Journal of the International Association for Biologicals

All manuscripts must be submitted via the Elsevier Electronic Submission programme.

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"
• 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)
• Colour figures are clearly marked as being intended for colour reproduction on the Web (free of charge) and in print or to be reproduced in colour on the Web (free of charge) and in black and white in print
• If only colour on the Web is required, black and white versions of the figures are also supplied for printing purposes

For any further information please contact the Author Support Department at authorsupport@elsevier.com.

Submission of articles
It is essential to give a fax number and e-mail address when submitting a manuscript. Articles must be written in good English.

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and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the Publisher.

Upon acceptance of an article, Authors will be asked to transfer copyright (for more information on copyright see http://authors.elsevier.com). 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: contact Elsevier's Rights Department, Oxford, UK: phone (+44) 1865 843830, fax (+44) 1865 853333, e-mail permissions@elsevier.com. Requests may also be completed online via the Elsevier homepage ( http://www.elsevier.com/locate/permissions).

US National Institutes of Health (NIH) voluntary posting (" Public Access") policy

Elsevier facilitates author posting in connection with the voluntary posting request of the NIH (referred to as the NIH "Public Access Policy", see http://www.nih.gov/about/publicaccess/index) by posting the peer-reviewed author's manuscript directly to PubMed Central on request from the author, after formal publication. Upon notification from Elsevier of acceptance, we will ask you to confirm via e-mail (by e-mailing us at NIHauthorrequest@elsevier.com) that your work has received NIH funding (with the NIH award number, as well as the name and e-mail address of the Principal Investigator) and that you intend to respond to the NIH request. Upon such confirmation, Elsevier will submit to PubMed Central on your behalf a version of your manuscript that will include peer-review comments, for posting 12 months after the formal publication date. This will ensure that you will have responded fully to the NIH request policy. There will be no need for you to post your manuscript directly to PubMed Central, and any such posting is prohibited.
Individual modifications to this general policy may apply to some Elsevier journals and its society publishing partners.

Authors' rights As an author you (or your employer or institution) may do the following: - make copies (print or electronic) of the article for your own personal use, including for your own classroom teaching use
- make copies and distribute such copies (including through e-mail) of the article to research colleagues, for the personal use by such colleagues (but not commercially or systematically, e.g., via an e-mail list or list server)
- post a pre-print version of the article on Internet websites including electronic pre-print servers, and to retain indefinitely such version on such servers or sites
- post a revised personal version of the final text of the article (to reflect changes made in the peer review and editing process) on your personal or institutional website or server, with a link to the journal homepage (on elsevier.com)
- present the article at a meeting or conference and to distribute copies of the article to the delegates attending such a meeting - for your employer, if the article
is a 'work for hire', made within the scope of your employment, your employer may use all or part of the information in the article for other intra-company use (e.g., training)
- retain patent and trademark rights and rights to any processes or procedure described in the article - include the article in full or in part in a thesis or dissertation (provided that this is not to be published commercially)
- use the article or any part thereof in a printed compilation of your works, such as collected writings or lecture notes (subsequent to publication of your article in the journal) - prepare other derivative works, to extend the article into book-length form, or to otherwise re-use portions or excerpts in other works, with full acknowledgement of its original publication in the journal.

Should Authors be requested by the Editor to revise the text, the revised version should be submitted within ten weeks. After this period, the article will be regarded as a new submission.

Online submission to the journal prior to acceptance
Submission to this journal proceeds totally online. Use the following guidelines to prepare your article. The journal's homepage http://ees.elsevier.com/biols will guide you 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.

The above represents a very brief outline of this form of submission. It can be advantageous to print this "Guide for Authors" section from the site for reference in the subsequent stages of article preparation.

Electronic format requirements for accepted articles

General points
We accept most wordprocessing formats, but Word, WordPerfect or LaTeX is preferred. Always keep a backup copy of the electronic file for reference and safety. Save your files using the default extension of the program used. Line spacing should be double-spaced form with wide margins and numbered lines.

Wordprocessor documents
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. Line spacing should be double-spaced form with wide margins and numbered lines. 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/wps/find/authors/howtosubmitpaper). 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 "spellchecker" function of your wordprocessor.

Presentation of manuscript

Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these). Italics are not to be used for expressions of Latin origin, for example, in vivo, et al., per se. Use decimal points (not commas); use a space for thousands (10 000 and above).

Language Polishing For authors who require information about language editing and copyediting services pre- and post-submission please visit www.elsevier.com/locate/languagepolishing or contact authorsupport@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/termsand_conditions.

General Presentation

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 (maximum length 200 words). 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 a maximum of 5 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 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.

Arrangement of the article

Subdivision of the article
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.

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.

Discussion
This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them.

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

References
See separate section, below.

Figure captions, tables, figures, schemes
. Present these, in this order, at the end of the article. They are described in more detail below. High-resolution graphics files must always be provided separate from the main text file (see Preparation of illustrations).

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 the section, Preparation of illustrations. Ensure that high-resolution graphics files are provided, even if the graphic appears as part of your normal wordprocessed text file.

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.

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/
IUPAC: Nomenclature of Inorganic Chemistry: http://www.iupac.org/
IUB: Biochemical Nomenclature and Related Documents: http://www.chem.qmw.ac.uk/iubmb/
.

