Guide for Authors
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that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent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.
By submitting a manuscript, the authors agree that the copyright for their article is transferred to the
Sharif University of Technology if and when the article is accepted for publication. Responsibility for the contents of a manuscript
rests upon the author(s) and not on this journal, the editors or the publisher. The technical contents of the manuscript should be carefully
considered by the author(s) before submission for publication
Note that conference proceedings are a form of publication.
Authors
should make every effort to conform to the guidelines given below for the preparation of manuscripts. Proper preparation of manuscripts
will speed publication of articles. Improperly prepared manuscripts may be returned to the author(s) for correction before being accepted
for publication. The authors are advised to use either of the LaTeX or Word templates provided by the Elsevier Production Office at
http://www.elsevier.com/locate/scientia.
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.
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.
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
Scientia Iranica is published in English and submission
to this journal proceeds totally online. Use the following guidelines to prepare your article. Via the homepage of this journal (
http://ees.elsevier.com/scientia)
you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of the various files. Correspondences to the Editorial Office may be made
through the electronic address
scientia@elsevier.com
The system automatically converts source files to a single Adobe
Acrobat PDF version of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript source files are
converted to PDF at submission for the review process, these source files are needed for further processing after acceptance. All correspondence,
including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, takes place by e-mail and via the author's homepage, removing
the need for a hard-copy paper trail. Please submit your article via
http://ees.elsevier.com/scientia.
Important notice
Multi-part papers are not to be considered. Papers that are requested by the editors to be
revised must be returned within 4 weeks or they will be regarded as withdrawn.
Water Research has no page charges.
The standards
of publication for Scientia Iranica are extremely high. To ensure superior standards of quality and scientific validity, all papers submitted
to the journal undergo a series of careful reviews by international experts, proficient in the relevant subject matter of the paper,
before being accepted or rejected. Following full review procedure, inclusion of a manuscript in Scientia Iranica will be confirmed by
an official acceptance letter forwarded to the corresponding author of the paper.
Referees
You
are required to submit, with the manuscript, the names and addresses of 4 potential referees that can give an independent review.
Authors should make every effort to conform to the guidelines given below for
the preparation of manuscripts. Proper preparation of manuscripts will speed publication of articles. Improperly prepared manuscripts
may be returned to the author(s) for correction before being accepted for publication. The authors are advised to use either of the LaTeX
or Word templates provided by the Elsevier Production Office at
http://www.elsevier.com/locate/scientia.
Use of wordprocessing software
It is important that the file be saved in the format of the word processor
or PDF to hasten the refereeing process. 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. Do not embed "graphically designed"
equations or tables, but prepare these using the wordprocessor's facility. When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use
only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. The
electronic text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts 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 wordprocessor.
Types of manuscripts
Scientia Iranica publishes four
types of articles: 1) Full Article, 2) Research Note, 3) Review Article, and 4) Correspondence.
Full Articles are highly
technical papers, which usually do not exceed 35 double-spaced typed pages, including figures and tables. All articles must contain fully
original work representing the latest theoretical research and experimental results in the relevant fields of science and engineering
covered by the journal.
Research Notes are papers which include descriptions of current research findings in a specific
area of science and/or engineering. These papers are usually much shorter than a full article and should not exceed 17 double-spaced
typed pages, including figures and tables.
Review Articles include a long, detailed synopsis of current research findings
on a particular topic. They do not contain original research work by the author and should not exceed 35 double-spaces typed pages, including
figures and tables. Normally, review articles are only considered by invitation of the Editor-in-Chief.
Correspondences are
free form templates appropriate for submission of short contributions, letters, memorandums, errata, view points, addenda, and memoirs,
not exceeding two printed journal pages. Consideration of a correspondence is made by the Editor-in-Chief, and depending on the type
of contents, they might undergo serious technical review.
Article structure
Subdivision
- numbered sections
Divide your article into clearly defined and numbered sections. Subsections should be numbered 1.1
(then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, ...), 1.2, etc. (the abstract is not included in section numbering). Use this numbering also for internal cross-referencing:
do not just refer to 'the text'. Any subsection may be given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line.
Introduction
State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature
survey or a summary of the results.
Material and methods
Provide sufficient detail to allow
the work to be reproduced. Methods already published should be indicated by a reference: only relevant modifications should be described.
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
An abstract of 200 words or less should precede the introduction. The abstract should clearly indicate
the nature of the manuscript and the results described therein
A concise and factual abstract is required. The abstract should state
briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major message. 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, abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention
in the abstract itself.
Keywords
Immediately after the abstract, provide 5 to 10 keywords,
avoid general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, "and", "of"). These terms should be relatively independent
(coordinate index terms) and, as a group, should optimally characterize the paper. Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations
firmly established in the field may be eligible. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes. Use keywords that make your paper
easy detectable for interested readers in literature databases. Repeating terms in the title is usually not needed.
Abbreviations
Nomenclature must be listed at the beginning of the paper and must conform to the system of
standard SI units. Acronyms and abbreviations must be spelled out in full at their first occurrence in the text. In general, minimise
the use of abbreviations so the paper remains easily understood by the general reader.
