Guide for Authors
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 
http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/index.html;
EU Directive 2010/63/EU for animal experiments http://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/lab_animals/legislation_en.htm;
Uniform Requirements for manuscripts submitted to Biomedical journals http://www.icmje.org. 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 and verification
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and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published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, including electronically without the written consent of the copyright-holder.
To verify originality, your article may be checked by the originality detection software iThenticate. See also
http://www.elsevier.com/editors/plagdetect.
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
http://webshop.elsevier.com/languageservices
or our customer support site at
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.
Referees
Please submit, with the manuscript, the names, addresses and e-mail addresses of three potential
referees. Note that the editor retains the sole right to decide whether or not the suggested reviewers are used.
Use of wordprocessing software
It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the wordprocessor
used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed
and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the wordprocessor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words.
However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. 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 - unnumbered
sections
Divide your article into clearly defined sections. Each subsection is given a brief heading. Each heading should
appear on its own separate line. Subsections should be used as much as possible when cross-referencing text: refer to the subsection
by heading as opposed to simply 'the text'.
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.
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.
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, then cite the author(s) and year(s). Also, non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided,
but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself.
Graphical abstract
A
Graphical abstract is optional and 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:
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 10 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.).
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.
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):
•
ASTM: ASTM Standards Database
(ASTM ID: G63)
•
CCDC: Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre
(CCDC ID: AI631510)
•
GenBank: Genetic sequence database
at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) (GenBank ID: BA123456)
•
GEO:
Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO ID: GSE27196; GEO ID: GPL5366; GEO ID: GSM9853)
•
MI:
EMBL-EBI OLS Molecular Interaction Ontology (MI ID: 0218)
•
MINT:
Molecular INTeractions database (MINT ID: 6166710)
•
NCBI Taxonomy:
NCBI Taxonomy Browser (NCBI Taxonomy ID: 48184)
•
NCT: ClinicalTrials.gov
(NCT ID: NCT00222573)
•
OMIM: Online Mendelian Inheritance
in Man (OMIM ID: 601240)
•
PDB: Worldwide Protein Data
Bank (PDB ID: 1TUP)
•
TAIR: The Arabidopsis Information Resource
database (TAIR ID: AT1G01020)
•
UniProt: Universal Protein Resource
Knowledgebase (UniProt ID: Q9H0H5)
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 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:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/lji.html;
List of title word abbreviations:
http://www.issn.org/2-22661-LTWA-online.php;
CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service):
http://www.cas.org/sent.html.
Video data
Elsevier accepts video material and
animation sequences to support and enhance your scientific research. Authors who have video or animation files that they wish to submit
with their article are strongly encouraged to include these within the body of the article. This can be done in the same way as a figure
or table by referring to the video or animation content and noting in the body text where it should be placed. All submitted files should
be properly labeled so that they directly relate to the video file's content. In order to ensure that your video or animation material
is directly usable, please provide the files in one of our recommended file formats with a preferred maximum size of 50 MB. Video and
animation files supplied will be published online in the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect:
http://www.sciencedirect.com. Please supply 'stills' with your files: you can choose any frame from the video or animation
or make a separate image. These will be used instead of standard icons and will personalize the link to your video data. For more detailed
instructions please visit our video instruction pages at
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions. Note: since video
and animation cannot be embedded in the print version of the journal, please provide text for both the electronic and the print version
for the portions of the article that refer to this content.
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:
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
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
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:
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.
Brief Communications
Brief Communication manuscripts should be limited to 4000 words and one figure.
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
http://support.elsevier.com.
