Guide for Authors
PUBLISHING IN CHAOS, SOLITONS &
FRACTALS
General manuscript requirements
Chaos, Solitons & Fractals publishes high-quality
scientific papers in Nonlinear Science, and Nonequilibrium and Complex Phenomena. To be considered for publication, your manuscript should:
• be scientifically sound;
• represent original results;
• significantly advance the field;
• be of interest
to the community;
• reference previous work correctly;
• fall within the scope of the journal;
• be written
clearly.
The abstract should contain a summary of the main findings of your work. The introduction should explain the motivation for
the work, how this relates to earlier studies (an enumeration of the literature is not sufficient) and explain the novelty of your results.
A conclusion section, including a summary of your findings and relating these to the literature, is encouraged but not mandatory for
works of a mathematical nature. Furthermore, your manuscript should be prepared according to the technical specifications outlined in
these guidelines.
Manuscript types and length requirements
Chaos, Solitons & Fractals
publishes regular articles, letters, reviews, and "Frontiers" papers (see below). Letters have a maximum length of 6 pages in double-column
style, or 10 pages in single-column style. Regular articles and reviews have no strict page limitations, but should be written concisely.
The editorial office may require authors to shorten their manuscript.
Frontiers papers should provide an update of recent developments
and future challenges in an area of key interest to Chaos, Solitons & Fractals. These articles should be written for a broader audience,
and should contain:
- A tutorial introduction for the broad community;
- A compact historical perspective together
with pointers to the literature;
- A discussion on exciting new results and developments; and
- An outline of future
challenges.
Frontiers papers should be concise, ideally not exceeding 10 pages after typesetting (approximately 20
draft pages).
Author benefits
Publication with Elsevier ensures a wide and rapid dissemination
of your work. An online, uncorrected proof (citable via DOI) is available within approximately one week. The final version of your paper
will be published on ScienceDirect, Elsevier's leading full-text platform. Submitting your work for publication is made simple with the
Elsevier Editorial System (EES). The EES system allows you to track the status of your paper at any time, and has 24/7 helpdesk and live
chat support.
Author benefits include a 25% discount on Elsevier books, free offprints, and subscription to CiteAlert, a service which
automatically notifies you by e-mail if your work is referenced in a newly published article on ScienceDirect. There are
no page charges
for Chaos, Solitons & Fractals.
Peer review process
Newly submitted manuscripts will
first be screened by the co-Editors-in-Chief and the Managing Editor. Manuscripts may be rejected at this stage if they are of insufficient
quality or outside the scope of the journal. Manuscripts that do meet the minimal requirements for publication are assigned to one of
the co-Editors-in-Chief, who sends the manuscript out for review. Reviewers are selected by the co-Editor-in-Chief on the basis of their
expertise, their availability, and such as to avoid possible conflicts of interest. A reviewer is asked to evaluate whether the manuscript
is scientifically sound, original, relevant, clear, whether it correctly references previous work, and whether it falls within the scope
of the journal. The decision to accept or reject the manuscript, or to ask for a revision, lies with the handling co-Editor-in-Chief.
In
keeping with Elsevier's guidelines on potential editorial conflicts of interest, manuscripts (co-)authored by one of the co-Editor-in-Chief
will be handled fully by the other co-Editor-in-Chief in an undisclosed review process. Similar disclosure arrangements are made in the
case of Associate Editors (co-)authoring a manuscript.
Journal layout style
Publications
will normally be typeset in double-column style. This may be changed to single-column style (e.g., for articles with lengthy mathematical
formulae) at the editor's discretion. Please submit your manuscript in single-column style and use double line spacing.
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.
Conflict of interest
All authors are requested to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest including
any financial, personal or other relationships with other people or organizations within three years of beginning the submitted work
that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence, their work. See also
http://www.elsevier.com/conflictsofinterest.
Submission declaration and verification
Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been
published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration
for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where
the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language,
including electronically without the written consent of the copyright-holder. To verify originality, your article may be checked by the
originality detection software iThenticate. See also
http://www.elsevier.com/editors/plagdetect.
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 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.
Manuscripts
should be submitted electronically using the Elsevier Editorial System (EES) at
http://ees.elsevier.com/chaos. This system
facilitates communication among editors, reviewers, and authors and ensures a rapid and transparent editorial process. Further information
on EES may be found at
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/onlinesubmission.editors/onlinesubmission.
