Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research

INTRODUCTION

Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details on the requirements for submitting your paper to Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research. The guidelines described in this document should be adhered to carefully, to ensure high-quality and rapid publication of your manuscript.

Aims and scope
Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research Research is an international journal that focuses on all aspects of veterinary behavioral medicine, with a particular emphasis on clinical applications and research. Articles on basic research involving normal signaling or social behaviors, welfare and, or housing issues, molecular or quantitative genetics, and applied behavioral issues (e.g., working dogs) that may have implications for clinical interest or assessment are encouraged. Focus is not restricted by species of interest.

Types of article

1. Original Research Papers (Regular Papers)
2. Review Articles
3. Case Reports
4. Discussion/Roundtable
5. Point/Counterpoint
6. In Brief: Practice and Procedure

Original Research Papers should report the results of original research. The material should not have been previously published elsewhere, except in a preliminary form.

Review Articles should cover subjects falling within the scope of the journal that are of active current interest. They may be submitted or invited. Because of the nature of review papers, scrupulous attention must be paid to relevant attribution and this should be reflected in the literature cited section and in the acknowledgements.

Case Reports can focus on any species, but by definition, must include core clinical content. Content can focus on a report of new condition, treatment and follow-up of complex presentations, working with variants of normal versus abnormal behaviors, a report of a familial condition with a proposed mode of inheritance, et cetera, as long as the nature of a case report is respected. The format for case reports, generally, is as follows: Presentation, history and presenting signs, physical and laboratory evaluation and any other diagnostic assessments deemed relevant, diagnosis, treatment, follow-up, summary and discussion, acknowledgements, and references. Laboratory and other data can be appended in tabular form after the references.

Discussions/Roundtables can include synopses of, or reports from 'think tanks' or discussion groups, topical issues that have stirred debate, or invited discussion and commentary suggested by members of the Board of Editorial Advisors. Discussion contributions are not peer-reviewed, must be published with attribution, must be more formal than those in list serves, should include citations, where relevant, and may be edited prior to publication.

Point/Counterpoint submissions focus on subjects for which there may not be sufficient published data to generate a consensus view, or on approaches that may seem radical to some reviewers. Some papers submitted as "Original Research Papers/Regular Papers" may be published in this section, but independent submission for this section is also encouraged. Papers suitable for this section include those involving specific types of data that would need to be collected to make the case, but which are unavailable, and the case made within the paper justifies their collection.

In Brief: Practice and Procedure seeks to forge links between the research and practitioner communities. This section features submissions on common behavioral issues about which practitioners ask, and about techniques and approaches used in different types of research. The hope is that those who come from a research background will learn to appreciate the practical issues facing many who read their articles, and those who come from a more patient-oriented approach will learn to appreciate the nuances and intrigue of key aspects of research.

Page charges

This journal has no page charges.

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

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.

Unnecessary cruelty in animal experimentation is not acceptable to the Editors of Journal of Veterinary Behavior.

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 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.

Authorship

All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following: (1) the conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be submitted.

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 paper 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.

Submit your article
Please submit your article via http://ees.elsevier.com/jveb.

Peer review

All submissions will be reviewed by two to three anonymous reviewers to evaluate them for originality, clear statement of a hypothesis, experimental design appropriate for the hypothesis, completeness of methods, and thoughtfulness of the discussion and conclusions that are supported by data. If only two reviews are solicited/received and there is conflict in their assessment, a third review will be undertaken. Authors may name up to five potential reviewers when they submit the manuscript and must provide complete contact information, including e-mail addresses; however, the Editor-in-Chief retains the right to assign different reviewers as deemed appropriate. Appropriate Referees should be knowledgeable about the subject but have no close connection with any of the authors. In addition, Referees should be from institutions other than (and preferably countries other than) those of any of the Authors. You may also suggest reviewers you do not want to review your manuscript, but please state your reasons for doing so.

If an author wishes to appeal an outcome, he/she should contact the Editor-in-Chief in writing and detail his/her concern. Appeals will only be successful if reviews were inadequate or unjust.

PREPARATION

Use of word-processing software

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

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. Introduction should not exceed 1.5 manuscript pages.

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. A combined Results and Discussion section is often appropriate. Avoid excessive citations and discussion of published literature. Although there are always exceptions, a good rule of thumb is for the Discussion section to not exceed 5 double-spaced manuscript pages and to limit the number of references to no more than 35.

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.

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 is willing to handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication. Ensure that telephone and fax numbers (with country and area code) are provided in addition to the e-mail address and the complete postal address.

Present/permanent address. If an author has moved since the work described in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, a "Present address"' (or "Permanent address") may be indicated as a footnote to that author's name. The address at which the author actually did the work must be retained as the main, affiliation address. Superscript Arabic numerals are used for such footnotes.

