Preparation

New submissions

Submission to this journal proceeds totally online and you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of your files.

You need to submit your manuscript as a single file to be used in the refereeing process. This can be a Word document, in standard lay-out that can be used by referees to evaluate your manuscript. It should contain high enough quality figures for refereeing. If you prefer to do so, you may still provide all or some of the source files at the initial submission.

Before you submit the manuscript, please make sure attention has been paid to the following  suggestions:

Submission checklist

You can use this list to carry out a final check of your submission before you send it to the journal for review. 

Ensure that the following items are present

One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:

Telephone number

E-mail address

Full postal address

All necessary files have been uploaded

Manuscript

Submission Declaration(投稿承诺书) or Declaration of Confidentiality(保密审查单)

Further considerations

Manuscript has been 'spell checked' and 'grammar checked'.

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 Internet).

References

There are strict requirements on reference formatting at submission. Where applicable, author(s) name(s), journal title/book title, chapter title/article title, year of publication, volume number/book chapter and the article number or pagination must be present. Use of DOI is highly encouraged.

Figures and tables embedded in text

Please ensure the figures and the tables included in the single file are placed next to the relevant text in the manuscript, rather than at the bottom or the top of the file. The corresponding caption should be placed directly below the figure or above the table.

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 details to allow the work to be reproduced by an independent researcher. Methods that are already published should be summarized, and indicated by a reference. If quoting directly from a previously published method, use quotation marks and also cite the source. Any modifications to existing methods should also 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.