Guide for Authors
Human
Immunology, the official journal of the American Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics (ASHI), publishes full-length
original articles, brief communications and reviews covering a wide range of subjects including immunogenetics, innate and adaptive immunity,
transplantation immunology, autoimmunity, infections diseases and tumor immunology. The scope of the journal is to disseminate information
that may contribute to understanding the mechanisms involved in the genetic control of organ and tissue allograft rejection, alloimmunity,
chronic infections and progression of malignant diseases.
Research areas include:
- Immunogenetic studies on structure and function
of molecules involved of immune responses; immunogenetic markers including polymorphism of immunogenetics markers such as HLA, minor
histocompatability antigens, immune receptors (KIR, NK, Toll-like, ILT, MICA/B, PAMPs, etc); population frequencies and disease association
studies.
- Cellular Immunology and Immune Regulation covering the broad areas of in vitro and in vivo studies of innate and adaptive
immunity in health and disease.
- Clinical Immunology including transplantation, cancer immunology, autoimmunity, delayed-type-hypersensivity,
immunological deficiencies, immunologic monitoring, immunotherapy, and immunomodulation.
- Biotechnological innovations for detection
of new genes and gene products including genomics and proteomics strategies.
Types of paper
a)
Full-Length Articles
Limit 4000 words excluding references, tables, and figures
Abstract 200 words maximum
References up to
50
b) Brief Communications
Limit 2500 words
Abstract 150 words
References up to 30
c) Review Articles
Limit 5000 words,
excluding references, tables, and figures
Abstract 200 words maximum
References up to 80
The manuscript should include the following
sections: Title Page, Abstract (not more than 200 words), Keywords (up to 5), Abbreviations (list of abbreviations used), Introduction,
Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements, References, Tables, Figure Legends, and Figures.
The title page should
include the names and affiliations of the authors, the complete address, e-mail address, and telephone and facsimile numbers of the corresponding
author, five keywords, and an abbreviated title of not more than 45 characters and spaces. Footnotes in the text should be defined on
the page on which they appear and be numbered consecutively with superscript Arabic numerals.
Contact
details for submission
Submission of manuscripts to this journal proceeds totally online, by means of the electronic submission
tool (EES) at
http://ees.elsevier.com/him
Page charges
This journal has no
page charges.
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.
Policy and ethics
The work described
in your article must have been carried out in accordance with
The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of
Helsinki) for experiments involving humans http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/index.html;
EU Directive
2010/63/EU for animal experiments http://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/lab_animals/legislation_en.htm;
Uniform
Requirements for manuscripts submitted to Biomedical journals http://www.icmje.org. This must be stated at an appropriate
point in the article.
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.
Contributors
Each author is required to declare his or her individual contribution to the article: all authors
must have materially participated in the research and/or article preparation, so roles for all authors should be described. The statement
that all authors have approved the final article should be true and included in the disclosure.
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.
Clinical trial results
In line with the position of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors,
the journal will not consider results posted in the same clinical trials registry in which primary registration resides to be prior publication
if the results posted are presented in the form of a brief structured (less than 500 words) abstract or table. However, divulging results
in other circumstances (e.g., investors' meetings) is discouraged and may jeopardise consideration of the manuscript. Authors should
fully disclose all posting in registries of results of the same or closely related work.
Reporting clinical
trials
All randomised controlled trials submitted for publication 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. This journal 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 study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups
of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects of health outcomes. Health-related interventions include
any intervention used to modify a biomedical or health-related outcome (for example drugs, surgical procedures, devices, behavioural
treatments, dietary interventions, and process-of-care changes). Health outcomes include any biomedical or health-related measures obtained
in patients or participants, including pharmacokinetic measures and adverse events. Purely observational studies (those in which the
assignment of the medical intervention is not at the discretion of the investigator) will not require registration. Further information
can be found at
http://www.icmje.org.
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.
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.
Patient details
Unless you have written permission from the patient
(or, where applicable, the next of kin), the personal details of any patient included in any part of the article and in any supplementary
materials (including all illustrations and videos) must be removed before submission. For further information see
http://www.elsevier.com/patientphotographs.