MANUSCRIPT
PREPARATION
Electronic file formats
LaTeX is the preferred file format, but Word documents
are also acceptable. Please provide vector-type graphics in EPS or PDF format and bitmap-type graphics in TIFF or PDF format, ensuring
sufficient resolution. Although EPS, PDF, and TIFF formats are preferred, artwork in MS Office formats is also supported. See the Electronic
artwork section for further instructions on figure preparation.
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.
LaTeX
If the LaTeX file is suitable, proofs will be produced without
rekeying the text. The article should preferably be written using Elsevier's document class "elsarticle", or alternatively the standard
document class "article".
The Elsevier LaTeX style file package (including detailed instructions for LaTeX preparation) can be obtained
from the Quickguide:
http://www.elsevier.com/latex. It consists of the file: elsarticle.cls, complete user documentation
for the class file, bibliographic style files in various styles, and template files for a quick start.
Layout
of the manuscript for review
For the reviewing process, you are required to use single-column formatting and double line
spacing for your submitted manuscript. If you use the LaTeX class file elsart.cls, include the command \documentclass[review]{elsarticle}
in the document preamble to typeset your manuscript in the correct style for reviewing.
Abbreviation
Provide
an explanation for every symbol at its first occurrence.
Symbols, vectors, tensors
Make
sure that vectors and tensors are identified in a uniform style throughout the manuscript. Symbols are to be typeset in italic. Provide
an explanation for every symbol at its first occurrence.
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.
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.
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.
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.).
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).
Footnotes
Footnotes
should be used sparingly. Number them consecutively throughout the article, using superscript Arabic numbers. Many wordprocessors build
footnotes into the text, and this feature may be used. Should this not be the case, indicate the position of footnotes in the text and
present the footnotes themselves separately at the end of the article. Do not include footnotes in the Reference list. Indicate each
footnote in a table with a superscript lowercase letter.
Electronic artwork
Please provide
vector-type graphics in EPS or PDF format and bitmap-type graphics in TIFF or PDF format, ensuring sufficient resolution (see below).
Although EPS, PDF, and TIFF formats are preferred, artwork in MS Office formats (DOC, XLS, PPT) is also supported. If your electronic
artwork is created in MS Office applications please supply "as is". Do not supply graphics embedded in MS Office documents.
A detailed
guide on electronic artwork is available at
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions. Consulting these instructions
is strongly encouraged to avoid delays in the production process. General points of attention include:
• 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.
•Use
a sufficiently high resolution for bitmap files: a minimum of 300 dpi for color or grayscale photographs (halftones); a minimum of 1000
dpi for bitmapped line drawings; and a minimum of 500 dpi for combinations of bitmapped line/half-tone.
Color
artwork
Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format (TIFF, EPS, PDF or MS Office files) and with the
correct resolution. If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable color figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional
charge, that these figures will appear in color on the Web (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites) regardless of whether or not these illustrations
are reproduced in color in the printed version.
For color reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs
from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article. Please indicate your preference for color in print or on the Web only. For
further information on the preparation of electronic artwork, please see
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions. Please
note: Because of technical complications which can arise by converting color figures to "gray scale" (for the printed version should
you not opt for color in print) please submit in addition usable black and white versions of all the color illustrations.
Figure captions
Ensure that each illustration has a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached to the
figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (
not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in
the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.
Tables
Number
tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. Place footnotes to tables below the table body and indicate them
with superscript lowercase letters. Avoid vertical rules. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in tables
do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article.
Citation in text
Please ensure
that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Any references cited in the abstract must
be given in full. Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in
the text. If these references are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should
include a substitution of the publication date with either 'Unpublished results' or 'Personal communication'. Citation of a reference
as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication.
Web references
As
a minimum, the full URL should be given and the date when the reference was last accessed. Any further information, if known (DOI, author
names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the
reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.
Reference
to arXiv
As with unpublished results and personal communications, references to arXiv documents are not recommended in
the reference list. Please make every effort to obtain the full reference of the published version of an arXiv document. If a reference
to an arXiv document must be included in the references list it should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should
include a substitution of the volume and page numbers with 'arXiv:YYMM.NNNN' or 'arXiv:arch-ive/YYMMNNN' for articles submitted to arXiv
before April 2007.
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: Indicate references by number(s) in square brackets in line with the text.
The actual authors can be referred to, but the reference number(s) must always be given.
