Guide for Authors
An International Journal devoted to the Physics and Chemistry of Biological Phenomena
Biophysical Chemistry publishes original work and reviews in the areas of chemistry
and physics directly impacting biological phenomena. Quantitative analysis of the properties of biological macromolecules, biologically
active molecules, macromolecular assemblies and cell components in terms of kinetics, thermodynamics, spatio-temporal organization, NMR
and X-ray structural biology, as well as single-molecule detection represent a major focus of the journal. Theoretical and computational
treatments of biomacromolecular systems, macromolecular interactions, regulatory control and systems biology are also of interest to
the journal.
The journal publishes regular articles, letters and invited reviews. Manuscripts that fall outside the scopes and interests
of the journal are returned to the Authors without in-depth review. Relevant manuscripts are reviewed expeditiously with decisions generally
made within 3 weeks from receipt. Letters are short articles (6 printed pages maximum) reporting results of unusual timeliness and significance.
Decisions on Letters are made within 1-2 weeks from receipt and publication is offered only to manuscripts requiring minor revision.
Reviews are published by invitation from the Editors, but suggestions are welcome at any time. Authors can now submit supplementary material
for online publication on ScienceDirect
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/03014622. See below for more information.
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 in the same form, in English or in any other language, without
the written consent of the copyright-holder.
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 paper 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://www.elsevier.com/languagepolishing or our customer support site at
http://epsupport.elsevier.com
for more information. Please note Elsevier neither endorses nor takes responsibility for any products, goods or services offered by outside
vendors through our services or in any advertising. For more information please refer to our Terms & Conditions:
http://www.elsevier.com/termsandconditions.
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.
For submitting your manuscripts to Biophysical Chemistry please go to our Elsevier Editorial System (EES) Website
at: http://ees.elsevier.com/biophyschem/.
Referees
Please submit, with
the manuscript, the names, addresses and e-mail addresses of 3 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. Do not embed "graphically designed" equations or tables, but prepare
these using the wordprocessor's facility. 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).
Do not import the figures into the text file but, instead, indicate their approximate locations directly in the electronic text and on
the manuscript. See also the section on Electronic illustrations.
To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the
"spell-check" and "grammar-check" functions of your wordprocessor.
Article structure
The manuscript is to be preceded by a page bearing the name, full postal
address, fax and telephone numbers, and e-mail address of the corresponding author.
Introduction
State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.
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.
•
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
All scientific papers (including notes) should have an abstract in English, on a separate sheet.
It should consist of a brief and factual account of the contents and conclusions of the paper, in addition to an indication of any new
information which it may contain and of its relevance. No references or uncommon abbreviations should be given in the abstract. The abstract
of 100-150 words should contain all the pertinent details of the methods and the results obtained, and be written in such a way so that
it will address a wider audience.
Keywords
Authors are requested to select
a maximum of six keywords (or short phrases) and include them below the abstract. These will be used in the compilation of the volume
cumulative index and will be printed on the title page of the article. (Authors should note that American spelling is used and that plural
terms are avoided where possible.) Important factors of the investigation as a whole should be selected as keywords and general terms
like, membrane, transport, etc., should be avoided. In some cases, the general term can be used when qualified, e.g., membrane protein,
K+ transport, etc. The key words should be chosen so that the combination of these (as they will appear in the published index) will
give the reader sufficient direct information as to the relevance of a given article to his/her particular field.
Example: Title:
Computer simulation of T3/T7 phage infection using lag times
Keywords: Infection mechanism; Protein synthesis; DNA replication;
Lag time; Computer simulation; (Phage T3, Phage T7).
The submitted list may be amended by the editorial office to ensure that index
entries are consistent throughout the cumulative index. If words appear in parentheses, this indicates that these words are appropriate
to the article, but are not of sufficient indexing value; these words will not appear as individual index entries, but will be printed
each time a keyword index entry appears.
Abbreviations, symbols and terms
When
it is advantageous to the reader, abbreviations or symbols may be used. Should there be any doubt about a particular symbol or abbreviation,
the full expression followed by the abbreviation (in parentheses) should be given the first time it appears in the text. Abbreviations
used in a figure should be explained ln the legend; those used in a table should be taken to use correct terminology.
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.).
Acknowledgements of financial support should not be made by a footnote to the title or name of the author,
but should be included in Acknowledgements at the end of the paper.
