeX, or AMS-LaTeX (in document style "article"). The Elsevier-LaTex package, together with instructions on how to prepare a file, is available from the Publisher. This package can be obtained from http://www.elsevier.com/latex, or using anonymous FTP from the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network (CTAN) at sites in the USA, United Kingdom and in Germany.
No changes from the accepted version are permissible, without the explicit approval by the Editors. The Publisher reserves the right to decide whether to use the author's file or not.
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Electronic submission: non-LaTeX documents
The final accepted manuscript can be submitted electronically, along with a paper-printed version which is identical to the file. Please mention which word processor you have used. The word-processed text should be in single column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible; in particular, do not use the word-processor's options to justify the text or to hyphenate words. The electronic text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts (see also Guide for Authors). The list of references, tables and figure legends should be compiled separately from the main text. Do not reserve space for the figures and tables in the text; instead, indicate their approximate locations, either directly in the electronic text or on the manuscript. If the electronic version is submitted on diskette, use standard 3.5" diskettes for this purpose and label it with your name. It is recommended to store the main text, list of references, tables and figure legends in separate text files with clearly identifiable file names (for example, with extensions .TXT, .REF, .TBL,.FIG). The format of the files depends on the word-processor used. Essential is that name and version of the word-processing program and the type of computer on which the text was prepared is clearly indicated on the diskette label or the accompanying checklist. The manuscript may contain parts (e.g. formulas or complex tables) or last-minute corrections which are not included in the electronic text; however, if this is the case then the differences with the electronic version should be clearly marked on the manuscript.
Illustrative material (original figures or high-quality glossy prints, or photographs showing a sharp contrast) should be included separately. Return to top of document

Keyword Instructions
Important Notice: please add one to five keywords to your article
Keywords are essential for the accessibility and retrievability of your article. Keywords assigned to articles will be assembled in a keyword index which will be printed in the last issue of each volume, and in cumulative indexes. In addition, it is planned to make keywords available on Internet.

To maximize the consistency with which such keywords are assigned by different authors, the following guidelines have been drawn up.

• Each keyword (which can be a phrase of more than one word) should describe one single concept. Often words like "and" or "of" should be avoided. At least one keyword should be drawn from the list of keywords given above.
• Avoid very general keywords which become meaningless once in a keyword list. Examples to avoid are "action", "computer", "mathematics". Check whether thekeywords as a whole describe the outlines of the article.
• Use natural language: for instance "automatic error recovery" rather than "error recovery, automatic".
• Try to use nouns and adjectives as much as possible (i.e. use "automatic error recovery" rather than "recovering errors automatically"). Do not use nouns in the plural form.
• Use English rather than American spelling (regardless of the spelling used for the article itself).
• Avoid the use of abbreviations as much as possible, unless an abbreviation is so well-established that the full term is rarely used (e.g. use "laser" instead of "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation", but use "computer aided design" instead of "CAD").

Although these guidelines are not mandatory, they should be adhered to where possible.

Author Benefits
No page charge is due
The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail or, alternatively, 50 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.
30% discount on Elsevier books.

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