The International Journal for the Computer and Telecommunications Industry



http://ees.elsevier.com/comcom/



Computer Communications is an international journal catering for all those involved in managing, designing or operating data communications and networking activities. It provides engineers, researchers, and consultants and systems managers in academia and industry with key papers on practical developments in computer and telecommunications technology.

Computer Communications invites research, review and application papers and case studies on a wide range of data communication topics, including: broadband communications, communications systems performance, cscw/group work, data security, digital communications, distributed systems, electronic data interchange, high-speed networks, industrial communications, LANs/WANs/MANs, network management, operating systems and optimization, office automation, OSI implementation and issues, packet switching, performance issues, protocols, standardization.

Types of Contributions

Ideal research papers on significant developments will describe the relevant theoretical and practical background, and give workable examples in real applications, stressing the practicality of the work presented.

Review papers are encouraged where these give genuine reviews of specific areas of data communications and networking research and development.

Application papers will show the results of using a technique critically, in a way that will influence the direction of research. Some of the applications covered in the journal are: networking, electronic mail, distributed systems, EFTS networks and protocol use.

Case studies describe the practical application of a communications technique in a particular case, giving details of the problems encountered and how they were overcome.

Submission of Articles

Electronic submissions only

All manuscripts and any supplementary material should be submitted via the journal's online submission and peer-review systems at http://www.ees.elsevier.com/comcom. Please follow the instructions given on this site.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

In case you submit a special section paper that will be handled by a designated Special Section Guest Editor, please follow the instructions below:

1. Author registers in EES (follow the instructions on the site)
2. Select: Submit Manuscript from Main Menu
3. When choosing Article Type please select the title of the special issue you are submitting to

From then on follow the steps as laid out in EES.

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), it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, 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 Publisher.

Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to transfer copyright. This transfer will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. A letter will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript. A form facilitating transfer of copyright will be provided.

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, which can be obtained from the Author Gateway's Guide to Publishing with Elsevier at http://authors.elsevier.com.

NB: Papers submitted to Computer Communications may also be posted on The Computer Science Preprint Server at http://www.compscipreprints.com. Such posting on The Computer Science Preprint Server is in conformity with Elsevier copyright policy and in no way conflicts with submission to Computer Communications.

Preparation of Manuscripts

Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these. Use decimal points (not commas); use a space for thousands (10 000 and above). Authors in Japan kindly note that, upon request, Elsevier Japan will provide a list of people who can check and improve the English of an article before submission. Contact our Tokyo office: Elsevier K.K., Editorial Service, 1-9-15 Higashi Azabu, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-0044, Japan; tel.: +81-3-5561-5032; fax: +81-3- 5561-5045; e-mail: info@elsevier.co.jp

Provide the following data on the title page (in the order given).

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 separate from the article, so it must be able to stand alone. References should therefore be avoided, but if essential, they must be cited in full, without reference to the reference list.
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 3-5 keywords, 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 at their first occurrence in the article: in the abstract but also in the main text after it. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the article.

N.B. Acknowledgements. Collate acknowledgements in a separate section at the end of the article and do not, therefore, include them on the title page, as a footnote to the title or otherwise.

Subdivision of the article. After the abstract, 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.

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 forth.

Acknowledgements. Place acknowledgements before the references, in a separate section, and not as a footnote on the title page.

References

Responsibility for the accuracy of bibliographic citations lies entirely with the authors.

Citations in the 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 should not be in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. Citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication.

Citing and listing of web references. As a minimum, the full URL should be given. Any further information, if known (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.

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] J. van der Geer, J.A.J. Hanraads, R.A. Lupton, The art of writing a scientific article, J. Sci. Commun. 163 (2000) 51-59.
Reference to a book:
[2] W. Strunk Jr., E.B. White, The Elements of Style, third ed., Macmillan, New York, 1979. Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
[3] G.R. Mettam, L.B. Adams, How to prepare an electronic version of your article, in: B.S. Jones, R.Z.
Smith (Eds.), Introduction to the Electronic Age, E-Publishing Inc., New York, 1999, pp. 281-304.

Artwork
Submitting your illustrations, pictures, tables and other artwork in an electronic format helps us to produce your work to the best possible standards, ensuring accuracy, clarity and a high level of detail. For detailed guidelines on electronic figures, please refer to the 'artwork instructions' at http://authors.elsevier.com/artwork. This site shows how to prepare your artwork for electronic submission and includes: common problems, suggestions on how to ensure the best results, and guidelines for popular applications. See the links under Creating your Artwork for details about using specific artwork software.

General points
We accept most word-processing formats, but Word, WordPerfect or LaTeX, and if supplying latex, please accompany by PDF. An electronic word processor version of the text must be submitted for the final accepted version of a manuscript. We recommend that authors always keep a backup copy of the electronic file for reference and safety and that they label storage media with your name, journal title, and software used.

Word-processed documents
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. 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 Author Gateway's Quick guide: http://authors.elsevier.com/). 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 Preparation of electronic illustrations. To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the 'spell checker' function of your word processor.

LaTeX documents
LaTeX templates and detailed documentation for their use are available for downloading from the Elsevier LaTeX Support page. Note that the use of other specialized versions of TeX or extensive use of custom macros may necessitate conventional typesetting from the hard-copy manuscript. The use of templates is optional.

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 'elsart', or alternatively the standard document class 'article'. The Elsevier LaTeX package (including detailed instructions for LaTeX preparation) can be obtained from the Author Gateway's Guide to Publishing with Elsevier: http://authors.elsevier.com. It consists of the files: elsart.cls (use this file if you are using LaTeX2e, the current version of LaTeX), elsart.sty and elsart12.sty (use these two files if you are using LaTeX2.09, the previous version of LaTeX), guidelines for users of elsart, a template file for quick start, and the instruction booklet "Preparing articles with LaTeX".

Note: Although Elsevier can process most wordprocessor file formats, should your electronic file prove to be unusable, the article will be typeset from the hardcopy printout.

Reviewing policy

Computer Communications review policy is based on the following principles:

• All manuscripts will be subject to a well established, fair, unbiased peer review and refereeing procedure.
• Authors may be asked to revise parts of a paper.
• The reviewing structure will always ensure the anonymity of the referees.
• The Editor reserves the right to reject a paper if it does not meet the aims and scope of the journal, it is not technically sound, it is not revised satisfactorily, or if it is inadequate in presentation.
• Should authors be requested by the editor to revise the text, the revised version should be submitted within 6 weeks. Authors who need more time are kindly requested to contact the editor. If the Editor has not heard from the author within 6 weeks after a request for revision, a revised version will be regarded as a new submission.

Proofs

One set of page proofs in PDF format will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author. Only typesetting or editing errors may be corrected; no changes in, or additions to the accepted manuscript will be allowed at this stage. Corrections are to be returned by the author in one communication. Subsequent/late corrections will not be possible.

The Publisher reserves the right to proceed with publication if corrections are not communicated to the Publisher within the term requested with the proofs. Should there be no corrections, please confirm this.

Author benefits

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.

Authors are entitled to a 30% discount on Elsevier books.