Example: '..... as demonstrated [3,6]. Barnaby
and Jones [8] obtained a different result ....'
List: Number the references (numbers in square brackets) in the list in
the order in which they appear in the text.
Examples:
Reference to a journal publication:
[1] J. van der Geer, J.A.J.
Hanraads, R.A. Lupton, The art of writing a scientific article, J. Sci. Commun. 163 (2010) 51–59.
Reference to a book:
[2]
W. Strunk Jr., E.B. White, The Elements of Style, fourth ed., Longman, New York, 2000.
Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
[3] G.R. Mettam, L.B. Adams, How to prepare an electronic version of your article, in: B.S. Jones, R.Z. Smith (Eds.), Introduction
to the Electronic Age, E-Publishing Inc., New York, 2009, pp. 281–304.
BibTeX
The
bibtex style file elsarticle-num.bst, which follows the above specifications, is available via
http://www.elsevier.com/latex.
Journal abbreviations source
Journal names should be abbreviated according to
Index Medicus journal abbreviations:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/lji.html;
List of title word abbreviations:
http://www.issn.org/2-22661-LTWA-online.php;
CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service):
http://www.cas.org/sent.html.
Video data
Elsevier
accepts video material and animation sequences to support and enhance your scientific research. Authors who have video or animation files
that they wish to submit with their article are strongly encouraged to include these within the body of the article. This can be done
in the same way as a figure or table by referring to the video or animation content and noting in the body text where it should be placed.
All submitted files should be properly labeled so that they directly relate to the video file's content. In order to ensure that your
video or animation material is directly usable, please provide the files in one of our recommended file formats with a preferred maximum
size of 50 MB. Video and animation files supplied will be published online in the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web
products, including ScienceDirect:
http://www.sciencedirect.com. Please supply 'stills' with your files: you can choose
any frame from the video or animation or make a separate image. These will be used instead of standard icons and will personalize the
link to your video data. For more detailed instructions please visit our video instruction pages at
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Note: since video and animation cannot be embedded in the print version of the journal, please provide text for both the electronic and
the print version for the portions of the article that refer to this content.
Supplementary data
Elsevier
accepts electronic supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the author additional
possibilities to publish supporting applications, high-resolution images, background datasets, sound clips and more. Supplementary files
supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect:
http://www.sciencedirect.com. In order to ensure that your submitted material is directly usable, please provide the data
in one of our recommended file formats. Authors should submit the material in electronic format together with the article and supply
a concise and descriptive caption for each file. For more detailed instructions please visit our artwork instruction pages at
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Submission Checklist
Before submitting your manuscript, please ensure that:
• e-mail address, full
postal address, telephone and fax numbers for the corresponding author are provided;
• figure and table captions are included;
• all necessary files are included;
• the manuscript has been checked for spelling and grammar;
• 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;
• black and white versions of the figures are also supplied for
printing purposes if only color on the Web is required.
Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details of any item. For
any further information please visit our customer support site at
http://support.elsevier.com.
Use of the Digital Object Identifier
The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) may
be used to cite and link to electronic documents. The DOI consists of a unique alpha-numeric character string which is assigned to a
document by the publisher upon the initial electronic publication. The assigned DOI never changes. Therefore, it is an ideal medium for
citing a document, particularly 'Articles in press' because they have not yet received their full bibliographic information. The correct
format for citing a DOI is shown as follows (example taken from a document in the journal
Physics Letters B):
doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2010.09.059
When you use the DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, the DOIs are guaranteed never to change.
Proofs
One set of page proofs (as PDF files) will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author (if we do
not have an e-mail address then paper proofs will be sent by post) or, a link will be provided in the e-mail so that authors can download
the files themselves. Elsevier now provides authors with PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download Adobe
Reader version 7 (or higher) available free from
http://get.adobe.com/reader. Instructions on how to annotate PDF files
will accompany the proofs (also given online). The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site:
http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/tech-specs.html.
If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return
them to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark
the corrections and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and return by fax, or scan the
pages and e-mail, or by post. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text,
tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission
from the Editor. We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately – please let us have all your
corrections within 48 hours. It is important to ensure that all corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully
before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. Note that
Elsevier may proceed with the publication of your article if no response is received.
Offprints
The
corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail. For an extra charge, paper offprints can
be ordered via the offprint order form which is sent once the article is accepted for publication. The PDF file is a watermarked version
of the published article and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions
of use.
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.