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.elseiver.com/him/
Referees
Please
submit, with the manuscript, the names, addresses and e-mail addresses of three potential referees. Note that the editor retains the
sole right to decide whether or not the suggested reviewers are used.
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 - numbered
sections
Divide your article into clearly defined and numbered sections. Subsections should be numbered 1.1 (then 1.1.1,
1.1.2, ...), 1.2, etc. (the abstract is not included in section numbering). Use this numbering also for internal cross-referencing: do
not just refer to 'the text'. Any subsection may be given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line.
Introduction
State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature
survey or a summary of the results.
Material and methods
Provide sufficient detail to allow
the work to be reproduced, with details of supplier and catalogue number when appropriate. Methods already published should be indicated
by a reference: only relevant modifications should be described.
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.
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.
Keywords
Immediately
after the abstract, provide a maximum of 5 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.
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.).
Database linking
Elsevier aims at connecting online articles with external
databases which are useful in their respective research communities. If your article contains relevant unique identifiers or accession
numbers (bioinformatics) linking to information on entities (genes, proteins, diseases, etc.) or structures deposited in public databases,
then please indicate those entities according to the standard explained below.
Authors should explicitly mention the
database
abbreviation (as mentioned below) together with the actual database number, bearing in mind that an error in a letter or number
can result in a dead link in the online version of the article.
Please use the following format:
Database ID: xxxx
Links
can be provided in your online article to the following databases (examples of citations are given in parentheses):
•
ASTM:
ASTM Standards Database (ASTM ID: G63)
•
CCDC: Cambridge Crystallographic
Data Centre (CCDC ID: AI631510)
•
GenBank: Genetic sequence
database at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) (GenBank ID: BA123456)
•
GEO:
Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO ID: GSE27196; GEO ID: GPL5366; GEO ID: GSM9853)
•
MI:
EMBL-EBI OLS Molecular Interaction Ontology (MI ID: 0218)
•
MINT:
Molecular INTeractions database (MINT ID: 6166710)
•
NCBI Taxonomy:
NCBI Taxonomy Browser (NCBI Taxonomy ID: 48184)
•
NCT: ClinicalTrials.gov
(NCT ID: NCT00222573)
•
OMIM: Online Mendelian Inheritance
in Man (OMIM ID: 601240)
•
PDB: Worldwide Protein Data
Bank (PDB ID: 1TUP)
•
TAIR: The Arabidopsis Information Resource
database (TAIR ID: AT1G01020)
•
UniProt: Universal Protein Resource
Knowledgebase (UniProt ID: Q9H0H5)
For each and every accession number cited in an article, authors should
type the accession number in bold, underlined text. Letters in the accession number should always be capitalized (see example below).
This combination of letters and format will enable the typesetter to recognize the relevant texts as accession numbers and add the required
link to GenBank's sequences.
Example: GenBank accession nos.
AI631510, AI631511, AI632198, and
BF223228,
a B-cell tumor from a chronic lymphatic leukemia (GenBank accession no.
BE675048
), and a T-cell lymphoma (GenBank accession
no.
AA361117
).
In the final version of the
printed article, the accession number text will not appear bold or
underlined. In the final version of the
electronic copy, the accession number text will be linked to the appropriate source
in the NCBI databases, enabling readers to go directly to that source from the article.
Footnotes
Footnotes
should be used sparingly. Number them consecutively throughout the article, using superscript Arabic numbers. Many word processors build
footnotes into the text, and this feature may be used. Should this not be the case, footnotes in the text should be defined on the page
on which they appear. 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
Each table should be typed double-spaced on a separate page, and numbered consecutively
in accordance with their appearance in the text. Table titles should be informative, with detailed information appearing as footnotes.
Place footnotes to tables below the table body and indicate them with superscript lowercase letters. Avoid vertical rules. Use only horizontal
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: 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 2010;163:51–9.
Reference to a book:
[2] Strunk Jr W, White EB. The elements
of style. 4th ed. New York: Longman; 2000.
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;
2009, 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;277:927–34) (see also
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html).
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.
Supplementary material captions
Each supplementary material file should have a short caption which will be
placed at the bottom of the article, where it can assist the reader and also be used by search engines.
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 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://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. 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/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
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. 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. 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.