• Proprietary substances - on first mention provide the name and address of the manufacturer.
• Concentrations of solutions - preferably defined in terms of normality (N) or molarity(M). The term [] must be restricted to the sense g/100g. For ml/100ml the terms [] (v/v) and [] (w/v) must be used except for concentration up to 1% or where the context makes the usage obvious, e.g. 5[] serum.
• Viruses - refer to by their vernacular names but the use of a hallmark, such as a cryptogram or other reference label, is encouraged. Descriptions of newly isolated or newly recognized viruses should include, where possible, biochemical, morphological and cultural information which will enable other or related strains of the virus to be recognized by other workers.
• Bacteria - on first mention refer by generic and specific names, the former capitalized and both underlined (Bacillus antbracis): subsequently the generic name may be abbreviated to a capital letter and a stop (B. antbracis) if the context makes the meaning clear. When generic names are used as vernacular names ('tests were made to distinguish the various bacillus species'); the generic name is used with a lower case initial letter and is not underlined.
• Abbreviations -The following are acceptable without definition, although care should be exercised in their use in the title of a an article.

Abbreviations that do not need to be defined

• ATCC American Type Culture Collection
• BCG Bacille Calmette-Guerin
• CCID50 median cell culture infective dose
• CCTD50 median cell culture toxic dose
• CF complement fixation
• cfu colony forming units
• cpe cytopathic effect
• cpm counts per minute
• DEAE-cellulose diethylaminoethyl-cellulose
• DF degrees of freedom
• DNA deoxyribonucleic acid
• eop efficiency of plating
• HA haemagglutination
• HAI haemagglutination inhibition
• IgA immunoglobulin A
• ID50 median infective dose
• IgE immunoglobulin E
• IgG immunoglobulin G
• IgM immunoglobulin M
• ImD50 median immunizing dose
• IU International Unit
• Lf Flocculation unit
• LD50 median lethal dose
• MIC minimum inhibiting concentration
• NCTC National Collection of Type Cultures
• PAGE polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis
• P probability
• PD50 median paralytic dose
• pfu plaque forming unit
• RBC erythrocyte
• RNA ribonucleic acid
• SDS sodium dodecyl sulphate
• SD standard deviation
• SEM Standard error of the mean
• WBC leucocyte

Preparation of 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, 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 is 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. For more detailed instructions please visit our artwork instruction pages at http://authors.elsevier.com/artwork.

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; http://www.wma.net/e/policy/b3.htm
EC Directive 86/609/EEC for animal experiments; http://europa.eu.int/scadplus/leg/en/s23000.htm. This must be stated at an appropriate point in the article.
References
Responsibility for the accuracy of bibliographic citations lies entirely with the Auth

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 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.

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.

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.

Listing of references:
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] Van der Geer J, Hanraads JAJ, Lupton RA. The art of writing a scientific article. J Sci Commun 2000;163:51-9.

Reference to a book:
[2] Strunk Jr W, White EB. The elements of style. 3rd ed. New York: Macmillan; 1979.

Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
[3] Mettam GR, Adams LB. How to prepare an electronic version of your article. In: Jones BS, Smith RZ, editors. Introduction to the electronic age, New York: E-Publishing Inc; 1999, p. 281-304

Note shortened form for last page number. e.g., 51-9, and that for more than 6 Authors the first 6 should be listed followed by "et al." For further details you are referred to "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journals" (J Am Med Assoc 1997;277:927-934) (see also http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/terms_cond.html).

Journal names should be abbreviated according to Index Medicus journal abbreviations: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/lji.html.

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.
Preparation of electronic illustrations 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 all illustrations as separate files and as hardcopy printouts on separate sheets.
• Provide captions to illustrations separately.
• Produce images near to the desired size of the printed version

.

A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available on our website: http://authors.elsevier.com/artwork
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: Colour or greyscale 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 (colour or greyscale): 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.

.

Line drawings
The lettering and symbols, as well as other details, should have proportionate dimensions, so as not to become illegible or unclear after possible reduction; in general, the figures should be designed for a reduction factor of two to three. The degree of reduction will be determined by the Publisher. Illustrations will not be enlarged. Consider the page format of the journal when designing the illustrations. Do not use any type of shading on computer-generated illustrations.

Photographs (halftones) Remove non-essential areas of a photograph. Do not mount photographs unless they form part of a composite figure. Where necessary, insert a scale bar in the illustration (not below it), as opposed to giving a magnification factor in the caption. Note that photocopies of photographs are not acceptable.

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 colour figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in colour on the Web (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites) regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article. Please indicate your preference for colour in print or on the Web only. For further information on the preparation of electronic artwork, please see http://authors.elsevier.com/artwork.
Please note: Because of technical complications which can arise by converting colour figures to "grey scale" (for the printed version should you not opt for colour in print) please submit in addition usable black and white versions of all the colour illustrations.
Proofs
When your manuscript is received by the Publisher it is considered to be in its final form. Proofs are not to be regarded as "drafts".

One set of page proofs in PDF format will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding Author, to be checked for typesetting/editing. No changes in, or additions to, the accepted (and subsequently edited) manuscript will be allowed at this stage. Proofreading is solely your responsibility.

One set of page proofs will be sent to the corresponding Author, to be checked for typesetting/editing. No changes in, or additions to, the accepted (and subsequently edited) manuscript will be allowed at this stage. Proofreading is solely your responsibility.

A form with queries from the copyeditor may accompany your proofs. Please answer all queries and make any corrections or additions required.

The Publisher reserves the right to proceed with publication if corrections are not communicated. Return corrections within 5 days of receipt of the proofs. Should there be no corrections, please confirm this.

Elsevier will do everything possible to get your article corrected and published as quickly and accurately as possible. In order to do this we need your help.When you receive the (PDF) proof of your article for correction, it is important to ensure that all of your corrections are sent back to us in one communication. Subsequent corrections will not be possible, so please ensure your first sending is complete. Note that this does not mean you have any less time to make your corrections, just that only one set of corrections will be accepted.