Biological Control

Biological Control
ISSN: 1049-9644
Imprint: ELSEVIER

Facts & Figures
Impact Factor: 2.164
5-Year Impact Factor: 2.249
Issues per year: 12

Guide for Authors





Biological Control promotes the science and technology of biological control through publication of original research articles and reviews of research and theory. The focus includes new and emerging trends in this field. Biological control is defined as the reduction or mitigation of pests and pest effects through the use of natural enemies. Biotechnologies dealing with the elucidation and use of genes or gene products for the enhancement of biological control agents are also of interest.
The journal encompasses biological control of viral, microbial, nematode, insect, mite, weed, and other invertebrate and vertebrate pests in agricultural, aquatic, forest, natural resource, stored products, and urban environments. Biological control of arthropod pests of human and domestic animals is also included. Ecological, behavioral, molecular, and biotechnological approaches to advancing the understanding of biological control agents are welcome.


Types of paper

The following types of original papers only will be considered.
Regular research papers are hypothesis-driven projects in biological control as defined above under the "Subject areas of the journal". These papers constitute the majority of the articles published in the journal. However, papers which report on routine results of host specificity studies on new biological control agents, surveys for known or unknown biological control agents, or screening of natural enemies against a pest species will not be considered for publication unless the account describes unusual circumstances or novel methods, or unless the study is placed in a broader perspective. Research papers should have the following sections: a brief Abstract that contains a concise statement of the results obtained; Keywords listed immediately after the Abstract; Introduction; Materials and Methods; Results; Discussion; Acknowledgments; and References. Further details are provided below under "Preparation of manuscript".
Perspectives papers provide the authors with a forum for discussing topics and trends in biological control. These articles should raise interesting or unanswered questions, present arguments about the significance of recent findings, describe the application and limitations of new methods and technologies, or consider potential interfaces between biological control and other disciplines in the sciences. These manuscripts should include the format as listed for the Regular research papers or may deviate by having the following sections: Abstract, Introduction, appropriate headings, Conclusion, and References.
Review articles are intended to reach a broad audience of readers from investigators in the field to new graduate students learning the material for the first time. Review articles are subject to the same review process as original papers. Manuscripts should be prepared according to the general guidelines given below. The Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion sections may be replaced with appropriate alternatives; an Abstract is still required. The editors invite inquiries and suggestions for timely and provocative review articles. In some cases, there may be a number of review articles (e.g., a symposium topic) in which case a special issue of the journal may be published. The special issue may include an invited "editor(s)" who invites the authors and selects the topics, provides the guidelines to the authors, sets deadlines, etc., and submits the manuscripts to the journal. The journal editor then handles the manuscripts following normal protocols.
Biological Control does not publish Short Communications or Research Notes.

Contact details for submission

Manuscripts should be written in grammatically correct English and should be submitted through the Web site at external link http://ees.elsevier.com/bcon.

Page charges

This journal has no page charges.



Ethics in publishing

For information on Ethics in publishing and Ethical guidelines for journal publication see http://www.elsevier.com/publishingethics and http://www.elsevier.com/ethicalguidelines.

Policy and ethics

Ethics. 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. Written authorization may be required at the discretion of the editors. Articles and any other material published in Biological Control represent the opinions of the authors and should not be construed to reflect the opinions of the editors or the publisher.
A submitted paper will be considered in violation of Elsevier's Ethics Guidelines, and thus potentially subject to rejection or retraction, in the event of the following: the study results are inaccurately or deceptively reported, the data from the study results cannot be produced, the paper submitted is not an original work or it has plagiarized (by copying or paraphrasing) another work, the paper has been submitted concurrently to another journal or is elsewhere published, other works discussed in the paper are improperly cited or un-cited, the list of co-authors is incomplete or contains those who have not contributed substantially to the work, any experiments involving human or animal subjects or hazardous chemicals are not ensured in the paper as having been conducted according to the appropriate guidelines, or financial or otherwise conflicts of interest are not disclosed. For a comprehensive explanation of Elsevier's Ethics Guidelines, please visit http://www.elsevier.com/ethicalguidelines.


Should questions of probity arise under extraordinary and controversial situations, the editors will reserve the right to subject the authors' data to independent scientific evaluation.
Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to sign 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 (or letter) 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.

Conflict of interest

All authors are requested to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest including any financial, personal or other relationships with other people or organizations within three years of beginning the submitted work that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence, their work. See also http://www.elsevier.com/conflictsofinterest.

Submission declaration

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere including electronically in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the copyright-holder.

Contributors
Each author is required to declare his or her individual contribution to the article: all authors must have materially participated in the research and/or article preparation, so roles for all authors should be described. The statement that all authors have approved the final article should be true and included in the disclosure.

Changes to authorship

This policy concerns the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship of accepted manuscripts:
Before the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange the author names, must be sent to the Journal Manager from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript and must include: (a) the reason the name should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, fax, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed. Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded by the Journal Manager to the corresponding author, who must follow the procedure as described above. Note that: (1) Journal Managers will inform the Journal Editors of any such requests and (2) publication of the accepted manuscript in an online issue is suspended until authorship has been agreed.
After the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Any requests to add, delete, or rearrange author names in an article published in an online issue will follow the same policies as noted above and result in a corrigendum.

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 external link http://webshop.elsevier.com/languageservices or our customer support site at external link 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.



Use of wordprocessing software

It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the wordprocessor used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the wordprocessor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. The electronic text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts (see also the Guide to Publishing with Elsevier: http://www.elsevier.com/guidepublication). Note that source files of figures, tables and text graphics will be required whether or not you embed your figures in the text. See also the section on Electronic artwork.
To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the 'spell-check' and 'grammar-check' functions of your wordprocessor.