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.).
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 these will be reproduced in color at no cost. For further information on the preparation of electronic artwork, please see
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Other artwork Instructions
All line drawings and photos should be in black and white, unless color is specifically
requested. All lettering, graph lines and points or graphs should be su_ciently large and bold to permit reproduction when the diagram
has been reduced to 2 or 1 column widths. In a figure, graphs should be distinguished from each other and match their legends. If, in
a figure, any mathematical expression is used, please make sure that all the superscript, subscript, small and cap letters be shown exactly
as they appear in the text.
Original Photographs must be supplied as they are to be reproduced (e.g. black and white or colour).
Please note that photocopies of photographs are not acceptable. Colour illustrations should be submitted as original photographs, high
quality computer prints or transparencies, close to the size expected in publication.
Due to technical complications which can
arise from converting colour figures to \grey scale" (for the printed version should you not opt for colour in print), please submit,
in addition, usable black and white prints corresponding to all colour illustrations. Electronic Graphics Submit files for graphics as
EPS files. If this is not possible, Tiff files are acceptable, as long as they can be opened in Adobe Photoshop with the minimum resolution
of 600 dpi. No matter what method was used to produce the graphic illustration, it is necessary to provide a paper copy to the office
of Scientia Iranica. Authors using graphic packages for the creation of electronic art should also avoid the use of any lines thinner
than 0.5 points in width. Very thin lines or "hairlines ", in the final printing process, become nearly invisible and may be lost entirely.
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,
making it understandable independent of the text. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and
abbreviations used. Prevent use of symbols in figures and captions.
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.
Minimise the use of symbols and abbreviations in the tables.
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.
Only cite the original papers and those relevant for the work, no need to give a full
literature review in the introduction/discussion. A large fraction of self-citations is general an indication that the authors didn't
place their work well in the literature context.
Citations should be numbered in sequence throughout the article in square brackets
and listed in sequence numerically at the end of the paper
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
References to published
literature must be cited in the text as follows:
Li and Gregory (2006) - the date of publication in parentheses after the authors'
names. References must be listed together at the end of each paper and must not be given as footnotes. For other than review papers authors
should aim to give no more than 20-30 recent, relevant references.
It is particularly requested that (i) authors' initials,
(ii) the title of the paper, and (iii) the volume, part number and first and last page numbers are given for each reference.
References
to books, reports and theses must be cited in the narrative. They must include the author(s), date of publication, title of book, editor(s)
name(s) if applicable, page numbers, name of publisher, and place of publication. The abbreviation et al. may be used in the text. However,
the names of all authors must be given in the list of references. Personal communications and other unpublished works must be included
in the reference list, giving full contact details (name and address of communicator).
Personal communications must be cited
in the text as, for example, Champney (2006).
References in languages other than English must be referred to by an English translation
(with the original language indicated in parentheses).
Citing and listing of web references. As a minimum, the full URL should
be given. Any further information, if known (author names, dates, references 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.
Examples:
Journals:
Johnson, W. and Mamalis, A.G. "The perforation of circular
plate with four sided pyramidally-headed square-section punches", Int. J. of Mech. Sci., 20 (3), pp 801-820 (1990).
Books:
Hindmarsh, J. "The electrical-circuit viewpoint", In Electrical Machinesand their Applications, P. Hammond, Ed., 4th Edn., pp
57-130, Pergamon Press, Oxford, UK (1975).
Proceedings and reports:
Walker, L.K. and Morgan, J.R. "Field
performance of firm silty clay", 9th Int. Conf. on Soil Mech. And Found. Engrg., 1, Tokyo, Japan, pp 341-346 (1977).
Barksdale,
R.D. and Bachus, R.C."Design and construction of stone columns", Report SCEGIT 83-10, Georgia Inst. of Tech., Atlanta, GA, submitted
to Fed. Highway Admin (1983).
Bhandari, R.K.M. "Behavior of tank founded on soil reinforced with stone columns", VIII European
Conf. on Soil Mech. And Found. Engrg., Helsinki (1983).
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.
Mathematical Expressions
Particular care should be used in identifying unusual symbols or notations and upper
and lower case letters. Define all non-standard nomenclature when they are first used. Avoid using awkward mathematical notations and
non-standard symbols. Please note that consistency should be followed in using capital or small letters; superscripts or subscripts in
mathematical environments. This should also be undertaken for figures where mathematical expressions are used. In type setting mathematical
expressions, using Word software, please do not use any special style.
Submission checklist
It
is hoped that this list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to sending it to the journal's Editor for review.
Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details of any item.
Ensure that the following items are present:
One
Author designated as corresponding Author:
• E-mail address
• Full postal address
• Telephone and fax numbers
All necessary files have been uploaded
• Keywords
• All figure captions
• All tables (including title,
description, footnotes)
Further considerations
• Manuscript has been "spellchecked" 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.
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. 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. Additional
paper offprints can be ordered by the authors. An order form with prices will be sent to the corresponding author.
