An International Journal of Animal Reproduction

INTRODUCTION

Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details on the requirements for submitting your paper to Theriogenology. The guidelines described in this document should be adhered to carefully, to ensure high-quality and rapid publication of your manuscript.

Aims and Scope

Theriogenology is an international, peer-reviewed journal that publishes papers regarding the study of reproduction in domestic and non-domestic mammals, birds, reptiles, and fish. Theriogenology publishes only material that has never been previously published and is not being considered for publication elsewhere; the exception would be limited disclosure (e.g. publication of an abstract or in the proceedings of a scientific conference, with limited circulation).

Types of Contribution

1. Original Research Papers (Regular Papers)
2. Review Articles
3. Technical Notes

Original Research Papers should report the results of original research. The material should not have been previously published elsewhere, except in a preliminary form.

Review Articles should cover subjects falling within the scope of the journal that are of active current interest. They are usually invited, but prospective Authors may contact the Editors with proposals.

Technical Notes are concise, comprehensive descriptions of technical aspects of innovative methods (that will not be subsequently published as a full-length paper). The entire submitted manuscript typically should not exceed approximately 12 double-spaced pages.

Page Charges

This journal has no page charges.

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

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; EC Directive 86/609/EEC for animal experiments; Uniform Requirements for manuscripts submitted to Biomedical journals. 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 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.

Authorship

All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following: (1) the conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be submitted.

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

Sponsored Articles

This journal offers authors the option to sponsor non-subscriber access to their articles on Elsevier's electronic publishing platforms. For more information please view our Sponsored Articles page at http://www.elsevier.com/sponsoredarticles

Language Services

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. Use the following guidelines to prepare your article. Via the online submission site of this journal ( http://ees.elsevier.com/therio/ ) you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of the various files. The system automatically converts source files to a single Adobe Acrobat PDF version of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript source files are converted to PDF 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 and via the author's homepage, removing the need for a hard-copy paper trail.

Referees

Please submit, as part of the covering letter with the manuscript, the names, full affiliation (department, institution, city and country) and email addresses of up to 5 potential Referees. Appropriate Referees should be knowledgeable about the subject but have no close connection with any of the authors. In addition, Referees should be from institutions other than (and preferably countries other than) those of any of the Authors. You may also suggest reviewers you do not want to review your manuscript, but please state your reasons for doing so. The Editors retain the right to choose reviewers as deemed appropriate. All submissions will be reviewed by at least two anonymous reviewers to evaluate them for originality, clear statement of a hypothesis, appropriate experimental design, completeness of methods, a logical and comprehensive discussion, and conclusions that are supported by data.

PREPARATION

Language

Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these). Use decimal points (not decimal commas); use a space for thousands (10 000 and above).

Use of Word-processing Software

It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the word processor used. The text should be in single-column format and double spaced. It is important that all pages and lines are numbered. 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 word processor'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 word processor'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 word processor.

LaTeX

If the LaTeX file is suitable, proofs will be produced without rekeying the text. The article should preferably be written using Elsevier's document class "elsarticle", or alternatively the standard document class "article".

The Elsevier LaTeX style file package (including detailed instructions for LaTeX preparation) can be obtained from the Quickguide: http://www.elsevier.com/latex. It consists of the file: elsarticle.cls, complete user documentation for the class file, bibliographic style files in various styles, and template files for a quick start.

Article Structure

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, with one blank line above and below each heading.

Introduction
State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results. In most cases, this section should not exceed approximately 2 double-spaced pages.

Materials 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.

Results
Results should be clear and concise, and should correspond to data collection as described in Materials and Methods.

Discussion
This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. A combined Results and Discussion section is often appropriate. Avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature.

Conclusions
The main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion or Results and Discussion section.

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 is willing to 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
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, they must be cited in full, without reference to the reference list. 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 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.

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.).

Nomenclature and Units

Follow internationally accepted rules and conventions: use the international system of units (SI). If other quantities are mentioned, give their equivalent in SI. You are urged to consult IUPAC: Nomenclature of Organic Chemistry: http://www.iupac.org/ for further information.

Genbank

DNA sequences and GenBank Accession numbers. Many Elsevier journals cite "gene accession numbers" in their running text and footnotes. Gene accession numbers refer to genes or DNA sequences about which further information can be found in the databases at the National Center for Biotechnical Information (NCBI) at the National Library of Medicine. Authors are encouraged to check accession numbers used very carefully. An error in a letter or number can result in a dead link. Note that 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.

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 word processors 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.

Image Manipulation

Whilst it is accepted that authors sometimes need to manipulate images for clarity, manipulation for purposes of deception or fraud will be seen as scientific ethical abuse and will be dealt with accordingly. For graphical images, this journal is applying the following policy: no specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced. Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are acceptable if and as long as they do not obscure or eliminate any information present in the original. Nonlinear adjustments (e.g. changes to gamma settings) must be disclosed in the figure legend.

