Guide for Authors
Before preparing a paper for submission to Gene, the author(s) should carefully read
these instructions, and
Gene's List of Abbreviations,
thus avoiding needless delays during the editorial process. Papers should be carefully prepared in
Gene's style. When a paper
is submitted to
Gene, the corresponding author is responsible for all authors having seen and approved the original paper and,
eventually, the proofs.
The paper should be accompanied by a Cover Letter, in which the authors are invited to suggest the names
of two editorial board members who could serve as Handling Editor. Authors will also need to supply the names of eight potential referees
(as well as their affiliations, e-mail addresses and areas of expertise). In order to ensure a maximum of objectivity, the names of scientists
the authors do not wish to be consulted in the reviewing process can also be provided, as well as any other special requests.
Gene
requires all new nucleotide and amino acid sequences to be deposited. Obtain and include an accession number with all sequences. The
most convenient method for submitting sequence data is by World Wide Web:
EMBL
GenBank
DDBJ
Alternatively, the stand-alone submission tool "Sequin" is available from
NCBI.
If requested the database will withhold release of data until publication.
If references are quoted as 'In press', the relevant
manuscript(s) should also be attached. Should authors be requested by the Editor to modify the text prior to publication, the revised
version should be submitted within 2 months. After this period, the manuscript will be dealt with as a new one.
Speed of Peer Review
All possible effort will be made by the Editors in order to obtain referees' comments
rapidly. In principle, the authors will be informed of a decision within 6 weeks.
Types of paper
All reports should explicitly state the biological relevance of the function that is the subject of the
paper.
Methods papers will be considered only if they are of general importance with considerable original and useful information.
Minor improvements to existing methods are not acceptable.
Letters to the Editor that are pertinent to material published
in GENE or that discuss problems of general interest are selected for publication. The author of a paper in question is usually given
an opportunity to reply.
Reviews or Mini-reviews are generally solicited by the Editors of the journal. However, prospective
authors interested in contributing such a paper are invited to contact the Editor-in-Chief.
Contact details for submission
Papers should be submitted to Gene's online submission system,
http://ees.elsevier.com/gene/.
For questions on the submission and reviewing process, please contact the Editorial Office at
gene@elsevier.com.
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.
Referees
Please submit, with the manuscript, the names,
affiliations and e-mail addresses of 4 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.
Double line spacing must be used
throughout the text.
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. Methods already
published should be indicated by a reference: only relevant modifications should be described.
Please add to legends (for figures) or footnotes (for tables) details such as [temp.,time(s), voltage, concentrations, type
and percent of gel, markers,sizes (bp,kb,kDa), etc.], but outline methods themselves in the main text.
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.
The Results and Discussion sections should refer to the data shown in the figures and tables, and briefly discuss their significance.
Divide these sections into numbered subsections with short subtitles (lower-case, Roman, not underlined). Where the Results section is
combined with the Discussion section, the last subsection, subtitled Conclusions, should be short and divided into points.
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.
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.
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.
Use only words not already present in the title.
Abbreviations
Consult
Gene's
List of Abbreviations and the pertinent literature for accepted abbreviations, especially for genes and proteins; list all
those used, even if already in Gene's list (create new abbreviations if necessary). Be meticulous with symbols. For proteins, use Roman
letters with at least the first letter capitalized (e.g., Hprt, HPRT or βGal) for genes (or DNA) use italicized letters (e.g.,
lacZ,
hprt, HPRT or
cat gene, not HPRT or CAT gene). Consult the nomenclature (or usage) for the particular organism concerned
to use (or create) proper gene/protein abbreviations.
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 and
Accession numbers
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):
•
GenBank:
Genetic sequence database at the National Center for Biotechnical Information (NCBI) (GenBank ID: BA123456)
•
PDB:
Worldwide Protein Data Bank (PDB ID: 1TUP)
•
CCDC: Cambridge Crystallographic
Data Centre (CCDC ID: AI631510)
•
TAIR: The Arabidopsis Information
Resource database (TAIR ID: AT1G01020)
•
NCT: ClinicalTrials.gov
(NCT ID: NCT00222573)
•
OMIM: Online Mendelian Inheritance
in Man (OMIM ID: 601240)
•
MINT: Molecular INTeractions
database (MINT ID: 6166710)
•
MI: EMBL-EBI OLS Molecular
Interaction Ontology (MI ID: 0218)
•
UniProt: Universal Protein Resource
Knowledgebase (UniProt ID: Q9H0H5)
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.
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.
• 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.
Non-electronic artwork
Provide all illustrations
as high-quality printouts, suitable for reproduction (which may include reduction) without retouching. Number illustrations consecutively
in the order in which they are referred to in the text. They should accompany the manuscript, but should not be included within the text.
Clearly mark all illustrations on the back (or - in case of line drawings - on the lower front side) with the figure number and the author's
name and, in cases of ambiguity, the correct orientation.
Mark the appropriate position of a figure in the article.
Only if a laser-quality printer is not available (dot matrix printers are unsatisfactory) should you present
professionally drawn figures in black ink on white paper. Always use large and bold lettering and heavy smoothlines to permit photographic
reduction. Ensure that all symbols in the figure are large and match the explanations in the legend. Sequence figures should be either
60 nucleotides (or amino acids) in width (to fit into a single printed column), or 120-150 nt. As a rule no more than a single page is
allowed for sequence figures. Add bp, nt, kb or kDa symbols above the numerals in marker lanes. Legends should be typed/printed double-spaced,
on pages separate from the figures themselves. The maximum size of figures is A4: present larger figures on two or more sheets.
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) in addition to color
reproduction in print. For further information on the preparation of electronic artwork, please see
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
In review articles, color illustrations will be reproduced free of charge if essential for the presentation
of results. This will be at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.
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 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
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 titles should be abbreviated according to the 'List of Serials
Indexed for Online Users' which can be found on
http://www.nlm.nih.gov. For reviews with a large number of references,
employ the system used in Gene 1991; 100: 13-26.
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.
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.