Quantities, symbols
and units
The International System of Units (SI) must be used. Symbols for physical quantities (SI, SI derived, used together
with the SI) are recommended, for example, by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemsitry (IUPAC) or by the International Organization
for Standardization.
Formulae
Displayed formulae should be numbered. Vectors
will be printed in bold-face italics (heavy, slanting type), and should be indicated by a wavy underlining in the typescript. Special
attention should be paid to characters that can easily be misread, such as i (lowercase), I (cap), l (el), 1 (one), ' (prime), o (lower
case), O (cap.), 0 (zero), degree, u, v, (vee), Greek nu, V (cap), x, multiplication sign, X, z, Z, p, P, Greek rho, etc., and definition
of such characters should be given in the margin.
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.
DOC, XLS or PPT: If your electronic artwork is created in any of these Microsoft Office applications please supply "as is".
Please
do not:
• Supply embedded graphics in your wordprocessor (spreadsheet, presentation) document;
• Supply files that
are optimised for screen use (like 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.
Text graphics
Present incidental graphics not suitable for mention as figures, plates or schemes at the end of the
article and number them "Graphic 1", etc. Their precise position in the text can then be indicated. See further under Electronic artwork.
If you are working with LaTeX and have such features embedded in the text, these can be left, but such embedding should not be done specifically
for publishing purposes. Further, high-resolution graphics files must be provided separately.
Tables
Considerable thought should be given to the layout of the tables, so that the significance of the results can be
grasped readily and quickly.
It should also be remembered that the length of a printed page is always greater than its width. Vertical
lines are not used to separate the columns of tables.
Tables should be typed using double spacing on a separate page. Each table
should have an arabic number and a title, which makes its general meaning understandable without reference to the text. When tabulating
data, units and symbols should be used in column headings only, and not within the columns themselves. The appropriate places for the
insertion of the tables should be indicated in the text of the manuscript. Table legends should be typed with double or triple spacing.
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.
References
In the text, reference to other parts of the paper should be made by section (or equation) number,
not by page number.
References to the Literature:
References should be
numbered in the order in which they are cited in the text. The list of references at the end of the manuscript should be given using
double spacing on a separate sheet of the typescript. References should include the title of the work referred to. Footnotes should not
include bibliographic material. Authors should check whether every reference in the text appears in the list of references and vice versa.
Numerals for references should be given in square brackets [ ] in the text.'
'Expressions such as et al., idem and ibid. should not
be used in the list of references: details of each reference should be given in full. The following system should be used:
Book:
R. Zallen, The physics of amorphous solids (Wiley, New York, 1983).
Journal articles: T.P.Burghardt, J.E. Lyke and K. Ajtai,
Fluorescence emission and anisotropy from rhodamine dimers, Biophys. Chem. 59 (1996) 119-131.
Paper in a contributed volume:
E. Stelzer and H. Ruf, in: Physical chemistry of transmembrane motion, ed. G. Spach, Studies in physical and theoretical chemistry, vol.
24 (Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1983) p. 37.
Unpublished paper: D. Schallreuther, Ph.D. thesis, Universitat Konstanz (1982)."Personal
communication", "in preparation", "unpublished results", etc., should not be cited in the reference list but in the text.
Supplementary material
Elsevier accepts electronic supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific
research. Supplementary files offer the author additional possibilities to publish supporting applications, movies, animation sequences,
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 ensure that data are provided 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. Video files: please supply 'stills' with your files: you can choose any frame from the video or make a separate image. These will
be used instead of standard icons and will personalize the link to your supplementary information. For more detailed instructions please
visit our artwork instruction pages at
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Submission checklist
It is hoped that this list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to sending
it to the journal's Editor for review. Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details of any item.
Ensure that the
following items are present:
One Author designated as corresponding Author:
• E-mail address
• Full postal
address
• Telephone and fax numbers
All necessary files have been uploaded
• Keywords
• All figure captions
• All tables (including title, description, footnotes)
Further considerations
• Manuscript has been "spellchecked"
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://epsupport.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.2003.10.071
When you use the DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, they 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://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. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article
and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use. Additional paper
offprints can be ordered by the authors. An order form with prices will be sent to the corresponding author.
For inquiries relating to the submission of articles (including electronic submission
where available) please visit this journal's homepage. You can track accepted articles at
http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle
and set up e-mail alerts to inform you of when an article's status has changed. Also accessible from here is information on copyright,
frequently asked questions and more. Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating
to proofs, will be provided by the publisher.
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