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, Helvetica, 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 finalized, 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 word processor (spreadsheet, presentation) document;
• Supply files that are optimized 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.

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.

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

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. 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. Example: "..... as demonstrated [3,6]. Barnaby and Jones [8] obtained a different result..."

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] Connor EE, Ashwell MS, Dahl GE. Characterization and expression of the bovine growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH) receptor. Domest Anim Endocrinol 2002;22:189-99.

Reference to a book:
[2] Van Zutphen LFM, Baumans V, Beynen AC. Principles of Laboratory Animal Science, Revised Edition. Elsevier B.V., 2001.

Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
[3] Betteridge KJ. Embryo Transfer. In: Reproduction in Domesticated Animals, King GJ (Ed.), World Animal Science B9, Elsevier B.V., 1993, pp. 413-8.

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 serial title word abbreviations: http://www.issn.org/2-22661-LTWA-online.php; CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service): http://www.cas.org/sent.html.

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

Additional Style Notes

Please use the following words, phrases, abbreviations, and stylistic conventions

• Avoid the word "injected," (e.g., "Cows were injected with cloprostenol") but include the generic name, proprietary name, dosage and route of administration (e.g., "Cows were treated with cloprostenol [Estrumate 500 μg im]").
• Either cite a P value (recommended for Abstract and for Results) or use the term 'significant' (recommended for Discussion), but do not do both.
• Terms with a specific statistical meaning (i.e. significant, tended and correlated), should only be used in a strict statistical context.
• Numbers less than 10 are written as a word, unless followed by an abbreviation for unit of measure, e.g. five embryos, 5 min

Use the following expressions

• transrectal palpation, not rectal palpation
• nucleus transfer, not nuclear transplant
• estrus (noun) synchronization, but, estrous (adjective) behavior
• sperm can be used as both noun and adjective
• 120 to 125, not 120-125
• treatment by period, not treatment X period
• gravity: 100 X g (in lieu of speed for centrifugation)
• magnification: X 100
• identification number of an animal: No. 10, but 30 animals: n = 30
• 3 d, Day 3 (define Day 0)

Standard definitions

• oogonium: female gamete before meiosis
• oocyte, primary: female gamete from onset of the first maturation division (meiosis) until extrusion of the first polar body
• oocyte secondary: female gamete from onset of second meiosis until extrusion of the second polar body
• ovum: female gamete from the end of both meiotic divisions until the union of the male and female pronuclei (differs from the common use of ovum as a general term for any female gamete)
• germinal vesicle: nucleus of the ovum
• zygote: a fertilized ovum, from the fusion of the male and female gamete to completion of first cleavage
• embryo: a conceptus from 2-cell stage to the stage when cell migration and differentiation are largely complete
• fetus: a conceptus after organogenesis is mostly complete (primarily increasing in size)
• conceptus: an embryo or fetus with all its membranes and accessory structures
• abortion: expulsion of a conceptus incapable of independent life
• premature parturition: expulsion (before full term) of a conceptus capable of independent life
• stillbirth: avoid this term (use fetal death or abortion)

Abbreviations
Never use an abbreviation to start a sentence. Some abbreviations may be used anywhere else, including the manuscript's title and figure and table titles and legends, without definition; others may not be used in the title, but may be used in the text without definition. In general, abbreviations must be defined when used for the first time (this may be avoided in the ABSTRACT if necessary to conserve space). To make reading the paper more pleasant, avoid using abbreviations and acronyms; instead use short synonyms, for instance: for "Cesarean section" instead of "CS" use "section" or "hysterotomy."

The following abbreviations may be used in the text without definition (note that abbreviations exclude periods):



Units of Measure:
cpm - counts per min
dpm - disintegrations per min
g - gram
ga - gauge of hypodermic needle
h - hour
kg - kilogram
L - liter
mL - milliliter
μL - microliter
m - meter
min - minute
mo - month
sec - second
v:v - volume ratio
wk - week
wt/vol - weight per volume
yr - year

Routes of treatment:
id - intradermal
im - intramuscular
iu - intrauterine
iv - intravenous
sc - subcutaneous
po - oral

Statistical expressions:
ANOVA - analysis of variance
CV - coefficient of variation
df - degrees of freedom
F - variance ratio
NS - not significant
P - probability
SD - standard deviation
SEM - standard error of the mean
r - correlation coefficient

Additional information:

• For issues of style and format not addressed here, please consult Scientific Style and Format: The CBE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers, Sixth Edition.
• For spelling, word formation and divisions, plurals, possessives, meanings and usage, consult the CBE Manual or a current English language collegiate-level dictionary.
• For conflicts between instructions in this Guide and any of the references, the Guide takes precedence. Do not hesitate to contact the Editorial Office if you have any questions about the preparation of your manuscript.

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

AFTER ACCEPTANCE

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 in PDF format 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). Elsevier now sends 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. 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 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.

AUTHOR INQUIRIES

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.



Updated March 2009