Guide for Authors
Gene Expression Patterns is devoted to the rapid publication of high quality patterns of expression
of interesting or important genes during development, or the results of gene expression screens analysing interesting developmental events
or stages. There is no specific length limitation for the papers provided that the results are reported succinctly.
Types of paper
Use the below checklist to ascertain that your manuscript conforms to the criteria required
for it to be suitable for publication, and which are used in the evaluation by the editor and referees. In order to provide rapid review
and publication, only minor revisions are allowed; manuscripts that require significant further work to be suitable for publication will
be rejected.
The study must report new information on either of the following:
- The spatial and temporal expression
during development of a gene(s) that has potential or known importance for developmental mechanisms
- The temporal expression
of large gene sets during an interesting period or process of development, or in relation to specific developmental mechanisms
Spatial and temporal gene expression
The study must fulfill one of the following:
- It is an analysis
of one or more genes in all embryo tissues
- If a study in a specific developing organ, it reports expression of several genes,
or of a single gene if it has high intrinsic interest
- It reports the results of an in situ screen
The study
must be detailed and with high quality data, such that it provides a definitive analysis of the sites and timing of gene expression.
Studies of many genes, such as gene families or results of in situ screens, do not require the detailed analysis that is essential for
one or several genes.
There must be sound evidence for the specificity of detection of gene expression, and precise information
provided on the reagents, such as antibody or in situ hybridisation probes.
For genes already analysed in another species, the
study should provide significant new insight, such as differences in expression or more detailed information that may be functionally
important.
Any functional speculations should be brief and informative.
Studies using gene regulatory elements or gene
knock-ins to drive reporter expression are suitable if they present a thorough analysis of gene regulatory regions, or report useful
tools, such as lines generated in gene trap screens.
Temporal expression of large gene sets
The study must be
rigorous, with high quality data, and provide information important for developmental biologists.
Contact details for submission
Manuscripts for
Gene Expression Patterns should be submitted via
the journal's online submission system at
http://ees.elsevier.com/gep/.
For questions on the submission and reviewing
process, please contact
gep@elsevier.com.
For technical questions, please use our help site at:
http://epsupport.elsevier.com/
Here you will be able to learn more about the online submission and editorial system via interactive tutorials, explore a range of problem
solutions via our knowledgebase, and find answers to frequently asked questions. You will also find our 24/7 support contact details
should you need any assistance from one of our customer service representatives.
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
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.
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.
When invited to do so by the handling editor after the review
process, authors are normally expected to submit a revised version within about 6 months.
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.
Suggested referees must not be from your own institution and must not have collaborated with you at least during
the last five years, and should not already have provided you with comments on the manuscript. You should indicate the expertise of the
referee in relation to the topic of your manuscript. You may also suggest up to two referees to exclude due to conflicts of interest.
Additional information
One of the terms and conditions of publishing in Mechanisms of Development is that
authors be willing to distribute any materials and protocols used in the published experiments to qualified researchers for their own
use. Materials include but are not limited to cells, DNA, antibodies, reagents, organisms, and mouse strains, or if necessary the relevant
ES cells. These must be made available with minimal restrictions and in a timely manner. If there are restrictions to the availability
of any materials, data, or information, these must be disclosed in the cover letter of the manuscript at the time of submission.
Data from microarray and other similar screens
Please see the MGED open letter specifying microarray standards at
http://www.mged.org/Workgroups/MIAME/miame_checklist.html.
Authors submitting manuscripts relying on microarray or similar screens must supply the data as Supplementary data (see below) at the
time of submission, along with the completed MIAME checklist. The data must be MIAME-compliant and supplied in a form that is widely
accessible. The microarray data must also be submitted to either the GEO (
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/) or ArrayExpress
(
http://www.ebi.ac.uk/arrayexpress/) databases, with accession numbers at or before acceptance of the paper for publication.
The Editors understand that on occasion authors may not feel it appropriate to deposit the entire data set at the time of publication
of this paper. We are therefore willing to consider exceptions to this requirement in response to a request from the authors, which must
be made at the time of initial submission or as part of an informal pre-submission enquiry.
Mouse gene expression data
Upon acceptance of the manuscript for publication, authors reporting mouse
gene expression data from RNA in situ hybridization, immunohistochemistry, Northern blot, Western blot and RT-PCR experiments are requested
to submit the pertinent data to the Mouse Gene Expression Database (GXD). These submissions will receive accession numbers that must
then be inserted into the manuscript. Please see GXD's guidelines for electronic data submission at
http://www.informatics.jax.org/mgihome//GXD/GEN/gxd_submission_guidelines.shtml.
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.
However, be aware that neither of these
is infallible and you are therefore strongly encouraged to seek the opinion of a native English-speaking, scientifically trained colleague.
Please use 1.5 line spacing and either Arial or Times Roman font, at least 11 point size.
Article structure
Subdivision – numbered sections
Divide
your article into clearly defined and numbered sections. Normally the Introduction should be Section 1., followed by Results (Section
2), then Discussion (Section 3) and Experimental Procedures (Section 4). Acknowledgements and References should follow but not be numbered.
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", "above", etc.. 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 but concise background. Explain why the study was undertaken and how it is timely
and/or novel.
Results
The Results section should be written objectively,
free from interpretation. It should be clear and concise.