Abstract

A concise and factual abstract is required. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separately from the article, so it must be able to stand alone. For this reason, References should be avoided, but if essential, they must be cited in full, without reference to the reference list. Also, non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself. Abstracts must be limited to a single paragraph with no more than 2,500 keystrokes (characters plus spaces).

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.

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 IUB: Biochemical Nomenclature and Related Documents: http://www.chem.qmw.ac.uk/iubmb/ for further information.

Nucleotide sequences

Submission of a manuscript containing nucleotide sequence information implies that the primary nucleotide sequence data will be deposited in an internationally available depository.

Statistical conventions

Means and standard errors / deviations and, or medians, interquartile ranges, and confidence limits, should be written: 0 ∋ 10.20 ∀ 1.01 g, N=15. For significance tests, the name of the test should be noted followed by a colon, the test statistic and its value, the degrees of freedom or sample size (depending on the convention of the test), and the P value. These parts should all be separated by commas. Decimals should not be cited as naked points. In other words, use 0.01, not .01.

Math formulae

Present simple formulae in the line of normal text where possible and use the solidus (/) instead of a horizontal line for small fractional terms, e.g., X/Y. In principle, variables are to be presented in italics. Powers of e are often more conveniently denoted by exp. Number consecutively any equations that have to be displayed separately from the text (if referred to explicitly in the text). Please see Additional Style Notes below.Footnotes

Footnotes should be used sparingly. Number them consecutively throughout the article, using superscript Arabic numbers. Many word processors 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

Image manipulation
While it is accepted that authors sometimes need to manipulate images for clarity, manipulation for purposes of deception or fraud will be seen as scientific ethical abuse and will be dealt with accordingly. For graphical images, this journal is applying the following policy: no specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced. Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are acceptable if and as long as they do not obscure or eliminate any information present in the original. Nonlinear adjustments (e.g. changes to gamma settings) must be disclosed in the figure legend.

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 finalized, 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 optimized 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.

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 Electronic artwork. If you are working with LaTeX and have such features embedded in the text, these can be left, but such embedding should not be done specifically for publishing purposes. Further, high-resolution graphics files must be provided separately.

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. 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: Refer to the author's name (without initial) and year of publication, followed, if necessary, by a short reference to relevant pages. Examples: "Since Peterson (1988) has shown that..."; "This is in agreement with results obtained later (Kramer, 1989, pp. 12-16)". If reference is made in the text to a publication written by more than two authors, the name of the first author should be used followed by "et al." This indication, however, should never be used in the list of references. In this list, names of first author and all co-authors should be mentioned. References cited together in the text of the manuscript should be arranged chronologically, starting with the earliest reference and ending with the most recent.

List: Arrange alphabetically on authors' names. When the same author has more than one citation, references should be in chronological order starting with the earliest reference and ending with the most recent. If an author's name in the list is also mentioned with co-authors, the following order should be used: publications of the single author, arranged according to publication dates - publications of the same author with one co-author - publications of the author with more than one co-author. Publications by the same author(s) in the same year should be listed as 1974a, 1974b, etc. Examples:

Reference to a journal publication:
Mastrota, F. M., Mench, J. A., 1994. Avoidance of dyed food by the northern bobwhite. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 42, 109-119.

Reference to an edited symposium, special issue, etc. published in a journal:
Thompson, K.V., 1991. Flehmen and social dominance in captive female sable antelope, Hippotragus niger. In: Mungal, E.C. (Ed.), Ungulate Behavior and Management. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 29, 121-133.

Reference to a book:
Alcock, J., 1975. Animal Behaviour. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA, pp. 173-204.

Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
Challis, J., Olson, D., 1988. Parturition. In: Knobil, E., J. (Ed), The Physiology of Reproduction, Vol. 2. Raven Press, New York, pp. 2177-2216.

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 serial title word abbreviations: http://www.issn.org/2-22661-LTWA-online.php;
CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service): http://www.cas.org/sent.html.

Supplementary material

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 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 'stills' with 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.

Additional information

• For issues of style and format not addressed here, please consult Scientific Style and Format: The CBE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers, Sixth Edition.
• For spelling, word formation and divisions, plurals, possessives, meanings and usage, consult the CBE Manual or a current English language collegiate-level dictionary.
• For conflicts between instructions in this Guide and any of the references, the Guide takes precedence. Do not hesitate to contact the Editorial Office in you have any questions about the preparation of your manuscript.

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.

AFTER ACCEPTANCE

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.2003.10.071

When you use the DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, they 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.

AUTHOR INQUIRIES

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.

Updated January 2012