Article structure

Subdivision - numbered sections
Divide your article into clearly defined and numbered sections. Subsections should be numbered 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, ...), 1.2, etc. (the abstract is not included in section numbering). Use this numbering also for internal cross-referencing: do not just refer to 'the text'. Any subsection may be given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line.

Introduction
State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.

Material and methods
Provide sufficient detail to allow the work to be reproduced. Methods already published should be indicated by a reference: only relevant modifications should be described.

Theory/calculation
A Theory section should extend, not repeat, the background to the article already dealt with in the Introduction and lay the foundation for further work. In contrast, a Calculation section represents a practical development from a theoretical basis.

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.

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.

Graphical abstract

A Graphical abstract is mandatory for this journal. It should summarize the contents of the article in a concise, pictorial form designed to capture the attention of a wide readership online. Authors must provide images that clearly represent the work described in the article. Graphical abstracts should be submitted as a separate file in the online submission system. Image size: please provide an image with a minimum of 531 × 1328 pixels (h × w) or proportionally more. The image should be readable at a size of 5 × 13 cm using a regular screen resolution of 96 dpi. Preferred file types: TIFF, EPS, PDF or MS Office files. See http://www.elsevier.com/graphicalabstracts for examples.
Authors can make use of Elsevier's Illustration and Enhancement service to ensure the best presentation of their images also in accordance with all technical requirements: external link Illustration Service.

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.

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.

Consult the latest edition of the CBE Style Manual, Council of Biology Editors, Inc., for standard abbreviations, names, and symbols for units, as well as for informative suggestions about grammar, style, and usage. Nonstandard abbreviations should be minimal and should be defined at first mention. Follow the latest edition of "Webster's New International Dictionary" for spelling and division of words. Use numerals with standard units of measurement and for any number above nine. For the sake of consistency, the journal will use U.S. English. Manuscripts should be typed with the language set to U.S. English.

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.).

Units

Follow internationally accepted rules and conventions: use the international system of units (SI). If other units are mentioned, please give their equivalent in SI.

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: external link http://www.iupac.org/ for further information.

For organisms, the complete taxonomic name including the authority must be given at first mention in the text. For exceptions to this rule, such as names of bacteria, consult the editor. The names of insects will be in accordance with the Entomological Society of America. Wherever a common name for a pesticide exists, it should be used. The chemical name of the pesticide must be included in parentheses following the first mention of the common name. Most common names may be found in Guide to the Chemicals Used in Crop Protection by E.Y. Spencer, Agriculture Canada, 7th ed., 1982, and more recent entries are found in The Pesticide Manual-A World Compendium (C.R. Worthington, Ed.; S.B. Walker, Asst. Ed.), 8th ed., British Crop Protection Council, Binfield, Bracknell, Berks RG 125QE, England. In addition, common names of insecticides are listed from time to time by the Entomological Society of America; of herbicides, by the Weed Science Society of America; and of fungicides, by the American Phytopathological Society. For weed names, use the terminology approved by the Weed Science Society of America [Weed Science 32 (Suppl. 2), 1-137, 1984]. For enzymes, the systematic name and number given by the Enzyme Commission (EC) should be included at the first point of mention for each enzyme of importance in the paper. For EC numbers, consult Recommendations (1984) of the Nomenclature Committee of the International Union of Biochemistry, 1984, Enzyme Nomenclature, Academic Press

Database linking

Elsevier aims at connecting online articles with external databases which are useful in their respective research communities. If your article contains relevant unique identifiers or accession numbers (bioinformatics) linking to information on entities (genes, proteins, diseases, etc.) or structures deposited in public databases, then please indicate those entities according to the standard explained below.
Authors should explicitly mention the database abbreviation (as mentioned below) together with the actual database number, bearing in mind that an error in a letter or number can result in a dead link in the online version of the article.
Please use the following format: Database ID: xxxx
Links can be provided in your online article to the following databases (examples of citations are given in parentheses):
external link ASTM: ASTM Standards Database (ASTM ID: G63)
external link CCDC: Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC ID: AI631510)
external link GenBank: Genetic sequence database at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) (GenBank ID: BA123456)
external link GEO: Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO ID: GSE27196; GEO ID: GPL5366; GEO ID: GSM9853)
external link MI: EMBL-EBI OLS Molecular Interaction Ontology (MI ID: 0218)
external link MINT: Molecular INTeractions database (MINT ID: 6166710)
external link NCBI Taxonomy: NCBI Taxonomy Browser (NCBI Taxonomy ID: 48184)
external link NCT: ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT ID: NCT00222573)
external link OMIM: Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM ID: 601240)
external link PDB: Worldwide Protein Data Bank (PDB ID: 1TUP)
external link TAIR: The Arabidopsis Information Resource database (TAIR ID: AT1G01020)
external link UniProt: Universal Protein Resource Knowledgebase (UniProt ID: Q9H0H5)

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.

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.

Color artwork
Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format (TIFF, EPS or MS Office files) and with the correct resolution. If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable color figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in color on the Web (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites) regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in color in the printed version. For color reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article. Please indicate your preference for color: in print or on the Web only. For further information on the preparation of electronic artwork, please see http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Please note: Because of technical complications which can arise by converting color figures to 'gray scale' (for the printed version should you not opt for color in print) please submit in addition usable black and white versions of all the color illustrations.

Figure captions
Ensure that each illustration has a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached to the figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.

Tables

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 (external link http://www.endnote.com/support/enstyles.asp) and Reference Manager (external link 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 names should be abbreviated according to
Index Medicus journal abbreviations: external link http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/lji.html;
List of title word abbreviations: external link http://www.issn.org/2-22661-LTWA-online.php;
CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service): external link http://www.cas.org/sent.html.

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: external link 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 external link 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 external link 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: external link 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 external link http://support.elsevier.com.



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