Discussion
This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat the Results section. It is generally appropriate to use
this section to relate the results to other published work and to explain how they differ, or their novelty, as well as how they advance
the field. However, it should also be concise and avoid extensive reference to other work in the authors' laboratory unless directly
relevant to this study. It may be useful to end the Discussion with a very brief Conclusions sub-section of a single paragraph.
Experimental Procedures
Provide sufficient detail to allow the experiments and results to be reproduced.
Methods already published should be indicated by references to publications where the details may be found: only relevant departures
from published methods should be described.
Theory / calculations / statistical
analysis
Where appropriate, a theoretical, mathematical or statistical analysis section may be included. This should not
repeat any material within the rest of the article. If the analysis of the results includes complex statistical or other mathematical
analysis, this should be detailed in this section, which may be a sub-section of the Experimental Procedures or follow it (as Section
5).
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
These should be avoided unless absolutely essential. If there is a theoretical or mathematical
section and this needs to be substantial then it may be better to inlude it as an Appendix which may be included in the printed paper
or as on-line Supplementary or Supporting Material, at the Handling Editor's discretion. If there is more than one appendix, they should
be identified as A, B, etc. Formulae and equations in appendices should be given separate numbering: (Eq. A.1), (Eq. A.2), etc.; in a
subsequent appendix, (Eq. B.1) and so forth.
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.
Abbreviations
Define abbreviations that are not standard in this field in a footnote to be placed on the
first page of the article. Such abbreviations that are unavoidable in the abstract must be defined at their first mention there, as well
as in the footnote. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the article.
Acknowledgements
Collate acknowledgements in a separate section at the end of the article before the references and do not, therefore, include
them on the title page, as a footnote to the title or otherwise. List here those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g.,
providing language help, writing assistance or proof reading the article, etc.).
Nomenclature
and units
Follow internationally accepted rules and conventions: use the international system of units (SI). If other quantities
are mentioned, give their equivalent in SI. You are urged to consult IUPAC: Nomenclature of Organic Chemistry:
http://www.iupac.org/
for further information.
The nomenclature should be the same as
that adopted by the major cell/developmental biology journals (e.g.,
Cell, Developmental Cell, The EMBO Journal).
Database linking and Accession numbers
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):
•
GenBank:
Genetic sequence database at the National Center for Biotechnical Information (NCBI) (GenBank ID: BA123456)
•
PDB:
Worldwide Protein Data Bank (PDB ID: 1TUP)
•
CCDC: Cambridge Crystallographic
Data Centre (CCDC ID: AI631510)
•
TAIR: The Arabidopsis Information
Resource database (TAIR ID: AT1G01020)
•
NCT: ClinicalTrials.gov
(NCT ID: NCT00222573)
•
OMIM: Online Mendelian Inheritance
in Man (OMIM ID: 601240)
•
MINT: Molecular INTeractions
database (MINT ID: 6166710)
•
MI: EMBL-EBI OLS Molecular
Interaction Ontology (MI ID: 0218)
•
UniProt: Universal Protein Resource
Knowledgebase (UniProt ID: Q9H0H5)
Footnotes
Footnotes are not allowed.
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) in addition to color reproduction in print. For further information on the preparation of electronic
artwork, please see
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
The figures should ideally be 1000 dpi (min. 300dpi).
The figures may be in either RGB or CMYK format. If supplying in RGB format,
please check the typeset proof carefully to ensure the color is an accurate representation of the original figure.
The figures should
be the correct size so that no reduction or enlargement has to be carried out. If this is not possible it is better if the figures are
sent 'too large' so that details will not be lost in the reduction process.
Figure
Legends
Ensure that each illustration has a Legend. Supply legends separately, not attached to the figure. A caption should
comprise a brief title (
not on the figure itself) and a brief description of the illustration including all panels. Keep text
in the illustrations themselves to a minimum while endeavoring that they can be understood with minimal reference to the legend.
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
Citations 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 allowed in the reference list,and strongly discouraged in the
text. If such references are absolutely essential in the text, evidence must be provided at the time of submission (by an explicit statement
in the covering letter or "manuscript details" during submission) that the source of the "personal communication"
agrees to these data being mentioned by the authors in this paper. Citation of a reference as "in press" implies that the item
has been accepted for publication.
Web References
References to personal
or institutional web sites are not allowed. Any references to Web sites must be restricted to on-line resources (such as NLM, GXD, Zfin,
EBI, Ensembl, Genbank, etc.) that are likely to be permanent. The full URL should be given. Web references should not be included in
the reference list but must be embedded in the text.
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 (
http://www.endnote.com/support/enstyles.asp)
and Reference Manager (
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:
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.
Supplementary
Material
GEP accepts electronic supplementary material to support and enhance your published paper. Supplementary files offer
the author additional possibilities to publish supporting applications, movies, animation sequences, high-resolution images, background
datasets, sound clips and more. Supplementary files supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article
in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/. In order to ensure that your submitted
material is directly usable, please ensure that data are provided in one of our recommended file formats. Authors should submit the material
in electronic format together with the article and supply a concise and descriptive caption for each file. Video files: please supply
a 'still' with each of your files: you can choose any frame from the video or make a separate image. These will be used instead of standard
icons and will personalize the link to your supplementary information. For more detailed instructions please visit our artwork instruction
pages at
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
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
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